We’ve hit the dog days of summer and I’m practically rolling around in fresh vegetables. Our CSA baskets are bountiful, produce is dirt-cheap at the farmers market, and our backyard is bursting with juicy life. Summer Vegetable Tartine is a delightful way to showcase stacks of glorious summer harvest.

Tartine sounds like a fancy French dessert, covered in bright, shiny glaze. It sounds expensive and decadent. It sounds impressive and elaborate and difficult to concoct. But it’s not. Do you know what it is? It’s toast.

Yep, tartine is just a fancy word for toast. The breakfast food a toddler could make. What makes this toast so particularly “fancy” is that I’ve stacked it high with all of my fav summer items.

Avocado toast is totally having its day in the sun right now but I’m here to tell you, it’s time to take it to another level. The addition of bright, salty pesto is probably the best thing since [errr, on?] sliced bread! You can use store bought or make mine from this recipe.

We’ve been eating this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner because it comes together in just a few minutes and tastes divine. Talk about instant hangry fix. It’s also super customizable; John likes to add a slice of Chao vegan cheese and some mustard. To each his own [toast].

However you slice, stack, and savor it, whip up a quick Summer Vegetable Tartine and relish in the flavors of summer!

There ain’t a damn thing wrong with sushi. I mean, what’s not to love about fresh, crunchy fillings inside a block of tender rice and flavorful, salty wrap?! Even though sushi is perfect the way it is, my love of eating from a bowl won out and these Deconstructed Tofu Sushi Bowls were the result!

What’s great about sushi is that you can create such a wide variety of tastes and textures from such a simple format. Customizable, interchangeable foods like that make vegan life so much easier. No fish? No problem! Just double up on carrots and I’m happy as a halibut! What’s even better is that sushi places are popping up everywhere, bringing delicious carb and veggie love even closer to home.

True life: I bought a package of nori (seaweed) sheets a few months ago and have yet to use them because I’m completely intimidated to roll my own! I don’t have a sushi mat but I’ve heard you can do without. Has anyone tried it?? I need your best sushi rolling techniques!

Another true life story… I had the hardest time cooking the rice for these bowls. Normally, I find brown rice to be a breeze. 1:2 rice to water, pinch of salt, a good boil, then 35-40 minutes simmering. Done. But for whatever reason, my rice dried out before it was done and I had to rehydrate it and finish cooking. It somehow turned out perfectly fine but needless to say, I won’t judge if you go for a pre-cooked variety.

So we’ve talked about sushi but we haven’t talked about arguably the best part, the sauce! Some folks are soy sauce purists, and that’s totally cool but I wanted to go all out for these bowls. Here are the sauces that I used:

• Spicy mayo: 1/2 cup vegan mayo, 1 Tbs. Sriracha (more depending on your heat preference)
• Sweet soy: Equal parts soy sauce and honey (or agave), and 1+ tsp. freshly grated ginger

Just like sushi, this bowl is yours to customize! Pick your favorite veggies and sushi fillings (I had an avocado I forgot to add… Fail #3!) and go crazy! Leave a comment telling me your all time favorite fillings!!

I meant to post this recipe last week but I did gnot. Peas forgive me? You think we can get pest(o) my bad jokes?? I hope so because Pesto Pea Gnocchi is the filling yet summery dish you need to make ASAP!

Funny story about the basil for this recipe. When we picked up our CSA two weeks ago, we got two huge bundles of basil. I was so pumped to make my favorite summertime sauce but we had a bit of a busy weekend. The tender little leaves shriveled up and turned black practically overnight. I was devastated.

Luckily, my sweet man knew how much I had my mind set on this recipe and went to the store and bought 12 dollars worth of those little plastic packs of herbs. What a guy. The topper is that after he did that, and I had the basil in the blender, I realized we were out of lemon. Womp womp. Life, right?!

Even though my basil was a farmers market bust, the peas were DIVINE. I mean, I’m pretty in love with the little frozen nuggets but fresh, juicy, plump, sweet, fresh guys are indescribable. If you can get your hands on them, do. If not, I promise frozen will work.

Even though this is a brightly green, brightly flavored dish, gnocchi is hearty enough to keep you full through the evening. If you want to lighten it up, toss in a few extra veggies for good measure. Some chopped asparagus, green beans, or steamed broccoli would be great! No matter how you spin it, this dish is delightfully flavorful and perfectly summery!