October's Vegetables, and Fruits

Have you noticed that Aisle 1 in your grocery store is in the produce section? It seems to be that way in ours. Maybe the grocers really do recognize the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables. For the first time since Wayne's started helping with the weekly shopping, we went to Whole Foods and Target, and discovered that Aisle 1 in both of those stores was prepared fresh food - guacamole and cantaloupe spears, respectively. 

Even Costco has dried fruit in their first aisle; would you believe it was also cantaloupe?

The concentrated flavor of the dried cantaloupe was too sweet for me, but Wayne thinks it makes a great television snack, and we both agreed it was a nice addition to our latest batch of granola.

Of course, we're still picking up fresh vegetables in Aisle 1 at Walmart. Here's what we bought in October.

Green Beans - I didn't feel like "wasting" beautiful fresh food by turning it into ordinary Green Bean Casserole (the suggested recipe on the back of the package), so I just sauteed the beans with some mushrooms and onions. 'Twas a good choice!

Vegetable Medley - The recipe on the back of this package seemed a little weird. It had you cooking the vegetables on the stove AND in the oven, and called for an awful lot of bread crumbs. I cut that in half and it still had far too much. Skip the stove step, roast your vegetables and then top them with just a sprinkle of cheese and bread crumbs. You'll be much happier with the results.

After the original incarnation, I cooked some additional cauliflower to mix in with the leftovers, and that helped greatly to done down the concentration of salty/peppery flavor the next time we served this side dish. 

Super Blend - This is a combination of thinly sliced Brussel Sprouts, Napa Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Broccoli, Carrots and Kale. I made the slaw recipe on the back, which called for adding some chopped walnuts, fruit in season (we used blueberries, but apples or craisins would have been better) and tossing with Creamy Italian Dressing. 

• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a jar and shake well. Note that next time I think I'll omit the Parmesan cheese, and add it to my salad directly. And maybe even use feta cheese instead.

Note: We've never bought kohlrabi before, so I looked it up. It's a vegetable in the cabbage family, also known as German turnip, and can be eaten raw or cooked. It's probably time to add something new to the shopping list!

Chopped Cauliflower - There wasn't a recipe on the back of this bag of vegetables, so we came up with our own idea. A lot of people use finely chopped cauliflower as a low-carb substitute for rice, so that's what we did - chicken and mushroom sauce over cauliflower. 

Cantaloupe Spears - For some reason these tasted quite metallic to me. I thought maybe they added something to help preserve the fruit, but the only ingredient listed on the package was cantaloupe. Serving it with cottage cheese made it palatable. Save some money and enjoy better flavor by cutting up your own melon!

Dried Figs - We finished off the dried cantaloupe, so on a later trip to Costco picked up the next item on the shelf. We may or may not open the figs before the end of the month, but because it will take trying several new recipes in order to go through the bag, there will be a new post later on all the future deliciousness.