Keep That Grill Alive!
These glorious summer days and nights will start to wind down before too long, but that’s no reason to put the grill away – keep it fired up for some amazing culinary creations that are perfect for the Labor Day weekend! We just love grilling and nothing spells happy times for us much more than a beautifully grilled dish to share with family and friends.
That’s why we couldn’t be more excited to be partnering one of our favorite vegetable providers in the world, Village Farms, to create two unexpected dishes that will elevate your average Labor Day backyard BBQ to a knock-out summer soiree.
Let’s start the party right with everyone’s favorite summertime salad: caprese salad. But let’s up the ante and include the sweet and savory taste of grilled peaches along with Village Farms Sinfully Sweet Campari® tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, topped with a balsamic reduction. Yum.
We’re going to follow that up with another grill-thrill dish: Grilled Portobello BLT “Pizzas” featuring Village Farms Heavenly Villagio Marzano® tomatoes. Hungry yet?
Classic Caprese Salad with Grilled Peaches
The beauty of a caprese salad is in its simplicity. There is just something magical when you bring together such beautifully fresh ingredients to complement one another. Village Farm Sinfully Sweet Campari® tomatoes are an ideal choice for this iconic salad because they are the perfect combination of sweetness and acidity. Their vibrant red exterior and ideal size help to make this salad a piece of delicious art.
Grilling the peaches takes the dish to an entirely new level. Fresh mozzarella and basil is a must. A final drizzle of lusciously sweet balsamic reduction brings it all together. This is one dish that you and your guests will not soon forget, and will probably be have you firing up your grill well into fall to re-create many times over.
Grilled Portobello BLT Mini Pizzas
Okay, folks…we told you we were going to do something a little unexpected. It’s time to think outside the crust and swap pizza dough for large Portobello mushroom caps. And that’s just the beginning…
Grilling has been a favorite way for us to make and cook pizza for a long time. But we knew we needed an even more spectacular way of featuring Village Farms Heavenly Villagio Marzano® tomatoes, and let us tell you…these gems are a home run.
We scrape out the gills of the Portobello’s to remove the slightly ‘woodsy’ taste. If you like that sort of thing, keep ‘em in…they’re completely edible! To that we layer in classic BLT components…but once again, we wanted to ratchet up the flavor profile. For the sauce, we used classic pesto sauce. Then a beautiful layer of grated fontina cheese. Topped with crispy pancetta (for the bacon) and gorgeously sliced Heavenly Villagio Marzano® tomatoes. Grilled to absolute perfection. We topped these incredible mini ‘pizzas’ with peppery baby arugula (for the lettuce). We knew we were on to something when we opened up that grill and saw the beautiful mushrooms, melted cheese and slightly blistered tomatoes. Then we took a bite. One word: Phenomenal. You can even leave the pancetta off for an adaptable vegetarian dish.
Labor Day is the perfect time to keep the summer alive and the grill going strong. We hope you enjoy these two dishes as much as we have enjoyed bringing them to you along with the incredible Village Farms. Long live summer deliciousness!
Recipes and blog were created exclusively for Village Farms by Kris and Wesley from How to Feed a Loon
Print