Friday, January 19, 2007

Dandelion Salad, Cherimoya, & Pictures from the beach!

For lunch today I had another dandelion greens salad, with half of my baked yam. Yummy yammy! That yam is SOOOO good. Sweet and creamy and good! The salad was also good. Dandy greens aren't probably my new favorite, but I like them. Today I added a bunch of avocado to my salad, and it was superb.


Tonight for dinner I had the other half of my yam, the rest of my jacinto kale, and some leftover stuffed collards (which I had tucked away in the freezer). In the end, I could only eat one of those little collard packets. The yam is quite filling.


For dessert I ate half of my white cherimoya! I haven't ever had one before, and it was pretty good. When I bought it at the farmer's market, there was a really sweet girl there who told me all about how to eat them and how to know when it's ripe... So, this is it before I cut it open. See how it is splitting open at the end? That was one of the ways that I knew it was ripe.

And this is it cut open. It's got biggish seeds inside, and you just eat it up, suck the fruit off the seeds, and then spit the seeds out. (I used a spoon) The flavor is very nice. The girl at the farmer's market said "they taste like vanilla," and I can see what she means. This one was a little bit gritty... I don't know if that's just the way they are, but I got the feeling it should be creamier. Maybe the second half will ripen a bit more.

Interestingly, this is how many seeds were in just one half of my white cherimoya! Sorry for the blurry picture... it was the best my little camera could do, for some reason.


And now, avert your eyes if you're only here for the food pictures! It's been super low tide this week when I've been taking the doggies to the beach, and today I finally remembered to bring my camera. There are lots of tide pools, and thousands of beautiful and amazing little sea critters: seagulls, pelicans, sandpipers, snowy plovers, egrets, sea anenomes, sea urchins, hermit crabs, little crabs, BIG crabs, sea stars... it's all so beautiful.

Sea anenomes are so beautiful and amazing. There are lots of different types (species?), but I love these ones with the bright, almost-neon colors. When you touch their soft, sticky little feelers they try to grab your finger and contract the feelers in toward the center, which is their mouth. You can't really tell, but this one is under water. Above water, they close up and wait for the tide to come back in.

This is a close-up of the texture from a giant sea star. So neat!

I love the pretty texture of all the mussels crowding together on the rocks.



Here is the overall scene, usually this beach is all underwater and it is not a place where we can walk... so it always feels special to come here during super low-tide times.


And lastly, here are my two canine cuties: Stevie Wonder & Dottie Bonkers... very happy indeed!

9 comments:

  1. I always mix my dandelion greens with other types for my salads. And I love the bitter greens. Raddichio is my favorite. I've only found yams at my asian market, and I love them! The japanese yams are white inside and super creamy.

    I love your beach pictures! I miss the beach....

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  2. Anonymous7:54 AM

    Leaving the beach was one of the hardest parts about leaving CA for me. I had grown up on the beach. My highschool was 40 feet from the waves. It's so weird not to be able to go there and soak in all the wonderful sounds and negative ions. What is sad though is that when I first moved to southern CA, there were tidepools that were filled with all kinds of life (going even further back, Marty remembers visiting as a kid and finding octopus, sea cucumbers, and lots of other fun animals). Now, due to crowding, pollution, and pestacide runoff from the neighborhoods, there is very little life. Maybe just a few muscles.

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  3. I love dandelion greens! And now you have me curious about trying cherimoya.

    You are so lucky to be near the sea where you can witness those beautiful sea creatures so readily. The photo of the anenome is so pretty--it looks like a little cactus.

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  4. Anonymous7:03 PM

    Love the beach pics! I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of dandelion greens. When we lived in AZ there was a company that delivered weekly boxes of organic, mostly local produce - a little like a CSA but they worked with many different farms. We'd get their produce boxes delivered and there was a while there when we'd get a huge bag of dandelion greens every single week. We'd always try to find something to do with them but I started to get a little tired of 'em after a while ;-)

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  5. I love the beach pictures... it kind of takes me back home, I think.

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  6. I love the beach pictures too. And such cute doggies! I'd seen your cat, but never the dogs. They love the beach, don't they? I miss the beach sometimes myself...

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  7. Hi Diann!
    Yeah, next time I will try mixing the dandelion greens... I didn't have any other salad greends, so I had to go all out! I still have a japanese yam to eat - I can't wait!

    Hi VivV,
    It really is too bad about the beaches in SoCal. Up here in Santa Cruz we are super lucky, because the Monterey Bay is a federally protected wildlife area - so there is an amazing abundance of sea life.

    Hi UV!
    It's fun that we both posted pictures of sea creatures this week - even though yours are a bit flashier! :)

    Hi Chris!
    Ha ha... I can totally understand about weekly dandelion green deliveries! That is one of the main reasons that I quit participating in a CSA after three years of doing it. I was weary of throwing out bags of rotting arugula and radicchio. Ugh! I'm very glad I did the CSA though, because it really got me to learn a lot of about different veggies, and made me a much more adventurous chef!

    Hi Laura,
    I'm glad you like the beach pics! Where are you from that the pictures take you back home?

    Hi Bazu,
    Oh our little doggies just love, love, love the beach - running around unencumbered, sniffing, splashing, chasing... it's just so fun for them. And then they are pleasantly pooped out for the rest of the day. :)

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  8. Thanks for sharing your beach pictures, that has been a desire of mine to someday see the ocean for real. Your doggies are cute and sure look like they are enjoying the run on the beach. The food above looks tastey, I have never heard of the fruit you mention there.

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  9. Oooo your dogs are cute!

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