Walnut & Sweet Potato Pasta

I love sweet potatoes. I love that they have an ugly exterior, yet reveal their brilliant orange when cut in half. I love that they are suggestively sweet, and can just as easily be used in a savory dish as in a sweet one. And I just love it when I get sweet potatoes in my Farm Fresh Miami bag, it's like getting a surprise chocolate bar in the lunches my mom would pack me for school.

It's hard to fight the urge I get when I come across a sweet potato. I just want to cut them into wedges, season, and bake them into delightful sweet potato wedges.

Pluot compote and almond crumble sunday.

I am a pretty healthy eater, but I have always been a sweet person. Chocolate in particular is my Achilles heel. If I were forced to eat just one thing for the rest of my life, it just might be, most probably would be, chocolate. When hearing the dessert specials at a restaurant, I usually just hear, blah, blah, chocolate mousse, blah blah blah, double chocolate cake, etc. I love good chocolate, very dark, slightly bitter, and complex in flavor chocolate, but I will even eat it when its not so good, overly sweet, and probably really just corn syrup masked as chocolate.

That is why it was a bit of a surprise when a craving for this vanilla ice cream dish, drizzled with pluot compote and topped with almond crumble came to mind. And you know what, it was even better than I thought it would be.

Another beautiful bag

This week we received another beautiful bag from Farm Fresh Miami, and i was delighted by what I found inside. Not only did we get more of those delicious pluots I have been harping on about, but we also received white peaches, apples, midnight oranges, radishes, green chard, broccoli, zucchini, green lettuce, roma tomatoes, red cabbage...oh, and how could I forget, sweet potatoes. (All this organic produce for $33 bucks a bag, I still can't believe it's true.)

Yay for sweet potato wedges!

Summer has not even come close to an end here in hurricane season Miami, yet i am eating sweet potatoes. And you know what, it's so good. I usually associate sweet potatoes with fall and winter, but since I keep getting them in my Farm Fresh Miami bag, I keep enjoying them. And really, what time of year isn't good for sweet potato wedges. They're easy to make, are so delicious, work as a side dish for almost any meal, and is also great as a movie time snack. Something I have been enjoying more and more of since the non stop rain has been keeping us indoors.

Cucumber Mint Salad

I know. Two mint salad recipes in a row. It's a bit much. And if I am going to be completely honest, I will tell you that I have quite a few more salad recipes where mint plays a star role. I guess I am really smitten with mint. Especially during the summer.

And also, when I have an herb in the fridge, I have to use all of it. I certainly can't let it go to waste. Nope. I have a real aversion to letting any food in my fridge go to waste.

Cool Fruit Salad - A la Emmaline

 Can you possibly think of a better fate for summer fruit than as a salad. Simple, evoking the fruits natural sweetness, highlighting their peak flavors.  When I was a kid, I thought fruit salads were boring. Man was I wrong. Fruit salads are amazing, and I love them. I want it for breakfast, and after dinner. (I seem to do that a lot though, eat the same thing over, and over, and over again. A little obsessive I suppose.)

But back to fruit salad. Another great thing about them; they are so easy to make. All you have to do is a little chop, chop, chop... mix ... and then wait for the flavors to deepen.

Farm Fresh Miami - An Organic Buying Group

Farm Fresh Miami, run by Erica Rullman, provides fresh, mainly local, organic produce at great prices. If you live in Miami, I highly recommend you join. The produce is always fresh and flavorful. I just had the most amazing pluots of my life, and I also now know what a pluot is thanks to Farm Fresh.


Since Miami is a sweltering sauna during the summer, little of the produce comes from South Florida, but as it  begins to simmer down, more and more of the fruits and vegetables come from local farms, guaranteeing a real freshness.


 One of the things I enjoy about it is the surprise element. Since I don't choose what veggies I buy, it forces me to eat things I might not normally eat, and to cook things I might not normally cook. I have developed a bunch of new recipes. If you find yourself eating the same thing every week, this might be just what your taste buds need.

Classic Hummus

So here is a quick post for a quick easy dish. It is another middle eastern fare. I think in the middle east they understand the types of food that are agreeable with heat.

Hummus is a great summer dish. It's another one of those that does not require you to turn up the temperature in your home, creating a mini sauna. You just collect your ingredients, combine, process, and done. And if you eat this along with tabbouleh and maybe even make a sandwich out of the two, then you have gotten yourself a complete meal without a lot of trouble (or heat.)

Tabbouleh - the perfect summer salad.

There is something about reaching august that makes me want to have little to do with the oven/stove area of the kitchen. I have gone through the heat of June and July without any effects on my desire to sauté or bake. But come august, I've had it. I no longer want to eat anything hot, I crave fresh brisk flavors. Maybe that's because in Miami, August is the muggiest of the three months of summer. Or maybe it's because salads and summer go so well together.

 
Either way, tabbouleh, a middle eastern salad, is a great dish to make if you are feeling the same effects of summer. It's brisk and refreshing flavor make it a perfect item to bring along on a picnic, or to eat standing up, straight from the bowl, after all the ingredients have been mixed.

Pizza on the Grill

Pizza. The universal food. If you have a picky eating, there's pizza. Not sure what to have for dinner, there's pizza. Bored, eat pizza. It is hard to find a person that honestly doesn't like pizza. And what's not to like. Melted cheese, hintingly sweet tomato sauce, crisp bread with a soft doughy crust. Just a pizza margherita takes three of our major food groups and presents them just right. Add a little prosciutto and arugula and you have yourself a well rounded meal. And pizza makes you want to eat right.

Pizza is communal, pizza is fun. You can eat it with your hands, with a knife and fork, hot from the pizza box, or cold from the fridge.