Summer’s bounty
Summertime brings all things good in San Diego….sunshine, warm days, cool nights, and ripe ready delicious fruits and vegetables. I feel so fortunate to live in a place where we can eat fresh and organic products year-round, but when summer arrives so do the best crops of the season. What’s even better is that a mobile farmer’s market, Daily Harvest Farm Stand, comes to my office campus the last Thursday of each month. They set up right in front of our cafeteria so I can literally shop on my lunch hour and go home with a bagful of goodies that evening! I don’t know what it is about shopping for food, but I’m always in a better mood walking back to my office with all my treats in tow.
Daily Harvest Farm Stand has a great selection of goods from organic vegetables and fruits, flavored salts, specialty oils, nut butters, jerky, honey, granola, and yummy (albeit maybe not so calorie conscientious) desserts. This past week my purchases included tomatoes, a cantaloupe, avocados, shishito peppers, dried and no sugar added apple and pear slices, a fresh spinach bundle, and Mexican chocolate almonds. Now I said I go home with a bagful of goodies, but in all honestly I end up eating a lot of my treats throughout the day and usually leave the dried fruit and nuts at work to snack on (sorry Greg, I’ll bring some home next time…..maybe). There is always such a wide selection of products and most everything is locally produced or made in California so I feel really good about all my purchases even if the prices are ever so slightly higher than what you would find at your grocery store.
In addition to the mobile farm stand they have the traditional fresh to home or work delivery services where you can choose between a pre-packaged farm box or create your own assortment of vegetables and fruits according to what’s in season. You place your order on Saturday and your goods get delivered the following week! It’s a great way to get a variety of vegetables and fruit into your diet and avoid getting stuck in a rut of always buying and cooking the same thing. I’ve included Daily Harvest Farm Stand’s website below if you’d like to get more information on their services or see if they’re going to be in your area soon.
https://dailyharvestmarket.com/
Since I purchased tomatoes I decided on making a salad with the perfectly ripened fruit. I sliced the tomatoes into quarters, added some fresh burrata, and drizzled it with olive oil, salt & pepper, and fresh basil. It was so simple, but oh so delicious. It’s was the perfect way to start a meal on a warm summer night. Just add a baguette and it can literally become your meal for a light dinner, but of course that was just a first course for us. This is why I workout so hard…food and wine people…food and wine.
Wine to Pair? Here we are again with the tomatoes and cheese, which needs something with acidity and light tannins to cut through both. I enjoy a Beaujolais (young fruity French pick) with this dish, but a Pinot Noir (shocker I know!) works well too.
I’m planning on using the remaining items over the course of the week. Prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe sounds good right about now, I think it will have to make an appearance today. I could go on and on about all the yummy things I could make, but instead I’m just going to post a bunch of beautiful pictures of fruits and veggies as eye candy. So get out there and enjoy Summer’s bounty…drink it in San Diego…drink it in.
