Summer is a great time to indulge in seasonal fruits and veggies. They are the best now. Salads, soups, smoothies taste exceptional. Raw or cooked, they are just yummy.

I love cooking and normally I can create something tasty with any ingredients I can find in our fridge. I hardly ever follow recipes and most of the time my food is delicious (except from a few incidents when it was barely edible 😊). But there are days when I don’t feel inspired and no matter how hard I try I cannot come up with anything tasty to eat. For those days I have a few, tasty and easy lunch recipes, for both hot and not so hot summer days.

Here are my three favourite easy summer lunch recipes:

GOATS CHEESE, PEAR AND WALNUT SALAD

Ingredients (makes one serving)

• 1-2 cups of mixed salad leaves of your choice

• 60g of soft goat’s cheese, cut into small slices

• 30g of any prosciutto type ham (I often use Schwarzwaelder Ham), torn

• 1 ripen pear (I used sweet conference pears), if they are very small I use two pears, sliced

• 1 handful of crushed walnuts

• 1 tbsp of olive oil

• 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar

Plate all the ingredients in your preferred order, pour vinegar and olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Enjoy.

GAZPACHO

(Original recipe source: Gimme some Oven)

To prepare it try to follow the recipe but I have to do some modifications. The recipe I found asks for certain types of tomatoes and peppers. Yet as I only have access to basic selection of veggies in our shops, I just choose the most ripe, juicy tomatoes I can find. My favourite peppers are sweet pointy red ones, which I also used in this recipe and I loved it.

Ingredients (makes 4 servings)

• 0.9kg ripe Roma tomatoes, halved and cored (I like seeds in my gazpacho but I remove the skin)

• 1 small (ca 225g) cucumber, peeled and seeded (I just peeled it and left the seeds)

• 1 medium green bell pepper, cored

• 1/2 small red onion, peeled

• 2 small garlic cloves (or 1 large clove), peeled

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar (I use whatever vinegar I have, often it is an apple cider vinegar)

• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt

• 1/2 teaspoon freshly-cracked black pepper

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 thick slice of white bread, soaked, crusts removed (I read that adding bread makes it really smoothy but I don’t add it myself and it is really tasty)

Optional garnishes: homemade croutons, chopped fresh herbs, a drizzle of olive oil, or any leftover chopped gazpacho ingredients, legumes or seeds.

Combine all ingredients together in a blender or food processor.  Puree for 1 minute, or until the soup reaches your desired consistency. Taste and season with extra salt, pepper and/or cumin if needed. Refrigerate in a sealed container for 3 to 4 hours, or until completely chilled (I ate one portion immediately and the second one the next day and both were amazing). Serve cold, topped with your desired garnishes.

TOMATO AND LENTIL SOUP

(for those cooler summer days)

Ingredients (makes 6 servings):

• 2 tsp olive oil

• 1 onion, chopped.

• 1 clove of garlic, chopped

• 180g red lentils (I used green ones as well and both make it a tasty meal), soak for a couple of hours or overnight.

• 1 can chopped tomatoes

• 1l. of vegetable stock (chicken stock or broth make it even more nutritious)

• 1 tsp of turmeric

• ½ teaspoon paprika

Heat olive oil in a pan. Add onions and cook slowly over a medium heat. After a few minutes add garlic and soften with onions. Add lentils, tomatoes, stock, coriander and spices to the pan and stir. Bring to boil and the simmer until lentils are tender. Blend for a smooth consistency or leave chunky if you prefer.

As it is so hot outside I would like to share with you my favourite isotonic recipe. I have it during my workouts and on very hot days or any day when I feel like I need more than water to hydrate.

HOMEMADE ISOTONIC WITH ALOE VERA (optional)

Ingredients:

• 1 lemon juice

• ½ tsp raw honey

• 1 pinch of Himalaya salt

• 1 small piece of ginger root (optional, if you suffer from heartburn don’t use ginger)

• 2 leaves of aloe vera (optional, only gel)

If you’re using allow vera then slice it open. Use a spoon to scoop out the inner gel. Wash the gel twice. Peel and slice ginger into smaller bits. Combine all ingredients together in a blender or food processor with about a half a glass of water and blend until smooth (if you’re not using aloe vera or ginger you don’t need to use blender at all). Place a fine-mesh sieve/strainer over a bowl. Slowly empty your juice’s contents into the fine mesh strainer. Using the back of a spoon, push the pulp against the sieve, making sure that all of the juice has drained into the bowl below. Be sure to keep all of the pulp in the sieve. After all of the juice has drained, discard all pulp. Add 0.5 to 1l water and enjoy.

With Love,

Karo