and other sunshine substitutes to warm up the winter…
I haven’t found that many Darling Clementines this winter…until this week!
The grocers shelves have been full of Halo Mandarins ( a New York Times story on Mandarin growing in California)…
and of course, grapefruit
and mangoes – Van Gogh mangoes, no less
Van Gogh painted lots of fruit and veg, but no mangoes…although in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam there is a painting by Paul Gauguin of Mango Trees
I bought some beets last week…..
I once had a bunch of beets on the checkout counter. The cashier held them up and asked,”Bunch of radishes?” I shook my head, and he asked,”But they are a BUNCH???” Evidently ‘bunch’ is a category he could look things up by….we finally got to BEET.
With the bunch of beets you get the bonus greens, good by themselves, good for soup. I roasted the beets for salad, and ate them peeled, diced with some blue cheese dressing. I was going to mix them with orange, but I just kept eating them (beet and orange) separately.
Lemons were in the markdown bin….
I’ll juice them and put the juice in an ice cube tray in the freezer. When frozen, I’ll pop them into a baggie (I get the freezer bags because they have a place to write what’s inside) and be able to have a little juice whenever…..
I love the new ice cube trays! I don’t often use ice cubes, but I like to freeze bits of things to use them later.
I’ve had plenty of roasted pumpkin to keep me warm….I used some to make a pasta sauce. Or I could have used dome to top a pizza…..
.
I had some red and yellow peppers, and inspired by a recent New York Times story,as well as any excuse to use the oven because it’s SOOOOO cold outside, I made a red and yellow pepper pizza…EXCEPT (you knew that this part was coming…..)
I didn’t have the sausage or the mozzarella cheese…..actually, I HAD the sausage, it was just in the freezer and a little hard to use at the time, so I left it out. Then I realized that I had no mozzarella or ricotta or cheddar… heavy dairy products were put on the shopping list, and I punted along with what I had.
I had some Parmesan.Actual cheese and not wood pulp.
.I froze half of the dough, because 4 pizzas are more then I can manage for myself.
I topped the piece I used with the peppers, and a little hot red pepper and olive oil and grated cheese.A little onion and garlic chopped very fine to mix it all up. Peppers really need to be cooked a little ahead and/or cut very very small….So a B minus sort of pizza.
As I was washing up, I remembered that there was a little bacon in the fridge. THAT would have made the pizza into B plus/A minus grade.
I ended my meal with some dried apricots….
and some Jammin’ Lemon Ginger…..because this cold snap is going to break soon, right?:
As for soups…..I want to cook beans and lentils and other sorts of pulses …with greens. I feel a soup week coming on.
