Fresh Veggies

Fresh Veggies
great produce=Great eating

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Ibiza 1980's back story..photographs being addded

The long summers in Ibiza, Spain gave us some of the best tomatoes I have tasted anywhere in the world.
Grown in brick-red fertile soil, they slowly soaked up the hot summer sun, resulting in large ripe, sweet fruit. The local gardeners (who actually were local farmers) would come in every morning to remove old yellow foliage and return late afternoon ( after their siesta) to flood the rows of tomatoes with water from our fish pond.
It was on such a hot and hazy afternoon that we had guests for tea on the covered terrace...overlooking hills of ancient olive and almond groves towards the old citadel  ( the thick and wide old walls of the fields were originally the "highways" for local farmers to walk as the countryside is hilly & rocky)
It wasn't unusual for people to "pop in for tea", but this one day I had been told to expect some "special guests" who were/are long standing friends of the family, so the best china was brought out.
Everyone had a great time, laughing and joking, as my boss proudly showed our guests his home ( locally called The White Palace) and the improvements he had made to what was once just a 2 room shepherd's house.
It was only when the guests had left that I was told they were leading members of the House of Savoy, the Royal family of Italy, (deposed after WWII).
I mention this as my menu for Thursday is going to be an Italian inspired extravaganza, and will show the diversity of Italian cuisine.
I am creating a vegetarian version of Bagna Cauda, traditionally made with anchovy fillets, I am using dulse (a moist, briney and  tender sea vegetable) in a soy free margarine( trad. butter) and olive oil with garlic and sea salt  "warm bath" that raw vegetables are dipped in;
salad of marinated cannelli ( kidney) beans and chickpeas;
Tuscan bean soup with spinach and made with cranberry beans;
vegetable soup finished with a pesto blend of organic basil, garlic and olive oil;
pasta Primavara with seasonal young vegetables and a base of coconut cream & cream cheese;
 blue corn polenta triangles with green beans & walnut & basil  pesto;
 roasted beets with a balsamic dressing;
sauteed broccoli with pine nuts and coconut cream; 
as well as eggplant and tomato sauce ( a la Norma) for  pasta; a bread and tomato soup;
sauteed mixed greens with tomatoes;
& a RAW tomato soup..I will post photographs in the upcoming days: here are a selection of tomatoes I have already bearing fruit so early in the season in my garden in West Los Angeles


first 3..Italian disease resistant salad tomatoes

Plum Tomatoes Italian Hierloom

Mini orange and plum tomatoes
air drying, washed market fresh produce
drying bread out for the tomato bread soup
Tuscan Bean soup with brown rice and spinach
Tomato-bread soup
Add caption
Mixed vegetable soup finished with basil pesto
The mixed vegetable soup finished with pesto
Polenta sheets "drying out' over night, will be cut and dredged in cornmeal for frying at client's home
Sauce a la Norma..baked the eggplant instead of frying to cut down on oil, added leaves of fresh basil to finish
Bagna Cauda..(Warm Bath) Vegan with sea veggies, garlic, olive oil and black olives
Black Olives for Bagna Cauda
RAW Gazpacheo
Greens with tomatoes
broccoli with coconut milk and pine nuts

New fruit on Patio salad tomatoes..container grown.


.air drying market buys after washing at home


 Oatmeal, almond raisins whole wheat cookies





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