Heirloom Tomatoes

It is not often that I buy heirloom tomatoes. They look pretty, but I'm not convinced the taste appeal is worth the hefty price tag. I put cherry tomatoes in our salads; otherwise I tend to cook tomatoes, and the regular red organic ones are fine.

This week, however, I decided to serve heirloom tomatoes as a side salad. I sprinkled them with olive oil, salt and pepper and lime juice. They went beautifully with a simple dinner of tofu and rice.

Chestnuts

Chestnuts always mean fall to me. Usually the locally available ones are imported from Italy, which is a ridiculous use of fuel. Fortunately, Ha's Apple Farm in the Tehachapi Mountains also has chestnut trees, and last week I bought some of the first crop of the season.

The nuts are currently part of our fall decorations, but soon I hope to roast them in the fireplace and burn my fingers. I don't expect them to end up in a fancy recipe. I'll just enjoy the fresh roasted flavor, and the smell of woodsmoke in the air.

Sunday Shopping

The temperatures fell into the 70s this week, good fall weather, perfect for pumpkins and squash, pomegranates, red lettuce, and the first nuts of the season. It's a good time for eating.

Here's what we bought at the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning:

2 grapefruit, 1 pomegranate, 14 oranges, 1 dozen eggs, 3 orleans apples, 2 bartlett pears, 1 red sails lettuce, 1 ambrosia cantaloupe, 2 small butternut squash, 2 bunches of spring onions, 1 box cherry tomatoes, 1 small pumpkin, 1 cucumber, 1 bunch radishes, celery, 2 small green and 1 small red romaine lettuce, 2 bacon avocados, 2 heirloom tomatoes, 1 bunch carrots, 1 celery root, 8 large shiitakes, 3 fennel bulbs, green beans, 6 small sweet potatoes, 4 red tomatoes, and chestnuts from Ha's Apple Farm. 

Beans and Greens

Yes, I'm a little obsessive with my beans and greens. If we all ate these every day, we would be much healthier.

There are many ways to cook these nutritious and delicious ingredients. This is what I did on Sunday.

I cooked the beans early in the day and drained them. (You could use a 14-oz can of beans.) Later I cooked the tomato sauce. Just before eating, I reheated it, steamed the spinach separately, and then combined them.

There's enough sauce to make this a great dish to eat with rice or another grain. However, I also like it in a bowl just as is.

My body is thrilled to be eating all these good nutrients. Yours will be too.

Beans and Greens
2/3 cup large white beans
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
3/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
1 tbsp olive oil
14oz can tomatoes
6 oz spinach

Cook the beans in plenty of simmering water until tender. Drain and set aside.

Sauté garlic and onion in olive oil until softened. Add canned tomatoes and cook until they are broken down. Add the cooked beans and mix well.

Wash the spinach, pull off any tough stems, and chop coarsely.

Put it in a pan with an inch of boiling water, cover, place over medium heat, and let steam 3 minutes until tender but still a little crisp.

Toss the spinach and beans together. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Serves 4

Tomato Chili Pickle

A few weeks ago I planned to cook ratatouille. I bought peppers and tomatoes but couldn't find any eggplant at the Hollywood Farmers Market. I was thwarted in my plan.

So instead I turned the tomatoes into this tomato chili pickle. This is not pickle like Americans understand it. It's a form of British chutney, like lime pickle, a spicy relish to serve with curries or meats.

It's similar to sambal oelek, although a little less hot.

I'm giving you the recipe I used, but I have to warn you that in order to be completely food safe you should cook the full jars in a hot water bath for 20 minutes - I describe that in our salsa recipe.

I didn't do that, because I was feeling British. My grandmother made all sorts of preserves and put them in sterilized jars with a layer of greaseproof paper on top. No one died. This chili pickle has so much vinegar and chilies in it that I felt fine not boiling it, but the food safety police would be on me if I recommended such recklessness to you. It should be fine poured into a sterilized jar and refrigerated for a few months (if you can keep your family away from it).

I recommend serving it on with grain dishes or squash or veggie burgers - anything that might need a little zip. It rescued our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner from blandness.

The heat will vary depending on your peppers. I used jalapeños from my droughty garden - extra hot.

Yum. It disappears quickly. I should have made more.

Tomato Chili Pickle
10 jalapeños, stemmed
1 oz fresh ginger root, peeled
1 tsp tumeric
3 tsp cumin seeds
3 tbsp organic canola oil
5 cloves garlic
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp salt
3/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 1/4 lbs tomatoes, cored and cut in 8ths

Grind the jalapeños, ginger root, turmeric and cumin together in a small food processor or blender with a little oil.

Warm the rest of the oil over medium-high heat until quite hot. Stir in the puréed peppers and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring. Lower the heat and add the garlic, sugar, salt and vinegar. Keep stirring. When the sugar has dissolved, stir in the tomatoes and cook down until it's pulpy.

Pour into sterilized jars, cover and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Makes about a pint.

Sunday Shopping

The colors at the Hollywood Farmers' Market were beautiful this morning: purple eggplants; red, yellow and green peppers; all shades of greens and many colors of winter squash. I managed to come home without a squash, but everything else jumped into my bag.

Here's what we'll be eating this week:
1 red onion, 3 yellow onions, 1 bunch carrots, 4 large yellow potatoes, 3 red peppers, 2 green peppers, cilantro, 6 san marzano tomatoes, 3 bartlett pears, 5 pink grapefruit, 1 dozen eggs, 4 small plain St. Benoit yogurt, red grapes, black grapes, 2 fuyu persimmons, sun gold cherry tomatoes, 3 cameo apples, 2 mutsu apples, 3 small eggplant, 2 butter lettuce, 1 yellow pepper, rainbow chard, lacinato kale, 1 cantaloupe, spinach, green beans, and Jorge had found the last 3 pomelos in his orchard and brought them for me.

We also restocked some staples: ginger root (not organic but locally-grown - the ginger root at my local grocery store is shipped from China), 5 lbs brown rice from Koda Farms, 1 lb walnuts from Rancho LaVina, and 2 bulbs garlic.

Lazy Sunday Cooking

This is day-old pesto stew - the pesto turned
brown, but it was still delicious!

Sometimes I wake up on Sunday morning with no desire to think about food, even though we're about to head to the Hollywood Farmers Market to do our weekly grocery shopping. When this happens, I turn to Robin Robertson's Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker to inspire me to make Sunday dinner.

(Then I buy a lot of good-looking vegetables at the market and figure out what to do with them later.)

Every recipe I've made from her book works and is delicious - unlike some of the other vegetarian slow cooker books I have (see my post on squash and barley risotto - not from Robin's book.)

On a recent Sunday morning,  she inspired me to make white beans with pesto. Yum. I had vegan pesto (no cheese) in the freezer from last fall, so it was simple to defrost and stir into the stew before serving it.

It cooks for 6-8 hours, so I had time to make it when we got home from the market - I soaked the beans while we were out so they would cook more quickly.

Usually I don't bother peeling tomatoes, but it really is an easy thing to do once I've boiled the water, and it makes a textural difference. So I rose to the occasion.

Larry usually only likes pesto on pasta, but he thought this stew was just great. I hope you enjoy it too.

White Bean and Pesto Stew
1 cup dried white lima beans or other white bean1 tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion (about 1 cup chopped)
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
3 tomatoes
1 1/2 cups water or vegetable stock
1/4 cup pesto

Pick over the beans and discard any stones. Wash them, then put in a saucepan, cover with 2 inches of water, and bring to a boil. Put the lid on, and let the beans simmer gently until they are tender, 90 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the age of your beans. When they are tender but not soft (no hard center), drain them and set aside. (At this point they can be refrigerated for 2-3 days until you're ready to use them.)

Warm the oil and sauté the onion until softened, about 5 minutes.

Bring a pot of water to the boil. Cut an X through the skin at the base of each tomato. Put them in the water for 30 seconds, then lift them out and put them in a  bowl of ice water. Let them cool enough to handle, then peel off the skin with your fingers, starting at the X. Then cut each tomato in half along the equator and scoop out the seeds with a small spoon or your fingers. Chop them coarsely, removing the stem end.

Scoop the cooked onions into a 4-quart slow cooker. Add the diced red peppers, chopped tomatoes, cooked beans and water or stock. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Just before serving, stir in the pesto.

Serves 4-6

Sautéed Lacinato Kale

I always snap up lacinato kale, also known as dinosaur kale or cavolo nero or Tuscan kale, when I see it at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

It's a sturdy kale that lasts well in the fridge, and cooks into a side of greens with texture and a little chewiness.

I served this dish at Canadian Thanksgiving. It goes well with grain dishes (or stirred into cooked brown rice), and with baked squash - any time you want an easy green side dish.

Of course, it's also extremely healthy. Kale is a member of the cabbage family which offers protection against many cancers. It's also full of antioxidants, and is known for its anti-inflammatory and pro-cardiovascular benefits. Cooking it in a little oil helps break down the cell walls so our bodies can better absorb the nutrients.

Plus, it's really simple to wash, chop and cook.

Sautéed Lacinato Kale
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 bunch lacinato kale

Warm the olive oil in a skillet. Chop the onion and cook it until it's tender.

Wash the kale and chop off the bottom of the stems. Chop the leaves down the center, then stack them and cut across in rough 1 inch strips.

Stir the kale into the onion and let it cook down a little, stirring occasionally.

Now you have two options. At Thanksgiving, I was making it a couple of hours ahead and reheating it, so I scooped it from the skillet when it was softer but not fully cooked, put it in a covered casserole dish and left it at room temperature. About 15 minutes before we wanted to eat, I put it in the toaster oven at 350°F.

If you're going to eat it sooner, let it cook, covered, in the skillet until it's the texture you like. If it browns on the bottom a little, that adds to the flavor. If it's ready before you are, turn off the heat and let it sit, covered, until you're ready to eat it. Reheat quickly and serve.

Serves 2-3

Canadian Thanksgiving

Canadians do Thanksgiving differently to Americans. To start with, it's earlier - the second Monday in October (although most people eat Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday). Leaves are turning and the harvest is coming in. It's the weekend to close up the cottage, clean out the garage, tune up the snow blower and put away the lawn mower.

Turkey is the traditional dinner centerpiece, but there's not the same focus on gluttony that there is here in the U.S. In fact, I can't remember a traditional Thanksgiving dessert. I asked my mum and she couldn't remember what we used to eat for dessert either. (She had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house where they ate apple crisp from apples the family had picked that day at a local orchard. That sounds like a good tradition.)

Larry and I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in Los Angeles yesterday with a day in the garden and then dinner eaten outdoors under the stars. This year we ate barley and squash cooked in the slow cooker, with sides of lacinato kale and baked acorn squash.

The barley dish was a new one - and I won't be making it again. It was bland - probably because I have run out of my excellent roasted vegetable stock so the liquid was plain water. But honestly, I'm not sure even vegetable stock could have saved it.

Fortunately, I served it with Tomato Chili Pickle, a relish I made in August when we had extra tomatoes. (More on that another day.) That made it delicious.

On the side were cooked kale and baked acorn squash. It was a pretty autumnal meal.

And fortunately we didn't have room for dessert. Because I hadn't made one.

Sunday Shopping

It was misty and cool at the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning, a welcome respite after all the heat.

By the time we got home, the mist had burned off and the sun was shining in on our dinette - making a beautiful picture of the great organic produce we had brought home with us.

It will be another beautiful day in Southern California.

Here's what we bought to eat this week:
8 limes, 5 poblanos, 1 quart of plain yogurt and 4 small unmarked but hopefully plain yogurts from St. Benoit (who really need to get their act together with the labels), 3 red onions, 2 red peppers, 1 green pepper, 1 yellow pepper, 1 bunch celery, 1 bunch cilantro, 1 cucumber, 1 baby romaine, 5 early girl tomatoes, 3 bartlett pears, 3 summerville apples, 3 mutsu apples, 1 red sails lettuce, 1 cantaloupe, 12 oranges, 3 grapefruit, 4 brown onions, 2 sweet potatoes, 1 small acorn squash, 1 bunch lacinato kale, 1 treviso radicchio, a couple of handfuls of green beans, 1 bunch parsley, 1 medium red cabbage, 4 yosemite gold tangerines, 1 dozen eggs, and 1 head frisée chicory.

Eggs and Peppers

When the red peppers appear at the Hollywood Farmers Market, I take some home to make into this luscious breakfast dish.

I sauté onions, peppers and tomatoes until juicy and sweet, then top them with poached or fried eggs and sprinkle a little feta on top. If we're feeling decadent, as we were a week ago, we mop up the sauce with slices of baguette.

I used to poach the eggs directly in the sauce, but then it all needs to be eaten at brunch, because the leftovers are distinctly unattractive. This time, I cooked the eggs separately so any leftover sauce could be saved and enjoyed over potatoes or with rice.

Eaten on the patio in the slanting fall sunshine, this is a seasonal feast.

Eggs and Peppers

1 small onion, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp hot paprika

1 small clove garlic, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

4 eggs

2 tbsp crumbled feta

Warm oil in a skillet. Add the onion and pepper and cook, covered, over moderately high heat. Stir occasionally and cook until softened, 7-8 minutes. Add paprika and garlic and cook another minute, stirring. Add tomatoes and cook, uncovered, until vegetables are tender, another 5 minutes or so.

Poach or fry the eggs.

Spoon some sauce onto each plate. Top with 2 eggs. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp feta.

Enjoy.

Serves 2 

Bean Salad with Basil

Bean salads are an easy bread-free way to add protein to the vegetarian lunch box.

Take cooked beans, add some celery or green pepper for crunch, some cherry tomatoes or cucumber for juiciness, and some herbs for flavor. Toss in a simple vinaigrette and you have an easy dish that will last a few days in the fridge, ready to be scooped into cup-sized containers and added to the lunch box.

This week we'll be eating this pretty salad in our lunches.

Bean Salad with Basil
1 cup dry beans (I used a combination of white limas and Christmas limas)
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup fresh basil
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the beans in plenty of boiling water until tender, about 90 minutes. Drain and toss with the vinegar. Let cool at room temperature.

Add the remaining ingredients. Toss well. Season to taste.

Enjoy at room temperature.

Serves 4-6

Sunday Shopping

The slanting October light shone on the piles of pumpkins and apples at the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning. It will be in the 90s today, but at 8 a.m. it was comfortable, which was a good thing because Larry had a lot of produce to haul to the car.

Here's what we bought:
1 cantaloupe, 3 bartlett pears, 3 mutsu apples, 3 somerville apples, 3 huge pink grapefruit, 1 pomegranate, 4 limes, 7 red potatoes, orange cherry tomatoes, 1 red onion, 5 tomatoes, 2 red peppers, 1 onion, 2 quarts of plain yogurt, 1 quart lemon yogurt (for Larry to take to a breakfast pot luck), 3 small plain yogurts, 12 oz chile lemon pistachios, and 5 lbs san marzano tomatoes to make another batch of salsa. Russ sharpened two knives for us while we strolled the market.

Lemon Tofu

I have little patience for the flexitarian moniker. Basically it means you'll eat anything - you're flexible, an omnivore. Why that needs a special name, I'm not sure.

But I've enjoyed browsing through Peter Berley's book, The Flexitarian Table, and have tried some of his techniques that were new to me. (It helps that he was the chef at a vegetarian restaurant for a while.)

This tofu recipe is one he developed while chef at that restaurant in the 1990s, and it's definitely stood the test of time.

I tried it because both my thyme bush and my lemon tree are producing vigorously. But the main seasonings are the standard balsamic vinegar and tamari, so it's a good substitute for marinated tofu in any recipe.

Lemon Tofu
12 oz package firm organic tofu
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp finely chopped thyme
1/8 tsp cayenne
1 lemon

Rinse the tofu, wrap it in a clean kitchen towel, and press it between two plates. Put a weight on the top plate (a jar of barley or can of tomatoes or heavy skillet work fine) and let it sit about 30 minutes.

Slice the tofu in 4 1/2-inch thick triangles. Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Whisk together all but the tofu and lemon. Put the mixture in a  casserole large enough to hold the tofu in a single layer, and add the tofu. Turn it to coat both sides.

Roast the tofu, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

Wash the lemon with a little dish soap. Dry it and slice it thinly. You'll need 1-2 slices for each tofu triangle. Take the seeds out.

Turn the tofu over, put the lemon slices on top, and baste with the small amount of marinade in the pan. Roast another 10-15 minutes until the tofu is well browned and the marinade has been absorbed.

Serves 4

Colorful Garnish

A few weeks ago, I wrote about cooking cherry tomatoes with mint. This week, I cooked them with a little garlic and basil for a side dish that Larry said would go with anything. That was good, because we ate them with tofu, and with eggplant, and with rice. They reheated well, and kept their red color and good flavor.

Here's what I did.

Colorful Garnish
1 tbsp olive oil
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 scallion, sliced
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp chopped basil
salt and pepper

Warm the olive oil in a skillet. Add the tomatoes, garlic, scallion and red pepper flakes. Cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes soften and start to crack, about 5 minutes. Stir in the basil and cook another couple of minutes until the tomatoes are juicy. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

Refrigerate leftovers, and reheat in a skillet or in a covered container in the toaster oven. They last a few days in the fridge, if you hide them.

Serves 4

Sunday Shopping

There was a sprinkle of rain as we headed to the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning, enough to turn on the windshield wipers occasionally, but not enough for us to be concerned about our lack of raincoats.

However, a drizzle of rain is a hazardous thing in southern California, especially in the fall when the freeways have not been washed of the accumulated oil and fluids of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that have driven on them since the last rain in the spring. The road surface quickly gets slick and dangerous, even in a light rainfall. Fortunately everyone around us slowed down, and we arrived safely at the market.

By the time we were heading home at 8:45 a.m., however, the accidents had started. We passed a fender-bender on the Hollywood freeway, and were glad it was already by the side of the road. We cruised up the curvy Pasadena freeway until a half mile before our exit when the traffic slowed to a crawl. Fifteen minutes and a quarter-mile later, we passed the six-car pile-up. No one seemed hurt, the Highway Patrol and a tow truck were on the scene but no fire engines or ambulances.

We're always happy when we return home safely from our weekly marketing, even if sometimes we are a little later and have a more stressful drive than we expected.

Here is a list of the excellent organic produce that made the drive home with us:
3 onions, 2 red peppers, 2 tomatoes, 2 white potatoes, 1 small acorn squash, 1 small butternut squash, 10 ears of corn from Tutti Frutti (it sounds like a lot, but I need 5 cups of kernels for corn chowder and these cobs were small and quite organically wormy), 4 small yogurts from St. Benoit, 3 mountain-grown peaches from Ha's Apple Farm (the only organic peaches that really taste like peaches this year), 4 poblano peppers (to roast and start my freezer stash), 3 cameo apples, 1 bunch lacinato kale, 1 ogen melon, 1 small spaghetti squash (very small, honest), 24 oranges (too many for our juice, but I got into a discussion with Jorge about whether I could plant my citrus trees in the clay soil at the bottom of our garden, and kept absentmindedly adding oranges to my bag - we'll keep some of them for next Sunday's juice), 2 grapefruit, 1 red sails lettuce, feta, baguette, cucumber, carrots, eggs and cherry tomatoes.

Awesome Eggplant

Many years ago, when if you had told me I'd marry an American and move to Los Angeles I would have scoffed, my mother and I made this eggplant dish for Canadian Thanksgiving.

It was just the two of us, and we thought eggplant was an excellent celebratory dish. Cooked this way, a recipe from Annie Somerville's book Fields of Greens, we were right.

The recipes in this book are a little more complicated than I usually make, but that adds to the layers of flavors that make these dishes extra special. It comes together in about an hour.

Roll forward many years, and my American husband Larry and I returned home to Los Angeles from our trip back East last week to find one of our pathetic eggplant plants actually had a large purple eggplant. This was cause for celebration, so I dug out this recipe. Awesome!

Awesome Eggplant
1 eggplant (3/4 lb)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup diced onion
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
2 tbsp white wine
2 sun-dried tomatoes, diced
1 tbsp almonds, slivered
3 tbsp parmesan

Preheat oven to 375°F. Cut eggplant in half lengthwise. Scoop out the center, leaving about 1/4 inch shell. If the flesh is very seedy, discard some of the seeds. Cut the flesh into dice.

Combine the tbsp olive oil and small clove of garlic. Brush the insides of the eggplant shells with this, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put cut side down on a cookie sheet. Bake until tender, 10-15 minutes.

The bottom eggplant is the one we ate. The upper
one will be made into dinner later in the week.

Sauté onion in 1 tbsp oil with salt and pepper for about 5 minutes until tender. Add the diced eggplant and 1 minced clove of garlic. Sauté 5 minutes until the eggplant is tender. It will be dry and sticking a little to the pan, that's okay. Transfer to a bowl.

In the same skillet, heat 1 tbsp oil over high heat. Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper. Stir occasionally. When golden brown, about 5 minutes, add the remaining clove of garlic and cook another couple of minutes. Add the wine and simmer 1-2 minutes until the pan is almost dry.

Toss the mushrooms with the eggplant mixture. Scrape the pan well so all the browned parts are added. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and almonds. Stir in all but 1 tbsp parmesan. Place the eggplant shells in a casserole dish and mound in the filling. Cover and bake 25-30 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining parmesan and bake uncovered 5 minutes.

Serves 3-4 as a main course.

Warm leftovers in the oven - they are almost more delicious than the original.

Braised Carrots Provençale

I had long slender carrots in the fridge and decided they would look beautiful cut in slivers and cooked Provençale style with tomatoes and basil.

I rarely cut vegetables into julienne, but these carrots were so slender it was easy. I cut them in half lengthwise, then put the halves flat side down on the board and cut them into 3 or 4 long slender pieces each. Some of the carrots were so long that I cut them in half horizontally for ease of cooking.

(No self-respecting cook would call these juliennes because I cut the carrots much larger than matchsticks. Feel free to cut matchsticks if you prefer - the carrots will take less time to cook if you do this.)

You will notice the carrots are steamed in a little oil, no water. Hard to believe it will work, I know. But it does. And I feel that cooked this way, all the nutrients are preserved in the carrot.

I used a ripe red poblano pepper from our garden for color, but an ordinary red pepper would work just as well.

It made a colorful and tasty vegetable side. The main dish was an awesome homegrown eggplant - more on that later.

Braised Carrots Provençale
1 lb slender carrots
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 red poblano or red pepper
1 large tomato
2 tbsp basil, chopped
lemon

Trim the carrots and peel them. (They look prettier peeled, but feel free to leave the peel on for the extra nutrition.) Cut them lengthwise in half, then put the cut side on the board and thinly slice them lengthwise.

Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet. Add the carrots, cover the pan, and cook over medium-low heat for 15 minutes. Add the garlic to the pan, stir, cover, and cook another 5 minutes until the carrots are flexible but not overcooked. Pour them out of the pan onto a plate.

Halve, seed and slice the pepper thinly. Core, halve and slice the tomato. Put the skillet over high heat, add the pepper and tomato with 2 tbsp water, cover, and cook until the water starts steaming (a glass-covered skillet makes this easy). Then cook 2-3 minutes until the pepper is tender.

Return the carrots to the pan, toss lightly, add the basil, toss again, and cook until warmed through. Squeeze some lemon juice over and serve.

Decorate with basil flowers if desired.

Serves 4

Sunday Shopping

We returned to the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning after a week away, and I could tell the seasons were changing.

At Jorge's stall I snagged the last pomelos and first pomegranates of the season. (He said he had pomegranates last week, but I was not there to appreciate them.)

Greens had all disappeared, probably because of the ridiculous heat last week. Pumpkins, winter squash, peppers and melons beckoned from every stall. Ha's apple farm continues to bring new varieties to the market as they ripen. We were freshly back from the East Coast so we reveled in the cool air and fall produce, but the farmers were still remembering last Sunday's market when the sun was blazing down on them by 8:30 a.m.

This is the organic produce we brought home with us:
5 beefsteak tomatoes, heirloom cherry tomatoes, red and green grapes, 1 portabello mushroom, 3/4 lb cremini mushrooms, 1 asian pear, 2 bartlett pears, 3 summerville apples, 3 gala apples, 4 peaches, 5 black kat plums, 3 small zucchini, 4 ears of corn, 1 red cabbage, 1 red sails lettuce, 1 red butter lettuce, 2 pomegranates, 4 yukon gold potatoes, 4 small plain yogurt from St. Benoit, 1 red onion, 3 pomelos, 1 cantaloupe, 1 charlynn melon.

Common Sense

We travelled last week through eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. (Californians will be surprised to hear we drove through three states on less than one tank of gas.)

Fall was in the air - pumpkins and chrysanthemums were in all the stores, and in Chesapeake City where we stayed, Halloween decorations were popping up.

While strolling through this picturesque canal-front town, Larry noticed this Maryland license plate. Not only is it pretty, but the slogan is right on:

Our Farms, Our Future.

Can't argue with that.