enjoying summer's bounty

muth family farm's organic csa week 8: red chard, bok choy, yellow watermelon, lettuce, canary melon, sungolds and other heirloom tomatoes, white and purple pepper, onions, amaranth leaves, raspberries, yellow squash, cucumber, 8 ball squash, beets, corn...

and another cute eggplant - this time a girl!

emma the eggplant

the vase in the center is holding just a fraction of the pears i have from my mother and stepfather's tree. pears are up there as one of my favorite fruits, so i've been eating them as often as possible.

smoothie ingredients pre-blending

(pear, collard leaves, lemon, canary melon, cucumber, purslane, bloobs and banana)

yummy pear-based smoothie with frozen watermelon

i made pear-tinis with frozen banana...

and used pear in most of my fruit roll-ups, along with bananas, blueberries and canary melon.

the idea struck to recreate my pearberry bliss ice cream cake with muth raspberries. (can't believe it's mid-august and i haven't made a raw ice cream cake - shame on me!=)

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our generous neighbor has been sharing her harvest of cantaloupe, tomatoes and potatoes. john and i made a delicious italian-style tomato sauce to top our raw pizza, with garden basil pesto sauce and zucchini pasta.

(some purists may think it sacreligious to put cooked tomato sauce on raw food, but i say, why not? it tasted great, and i'm told that cooking tomatoes increases the lycopene, an antioxidant known to decrease cancer and heart-disease risk.)

we found another little friend in the potatoes...

potsy the potato

that we fried in a big wok with olive oil, garlic and rosemary. the potatoes made a delicious side for grilled tomato sandwiches on ezekiel bread smothered in raw ranch dip. super yummsies!

the raspberries for the vinaigrette were from muth, as well as the tomatoes...

and our garden green apple cucumbers topped the salad.

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my mom sent me this funny picture of a friend she found in her cucumber patch with the caption

"has anyone seen my friend edgar?"

ha! like mother like daughter!=)

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on the gardening front, things aren't looking too good in our raised beds. i'm not sure why. it's been a pretty dry, sunny summer, though our plants at the community garden are flourishing.

we've got at least 10 butternut squash growing from seeds that i saved last summer. with global seed saboteurs like monsanto, i feel it's wise to save seeds that have not been genetically modified. no franken-fruits in my house!=)

here's an interesting video i had to share (cute goats about 7 and a half minutes in!=):

i hope you're enjoying fresh fruits and veggies around your way!

=)