watermelon gazpacho

Pretty sure this will be my last watermelon post for a bit. And hopefully the last fruit one for a bit, too. Not positive on that last one. I haven’t posted anything with cherries in it. And I like cherries. Really like cherries. Shoot. Uh, I’ll incorporate meat. I got it, don’t worry. Ohhh man, then peach season is upon us too…
My garden’s at the point now where if I am busy for a couple days in a row, it gets completely overgrown. Tiny little zucchinis turn into like county fair blue ribbon contenders. My arugula keeps fighting me, trying to bolt. I’ve pretty much given up on my broccoli rabe. I can’t keep up. But man, a veggie garden is the most fun thing ever. It makes me feel like such a city slicker – being so amazed and amused at the plants. Not that I am or was a city slicker. And not that I didn’t have a veggie garden growing up. I don’t know, those little plants still make me giddy. I can’t wait until I have a house of my own. Then I will turn the backyard into a produce aisle. I saw my first pear tree the other day. I was by myself and I squealed out loud at those little pears just dangling from the branches.

watermelon rind pickles

Watermelon rind pickles. I am so trendy. A freaking hipster. I’ve even been wearing my dark-rimmed glasses the past week. (My contacts were digging into my eyeballs and oh yeah I forgot to order more.) Get ready, I’ll be getting thick, blunt bangs and a sleeve tattooed. Reading ‘zines and seeing shows. Right. My ‘zines are National Geographic and Smithsonian. I’m no hipster. I’m like a freaking pioneer. Though I’m not sure of what proportion of progressive to historic. Equal parts both? Making butter from raw cream? Olde tymey yet so cutting edge? So yes, I’ve taken the dive into pickling. I have a feeling I might have to get into other forms of preserving, what with more apricots than I know what to do with. The only thing is that I’m kind of lazy and canning feels like it’ll be more of a process than it really is and it takes me a while to get motivated enough to set it all up and start. These pickles had been crowding the fridge in my giant Dutch oven, waiting to be canned, for way longer than I’d planned… it was really annoying, actually.
Oh hey, it’s July. I hope I am making the most of this summer. I’ve hiked rim to rim to rim, backpacked in the mountains to escape like 110 degree heat, been biking to work most days, pranced around in my bathing suit in my backyard, planted a lovely little vegetable garden, taken after dinner barefoot walks, been to baseball games, eaten gobs of ice cream, and gotten disgustingly sweaty running during my lunch hours and simply blotted myself off with paper towels before going back to work. Then hung my sopping running clothes about my desk to dry. I am the best coworker.

curry apricot relish

Am I allowed to eat just fruit in the summer? Fruitarian? Good, thanks. Because that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing the past couple weeks. Colorado cherries and apricots, nectarines, peaches, blueberries, blackberries, watermelon, um I’m gonna barf. Those cherries are especially going to get the best of me. I CAN NOT STOP WITH THEM. I’ll look down at my little bowl full of pits and stems and be genuinely shocked.
Because of the 4th of July, my CSA delivery moved back to the Monday before. That means that I’m going to be getting whole new bags of apricots and cherries a couple days sooner and I kind of panicked when I looked at how many apricots I had left. I considered canning them. Pickling. Dehydrating. Grilling. Desserting. Something. But decided to make a relish of sorts. It was tempting to make another fruit salsa, as I do have quite the affinity for them. But curry was calling to me. And, while salsa could probably be called a relish, it doesn’t work the other way around. So, yes, it’s a fruit relish.

halloumi, cucumber, watermelon, and fennel seed salad

I’m done! I’m done I’m done I’m done! No more 60 hours/week at my desk job plus the many other hours I put into Gathered! That really took it out of me. I felt like I was back in school, what with all of the 5 hour/night sleeps. Bleh, I do NOT do well with that. Some people seem to. I suppose there’s a bit of variation among people, but I’m betting that they are just used to subsisting on a general level of Suck. So when level Suck is elevated to Suck Less after they get 6 hours of sleep, they think “hm, this is nice”. Whereas me, I’m at level Awesome for most days and level Suck Less feels like level Total and Complete Shit.
Despite being a mega crab, I still made this lovely salad. Just for you. And me, because I ate lots. And because I needed another excuse to put more watermelon into my life. It’s not even good this time of year. Not stopping me. One day, possibly this summer, I will make it my goal to eat an entire watermelon. The only hindrance to completing that goal is self respect. Bah. Halloumi , as I’ve mentioned before is wonderful. So, so wonderful. In general, I’m rather cheese indifferent. I don’t not like it, but like, cubes of cheese on a cheese tray don’t do much for me. I’ll eat all of the grapes in the middle, but yeah. Browned cheese, on the other hand. OH HELLO. It’s the best. Then, if the cheese happens to be deliciously salty, then HELLO AGAIN! I LOVE YOU! A deliciously salty, browned, sheep’s milk cheese? YES PLEASE!

chicken thighs with balsamic sautéed fennel and oranges

I felt lazy. Everything about this recipe is lazy. And, I feel okay about that. I think I deserve to write about something that neither takes a lot of time, nor looks particularly glamourous. I mean, look at the rest of my posts – faaaaancyyyy! Heh. Whatever. I wanted to incorporate fennel, oranges, green olives, and balsamic vinegar into one recipe. And since I’ve done a fennel salad with oranges, I couldn’t do basically the same thing again. I considered braising fennel in orange juice, but I didn’t feel like squeezing oranges (and no I won’t use carton orange juice unless it’s a negligible part of the recipe). I couldn’t be bothered having some components cooked and others not – like sautéing the fennel and then topping it with membrane-less orange segments. I guess the only thing left to do was make a one pan meal.
Balsamic vinegar reductions are real high up there on my list of favorite things. Roasted winter squash with it drizzled on top is awesome. I tried to think for like 2 minutes for a better word than drizzled. It’s so G. It’s like a Special K diet bar in Chocolate Drizzle flavor. Steak is pretty perfect with salt and pepper, and pretty more perfect with balsamic reduction on top. But, you know, a glaze will do the trick too. You don’t have quite the control, but it’s the lazy man’s way to make a reduction – or you can call it a glaze. That sounds way fancier. Just dump some vinegar in the pan along with whatever fish, meat, veggie, stir it around for some minutes and you’re done. No extra saucepan necessary.

winter fruit, beets, and fennel salad

Hey, it kind of looks like a I’m posting a NewYearNewYou recipe. I might be. I may or may not have gotten on the Whole 30 bandwagon. Who are you if you don’t get on some sort of New Years bandwagon? One of those selectively self-righteous “Resolutions just set you up for failure” or “I don’t make resolutions, I make changes” jerks who read that in some lame article in some publication whose parent company also publishes an equal amount of newyearnewyou articles. New Years resolutions are fun. And if you fail and spiral into some depression then you need to lighten up! Or actually do good on a resolution for once because you’re probably worthless. That was harsh.
In any case, it only seemed fitting after my month and a half long debauch to go super clean. I stupidly got a subscription to the enviro-nut Whole Living (when I should have gotten a subscription to Bon Appétit since the subscription ran out at my work) as part of some Groupon-y 3 for $5 magazine deal, and they have this somewhat decent clean eating plan in it this month. But it calls for drinking vegetable and fruit juices for breakfasts. I don’t get juices at.all. What is wrong with the whole food item? It’s supposed to be too hard on your digestive system or something? It just seems preposterous. Plus, I don’t like drinking my calories. Smoothies and milk and juices and milkshakes (debatable, this is more that I just vastly prefer ice cream) and protein shakes and eggnog and punch and soda. I like beer, wine, and spirits for those that are begging to point that out. But I hardly drink at all. So far, just a lousy five days in, I feel so much freaking better. It was getting to the point that after every time I would eat some cookies I’d feel like a post-nasal drip thing. I don’t know what was causing it, but it was totally corrollated to cookie eating. Scary.