Fruit Guys.. You ROCK!!

Okok, so I'm a little late getting to this post.. if you've read my previous post you can see that I was a little busy over the weekend baking.

So, Back to the FruitGuys box.

I was expecting my delivery Thursday night.. so when I heard someone in the driveway at 7am on Thursday morning I didn't think anything of it, I thought it was my landlord or one of his jerky kids.. But it wasn't... it was the delivery guy who was cool enough to not just toss the box over the driveway gate and leave it (like most of them do) it was left at my side door just like I had asked. When I went to leave at 7:30 I was really shocked that the fruit was already there, especially since the delivery times stated that it would arrive by the end of the day, so first thing in the morning was a totally awesome surprise. I was running a little late getting the kid to school (as usual, he has Chronic Lateness Disorder) so I brought the box inside and thought about that box all dang day.

When we got home the kid, of course had to be the one who took the honors in opening that box and inside were 2 giant fennel bulbs, 3 different kinds of apples, 2 meyer lemons, 1 tangelo, 1 gold nugget orange, 1 blood orange, a handful of sunchokes, about 5 yellow squash, a handful of red potatoes and a package of fresh rosemary (which I was excited about since after 3 years my Rosemary plant didn't survive this crazy NY winter).

That night I made roasted rosemary chicken with sauteed fennel, I'd never made fennel before, but both the kid and myself loved it.

Monday night I made pasta with roasted fennel, garlic and yellow squash.. it was unbelievable!

The apples and oranges are all gone.. all the freshest I've ever had aside from getting it straight from the farm (which this all is)

I still don't know what to do with the sunchokes. Raw, to me, they taste like dirt and I have no idea what the heck to do with them and any suggestions are welcome.

I will definitely be ordering from the FruitGuys again. I was very pleased with not only the quality of everything I ordered, but with their excellent customer service and the courtesy of the grower for adding in a handwritten note that the cherry tomatoes weren't available and substituted red potatoes in their place.



I did take a pic of the box when it arrived, I will upload it later when I get home.

My little porch tomatoes..

I'm insanely proud of my garden this year, I have to say that the last few years has been a huge disappointment, BUT this year I got started early and instead of trying to grow big tomatoes (which I don't really eat anyway raw, but cook with) I decided to go with Cherry tomatoes, I only bought myself One plant (because I wouldn't have felt too bad if I killed it) and it's really done great! so far I've been picking one or two at a time as they ripen, but I've got whole clusters now that are ripening as we speak (and that makes me ridiculously happy!)

I think the most wonderful part of this garden project this year is the fact that P. will actually eat cherry tomatoes! The kid will not eat tomatoes on anything, it's the first thing he will pull off a sandwich or pick out of a salad, but not my little cherry tomatoes.. I had this sitting in a bowl in the fridge, waiting to get tossed into some pasta for dinner when I caught him.. with his fingers in the bowl!

Mom, these are the tomatoes from outside? Um.. yea, and the basil from that big old plant on the porch too, to which he replied These are the best tomatoes I've ever had.. can I have more? I damn near fell right over! Now granted he has never been one to turn away food or Not try something, he learned at a very early age that you eat what I cook or have cereal, but through culinary school he was willing to try everything I brought home and never balked about it. He willingly eats salmon, vegetables of any kind Even roasted Brussels sprouts, he will pick fruit over candy and the thing he drinks most is milk (No wonder at 12 he's already an inch taller than me!) the only 2 things I know this kid will not eat are avocados, and pepperoni cheese (which is something I love, cheddar cheese with little bits of Pepperoni in it, so bad for you, but so good!)... other than that it's all up for grabs (which makes me one of the luckiest mom's out there!)

So this little bunch of Cherry tomatoes sat in the refrigerator today, happily blending with some bail and garlic and a pinch of sea salt to let the yummy juices flow and then was tossed with a pot of Cavatelli and a drizzle of olive oil.. what could be better on a steamy summer night?

This is so cool!

I have a Praying mantis baby living in my rosemary plant! This morning I was watering my little 'garden' on my porch and I saw it, a little green baby praying mantis and I was so happy, lol.. I haven't seen a praying mantis literally in years and when I told P. after he got up he was so upset that he missed it.. but guess what? He's still there! I showed P. When I got home and watered again (I have a lot of sun on that side of the porch for the whole morning and a good part of the afternoon and by the time I get home everything is dried up), but as I was gently watering my thirsty rosemary plant there he was hanging onto the branch You might ask me why this makes me so happy.. well, I hate bugs of any kind and outside my house there are ants, and not your everyday run of the mill ants, but these tiny little buggers that like to come into the house, and spiders.. the little jumping ones and these freaky little hairy suckers and these other weird spiders.. and I HATE spiders. So now I have my own little exterminator living on my porch to rid my garden of bugs and prevent them from coming into the house (yippee!) I will take a picture of him as soon as I can.. he's so cute and little, lol...

Chocolate Mint

I know what you're probably thinking but no, not the flavor, the Herb. Every tuesday there is a little farmers market in, of all places, the back parking lot at the courthouse over by where I work and I ran over there with P. yesterday and they had some halfway decent stuff (most of it overwhelmingly overpriced though, like $5 for a pound of strawberries) There was a guy selling various plants and herbs so as I was browsing I saw down at the bottom a tray of Chocolate mint.. I have never seen or heard of this herb before, my grandma always grew mint in her yard, one little plant spread the entire perimeter of her yard and it was always so fun to go and pick the mint when we made sun tea.
I made mint chocolate chip ice cream once when I had an ice cream maker (before it got lost in the move) and I will forever remember my friend's face when he took one taste of it and said to me in the most gentle way "um, it tastes like chewing gum, I just can't eat this" I wanted to disappear.. I felt like such a dummy. .. but to me it didn't taste like gum.. it freaking tasted like toothpaste.. eww, well, you live and learn right?
Well, yesterday I bought myself one little Chocolate mint plant and I have a lot of ideas of what to do with it, I've read that you can flavor sugar with it by putting it in a tightly covered container and shake once a day for a few days, but I'm contemplating what it would be like to process the sugar with the mint leaves in the food processor, hmm... If any of you wonderful readers of mine (!) have any recipes that I can try with Chocolate Mint I would greatly appreciate it. I think I might try a mousse with it for Friday.. time will tell though.. I will let you all know if I do try it.

There's just something about Strawberries...

Strawberries, sugar and white balsamic vinegar with a few Chiffonade basil leaves.. there's just nothing like it.. when I first saw this recipe in I think it was gourmet, had to be in 2000 or 2002 way back when, lol.. I was skeptical.. BUT I had to try it... I had just been introduced to the Union Square green market and the many different herbs, many that the chefs in school told me were impossible to find or so expensive that they couldn't get them for our classes.. herbs and spices that I was able to find at the market and create dishes on my own.. oh, that place.. there's nothing like it :)

So, back to the strawberries..

if you look on the internet recipes upon recipes will tell you not to leave them for more than 30 minutes, but when I made these the other night and then left them to chill.. and fell asleep and forgot all about them until the next night.. well.. lemme tell ya, Syrupy deliciousness.. the strawberries remained intact, not mushy or 'cooked' but I believe that the trick is in the WHITE balsamic, not the sticky black modena balsamic that we are accustomed to. White balsamic is well, pretty much like white wine colored with a sweet end and not quite vinegar-y at all.. just blissful. I didn't measure as much as I kind of just eyeballed it all, I wasn't sure P. was going to like it, so I stuck small to start with,
10 fresh strawberries , hulled
a generous sprinkle of vanilla sugar
1 1/2 Tbs white balsamic vinegar
5 basil leaves, chiffonade

I tossed it all together in a glass bowl, covered it and tossed it in the fridge.. for about 24 hours.. OH MY.. wow, not pungent, not sweet.. just delightful. The strawberries stayed their beautiful red in contrast to the basil and the translucent red of the syrup ..

I really have to get a camera soon.. and I will make this again..
(yay)

Not your everyday garden...

But it's my little Potted garden on my little porch. I'm a renter so I don't have use of the yard (at least not planting wise) so for the past few years I've had a little potted garden, it all started with some basil and last year I failed miserably at trying to grow tomatoes, but this year I was so determined that I was going to succeed I went all out.. this year it all started with a tiny strawberry kit that I got for $1 at Target. I got home and was so excited, I soaked my little peat pellet and sowed my seeds in the teeny pot and a week later I saw little plants growing and I was so proud! I have 5 little strawberry plants that just today were moved to a bigger pot and moved outside and off the top of my oven under the 'plant light' since that is the only place they were safe. I'm usually bad, with a big black thumb and I can't get anything to grow.. but if it's in plain sight I'm gonna make sure it's watered, so that's where all my little babies stayed until it was warm enough to go outside.

I bought my basil and Oregano plants at home depot towards the end of April and Mother's day weekend I bought myself a cherry tomato plant (determined to grow tomatoes this year), oregano and rosemary all potted on my porch and growing great. my basil plant is being picked at almost every night to be added to dinner and is blooming and growing like I never imagined! My tomato plant has 5 little green tomatoes and 16 buds I counted earlier today. I'm so proud of myself!


To add to the jungle I have a dozen sunflowers from a buzzy kit that I got at CVS one day when I was feeling ambitious, those to my absolute amazement had sprouted in a record 4 days and are just started to sprout flowers. I have been reading about the plight of the Bees lately so I'm really happy to have plants and herbs growing that will help them (as deathly afraid of them as I may be) Bees are such an important part of the ecosystem and we all benefit from them in many different ways, so I'm just trying to do my part to help them out while also providing flavor, color and pizazz to my dinner every night.