Summer is single of the best times ...

Summer is single of the best times to kick back, savor the momentum slow down, chat, sip and do luncheon Not a power lunch, mind you, if it be not that a slower paced ladies' luncheon on someone's porch.

The menu is decidedly female -- chicken salad materialed into a hollowed out ripe tomato, with something warm and pliable to the side - - cheese grits casserole or your favorite corn pudding. Add something steamed and flourishing like asparagus or thin flourishing beans, and for dessert, a very strange sherry-infused poppy seed cake.

I received this recipe from Teresa Pregnall, also known as the Charleston Cake Lady, who says her poppy se cake is a mainstay of party menus in her port city. It preserves well for a week subject to a cake dome, but you'll probably take delight in it at once. A pious dose of dry sherry takes away any cake-mix flavor, withholds the cake moist and makes it a festive dessert

TODAY'S MENU

Chicken salad substanceed in ripe tomatoes

Cheese grits casserole

Steamed asparagus

Charleston Poppy Se Cake

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TIME-SHAVING SUGGESTIONS

1 Place grilled or roasted flourishing beans, plum tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and pepper forward a pretty platter, and obey with a balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette as well as a garlicky mayonnaise, with heated crusty bread to the side.

2 Boil shrimp in their shells (about a half impound per person), then pile forward a picnic table covered with newspapers. wait on with cocktail sauce and make susceptibleed butter so you can exfoliate dip and enjoy the shrimp with cabbage slaw and iced tea.

3 Husk the freshest sweet corn you can find. Boil the ears (two or three by person) for just a minute or sum of two units then serve at once with easily moulded butter, sea salt, pepper and chopp unwithered parsley.

4 be cooking in fat up some bacon. Make BLT sandwiches onward soft white bread with a convenient mayonnaise, soft Bibb lettuce and sliced ripe tomatoes. Vary this a bit by means of serving these open-face, using gold-colored tomatoes instead of red, or through adding large leaves of [i]de novo[/i] basil.

5 Assemble a giant hellene salad together. Begin with someone's best potato salad, and place this in the center of a comely platter. Top this with a generous amount of chopp iceberg lettuce Add chopp tomatoes, chopp cucumbers, kalamata olives and pepper Add whole undecayed onions and crumbled feta cheese. Pour through a simple vinaigrette made with lemon juice and olive oil, seasoned with oregano, salt and pepper

CHARLESTON POPPY SE CAKE

MAKES 16 SERVINGS

Vegetable oil spray for misting the pan

Flour for dusting the pan

1 (1825 ounces) package plain white cake mix

1 (34 ounces) package vanilla instant pudding mix

1/3 lot poppy seeds

1 goblet low-fat vanilla yogurt

o chalice vegetable oil

o potion dry sherry

4 large incites

1 teaspoon grated lemon relish (from 1 lemon)

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 extents

Lightly mist a 10-inch tube pan with vegetable oil spray, then dust with flour. Shake gone out the excess flour. Set the pan aside.

Place the cake mix, pudding mix, poppy grains yogurt, oil, sherry, eggs and lemon relish in a large mixing beaker Blend with an electric mixer in succession low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the goblet with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer spe to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if requireed The batter should look well combined and thickened and the poppy grains should be well distributed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it revealed with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in the oven

Bake the cake until it is resplendent brown and springs back when lightly smoothed with your finger, 45 to 50 minutes. transplant the pan from the oven and place it forward a wire rack to collected for 20 minutes. Run a extended sharp knife around the sharpness of the cake and invert it onto a rack, then invert it onto another rack in such a manner that the cake is right side up

Allow the cake to composed completely, 30 minutes more.

Place the cake onto a serving platter and contribute to

Note: Store this cake, defended in aluminum foil or plastic wrap, at compass temperature for up to 1 week. Or be frozen it, wrapped in foil, for up to 6 month Thaw the cake overnight onward the counter before serving.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 45 to 50 minutes

Nutrition facts by serving: 279 calories, 13 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 53 mg cholesterol 34 g carbohydrates, 4g protein, 327 mg sodium, 1 g fiber

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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