i say "tomato," you say "tomahto" (or maybe you also say "tomato"...)

the best time of the year in terms of vegetables and fruit is nigh upon us in northern california! well actually, it's not nigh - it's already here. unlike the east coast (where i grew up), the summer harvest starts in end of may / early june.

i wrote earlier this week how zucchini and stone fruits are in season. another vegetable (although i guess technically it's actually a fruit) that's started to crop up (hahahahaha - get it "CROP UP"? ...'cuz we're talking about harvests? get it? hahahahah-- *sigh* forget it.) are heirloom tomatoes.

heirloom tomatoes are loved at the house of freedmoon. our absolute favorite are green zebra tomatoes, which are a little bit more tart than most tomatoes. i haven't seen any yet at the farmers' market, but i'm sure they'll start appearing soon. at least...i sure hope they do. otherwise, i'm going to be a little bummed out; i love those little suckers.

besides savoring heirloom tomatoes in their purest form - in my world, this means simply sliced and layered with some fresh mozzarella and basil, and then drizzled with some really great olive oil on top - another great way to enjoy them is via gazpacho. what's gazpacho? well, as wikipedia explains it, it's a cold spanish soup that comes in many, er - well, flavors (including a warm stew variant, believe it or not).

permutations aside, i think it's safe to say that the typical american thinks gazpacho is a cold tomato soup. and by cold, i mean uncooked, since cooking would obviously change the taste of the tomato. the version i made this week also had some white peaches in it, which sweetly rounded out the savory tanginess of the tomatoes. i used a cherokee purple, an 1884, and a vintage wine, but you can obviously switch it up to whatever combination of tomatoes you like. enjoy!


Heirloom Tomato and White Peach Gazpacho

1 1/2 lb heirloom tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 lb white peaches, pitted and coarsely chopped
1 small shallot, coarsely chopped
2 tbsps good-quality extra virgin olive oil (I like Stonehouse)
6 tsps white-wine vinegar
4 tsps chopped fresh tarragon
salt and freshly ground rainbow peppercorns to taste

Combine 1/4 of tomatoes and peaches with 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tsps vinegar, 1 tsp tarragon, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Purée rest of tomatoes and peaches with remaining ingredients in a blender until smooth. Force through a medium-mesh sieve, discarding solids. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for an hour, or until chilled.

Divide gazpacho into 4 soup bowls and top with tomato-peach salsa. Serve with grilled burrata sandwiches. Serves 4.

stratospheric strata

one of the nice things about going every saturday to the sf farmers' market is i get the opportunity to learn what fruits and vegetables are in season. before february, i had pretty much zero clue what was in season locally, b/c at supermarkets, nothing is ever NOT in season.

on the fruit side, i guess now it's peaches / plums / nectarines (hrmmm, maybe it's just generally harvest time for stone fruits...hmmm...yet it isn't summer yet...) because they're EVERYWHERE. i think some kind of peach dessert post is in order sometime soon.

on the vegetable side, i've noticed some of the most beautiful red onions i've ever seen and also summer squash. which, to be frank, has sort of confused me, because, well, it's not quite SUMMER yet, is it? IS it?

seasonal confusion aside, for the last couple weeks i've accepted the availability of summer fruits and vegetables in late spring, 'cuz that's how i roll. (you know me: easygoing, laid back... hahahahahahahahahaha - sorry, sorry, i'm going to need a moment to collect myself. hahahahahahaha. whoooooooo, that was a good one. *hiccup*) and let's be honest, i'm not complaining. i've been too busy enjoying my donut peaches (mmmmm, donut peach, mmmmm) and nectarines from balakian farms to have time to whine and feel confused. this past saturday, they had plums, too, so i bought a few of those as well. but the real reason i made sure to make my way over this past saturday was to scoop up a few of their summer squash (after paying for them, of course): a couple each of green and yellow zucchini.

we ate them tonight for dinner in a summer vegetable strata. if you're wondering what a strata is, it's basically a fancy name for a savory bread pudding. kevin and i actually made this dinner together - he made the herbed egg batter while i got the rest of the ingredients ready. overall, prep to serve for this dish is about 1 1/2 hours, so don't do as we did and start making it at 8pm...that is, unless you don't mind eating after 9pm. ;)

other than that, we both really enjoyed this dinner; kevin was in fact surprised with how much he liked it, b/c he was pretty sure he was a big two-thumbs down on zucchini. then again, if you made sure to put enough goat cheese on an old shoe, he'd eat the whole thing like it was going out of style and rave about how tasty said old shoe and beloved goat cheese were together.

not that zucchini tastes anything like an old shoe. i love zucchini. and guess what: kevin thinks he does now too. ;) i'm just going to take that ball and run with it, 'cuz zucchini are going to be around for a while. after all, it's a SUMMER SQUASH and it's only the first week of june!


Zucchini Strata

2 tbsps olive oil
1 medium green zucchini, sliced thinly
1 small yellow zucchini, sliced thinly
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 eggs
1 cup whole milk (I like either Straus Family Creamery or Claravale Milk)
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup chopped fresh oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 slices brioche bread
8 oz chevre, crumbled (I love Laura Chenel)
1/4 cup chopped green olives
Grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8" square baking dish. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, then add zucchini, onions, and garlic and saute until onions turn translucent and zucchini softens.

Whisk eggs, milk, herbs, salt and pepper until well incorporated. Slowly whisk in flour, making sure there are no lumps. Place two slices of bread in pan and then top with half of zucchini-onion-garlic mixture, goat cheese, and olives; repeat layers once more. Pour egg mixture evenly over layers and then sprinkle top liberally with Parmesan cheese.

Bake in oven for 50 minutes, or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. Cool on rack for 5 minutes, then cut into quarters and serve. Serve 4.

do you know the muffin, man?

i don't know about any of you, but breakfast is always a meal i have a difficult time figuring out what to do. mostly because what i would *really* like to eat every day are eggs and sausage / bacon on a buttery biscuit. (mmmmm, breakfast biscuits, mmmmm) but since we've already established that i have a tendency towards the spherical, i don't in fact eat like this [*sigh*], and instead, struggle to come up with acceptable alternatives.

ok ok, so i'll be honest. even if my metabolism COULD handle eating breakfast sandwiches every day, the reality is that i wouldn't, because, well... i like to sleep! sleeping is one of my most favorite activities, and i like to do as much of it as possible every morning (mostly to make up for not having done enough of it the night before ;). so, my typical day involves waking up with about 15 minutes to spare for getting ready for work, which is about enough time to brush teeth and hair, wash face, put in contacts, and get dressed. hot tasty home cooked breakfast? yeah right, you can just forget about it (fuhgeddaboudit?).

anyway, i go through cycles where i eat the same (easy, mindless to prepare) thing every day until i get sick of it, and then i get on the struggle bus for a week or two before i'm able to figure out what next to eat. lately, i've been eating cinnamon raisin toast with peanut butter. and by "lately" i mean like the last 2 months or so, which i'm pretty sure is a new mooner record. the upshot is that i've been sick to death of cinnamon raisin toast but unable to figure out what the fudge to eat next.

i ate sconehenge scones for a couple weeks (sooooo good), but they're not filling enough, which meant i had to eat something else on top of the scones (well, not LITERALLY on top of); basically, way too much breakfast planning for my taste (get it: "taste"? hahahahahah--- ok, never mind). anyway, there've been a few times over the last couple weeks that i've way shorted myself on breakfast and ended up scrounging around like a rat in my snack pile for things to nibble on until lunch.

not good. (not a very appetizing visual, either, right? :)

it dawned on me this weekend i could make my own muffins - meaning, make them in a way to make sure they were filling enough for breakfast. (i can be pretty slow sometimes. ok, fine fine, i can be pretty slow often.) carrots are all over the place at the sf farmers' market, so i figured this would be a great place to start. (i like to buy my carrots from star route farms and chue's farm.)

i used my favorite carrot cake recipe (i've had it for about 15 years), added some currants and pecans (feel free to leave them out if you're a carrot purist), and just baked up the batter in a muffin tin instead of a cake pan. i ate one the second it cooled enough (hello, i made them, and SOMEBODY has to conduct quality control. sheesh.) - moist, well spiced, just sweet enough, and chock full o' tasty goodness. i'm looking forward to having them for breakfast this week!

if you like the recipe and want to make it as a cake, double the recipe, use 2 buttered 9" round cake pans, and increase the baking time to about 35 minutes.



Caroline's Carrot Muffins

1 1/2 cups organic unbleached flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup dried currants
3/4 cup chopped toasted pecans
2 medium pastured eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
8 oz canned crushed pineapple with syrup
2/3 cup salad oil (I use Stonehouse olive oil)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift first 9 ingredients together into a large mixing bowl; stir in currants and pecans. Add rest of ingredients and then beat for 2 minutes at medium speed, just until everything is incorporated.

Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Fill cups almost to top. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until tester inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool muffins in tin for 5 minutes, then remove and cool completely on rack.