These are two easy recipes incase your fall is like ours and you are rushing about needing something simple and quick; that tastes like you spent hours making it.

I have a problem … I hoard cookbooks. Especially if they are passed down from generation to generation. I have bookshelves that are organized by regions in the world as well as the states (church and PTA books are amazing sources of ideas). It’s fascinating to me to read the older cookbooks during times where meat, dairy and flour were hard to come by and the options folks came up with. One side dish I see often in the older editions are scalloped tomatoes … which is a wonderful side dish to grilled proteins. I like to use heirloom tomatoes just for a flash of color, but you can use just regular red tomatoes. If you are like me and plant way more tomato plants that you’ll ever need (I just love how they smell in the morning), this recipe does take a chunk out of your tomato harvest. The hardest part of this recipe is the layering of the tomatoes, onions and remembering to sprinkle bread crumbs in the layers.

Where I got the idea for the whipped-herbed ricotta was at a mixer for Les Dames d’Escoffier which is an international philanthropic group of women involved in the food and beverage industry. The food and beverages at these ‘mixers,’ is nothing short of amazing. If I find a dish that I really like, and might make it my own version … I usually hunt down who made it, and confess that I want to steal it. Needless to say, she admitted that she got it off of social media, so it’s twice stolen. It’s incredibly easy, and a wonderful thing to serve on a warm fall day. The flavors really intensify if you refrigerate the blended cheese the day before. Grilling the corn will give it a wonderful smokiness if you are having it with red wine. I also cheat and microwave the corn with the husk on … it takes about five minutes, just be careful when you peal the husk off it is pretty hot. Why do I microwave corn? Because my cottage doesn’t have air-conditioning and when I found out I could microwave corn-on-the-cob I never looked back. If you don’t have corn with a husk you can wrap the corn in a few sheets of paper towels. This dip can be served on crackers and bread as well … the crunch of the tortilla chip is what had me with this dip. I served it at our last Futures picnic as an appetizer spread on tortilla chips with the basil and corn mix on top.