YaDa Chef Private and Personal Chefs

Watermelon and Feta Summer Salad Recipe 1 pound/450g watermelon, rind removed and cut into bite sized pieces 1/4 pound/115g feta cheese crumbled 16 sage leaves, chopped 1 teaspoon/5ml fresh ground pepper In a large bowl place watermelon, feta cheese, chopped sage and pepper. Toss gently to combine. Serve immediately. Your ingredients and the benefits: Most people do not put watermelon and salad in the same sentence . In the food world it is not unheard of. Indeed it is really nothing new. Many of the watermelon salads I have had included mint, and occasionally basil. In Chinese cooking I was taught to have three taste ingredients; sweet, salty and sour. This was my thought process for using sage. Sage is sharply flavored and slightly bitter herb in the family of Lamiaceae, of the genus: Salvia. Sage is in the same family as basil, mint and rosemary. It is found all over the Mediterranean. Sage herb parts have many notable plant-derived chemical compounds

Made with penne or rigatoni, this recipe becomes a great picnic pasta salad to serve at room temperature. For extra-hearty appetites, add halved bocconcini (small balls of fresh mozzarella), crumbled Feta, or goat cheese. Ingredients Ingredient Checklist ¾ pound spaghetti 1 medium eggplant, cut into 3/4-inch pieces 1 medium onion, cut into 1-inch pieces 1 yellow bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces 8 cloves garlic ½ cup olive oil kosher salt and black pepper 1 pound cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered if large ¼ cup fresh oregano leaves grated Parmesan, for serving Directions Instructions Checklist Step 1 Heat oven to 450° F. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve ½ cup of the cooking water; drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Step 2 Meanwhile, on 2 rimmed baking sheets, toss the eggplant, onion, bell pepper, and garlic with the oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Roast, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the vegetables are golden brown

BY  JULIA GLUM   Memorial Day may be the unofficial start of summer, but it's so much more than an excuse for a three-day weekend. It's a U.S. holiday with a lot of history and lasting significance. Held annually on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day dates back to the Civil War. Who exactly created it and where are unclear, but legend has it that the tradition began in 1864. That's when three women from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, put flowers on the graves of loved ones who had died in the war, including a young man killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. By 1865, according to the Library of Congress, people in states such as South Carolina and Mississippi were participating in unofficial ceremonies that preceded Memorial Day. But Waterloo, New York, claims to be the birthplace of the holiday, given that it held what Nelson Rockefeller would later call the "first, formal, complete, well-planned, village-wide observance of a day entirely dedicated to honoring the wa