Ingredients

Ingredients

Today’s food finds

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

Fall has encroached upon us and wreaked havoc on my food seeking adventures…and has left me feeling kinda unenthused about cooking.

I started my Saturday with Starbucks on the way to the  Santa Monica farmers market Saturday….upon arrival I notice there isn’t a single avocado anywhere which is sad for me who eats one daily if we are home

Lots of green this time of year….herbs chards Bok choi broccoli….a splash of color with the purple basil here…and the asparagus is now arriving  
   

   I did get some baby romaines but no baby butter
  Look!  Baby eggplants!!!  
It’s also squash season and I’m sure I already have more squash than Jim can handle

  Delicious dates   
Yep…I did restock on the raw goat feta and mozzarella

    

Jims favorite berries are way out of season but it appears that they have been preserved to sustain him through the winter months
 

From there we went to Penzeys Santa Monica store where I had two coupons for free cocoa and free curry plus they had a sale that you got free smoked paprika or chili 3000 if you spent 25 dollars…

  
My finds were:

   
 
The bags were to replenish my supply for things I know I love, of course the three free jars, then I usually try things out with the small jar, if I like it, I buy the big jar, then if we use it a lot I upgrade to the bag.

Made a trip by the Santa Monica whole foods and look what’s in season:

  
My mood wasn’t great today so I didn’t buy one but these guys were perfect. Perfectly small sprouts:-)

I’m gearing myself for a long boring food winter…

Tomorrow is my nutty mushroom loaf:-)

Ingredients

Farm fresh to you

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

its Thursday so my box greeted me at the door when I awoke…

  
Inside is the weekly bounty (fully customized by me…the standard box gets modified for my needs and tastes).

  
 
This week we had free range eggs, omnivore salt, horseradish mustard, watercress, kale, radishes, tomatoes, carrots, hothouse lettuce, oyster mushrooms, maitake mushrooms, butternut squash, fennel, cilantro, tarragon, chard, green onions, sweet dumpling squash , white turnips, and three trial apples: northern spy, spite burg, and golden russet

I’ll show you what I make!

Ingredients

Olive a Sudden in Palm Springs 

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

In Milwaukee downtown we came across our first olive oil and vinegar tasting shop

I couldn’t buy much (doll convention, ie limited packing space) but I was entranced by the tasting and the woman working there showcasing their “favorite” combos of olive oil and balsamic and mixing them so we could try it.

There is a similar store in Palm Springs that we never seem to go by during the day when they are open….until Sunday !  I didn’t take a lot of pics but I tasted many a vinegar and oil and brought home these two which just arrived home today.

 

I was so consumed by tasting and looking that I forgot pics of the store

But it’s Olive a sudden 

I’m all over so many of the flavors that I could buy them all….

   
   
I didn’t sample the wild mushroom and sage 😦 but it sounds yummy…and the sherry was very good and this doesn’t even list seasonal varieties like pumpkin!

Check them out…I’m going to shop online right now 🙂

Farmers Market Finds

Posted on by Brian and Jim

   
  after a break of a couple weeks we hit one of our local farmers markets today and the first thing I found was tiny pea sized eggplants (that I thought I took a picture of but since I can’t find it, I guess it was a fail.
 I didn’t buy them because I was confused if they truly were eggplant but this is some of what I found online:

   

Eggplant varieties
It appears that there are several varieties of tiny eggplant…. Pea sized and green to red in color and usually very bitter (so probably a good thing I didn’t buy).

But my favorite avocado…the reeds are still in season
    
And they had western hole.  

  

 There is still plenty of corn, tomatoes and eggplant to be had.

      
   
  Corn from Underwood family farms

  
  

I grabbed some baby butter and baby romaine lettuces from Maggie’s farm

  
There was also fresh ginger and jujube

    
    
(I did buy some baby jicama that you see next to the jujube)… I’ve yet to try the jujube.

I also did a restock of the cheese supply from Spring hill jersey cheese
And caught up with the owner of our fav fresh salsa stand Salsa Poblanos as mentioned on chowhound. See the chowhound nod to salsa poblanos 

Okay….i think that was it this week.

And then this came today!

Posted on by Brian and Jim

  
Now what the heck to do with it.  The bottle says anything but points out salad, curries and noodle dishes….my first thought is that it would be nice on a watermelon feta salad in place of the red wine vinegar.  I was also planning gazpacho today but Dos Arbolitos won out…so gazpacho this weekend probably and I usually use white balsamic in my gazpacho….I’m wondering if the ginger might perk it up or be too much…?

BR Cohn winery vinegars I already have their champagne vinegar which is nice on tomatoes…this is my new addition.