vlees-less.

It seems that the end of the music season has generated a sudden thunderclap of social activity...everyone has apparently been pretty busy for the last couple of months, and is now ready to blow off some steam. Unfortunately the weather has been generating some (ha HA!) thunderclaps of its own lately, so obvious summertime venues such as the Westerpark or our rooftop remain impractical at the moment. Hopefully (I think...maybe a little less hot than last year would be nice) that will change soon.

What this means immediately for me is that it's time to create another one of my semi-annual lists of vegetarian dishes that I will probably never actually cook. In order to fail less substantially, I'll only list something that I'm planning on "cooking" for a dinner on Tuesday. I got this recipe from somewhere embarrassing, but the reviews of it were unanimously excellent.

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summer fruit and fire-roasted peppers with chimichurri.

fruit
1/4 cup diced pineapple
1/4 cup diced watermelon
1/4 cup seedless green grapes, halved
1/4 cup diced cantaloupe
1/4 cup diced roasted red peppers

chimichurri
1 tablespoon red chili flakes
1/4 cup EV olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon chopped shallot
1 cup chopped fresh mint leaves

Combine fruit and red peppers with chimichurri sauce to taste. Mix well to coat all fruit. Cover and set aside to allow to marinate for 10-30 minutes.

Optionally, serve over spinach:

2 cups chopped spinach
3 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup shredded young Goudse cheese

In a large bowl, combine spinach, olive oil and lemon juice. Toss gently to combine. Divide spinach between plates. Arrange fruit mixture on top of spinach and garnish with cheese.

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File under Barely Relevant: my ever-more-occasional work venue OT301 has been awarded the 2007 Amsterdam Cultuurprijs, whatever that means (the opening moments of our June 16th AUXXX night are pictured above). Congratulations to all! Here's a pretty old YouTube compilation of OT301 events from 2005, back when I spent a lot of time there.

UPDATE: I certainly shouldn't have been so "whatever" about the Cultuurprijs. It's apparently 35,000 euro. Pardon my skepticism.

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