From the book Everyday Food: Great Food Fast, here is a quick dish to make with seasonal asparagus and fresh dill. If you can boil water and cut vegetables, you can make this dish! If you don’t have fettuccine noodles, use another thick-stranded pasta such as linguini.

1/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 lb fettuccine
2 bunches asparagus, trimmed
4 oz creamy goat cheese, broken into pieces
2 tbsp grainy mustard
2 tbsp snipped fresh dill leaves

Halve asparagus length-wise and cut cross-wise into third. In a small skillet over medium heat, toast pine nuts, stirring often, until golden, about 3 minutes. Set aside.

In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the fettuccine until al dente (8-10 minutes), according to package directions. Add asparagus during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water and drain the rest.

Return pasta, asparagus, and reserved pasta water to pot. Toss with the goat cheese, mustard, dill, and toasted pine nuts. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Shown below with Cucumber Onion Salad and home-grown tomatoes:

Here is a “simple option for celebrating the humble cucumber,” from Simply in Season. This tasty dish in quick and easy to make, though I won’t take credit for those neatly sliced vegetables - that was all James! This simple side dish is great on a hot day, and you could easily adjust the seasoning to suit your tastes.

3 small (or 2 large) cucumber, thinly sliced
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup lemon juice (from 1 large lemon)
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
Fresh ground black pepper

Whisk lemon juice, oil, salt, and sugar together. In a large bowl, combine cucumber and onions. Add dressing and toss. Chill slightly before serving (10-15 minutes). Top with fresh ground black pepper as desired.

These cucumbers and onion came from the Farmer’s Market:

Here is another great dessert from Everyday Food magazine, this one combining plums with a honey-orange sauce. Plums are generally in season May through October, and some varieties peak in the fall months, so there is plenty of time to enjoy this great recipe. If you leave off the ice cream or cream cheese topping, you can use this as a side to roast chicken or pork.

1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup orange juice
4 large purple or red plums, halved and pitted

Optional:
3 tbsp cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp milk
OR vanilla iced cream

Preheat oven to 400F

Place butter in 3-quart shallow baking dish and melt butter in preheating oven.

Add honey and orange juice to pan, stir until combined. Arrange plums, cut side down, in baking dish. Bake until tender and juicy, about 20-25 minutes, turning plums over during final 10 minutes of baking time and spooning juices over fruit. If needed, add additional orange juice or water to pan to prevent scorching.

To prepare cream cheese topping: stir cream cheese and milk together until blended. Spoon mixture over plums and drizzle with pan juices to serve OR serve plums with vanilla iced cream and drizzle with pan juices.

The website www.thesimpleleaf.com calls this recipe ”a rejuvenating drink for your mind, body, and soul.” The recipe calls for “bold black tea,” such as Assam, Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast or strong Orange Pekoe. Fresh lime and mint flavors add both a crisp and cool flavor to the tea.

4 tea bags of bold black tea
4 cups water
2 cups loosely packed mint leaves
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup lime juice
mint sprigs and/or lime wedges, optional

Bring water almost to a boil. Mix tea bags, mint and sugar in hot water. Let steep for 15 minutes. Remove tea bags and strain out mint leaves. Chill for 1-2 hours.

Add lime juice just before serving. Garnish with mint sprigs or lime wedges as desired.

If tea is too tart, add a bit more sugar.

Steeping tea and mint:

Garnished with mint spring and a lime wedge:

These cookies are made using Guittard Green Mint Chips and Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (fancy, fancy!). Any style of chocolate and mint chips could be used, but the mint chips have a cool green color to make “dots” in the chocolate cookie.

2 cups (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (do not sift)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups (12 oz) Guittard Green Mint Chips

Preheat oven to 350F

In top of double boiler over low heat, melt semi-sweet chips and butter, stirring constantly until smooth. Set aside to cool. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla until light. Blend in melted chocolate, then dry ingredients. Stir in green mint chips and chill for 10-15 minutes or until stiff. Drop by well-round teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8-10 minutes, cookies will be soft in centers but will harden as they cool.

Microwave instructions: Heat semisweet chips in a small bowl at medium power (50% or level 5) for 2-3 minutes, stirring well after each minute until smooth.