Summer fruit... an abundance.

My sister was kind enough to share her over abundance of plums with us.

There were a lot more than I show in this bowl and they were very ripe. This is a busy week for me and I knew I wouldn't have time to make jam or even a tart. 
Time to freeze them for later. Most stone fruit: plum, apricots, peaches, nectarines, pluots, apriums, pleaches and apriarines freeze beautifully. By the way I made those last two names up, theses days they are making some interesting combinations ;-)
 
I had forgotten how to process/cut the stone fruit for easy freezing. 
Here's a quick reminder so you can save that summer abundance.
Start with a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. 
Some stone fruit cling to their pits, which is the pits !

You can see how messy those top few plums are, and I lost a lot of juice trying to wrestle the pit out.

Here's one I gave up on. I think, Bob ended up eating that one.




Then I remembered what I call the mango trick. I first learned this technique while living on Maui with a mango tree in my backyard. We would cut on either side of the huge hairy seed and have two lovely halves to feast on. It works amazingly well to do the same thing with stone fruit.

Start by looking for the crease in your piece of fruit, that will indicate where the pit is lurking.

You want to cut just slightly to one side of the stem end, parallel to the crease. Do the same thing to the other side.

You will have have lots of lovely halves, pit-free!

You will notice some waste of the flesh on either side of the pit, you can remove this with two cuts on either side of the pit.

Look at all that beautiful fruit you have to freeze. Cover that with another sheet of waxed paper and stick it in your freezer. When they have froze solid, remove them from the cookie sheet and store in a ziplock bag. Don't forget to label it with the contents and date.

Here are a few recipes to use that summer fruit:

Rustic fruit tart
Summer fruit tart
Clafouti
Easy fruit jam
Fruit crisp
Fruit ice cream

Enjoy !

Kolhrabi !!

How many different ways can they modify the mustard plant ?? What ?? Cole crops or those that belong to the Cruciferae family come in so many different forms:  Brussels sprout, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, mustard, broccoli, turnips, watercress AND kolhrabi, the subject of this post.

I have seen kohlrabi in the farmer's markets for years but was never brave or interested enough to try them. My brother grew them and raved about them ( actually his wife did the raving), nope still didn't try them. It took a friendly  and enthusiastic farmer at the nearby u-pick garden and offer of free samples to convert me.

Here's what they look like in the ground.

They are amazing, sweet and crisp and very versatile. I love to eat them raw, they remind me of jicama although they are unrelated. They are a great addition to any salad or veggie platter.

To prepare kolhrabi for eating raw or cooked, after removing the leaves, you must first peel off the fibrous outer layer.

Grilling them is my favorite way to eat them cooked, so far.
I slice them in thick slices ( 1/4 to 1/2 inch), coat them with olive oil, then dust with salt, pepper and the dried herbs of your choice.

I grilled them for 4-5 minutes each side depending on the heat of your grill. Yum !!

I have also added them to Laurie's Potatoes,

 

 my kale and white bean soup, 

and to our stir fried veggies.

Give kolhrabi a try !

A week in Los Angeles.

I spent  last week in LA visiting family. I'll tell you about my trip through the food I ate.
When driving down to LA, which I do every summer, I stop half way there to spend the night with my brother and his wife.

The first night in Lompoc, my brother made chicken kabobs on his hibachi. I remember these little grills from my childhood, they were in vogue in the early sixties. My dad liked to cook on them, I even remember him making toast on ours, one morning for breakfast.

Besides those tasty kebobs, I was also spoiled by this fabulous berry drink. My brother has lots of berries this time of year: boysenberries, olallieberries, loganberries, tayberries, marionberries and raspberries.

 
With his bountiful harvest he makes juice from his berries, adds carbonated water and simple syrup ( equal parts sugar and water, bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar, store in fridge). What a refreshing summer beverage !

 One thing I noticed in LA this visit, they have lots of restaurants for healthy and tasty eating. Most of these places are proud to use organic, locally sourced ingredients and offer something for everyone's food preferences.
My first meal there was with Theo was at True Food Kitchen. This restaurant on the Santa Monica Promenade was very busy at lunchtime, but we were seated within a few minutes.
We started with drinks: I had the pomegranate limeade and Theo had the carrot lemonade. I was so hungry and not in my restaurant review mode that I neglected to take photos of our main courses.


I had  the Inside-out quinoa burger, with hummus, tzatziki, tomato, cucumber, red onion, avocado and feta cheese.The crispy quinoa patties formed the "bun" with the rest inside. I loved it. Theo had a nice panang curry with tofu.  





 
Now we were ready to do some shopping on the promenade, a closed to car street, full of shops of all kinds. I bought shoes at REI, a computer at the Apple store and spices at Penzeys.

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The next day, Sara took me to Milo and Olive, a bakery/restaurant for breakfast. 

 She had these yummy looking bagels with all those veggies and cream cheese.









I chose the omelet with tomatoes, cheese and arugula salad. It was perfect.

Milo and Olive also has great pastries and bread. We bought small baguette and prosciutto sandwiches to take with us to the LA Zoo, our first outing of the day.

I loved watching the flamingos roam around. Sara was kind enough to explore the reptiles with me ;-)

 

One of the highlight for me was seeing this echidna racing around its enclosure. During our trip to Australia several years ago the echidnas were hibernating so we never got to see them.

For the second outing of the day we needed to fortify ourselves. Westside Tavern is a restaurant at a huge shopping mall, but luckily for us they have real food and real drinks.

Sara had been proselytizing about bra shopping at Nordstrom's, being actually measured and fit for a bra made such a difference she said. After a few drinks, Gen and I were game. Thursday evening the mall is open until 9 PM. We are converts, enough said.

Yoga the next day was followed by lunch at Native Foods, a perfect choice as it is a vegan establishment. 

With some interesting menu items.

I ordered the Baja Blackened Tacos with tempeh and "creamy chipotle surfer sauce" which unlike it's "cute" name was very classy.

 

Genna had the "OC Raw Chopper", a huge fresh salad with lots of veggies and dressing that she licked straight from the little bowl.

Saturday morning after grabbing pastries from Milo and Olive for breakfast we headed to downtown LA for our "Broadway" walking tour lead by the LA Conservancy.
We saw a lot of old theater buildings, mostly in disrepair and in a rather downtrodden neighborhood. The contrast of the huge modern highrises near by was striking.

 

We did get to see inside some interesting old places. The tiles on the left are from an old Dutch chocolate shop.



The mirrored balcony below was from the Los Angeles Theater. The whole thing was very opulent, reminiscent of Louis the 14th and his gaudy style.

Lunch was at the Third Street Market which was more like an huge noisy, smelly food court. I was so overwhelmed and hungry at that point, I blindly followed Kirby to a place that made sandwiches, ordering a club sandwich. I have to admit I was a little leery of some of the other places and their health code observances.
This place did have variety,  everything from Guatemalan pupusas, pictured on the left, to Thai street food, barbeque, lots of taco places, Chinese buffets, seafood (hence the smell) and one very popular place called Egg Slut.

On the way back to Santa Cruz I stopped in Lompoc again. Dinner that night was another hibachi fest, with the highlight being the grilled zucchini and kohlrabi. I plan to do a post on kohlrabi soon.