market bounty

the most amazing tomatoes i've had all year:


arranging:


tomatillos, my first time ever buying them. their fate? a roasted tomatillo salsa.


apples, nectarines and rasberries for the juicer:


yummy carrots for z's dinner:

roasted veggie bowls

this meal is what we call "cleaning out the fridge". it was a whole mess of roasted farmer's market veggies, leftover olive rolls from Iggy's, mango chutney and onion chutney from homemade indian the previous evening, and some leftover guac. Yum!
the first photo is my mess of a bowl, the second is Mauricio's organized meal.

york, maine 07. 24. 10

we try to escape the city as much as possible, even though we love it to death. but in the summer time, we just want to be surrounded by ocean, lakes rivers streams, trees and nature. extra points for seals, birds of prey, and roaring ocean waves.

this particular weekend in july, we escaped to york, maine. sure, it's a tourist trap, but we love it. i think we got our fix in for the next 5 years.

we sunned for two days, played the waves, ate amazing nachos grande and got drunk on fruity margaritas, and played our asses off on old school games at the arcade.

granola

once a month or so, i make some homemade granola. this particular batch wasn't the best (it didn't stick together very well), but it sure looks great before i baked it.

escape to bristol, maine 08.08.10

we escaped to maine for a long weekend. mauricio skipped out of work for a day, and we hopped in the Rabbit with Z as our backseat co-pilot. the trunk was full of food to cook up in Norma's woodland retreat, we were full of excitement to breathe in some fresh sea and country air from another one of our great New England states, and the idea of escaping reality for three whole days was enough to make us giddy.

we slept late, sat on cousin richard's dock and ate lobster rolls, hung around cute and lazy touristy towns that were dog friendly to the absolute max, and just got a nice huge dose of NATURE . mauricio needs this nature-charge every quarter or so :)

drinks, breakfast, veggies, oh my!

our collection of booze is growing (thanks to a shopping spree at our local NH state liquor store) and our house is filled to the brim with fresh fruit, so it was only natural that a berry mohito happened upon our very thirsty lips. berries from the farmer's market, cooked down and sieved, added with rums, simple syrup made from cane sugar, and mint from our window:



breakfast with some leftover salsa (from the week before):



i think this was farmer's market bounty #4, most importantly showing the jalenpenos i plan on pickling tomorrow:

spicy tuna bowls

About three weeks ago Mauricio and I took a sushi making class at the Cambridge Culinary Institute in porter square. It was part of his bday present, leftover from July. The instructor was great, we learned everything we need to know about preparing sushi, and we're excited to sign up for another class sometime later this year.

In honor of our new skills, we've been hitting the asian markets extra hard.
H-Mart in Burlington is the best, and we finally got adventurous and bought their sashimi grade tuna. There's another market in Medford square that's just Ok, and will do in a pinch. We bought sashimi grade tuna and salmon from them yesterday.

The spicy tuna bowl is easy! I made seasoned sushi rice (rice with a mixture of sugar, salt and rice wine vinegar), spicy tuna sauce (mayo and siracha), and farm fresh veggies from this weekend's farmer's market (yellow carrots, euro cukes). a grocery store avocado (i splurged), some black and white sesame seeds, some slivered seaweed and a big spoonful of eggs (i passed on that topping).

To top things off, and since i have sooo much free time on my hands lately, the crappy leftover spring rolls we ate (stole) from my parents' kitchen yesterday afternoon gave me a hankerin' for a great homemade roll. so this afternoon i did all the prep, and they took about 10 minutes to cook once M. got home. Since they weren't planned beyond the wrappers i purchased over the weekend, and I'm not really allowed to buy veggies from the grocery store, this is a farmer's market fresh spring roll. Instead of the usual asian veggies (like cabbage, sprouts, etc), this version has basil from our front window, and veggies from the market: kale, broccoli, carrots, garlic, and a few diced up wild US shrimp.

I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking: