This week we'll explore rainbow bell peppers and summery watermelon salads. We'll also delve into a thought-provoking book about the intimate relationship between humans and flowers, as well as a fun seasonal eating challenge.

Eat Colorfully

Seasonal Ingredient Spotlight: BELL PEPPERS

Our local farmers market has been exploding with a rainbow of peppers lately, so this week I'm excited to celebrate these colorful seasonal treats. Bell peppers (and their various mini and heirloom relatives) are a bit sweet, a bit zesty, beautiful, and highly versatile. Here are a few of my favorite ways to use them:

• Add them to salads. Bell peppers especially shine in a chopped salad, like my favorite Rainbow Vegan Chopped Salad.
• Dip them (like chips). If you have summer dips on the menu, enjoying the dip with chips can feel heavy. Instead, ditch the chips in favor of bell pepper slices or whole baby bell peppers. Check out this Grilled Corn Guacamole post as an example; you'll see lots of baby peppers served alongside the dip.
• Grill them. Bell peppers are fabulous on the grill since grilling enhances their sweet flavor and juiciness. You can grill them whole for a tasty treat, cut them in half and grill the halves (as shown in the photo below), or thread pepper slices onto kabob skewers.
• Stuff them. One of my absolute favorite summer meals is to make these Healthy Mexican Street Corn Stuffed Peppers with local peppers and local corn. You need to try this recipe before the season is over!

Try This Week: WATERMELON SALAD

If you're hosting a summer gathering, you have to try this Watermelon, Snap Pea, and Mint Salad. It's refreshing, hydrating, light, friendly for most diets, and easy to make ahead of time, so it's a party win. Personally, it's the salad I come back to again and again when we host friends on our deck.

Here are some of my favorite ways to change up this summer salad. Try them all over the next month!

• Use chopped cucumbers instead of (or in addition to) sugar snap peas.
• Add feta, vegan feta, or avocado for richness (just make sure to add them right before serving; feta can get soggy and avocado browns easily).
• Try using basil instead of (or in addition to) mint for a more Mediterranean vibe.
• Experiment with adding a second type of fruit, like berries or another melon.
• Toss in some chickpeas or cubed super-firm tofu to add protein and make it feel more substantial.

Live Colorfully

A Book to Explore: DAVID HASKELL, HOW FLOWERS MADE OUR WORLD

I just finished a fabulous, beautiful, and thoughtful book that I'm excited to pass along: David Haskell's "How Flowers Made Our World". It explores how the evolution of humans has been deeply intertwined with flowering plants, delving into all the ways in which these plants play integral roles in our lives.

If you enjoy science writing and/or environmental writing, then this book is definitely for you. Parts of it are more science-focused, featuring fascinating information about flowering plants, their evolution, and their interdependent relationship with animals. Much of it is environmentally-focused, asking hard questions about how we can be better stewards of our planet. It's very thought-provoking and turns the common societal perception of flowers as pretty and feminine completely on its head.

I haven't been this into a book in a long time. If you don't enjoy science, then this one might not be the right fit. But if you do, then you'll never look at a flower the same way.

If you need other ideas, remember that you can always browse my favorite book list here ("How Flowers Made Our World" actually landed a coveted spot on my favorite book list, which is a really big deal!).

Self-Care Pick: A SEASONAL EATING CHALLENGE

I have a fun challenge for you this week that's going to require some creativity. The idea: find the weirdest, coolest, super-seasonal ingredients you can get your hands on and unite them into a single dish.

This challenge came about this past Friday, when I wanted to make something special to go alongside some grilled fare. We hadn't been to the store in a while, but had inherited some beautiful homegrown veggies from my parents and also had some of our own. In a nutshell, we only had oddball ingredients and I couldn't figure out how to put them together.

Sometimes the most delicious combinations arise from situations like this, and my resulting watermelon salad was a summer triumph. I never would have thought to create this salad otherwise, but it was truly a celebration of the magic (and the occasional chaos) of seasonal eating.

So, here's your challenge. This week, visit your garden, your farmers market, a friend's garden, or your weekly CSA box and grab at least half a dozen of the most bizarre, eclectic, and gorgeous seasonal treats you can find. Then, without using a recipe or making a separate trip to the store, pull them together into a unique salad or salsa that you never would have made otherwise. Who knows, maybe something spectacular could result!

Thanks for joining me for this issue of Eat Colorfully, Live Colorfully! I'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to reply with questions, thoughts, or requests. If you missed a previous issue, you can view all my newsletters here. Have a great week!