Workin for the Weekend

HALLELUJAH!! It's almost the weekend I cannot friggin wait. I had two days off this week, so I got most of my business taken care of and I am ready to relax and have some fun. I should only have to do AT MOST 2 loads of laundry this week, which is amazing. So what am I going to do with all of this free time?? You know I hate not having a plan, so here is a list of things I hope to do this fin de semana.

Saturday-

• Go thrift store shopping-all of my t-shirts are too big. I have bought a couple in recent weeks that do fit, but they are too nice to wear to places like the dog park, or for a sweaty afternoon walk. I need some medium-quality t-shirts to fart around in and that is this weekends thrift store objective. And as always, maybe a pair of jeans.
• Go to the sweat pit-I have been doing a good job of making sure that I get some exercise in 6 days a week, but I have been a little lax about going to the gym all 6 of those days. The sunny weather of late has been inspiring me to walk with the dogs instead. I have a path that's about 4.5 miles and that is about all that the dogs can take. I need to go to the actual sweat pit Saturday, though, cuz I need to pump some iron. My goal is to be able to do a chin-up by the time I turn 30.

Sunday

• Take my 4.5 mile walk with the dogs-this is also good for the dogs because they get some great exercise and they get a chance to interact with strangers. Nana and Rupert are a little anti-social, so having an opportunity to just be around lots of people without the pressure of having to be petted is good.
• Plant the Kale-we have two kinds of Kale that we really need to get in the ground. I hope to do that Sunday
• Bake some banana muffins-I have been letting these two bananas ripen for about two weeks. They are ready to go! Past ready to go, maybe. I must make the banana bread muffins this weekend.

OK, so I thought I had some big plans for the weekend, looks like it's actually pretty low-key. Either way, I am looking forward to yet another 2 days away from the office!

A bad lunch

So, it's Friday, I have almost two hours left, and nothing really blog about. The highlight-slash-lowlight of my day so far was my trip to Bloomingfoods for a celebratory end of the week lunch.

The hot bar didn't look too promising, though they did have one of my favorites: Tom's Turkey Meatballs. They also had some roasted root vegetables, but they looked like they had been made "sweet style," which is not to my liking. I gave a brief thought to a small salad topped with a giant meatball, but headed, instead, to the cold deli sandwiches.

I was really hoping to find a "Don't Mess with Texas." I can't remember what was on it, but it is some kind of turkey club wrap with bacon and avocado and some kind of spicy relish or salsa or something. No suck luck. They DID, however, have an Asian Pork wrap, and they sold them by the 1/2. Done. It was smallish and mostly veg, so I got a little vegan sushi to go along with it. And of course a delicious fresh brewed iced tea.

It was, unfortunately, a bit of a disappointment. The pork on the sandwich was really greasy, which was a terrible mix for the very tart oil and vinegar dressing that was on the wrap. It tasted almost like straight rice wine vinegar, but I new it also had some oil in it because I could feel it on my hands. I feel like sesame oil would have been a much better choice.

As for the sushi, it was fine. I got the most boring of all possible selections, because it was the cheapest. A dozen little seaweed wrapped nuggets of brown rice with cucumber, carrots or avocado in the center, served with the typical wasabi and pickled ginger. It's my favorite to buy from the grocery...kind of like Hoosier-Asian comfort food to me. The only bad part about it was when I squirted soy sauce on my passenger seat. Hopefully James's butt will soak it up when I pick him up from work tonight. :)

An apple a day...or two

I love fruit. Crisp, sweet, juicy, delicious fresh fruit is one of the highlights of the summer season, and my local co-op grocery store, Bloomingfoods, is never short on interesting varieties of fresh organic fruit. Summer is the time when each new day promises an exciting and succulent taste to be discovered with my morning piece of fruit. Ripe, juicy peaches; fragrant, exotic plums; oranges ranging in color from almost yellow to a deep crimson; and so many more all just waiting to be plucked from the stack and enjoyed. And the pies, My God, the pies. Ahh. It is a magical time.

So what about fall and winter? Sure, Bloomingfoods still has a pretty good selection of fruit even in the cold winter months, but it's just not the same. So what is a fruit loving girl like me to do? Enjoy the bountiful harvest of local apples, that's what! This year, I have become a bit of a connoisseur of local apples and here I will highlight a few of my favorites.

Most Surprising Apple: Gold Rush

This apple looks like a rusty Golden Delicious. I don't care for Golden Delicious apples(or Red Delicious, either). I find them to be a bit soft and mealy for my taste, not to mention bland. The Gold Rush Apple, however, is no Golden Delicious. The skin is not shiny like most grocery store apples and it actually has the feel of a Bartlet pear. It is just slightly rough to the touch in spots, but smooth in others. Quite interesting. Once you bite into it it, you will never go back to the bland, mealy commonplace of the Golden Delicious ever again. This sweet apple has a smooth, bright, and full flavor. To me, the aftertaste is almost like honey with a hint of butter. The flesh is firm and dense, but crisp. It is a perfect apple to eat plain (for breakfast, of course) and it also goes well in a three-apple pie. It is by far my favorite non-red apple.

Best Pie Apple: Pink Lady
Apparently, the Pink Lady Apple is trendy this year. Whatever. I have been enjoying the pink lady apple for years now. It is tart, sweet, crisp, and beautiful to look at. And this year, I discovered that it is the PERFECT apple for a single variety apple pie. When a good cook goes to make an apple pie, he or she usually chooses three kinds of apples. One for tartness and acidity, one for sweetness and texture and then something in the middle to balance the two. For a three apple pie, I like Granny Smith, Gold Rush, and Turley Winesap. But why bother?? The Pink Lady apple is perfect all by itself! The only problem with them is that they are usually small, so you often have to peel one or two extra, but it is worth it. The pie I made this year was amazing. James said it was the best apple pie that he had ever tasted and that I should be careful about making it for a party because once people tried it, I would never be allowed to make anything else other than apple pie. For that particular pie, I pureed about 1/4 of the apples, added 1 tbs of Slivovitz, and used half cornstarch and half flour for the thickening agent. Next time I plan to use Applejack instead of the Slivovitz, but that's just an excuse to try a new liquor. I hear it was a favorite of George Washington!

Best Apple for Out of Hand Eating: Melrose
All of this apple-eating is getting out of hand! Thank you, Alton Brown, for providing me with the correct term for eating a piece of fruit in it's unadorned and unaltered, natural state. The Melrose apple is a beautiful specimen and the perfect apple to eat just as it is. When I picture an apple in my mind, this is the one. The appealing red and green-to-yellow skin makes it an approachable every-apple and the taste does not disappoint. It is crisp and light, with just a hint of tartness to compliment it's sweet juicy flesh. It's a very juicy variety of apple and I always make sure I have a napkin handy when I am about to enjoy one of these bad boys. It has characteristics reminiscent of so many other apple varieties, but it also has a nice slightly floral aftertaste that is very unique. Another bonus is that they are usually pretty big, so I can have one for my mid-morning breakfast or afternoon snack and it will usually hold me over to lunch or dinner.

So there they are! The top 3 apple varieties of fall/winter 2008. I have already begun to see the first sneak peeks of what is to come this summer, and the apples are just now starting to get the taste of a fruit that's not in season, but for now, for at least the next few weeks, I will relish these delicious local gems.

Life is just a bowl of cherry tomatoes...

Spring is right around the corner, and so begins a great time of year...garden preparation season! Last year, James and I has a very successful container garden, largely purchased through spur of the moment discoveries of seedlings at the Bloomington Farmer's Market. This year, we have spent several weeks planning out what we will have next year, purchasing seeds from a catalogue, and deciding which places inside and outside of our apartment will be the best places too start some seeds and grow some plants. We have chosen several varieties of tomatoes, some chard, watermelon, and peppers and we hope to find some seedlings for raspberries, mint and a few others at the market. The seeds I am most looking forward to are the ground cherries, which turned out to be a variety of husk tomato that reportedly tastes like a cross between a strawberry and pineapple, with the consistency of a tomato. I cannot WAIT to use them to make a delicious pie.

I will take this opportunity to stroll down memory lane and reminisce about last years bountiful harvest with some long-stored pictures of our beautiful above ground garden.
By far, our most successful crop of the season were the tomatoes. We had five varieties as I recall...100 cherry tomatoes, juliettes, and two typical slicing size tomato plants, but the crown jewel of our collection were the black chocolate cherry tomatoes.
They took forever to mature and ripen, but they were so delicious when they finally did. They were sweet and rich with very light acidity and had a great rusty-brown color that looked like a milk chocolate covered cherry-hence the name, of course. This particular plant has a harrowing back story. When we realized that we would need to re-pot it into a bigger vessel, the stalk broke, nearly right in half above the root. I was sure that the little guy was a goner, but we set it back up, put a splint on it and plants it as deep into the new put as possible. After about four excruciating days of waiting and googling, the leathery green leaves finally began to perk up and after about a week and a half, he was as good as new. This particular plant was also the longest-lived of all of our tomatoes, producing a few delicious little fruits even after the first frost.
All of our plants last year produced some fruit, but none of them were nearly as healthy, productive, and easily cared for as our tomatoes. That is why we have chosen to focus on tomatoes this year, and purchase most of our other fresh seasonal produce from the farmer's market.
The eggplant plant was probably our second best vegetable. It only made three eggplants, but they were each beautiful and delicious. It was hard to tell when the eggplants were ripe for picking, so we ended up leaving them on for a long time. If we had picked them right away, I think we would have gotten more fruits.
One slight disappointment was our squash plant. We got one green and one yellow crook neck. Each was slow to produce any fruit and each only produced a couple. The green zucchini plant was especially poor. The fruits were lovely and delicious, but I would have liked more. I think they may have just needed more room to grow and spread. We did indulge in some squash blossoms stuffed with goat cheese. These little delicacies were almost good enough to be worth the effort to grow the whole entire plant, but not quite.

We had a great year for basil, too. We had two basil plants, one of which I grew from a seed, the other purchased as a seedling. I love fresh basil and James and I enjoyed two nice batches of fresh pesto in addition to having the fresh leaves on hand for pizza, pasta, and anything else we wanted to add it to. A summer garden without fresh basil is a disgrace! It is so delicious and so easy to grow, there really is no reason not to have some all year long. You just have to be sure to prune the flowers when they start to sprout so that your plant doesn't go to seed. Keep it pruned, and it will grow into a hearty bush by the end of the summer!

We also came across some beautiful purple Thai basil at the ol' farmers market. We are suckers for fresh herbs. It was lovely and grew very well, even after having been blown off the porch during a storm. The only trouble with something that unique is that it is hard to find an opportunity to use it all. We made a few Asian dishes, like lettuce wraps, to pair it with, but we always seemed to forget to bring some along whenever we went to have Pho. It would have been perfect shredded into a steaming hot bowl of delicious Vietnamese beef soup. Maybe this year we will try it, if we find some more of that basil!
And finally, we have our little jalapeno pepper plant. The poor thing had a sorry showing all through the blazing hot peak of summer. It stayed green and seemed to have perpetually budding and dying blossoms and only produced a few small peppers from time to time. We had actually given up on it, but we continued to water it and care anyway. Then, finally in late august after we moved, the thing completely came to life. Each little branch lit up with blossoms and by the time fall arrived, we had more jalapenos than we knew what to deal with. It was an especially welcome harvest in light of the big pepper contamination issue that occurred late last summer. We were the only place in town with fresh jalapenos for a couple of weeks! Luckily, no one ever found out and we were able to keep out peppers all for ourselves.

It was a fun an exciting summer. I really loved tending the plants and enjoying their tasty bounty. I'm not sure if it is the small scale production of a home garden or what, but vegetables from your own garden (or someone else's garden for that matter) are just some much more flavorful, sweet, and delicious. With any luck, we'll start our seeds this weekend and have our seedlings out basking in the sun next month. I can't wait!