A few weeks ago, we asked you to enter All Thing's Considered's Found Recipes' Taste of Summer contest with a great recipe that had a compelling story behind it. Among the many responses we got were recipes for all varieties of potato salad, crab and grilled pizza.
Lauren Steinberg of Lemont, Pa., loves making the latter in the summer. She says it's quite simple. Take pizza dough (homemade or store-bought) and coat one side with olive oil. Put that side down on the grill and brush the other side with olive oil. Flip when the dough is light brown and add the toppings of your choice.
Leslie Winner of Durham, N.C., longs for something a bit more unusual during the summer — "fruit soup," something her grandmother made every summer. It involves cooking peaches with plums and blueberries. The dessert is then chilled and served with sour cream.
Winner says she always thought the recipe sprang from her family's Lithuanian roots, until she asked her mother. Turns out it had its origins in America — Good Housekeeping magazine, to be exact.
For Jennifer Sander of Shingle Springs, Calif., the taste of summer isn't so much about the food, but the memories surrounding it. She started crabbing with her sons in the Puget Sound years ago, something she would never have tried if not for the high price of crabs and her sons' penchant for them.
"Step No. 1 was to buy a book that taught us all about the habits and the habitats of Dungeness crab — that's the kind of crab that you find on the West Coast," Sander says.
They got a lot of help from fishing store employees who would give them advice on where to plunk down their traps. The same employees also tipped them off to something called "smelly jelly," which is rubbed on the bait to better attract the crabs. Once caught, Sander says the crabs are delicious when eaten chilled, with a side of mayonnaise and lemon.
Out of these and other entries, we've chosen three finalists. But before we pick a winner, we'd like you to weigh in. Browse through the three recipes listed at right. Once you've been through them all, tell us which one you liked the best and why. You can write in the comments or email us here (make sure to address to All Things Considered and put "Taste of Summer Vote" in the subject line).
We'll announce a winner on Friday, July, 26.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.