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May Seasonal.JPG

May Seasonal Eats

May Seasonal.JPG

It’s finally, really, Spring going on Summer here in the Hudson Valley. Last weekend I planted my vegetable box. Of the illustrations above only beets went in as seeds a few weeks prior and I’m already seeing the tops of the leaves. Few things planted as seeds that I started or sowed directly in the soil, the rest I had to buy small plants. My seeds starter kit didn’t do so well when I took it outside for a while, it was still too cold at night and scared the seeds. Farm lesson learning number #537.

People really love Rhubarb up here and probably everywhere except my household. I watched an older gentleman in the store meticulously pick out his Rhubarb leaves. I so wanted to ask what he was making, though I doubt I would have tried it. Have you watched Zoe Eats or own any of her cookbooks? The only episode on Discovery+ right now is her making a Rhubarb pie. I was almost sold on that. We shall see.

My neighbors found some wild mushrooms growing in their part of the yard, they looked like Morels, and while they are adventurous outdoor people who forage for wild mushrooms, I wasn’t brave enough to try them. It stems back from my first advertising job where I had to research mushroom names and what was poisonous and what wasn’t. After seeing how similar they looked I vowed to leave it to the groceries stores. Y

Yet another thing to explore given forever in the future, that along with growing vanilla beans and harvesting my grapes and tending my orchard. Yeah my farming list is long and grows everyday. That and my artistic endeavours. Enjoy the beginning of the planting and growing season.

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Posted in Gardening, Food and tagged with Garden, vegetable, vegetables, seasonal fruits, seasonal veg.

May 21, 2021 by Tanya Ponce.
  • May 21, 2021
  • Tanya Ponce
  • Garden
  • vegetable
  • vegetables
  • seasonal fruits
  • seasonal veg
  • Gardening
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January Seasonal.jpg

January Seasonal Eats

January Seasonal.jpg

January what a crazy month, actually a REALLY long month. As most people want to start the year on a healthy kick I bought a juicer. Goal was to make me eat more vegetables. I was nervous about this juicer, I think I’ve been scared of the cleaning juicer part. I bought a Korean brand called Hurom, it’s this one. So far I really love it, super easy to use and clean. You do have to chop up your produce to smaller bits to put in the shoot, but I really don’t mind this. Be warned fibrous veg, like stems, celery, ginger you may have to stop and clean out the filter so it doesn’t block the pulp from coming out. This is a juicer problem across the board. Chopping up the veg in smaller pieces does give me a chance to take inventory and deternine my own concoctions. As most appliances come with recipe books this is a great way to get inspired on what to make. The best part is I’m eating more vegetables. Which was the goal.

We also learned that to yield one cup of juice of any kind you need A LOT of fruit and veg. We’ve been ordering from local grocery story for pick-up, trying to avoid going in the store. However, knowing I need more produce we started ordering from Misfits Market. Our first box arrived this week, we just ordered the small one. What we received and chose was the following: swiss chard, russett potatoes, sweet potatoes, jalapenos, roma tomatoes, carrots, ginger, cabbage, oranges, and pears. We’ve used just about it all for soaps, juices, and salsa. Super happy about our uptick on taking in more vegetables and fruit. My juice combos have been delicious, beets, wheat grass and pears; apples, carrots, cabbage, and ginger. You don’t need much ginger, because it turns super spicy with too much ginger. Trust me.

As for swiss chard I decided to make a Torta. My neighbor in Santa Monica made an amazing one, I searched online for a good recipe and just decided to text her and ask for hers. Of course it’s from a saved Saveur Magazine probably from the 90’s. This was very easy to make and delicious. I’m not a huge onion or feta fan, so I just put less of it in. Would be fun to maybe swap out feta for ricotta. Copy of the recipe image below along with a few of my pictures.

Torta Verde - Saveur Magazine
IMG_0893.jpg
IMG_7847.jpg
IMG_7852.jpg
IMG_7860.jpg
Torta Verde
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Posted in Food, Make and tagged with vegetable, vegetables, seasonal fruits.

January 31, 2021 by Tanya Ponce.
  • January 31, 2021
  • Tanya Ponce
  • vegetable
  • vegetables
  • seasonal fruits
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November Seasonal.JPG

November Seasonal Eats

November Seasonal.JPG

Is bread a seasonal eat? Because that’s what I did for the month of November. I ate lots and lots of bread. Traditonally Rob and I like to call in NoBreadmer. Which means no bread for 30 days. Yeah we did the opposite. Oh Boy.

Originally I creating these seasonal eat explorations because we had moved to an agricultural area in Central California. On any given day during the summer you would see trucks full of tomatoes and garlic barely down the 99. Driving the country roads were the migrant workers hauling in the sweet potato crops, or the infamous dust bowl created by the shaking of the almond trees. Everytime we’d drive down one of these roads and I see a new tree and stop the car to get a closer look. I saw a pistachio tree for the first time on rural country road. Walnut trees in huge groves. It was inspiring to see the variety. Oddly enough there were no great farmer stands out there. All the good stuff was shipped to the cities and restaurants through out California and beyond.

We take these moments for granted. While the triple digit heat in the summer and the dusty cloud of farming settled in the area, it’s what started this whole adventure. Now I’m nearly 3,000 miles in the opposite direction. Struggling to make myself eat anything other than the comfort of bread.

I recently read about an ad campaign in the UK to get kids to eat their vegetables. It’s called Veg Power. It’s unconventional approach to getting kids, and aaaheeem, some adults to eat more veg. Props to Adam + Eve/DDB for creating this brillant idea that also saw a massive increase in vegetable sales in 2020. I mean this is the year of the Sourdough starter. In their words “We created a daring counter-intuitive idea targeted at children and their parents. The idea: vegetables are trying to take over the world and the only way to beat them is to eat them. Casting them as evil, created a fun, distinctive, humorous campaign.”

Brillant. Let’s see if I can trick myself into eating more veg. Call it my 70’s childhood where mom boiled everything to it’s oblivion and i just never developed a love for them. Other than my grandma letting me plant my own radish patch, which i remember so fondly, vegetables were evil and I never thought that eating them would make be a motto “eat to defeat.” Here’s to Veg Power!!!

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Posted in Food, Life and tagged with seasonal veg, vegetable, vegetables.

November 27, 2020 by Tanya Ponce.
  • November 27, 2020
  • Tanya Ponce
  • seasonal veg
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SquashBlossoms.jpg

Stuffed Squash Blossom

SquashBlossoms.jpg

I love going to the Farmers Market, more in the summer than any other time.  It seems like the produce changes out every two weeks.  This day I ran down at the very end and saw these amazing squash blossoms and had to try them out.  The farmer gave me two full baskets for the price of one. Tip: go at the very end for good deals. Go at the beginning if you need the best and lots of it.

So I texted SB to look up a recipe for stuffed squash blossoms, I was bound and determined and knew I'd need more ingredients when I got home.  So I gathered the filling ingredients, cheeses, Ricotta and Parmesan were top on my list.  To be honest I had to look up a YouTube video to figure out how to put this together, especially taking out the innards.  YouTube it away or Bing it and you'll find the perfect tutorial.

SquashBlossomInside.jpg

Here's what the inside looks like of a squash blossom.

SquashBlossom_pullstems.jpg

Gently pull out the stamen inside, you'll see it when you try to open the blossom.

SquashBlossom_stempulled.jpg

Here's what the empty squash blossoms looked like with out the stamen.

SquashBlossom_stems.jpg

Here's what the innard stamen's look like. No use for them, accept I thought they were pretty.

SquashBlossom_filling.jpg

Filling had ricotta and Parmesan cheese, pinch of salt and chopped parsley.

SquashBlossom_batter.jpg

Fully dip or immerse them in the tempura batter.

SquashBlossom_fried.jpg

Quick fry em up. I would use grapeseed oil in the future, only thing I didn't like was the canola oil taste.

SquashBlossomsStuffed.jpg

These were delicious.  Rich and cheesy and I loved the green zuchini, I would definitely leave them on when you make this.

Here's the recipe: 

Stuffing:

1 cup Ricotta Cheese

1/2 cup parmessan

pinch of salt

chopped parsley

Tempura Batter: 

Canola Oil (I would use Grapeseed oil next time)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1  teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup Chilled Pilsner, lager-style beer, or club soda (I used Hanger 24 Orange Wheat Beer) - You may need more to get the right consistency.

Zucchini blossoms (stamens removed; about 16)                                            

Preparation:
Mix all the ingredients together for the tempura batter. Chill for a few minutes.

Mix all the ingredients for the stuffing and set aside. I like the flavors to meld.

Gently pull the stamens from the blossoms and you can either cut the green zuchini off or leave it on. I prefer the green it was delicious. 

Gently put in about 1 tablespoon of cheese per blossom. More if it fits and delicately twist the blossom so the ingredients stay in.

Heat oil in a deep pan about 1 inch deep, needs to be really hot about 350. Test with a bread crumb. If it fries quickly then your good to go.  

Take batter out of refrigerator and mix well, may need to add more beer or club soda to get a good consistency for coating. Dip each stuffed squash blossom and fully coat in the tempura batter and start frying them up. It's a quick fry.

Make sure you turn them over to get it all fried up.  Do this in batches to make sure the oil stays hot.

Drain on a paper towel, salt and serve. Enjoy!

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Posted in Food, Make and tagged with squash blossoms, stuffed squash blossoms, food, farmers market, vegetables, vegetable, vegetarian, ricotta.

July 9, 2013 by Tanya Ponce.
  • July 9, 2013
  • Tanya Ponce
  • squash blossoms
  • stuffed squash blossoms
  • food
  • farmers market
  • vegetables
  • vegetable
  • vegetarian
  • ricotta
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itsweet & savory itsweet & savory

Food+Travel+Life

Lifestyle blogger who loves coffee, architecture, local cultural interests, good food and travel stories.

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    • Cuba A Bittersweet Tale - Part VII
    • Cuba A Bittersweet Tale - Part VIII
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NYSE for SMPW. Did you get that. New location for us, was a lovely day. Nice to be back down here doing our volunteer work. Always fulfulling.
NYSE for SMPW. Did you get that. New location for us, was a lovely day. Nice to be back down here doing our volunteer work. Always fulfulling.
This was my pre-meal to get me fed and courage to go network with people I don’t know but want to know. Finally got to @barpisellino for their classic Negroni. Did not disappoint.
This was my pre-meal to get me fed and courage to go network with people I don’t know but want to know. Finally got to @barpisellino for their classic Negroni. Did not disappoint.
Quick trip down to the city tonight to Network. So out of practice but was good to make some work connections. Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station pics never get old.
Quick trip down to the city tonight to Network. So out of practice but was good to make some work connections. Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station pics never get old.
When the light hits your new coffee mug just perfectly. Pottery by @lark_potters
When the light hits your new coffee mug just perfectly. Pottery by @lark_potters
NYSE for SMPW. Did you get that. New location for us, was a lovely day. Nice to be back down here doing our volunteer work. Always fulfulling. This was my pre-meal to get me fed and courage to go network with people I don’t know but want to know. Finally got to @barpisellino for their classic Negroni. Did not disappoint. Quick trip down to the city tonight to Network. So out of practice but was good to make some work connections. Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station pics never get old. When the light hits your new coffee mug just perfectly. Pottery by @lark_potters
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