by Ted Onulak

Created on: June 12, 2008   Last Updated: March 02, 2011

Summer is a time for relaxing, sipping cold drinks and enjoying fresh foods with friends. Slaving over a hot stove? Save it for Thanksgiving.

Growing up in New Jersey, there were certain summer foods that I couldn't wait to get my hands on; Beautiful Jersey tomatoes, fresh herbs, farm stand sweet corn, strawberries and bean salad. I am going to share some simple recipes with a few special twists of my own which will knock them out at your next cook out.

Summer is time for corn on the cob. What's the big fuss? Shuck the corn and throw it in some salted boiling water. Serve it up hot and slather with butteroops, here is where it gets spectacular!

Let's make that corn sing in your mouth with some compound butter. Compound butter is just basic butter with a variety of herbs and seasonings that will add layers of flavors. I swore I would never reveal the secret of my butter, but what can I say? I'm a nice guy!

Chef Teodoro's compound butter

Start with a pound of salted butter and leave it out to get soft

Grab a healthy bunch of rosemary and Thyme (The rosemary is a must, but don't let me stop you from experimenting) and get it off the stems and chop it up as finely as you can

Add 2 tablespoons of black truffle oil (this oil can be easily found in fine food stores), but once I was out of it and I substituted 1 tablespoon of molasses for fun. Try either or.

Mix ingredients well and taste. Make sure you can taste all the ingredients

Get a large piece of waxed paper and put the soft butter in the center of the paper. You want a generous piece as you will roll up the paper like a piece of taffy and twist the ends.

Refrigerate until firm

Pay up your health insurance, because you will go crazy. Serve on hot corn, bread, biscuits, cornbread or anything else that butter goes with. Don't thank me, yet, there is more to come.

Chef Teodoro's Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

There is nothing like a perfect Jersey tomato. If you can't get them where you livewell, just use the best you have. The classic salad is simplicity itself, but I'm going to share a mouth-watering secret, garlic infused olive oil.

This is simple to do. Take a whole head of garlic, the biggest you got and break the head into cloves. Smash each clove with the flat of a wide kitchen knife and remove the paper skin. Shove each crushed clove into a container and fill with olive oil, maybe a pint. Let it stand for a few days, so it can absorb the flavor.

To make the salad cut the tomato in half from stem to bottom

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