More starters (or chip me, dip me)

Recipes: Fresh tomato salsa, Guacamole, Hummus

Chips and dips. . . "man" enough for watching football on TV, fancy enough to trot out for guests, easy enough to be a regular in your summer repertoire, and, best of all, yet another excuse to savor the season's delicious delectable and oh-so-soon-just-a-memory tomatoes.

The easiest of these three dips is the Fresh Tomato Salsa. A little chopping, a swirl of olive oil, a squeeze of lime and you're there. Salsa is great with tortilla chips or potato chips. It's also wonderful spooned over grilled fish or virtually any other kind of simply grilled meat. It's amazing over eggs, as in spooned over a cheese omelette. Yum! Here's how to make it.

Fresh Tomato Salsa

• 2 or 3 large ripe tomatoes, any color, or 4 or 5 smaller ones, chopped into fairly small pieces
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped chile peppers. I use jalapeno (kind of spicy) or serrano (less spicy). You can use what you want, depending on how much heat you like.
• A handful of fresh cilantro, chopped. If you don't like cilantro, use fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
• 1/2 small red onion, chopped fine
• olive oil
• fresh lime
• sea salt

Combine the chopped tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, and onion in a medium bowl. Drizzle a little olive oil over it, and add a good pinch of salt. Squeeze half a lime over all and mix gently with a fork. Add a little more lime just before serving, if you like.

Colorful and gorgeous. How easy is that?!

How about another classic dipper for chips? Silky guacamole is a natural for tortilla chips, or even for raw veggies, if you'd like a healthy alternative. It's easy to make too - here's how.

Guacamole

Adapted from a recipe in Rick Bayless' Mexican Everyday

• 1 medium ripe avocado. You know it's ripe when it gives slightly when squeezed. Don't squeeze hard. If it gives a lot, it's too ripe.
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped fine
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
• juice of 1/2 fresh lime
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh green chile. I use serrano or jalapeno.
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion, white or yellow
• 1 medium ripe tomato, chopped into small pieces
• sea salt

Cut the avocado in half, running your knife around the pit from stem to blossom end and back up again. Twist the halves in opposite directions to free the pit, and pull the halves apart. Dislodge the pit, then scoop the avocado flesh into a medium bowl.

Mash the avocado with a fork. Lumpy is fine - it doesn't have to be perfectly smooth. Stir in the garlic plus a good pinch of salt. Add all the other chopped ingredients and stir to combine. Taste and season with a little more salt if needed. That's it!

Guacamole should be used right away. If you need to hold it more than a few minutes, cover it with clingfilm so that the film lays right on the surface of the guacamole and put it in the fridge. This keeps the avocado from turning dark. Don't hold it more than an hour or two at most before serving.

Our final 'dipper of the day' is not so much for chips, although it could happen. It more about pita triangles, or once again, raw veggies. It's so easy to make, you'll never buy a tub in the supermarket again. Here's how to make hummus.

Hummus

• 2 large cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 cup tahini (sesame paste). You can get tahini at health food stores and grocery stores that cater to vegetarian cuisine, like Whole Foods, or Middle Eastern cuisine. It lasts a long time in the fridge.
• freshly-squeezed juice from one whole lemon
• 1 14-oz can chickpeas, drained. Reserve the liquid.
• 1/2 cup gently packed flat-leaf parsley leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 4 tablespoons chickpea liquid, or as needed

In a blender or food processor, whiz together the garlic, salt, tahini, and lemon juice until the garlic is finely chopped.

Add the chick peas, parsley, cumin, and 4 tablespoons of chick pea liquid, and pulse until smooth. Stop the machine a couple of times during blending and scrape down the sides to make sure everything gets well-incorporated.

Taste, and add more lemon juice or salt if desired, and more of the chick pea liquid if necessary until it reaches a thick, but spreadable consistency. You can make it as smooth, or as coarse, as you like.

Put in a bowl, or spread in the center of a large plate, and sprinkle with more cumin over it. When it's tomato season, I make a depression in the center of the hummus and fill it with chopped tomatoes or Fresh Tomato Salsa.

Serve with toasted pita chips, untoasted pita triangles, baguette slices, or whole wheat crackers.