Seconds Favorites

Posted on December 3, 2017 by melsmosaic

You love it, you make it. Even it’s seconds. So I was cruising around the Farmer’s Market (yes, this is a few months back based on the ingredients) and trying to decide what to make for a Supper Club dinner coming up. I realized that a couple of my favorites were in high quantity because of the season — (beefsteak) tomatoes and peaches/nectarines. Now, while I love supporting the locals, sometimes those produce items can get up to $4-6/lb. And those beefsteaks can weight 1lb+ each!

So I noticed somebody who worked for one of the stands I usually buy from tossing stuff to the side and I asked her what they were and what was wrong with them. She said they were just a bit bruised, had torn/broken skin, etc, so couldn’t be sold a regular price. They all cost $1/lb! Just takes a little digging to find the one they aren’t totally bad, which isn’t hard. SOLD!

So, while digging, I came up with a good combo idea of tomatoes and peaches then remembered I had some Hearts of Palm at home.

I just cubed all of them, added some spices (I think it was garlic, S&P) and tossed them together. Heaven! The only thing I had to do was drain it a bit because of the juiciness. Leftovers = zero. Too bad I didn’t get seconds from the seconds.

Throw it together

Posted on August 4, 2016 by melsmosaic

I got handed all this stuff from friends from various farmers’ markets (not the stuff I had) and had to put it together. So I also had all the fresh veggies I purchased that I (still) needed to use. What did I make? Delicious salad!

Ingredients:

-(Huge) tomatoes
-Peaches
-Avocados
-Red onion
-Garlic Salt (some form of garlic belongs in near everything)
-Pepper
-Lemon juice

So fresh, so good. I’m surprised I have leftovers. That’s what I’m eating tonight.

Avocado Salad with Peaches

Posted on October 5, 2014 by melsmosaic

Was looking for something fun, super fresh and relatively easy to make for dinner. I remembered this salad from Bon Appetit that I found a few years ago. Avocados, peaches and arugula…some of my favorites. It was the perfect thing to make and pretty simple.

Avocado Salad with Peaches
4-6 Servings

Ingredients

1/2 red bell pepper, cored and seeded
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped (I got SUPER lazy and used liquid vanilla)
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 almost-ripe avocados
8 cups arugula or sorrel
2 peaches, diced and peeled

Preparation

-Roast bell pepper (I do it on my gas stove – so easy).

-Peel and chop pepper; puree with red wine vinegar, vanilla and sugar in blender (I used the mini-prep) until smooth.

-With machine running, gradually add olive oil. Season with salt & pepper.

-Halve and pit avocados and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and place cut side down on and medium-hot grill until nicely charred, about 5 minutes (ok, so I don’t/can’t have a grill. So, I put foil over a burner on my gas stove and made it work. Creativity in the kitchen). Peel and thickly slice.

-Toss with arugula or sorrel and peaches. Drizzle dressing over top (I just toss all of it together — dressing and everything).

I served this with shrimp. Delicious!!!

Peach Picking

Posted on August 25, 2013 by melsmosaic

It’s an absolutely beautiful day at the end of August (high 70s, low humidity?!?!?) so my friend and I decided to go peach picking at a local farm. This place is amazing. You can head out there almost year round to pick seasonal fruit at your leisure. It is dangerous in the sense that you pick and pick, maybe take sample to refuel, then pick and pick. When you eventually get to the register you realize you have pounds and pounds of amazing fruit. When you go to the grocery store you’re aware of what you get. But, oh well. This is FUN! This place is called Homestead Farm and is located in Poolesville, MD, about 30-45 minutes outside of DC.

You start by picking your box to collect your goods. Why not go with the big one today?

You can get a ride to the peach trees or you can walk. It’s such an amazing day, we had to walk. Once there, we saw there were about 5 rows of peach trees. We had to go fairly deep in the rows to find trees that still had the goods. Then, let the picking begin.

As mentioned, you just go and go. I worked to get some not-so-ripe ones so they’d last longer. I was also thinking I can chop some and put them in the freezer. My friend and I did sample a couple to keep us going. We eventually decided to call it quits.

We headed back to the main entrance to check out. They also have a ton of other veggies. I picked up some cherry tomatoes. (Oh, the peaches were $1.79/lb).