One of Matt’s favorite desserts is lemon squares, but when I made them this time, I decided to change it up and use lime juice instead.  I also added some ginger, again going for that ginger-lime combination I use for sherbet a few weeks ago.  This time, I again didn’t add enough ginger though, so if you want that to come through, add more!  Fresh ginger in the filling might help, too.

Everyone enjoyed the flavor of these with lime instead of lemon.  In fact I think I might like them even better than the original!  The extra tang from the lime just seems particularly summery. (more…)

Well, looks like the updates didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had hoped.  If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, you may have noticed the pictures weren’t showing up for a couple days, and if you tried to access anything on Friday during the day, you may have noticed that almost all the links weren’t working.  Both of these were a result of our adding some code to try to stop hotlinking — I’ve been seeing some pictures showing up on other sites via hotlinking without attribution lately, and in trying to nip that in the bud we broke some other things.  Anyway…. we think (hope!) that everything is fixed now.  If you are still having issues, please let us know either via comment here or email to admin@meltingonline.com.

And, to make it up to you, let me share the apricot-cherry crumble I threw together the other night.  This is another to file under “tasty-but-won’t-win-any-beauty-contests,” but it’s deliciously tart-sweet, with some crunch from the topping, it’s quick and easy, and it’s the perfect way to use up any of that wonderful summer fruit that you haven’t quite managed to eat out-of-hand before it starts to get kinda squishy.

I had some apricots left from our trip to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in SF with Phillip and Jammie last weekend, and they needed to be eaten, stat.  I also had some cherries, so those were the two fruits I used, but really, this idea works with any summer fruit, and especially with the myriad different stone fruits.   You can use any amount of fruit, just bake it in a different size dish, and since there’s no pie crust to fuss with, you just make however much topping you need.  I ate mine topped with whipped cream, but it would also be good with ice cream, or just by itself.  Here are the proportions I used, but scale it up or down and substitute as you like.

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Now that summer is in full swing, we’ve been grilling at least a couple times a week.  I love how little preparation this often requires, and even more how little cleanup there is afterwards!  We have a charcoal grill, which does mean it takes a bit longer to “preheat” than when I cook inside.  Even if I wanted to spend the money though, I wouldn’t give up my charcoal grill for a gas one — I love the flavor that the charcoal smoke gives to the food, and it’s just never the same on a gas grill.  Yes, I know that smokiness is probably giving me cancer, but really, what doesn’t?  And it sure does taste good!

These grilled vegetables are a great easy side for some kind of grilled meat.  In this case we served them with the sausage left over from the sausage ravioli we made a couple weeks ago.  (No, they didn’t sit in our fridge two weeks before we ate them.  I’m just a little behind on posting…)  They take less than five minutes of preparation (other than the grilling), and what can taste more like summer than zucchini and squash, eaten al fresco?

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