In season now

Although the local farmers' markets do not open for three more months, fresh Florida produce is available now according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. At their website they have a chart, Four Seasons of Freshness: Florida Produce Availability at a glance. (To print your own copy, go to this link, scroll down and choose download the Florida Seasonal Availability Chart.) Fresh from Florida in July are avocados, cantalope, green beans, green bell peppers, mangoes and watermelon. In August, the produce available fresh includes avocados, carambola, green beans, mangoes, sweet corn.

Although there is Florida produce available now, it has not been easy for me to find it. There is a small stand on Military Trail south of Lake Ida Road that is part nursery and part produce. There is limited produce available there but some of it is locally grown. The Boys' Market continues to be by best nearby source of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Green beans are available fresh from Florida growers every month of the year. I guess that explains why they are always on display in a huge mound at The Boys' Market. July is the only month when fresh corn is not available here. I can't imagine that the list can be rigid since growing plants do not know calendars. Since they know sun, rain, length of day, there will be crops available both later and earlier than the chart indicates.

With weeks more of great avocados, I plan to eat a lot of them. My daughter makes the best guacamole I have ever tasted and I am sharing her recipe below. I will also use them in my new favorite sandwich combined with watercress. When I was growing up and schools were closed for summer vacation, I used to walk with my younger brother and sister to a place we called The Glen. I am several years older, so my mother sent us off with me in charge of the twins who must have been going into second grade. We set off for a couple of hours with a snack in our school lunch boxes and Kool-Aid in our thermoses. (How my mother must have looked forward to those hours!) We walked through a cow pasture, then along the railroad tracks and across a small wooded area to a stream. In the stream grew watercress, which we picked, took home and ate in sandwiches with lots of butter. I guess we must have been trespassing the whole time, but who thought about that half a century ago. In time, the land was sold to a developer and a housing subdivision called Glenside was built. That was the end of the foraging for watercress and I have never had any that tasted as good.

My new favorite sandwich consists of whole grain bread spread with mashed avocado as if it were butter, thick slices of tomatoes, lots of watercress, and a thick slice of sweet onion. It would taste even better with Larissa's guacamole.

Larissa's Guacamole

2 ripe avocados
1 teaspoon grated red onion
2 garlic cloves, pressed
juice of half a lime
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Remove the skin and peel from the avocados and in a medium bowl mash them, leaving some chunks the size of cranberries. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until well mixed. Serve at once to prevent the unpleasant darkening of avocado that happens when it sits for a while.

Mom is right

Mom told you to eat your vegetables and she was right. Of course, that didn't keep the US government and Wal-Mart heir John Walton from spending $35 million on a study to show us that she was wrong. The National Cancer Institute study, The Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) Randomized Trial, is reported to have found no benefit from recommending that women with breast cancer eat more fruits, vegetables, and less fat.

Once again the media is eagerly reporting the "failure" of "high" consumption of vegetables and fruits to provide health benefits. I saw a movie trailer with one line that has haunted me: There are two sides to every story, but there is only one side to the truth. Think about who has the motivation to prove that the Standard American Diet is good for us and how much money that group has. Now think about who has the motivation to tell us to eat whole unprocessed foods. Now follow the money and decide which side of the story is more likely to be the truth.

Before the media causes you throw up your hands in despair over eating a diet proven repeatedly to be healthier, read this detailed analysis of the study in question. If you are not inclined to do that much reading, let this excerpt from Dr. John McDougall give you some food for thought today instead of a recipe to cook:

Breast cancer is a fatal disease and women will do almost anything to live. They will endure poisoning by toxic chemotherapy, burning with radiation, and mutilation from breast-amputating mastectomy; in the hopes of living a few more days. Obviously, if asked to do so, and given proper support from their doctors and dietitians, they would do something as simple, safe, cost-effective, and enjoyable as eating oatmeal and bean burritos while avoiding beefsteaks and cheese omelets. In The Women’s Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) Randomized Trial they continued the same meat-, dairy-, oil-, and environmental chemical-laden diet that got them in trouble in the first place, with minor modifications. The investigators, not the women, should be held responsible for the fact that even the instructions to eat, “5 vegetable servings plus 16 oz of vegetable juice; 3 fruit servings; 30 g of fiber; and 15% to 20% of energy intake from fat,” were followed poorly. The full cancer-inhibiting benefits of low-fat, plant-foods were never offered to these women.

A true test of diet for the prevention and treatment of breast cancer would follow the model of the diet of women worldwide who have the least chance of contracting breast cancer and the best chance of surviving it. These are women who follow a diet based on starches, like from rural Asia (rice), Africa (millet), Mexico (corn), New Guinea (sweet potatoes) and Peru (potatoes). The few women, who do get breast cancer in these societies, also live longer than their Western counterparts.

Yes, sometimes we do eat salads

When we talk to people at the pool about going out to eat, they often tell us we could eat with them at the restaurant they have in mind because the restaurant serves salad. As much as I would enjoy sharing a meal with them, I do not enjoy having a plate of iceberg lettuce with a tomato slice and watching everyone else eat a complete meal. And that is what happens at many restaurants which seem to have no vegetables except French fries and iceberg lettuce.

The reality is that we do often have salads because we eat many, many vegetables and we like many of them raw. The salad above is a typical salad at our house. It contains field mix, sliced radishes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, sugar-snap peas and whatever dressing I feel like making that day.

This time of the year the weather is perfect for spending late afternoons at the pool. Of course, that severely impacts the time available for cooking and salad is a quick option for dinner. Today was a pool day and we came home hungry.

A couple of days ago I cooked cannellini beans and had them in the refrigerator. At Whole Foods the other day, I bought a large head of escarole. Together, they would become beans and greens, but I didn't want to serve another salad with greens, so tonight we had a different salad. Checking the refrigerator, I found one left-over cooked ear of corn, 3 fresh mushrooms, some sugar-snap peas, a spectacular organic red pepper, half a red onion, and a third of a beefsteak tomato.

A recipe isn't necessary, but this is what I did. I cut the corn off the cob, sliced the mushrooms, cut the peas into pieces about the size of my thumbnail, diced half of the red pepper and the remaining tomato. I tossed that with a couple of teaspoons of Paul Newman's Italian Dressing and topped the salad with thinly sliced onion. You could use any fat-free Italian dressing or make a quick vinaigrette if you are avoiding all added fat. A handful of fresh, sweet organic cherries completed the dinner and I still had time to blog.

Cauliflower Lovers' Salad

The cauliflower lover in this household is Jerry. That is not to say that I do not like cauliflower, which I do. I like it both raw and cooked. But Jerry likes it only raw. He will eat it when I cook it, but he always says he likes it better raw. He eats it as a snack just going to the refrigerator and breaking off a florette or two. He loves it in salads. So I made this salad just for him and any other cauliflower lovers out there.

Cauliflower Lovers' Salad

1 medium head cauliflower
2 medium tomatoes
1 small red onion
12-15 pitted Kalamata olives
4 Boston lettuce leaves per serving
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1-3 tablespoons water
salt and black pepper to taste

Cut the cauliflower into florettes and the tomatoes into bite-sized pieces. Thinly slice the onion. Cut the olives into quarters. Place the cut vegetables in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

In a small jar with a cover, shake together the olive oil and lemon juice. Because there is so little fat, you will need to add water one tablespoon at a time until you like the taste. Add the salt and pepper and shake the jar vigorously to combine the liquids.

Pour the dressing over the cut vegetables.

Arrange four washed lettuce leaves on each serving plate.

Serves 2-4 depending on what else is being served.

Pasta with Baked Tomatoes and Peppers

I have been cooking and reading, but not blogging. The Palm Beach County Public Library West Atlantic Branch has seen me just about daily the past few weeks. At this time of the year with so many snowbirds up north, the library shelves are overflowing with both new and old books. I can't resist! So with each visit, I return 2 books and borrow 6 more.

After seeing a fabulous photo of Deborah Madison's version of this dish in her book Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets, I couldn't get to The Boys Market fast enough to purchase the ingredients. Visit your local public library or a bookstore and take a look at this excellent cookbook. I changed Deborah's recipe very slightly by removing most of the fat and serving it hot over pasta and rewriting the directions for that. You will see no photo here because the one in the book is just too perfect.

Pasta with Baked Peppers and Tomatoes

4 large bell peppers, red, orange and yellow
1 large tomato
2 medium yellow tomatoes
6 sprigs parsley
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
12 pitted Kalamata olives, halved
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3/4 pound whole wheat rigatoni or sedoni pasta

Cut the tops off of the peppers, slice into quarters, and removed the seeds and veins. Brush or spray a baking pan lightly with olive oil and place the peppers skin side up on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes until the skins are very wrinkled. Place the peppers into a brown paper bag for about 15 minutes to steam for easy removal of the skin which should then slip off easily. Cut the slices of peppers in half horizontally and set aside.

Cook the pasta according to package directions, drain and set aside.

Brush or spray a small baking dish with olive oil to keep the vegetables from sticking and set aside.

Using only the leaves of the parsley, gently buzz them in a chopper with the garlic and remaining olive oil. In a small bowl, combine the marjoram, capers and olives. Add the parsley mixture to the olives and stir.

Combine the tomatoes, peppers, and the parsley mixture in the oiled dish using your hands or a spoon. Cover and bake for 30 minutes*.

Season with crushed red pepper and serve over the cooked pasta.

Serves 4 as a pasta course.

*The vegetables can be kept covered in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours before baking.

Local Fruit

Green Chick's comment on my Farmers' Market post got me started researching what foods are available right now in Florida. I found the Tropical Fruit Growers of South Florida's website and their fruits for the month for July and August: longan and mamey sapote. The longan is called the little brother of the lychee and I have actually enjoyed both the longan and the lychee with dear friends in Hilo, Hawaii. And I served canned lychees with kiwi in a crystallized ginger syrup as dessert (photo above) for the Indian Feast. I am not familiar with the mamey sapote, but that will be part of my research next. The Tropical Fruit Growers also feature dragon fruit which I recently saw at Whole Foods along with fresh lychees. Our friends in Hilo also took us to a farmers' market to sample the dragon fruit, which I have to admit I didn't especially care for.
The nearest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is Green Cay Produce, Farming Systems Research in Boynton Beach. On their website, they have charts for the monthly availability of their produce. Of course, they operate only the months of October through May, so we are not able to take advantage of that source of local produce during the summer months.

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has a chart of produce availability which can be downloaded as a PDF. In July, the crops listed are avocados, cantalope, green beans, green peppers, mangoes, and watermelon. I am sure that those items will soon be appearing at Publix and The Boys Market if they are not already there.

Today's Sun-Sentinel Food Section Vegetarian Today column by Steve Petusevsky is "Some Delectable Mango Recipes," written because people are bringing him so many fresh mangoes from trees growing in yards. He says he welcomes them all and gives advice about using the bounty both now and frozen for later use. That appears to be the secret to eating local: buy it when you see it and preserve it. Be sure to see the mango chutney recipe in the Indian Feast post which includes a link for those who do not know the easy way to cut a mango into pieces.

My favorite salad is perfect for eating local this time of year in Florida. The salad consists of romaine, field greens, spinach, red onion rings, sliced avocados, sliced mangoes and passion fruit vinaigrette dressing.

The pantry - storm and otherwise

After our trip, I went to Whole Foods, The Boys and Publix to restock the food supplies. I am not a tidy housekeeper, but I have decided to show you the food I have in the kitchen when the cabinets and refrigerator are full. People often say to me that our diet must be so limiting. You can see from the overflow of food products that is not the case at all. In fact, we eat a wide variety of foods, probably more than most people on a Standard American Diet.

In the refrigerator, I keep mainly fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as several kinds of flour, soy milk and the usual door full of mustard, ketchup, etc. The freezer contains more flour, breads, bagels, and a few frozen vegetables and fruits, in addition to Boca soy products. This time of the year I try to empty the freezer as much as possible because it is hurricane season. Last year we were fortunate and had no hurricanes, but in previous years, I was really sorry to have a freezer full of food thawing and spoiling in the drawn-out electricity free aftermath of the storms.

The pantry is stocked with canned beans, broths, cereals and vinegars. This is also where Jerry keeps his salsa and home-baked tortilla chips, his main snack foods. Although he cooks almost nothing, he does make the tortilla chips on his own from corn tortillas we buy at Publix.

The pantry also contains the hurricane supplies that can feed us without electricity for storage or cooking. I buy small cans of vegetables and fruits so we will empty them at one meal since there is no keeping leftovers in Florida after a big storm. There are some wonderful recipes for that kind of meal preparation in The Storm Gourmet: A Guide to Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity by Daphne Nikolopoulos. My favorite recipe from that book is the one for Salad Nicoise with canned cannelini beans replacing the tuna. I never use canned potatoes or green beans, preferring to use fresh vegetables. However, after a hurricane, this has tasted fabulous.

Salad Nicoise Hurricane Style

1 8-ounce can sliced white potatoes
1 15-ounce can cannelini beans, drained (not rinsed if water supply has been interrupted)
1 8-ounce can green beans
1 small jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained (or used as dressing)
1 2.75-ounce can sliced black olives

Toss together with a simple dressing of red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard and salt and pepper. Serves 4.