SLO Veg Bounty

http://www.sloveg.com/eathealthy.cfm

Just look at all this beautiful, bountiful produce we received today in our tote from SLO Veg: Asian pears, strawberries, green beans, cauliflower, zucchini, Romaine lettuce, red cabbage, artichokes, Roma tomatoes, white nectarines, green grapes, purple eggplant...long, skinny eggplant. As expected, we got some of the unexpected. I would probably not have ever selected these eggplants from a market. My past attempts at Eggplant Parmesan were less than satisfactory, and the only thing I know that I can successfully make is Baba Ganash. But these are little, baby eggplants. I'll bet they will be good sliced and fried some way. Rachael from SLO Veg promised a good recipe, so I will check it out. And that, my friends, is the adventure with SLO Veg deliveries: you get a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables that are in season, with a surprise or two that makes you cook out of the box...literally!

First thing I did was start a pot of water going for the artichokes. They would boil for a good 45 minutes or so until the leaves began to pull off easily. I would served them with a dish of clarified butter and lemon juice. Then I built some nice bowls of salad with Romaine, sliced nectarines and strawberries, sunflower seeds and Pomegranate vinaigrette.

Then I took on the fish: it was a white fish, Rockfish, I believe, and one pound wasn't going to be enough for the four of us, so I also defrosted a package that I had put into the freezer a few weeks ago. It would all be locally caught fish from Morro Bay, so I didn't anticipate any complaints. I dipped the filets into a milk and egg mixture, then dredged it in flour, dipped it again and rolled it in some Panko bread crumbs. The fish was then pan fried in an iron skillet in coconut oil...Man, that smelled great! The troops were circling and I had to ask Lee to assist in getting it all on the table. He halved the artichokes, poured the butter into ramekins, set the table and put the food out while I finished frying the last piece of fish. We were all out of mayo, so no tartar sauce and the artichokes would have to be dipped in lemon butter...oh darn! No worries. Those guys were practically licking their plates by the end of the meal.