Things have been a little hectic around Chez Besotted lately, but the brisk Fall air, ushering in the change of seasons has me very excited for some of my cold weather favorites – chicken stock and soup, pies, and scones, and braised meats.

But, there’s still just enough summer left in the air for a de-constructed Summer tomato sauce, made with farm-fresh tomatoes. This is a no-cook, light and easy week-night dinner (unless you count cooking the pasta) that really capitalizes on the flavor and brightness of local tomatoes.

I’ve come to the realization lately that my farm share may be taking over not only my fridge, but also a large portion of my life. As one friend put it, “the pressure to consume” all of the wonderful veggies can be a bit overwhelming, and I did find, as I looked back through the latest Besotted posts that they almost exclusively dealt with vegetables – noble and lovely as they are, I started to feel that there was something a bit lacking.

I spent a couple of quiet hours on Sunday pouring through my cooking magazines and books and came up with a lot of happy inspiration for delicious (and omnivorous!) meals. And, to get the ball rolling, I decided to start-out with one of my favorite carnivorous meals – Fried Chicken.

After two previous attempts – one solid, one mildly disastrous – I think I’ve finally got the hang of my ice cream maker. The main take-aways from the first two attempts were:

Follow directions
Re-read the directions and make sure you’re following them as they are actually stated on the directions, and not concocting new directions in your own head.

Once those two directives were firmly planted in my brain (along side the horrid memory of the ice cream maker bouncing and spurting all over my counter), I managed to turn out a really, REALLY good batch of ice cream.

PK, I took your advice from way back when and finally came out with a salsa recipe….

As much as I love baking, its precision and the inability to taste-test the recipe as I go stifles my…. creative flair. I love recipes that have a very basic base to which I can add anything that happens to cross my mind. That, coupled with the fact that Boston will be hitting 90° today (!) made it imperative that I start my Summer Salsa Experiments a bit early.

Salsa is a great dish for experimentation and for the novice cook, as it is very nearly impossible to mess up. I was about to write that as long as you have a base of tomatoes and onions, adding the rest of the ingredients is just a matter of personal preference, but, in fact, this recipe contains no tomatoes, so even that element is subject to change.