Sunday, June 24, 2012

#MeatlessMonday - Garden Pizza #1


Garden Pizza #1
Recipe by Bill C
Made with the first few vegetables from our little garden.

Ingredients
  • 250 g. Bread Flour
  • 200 g. Water
  • 5 g. Salt
  • 1 Tbs Olive oil
  • 1/2 pkt. Active Dry Yeast
  • 1 Small Italian or Japanese Eggplant
  • 1 Small Zucchini
  • 28 oz Can Peeled Tomatoes
  • 4 oz. Fresh Mozzarella
  • Olive Oil
  • Salt
  • Pepper

Reading Terminal Market

It seems like half the bloggers I follow have been doing posts on their local markets. Although it's been done a zillion times before, here's my happy place: Reading Terminal Market!

I tend to enter the market on the south side, from the SEPTA Market East Station. That means my first stop is Iovine Brothers Produce.  Price and selection are always excellent and many items, particularly things like scallions, parsley, and so forth are often half what they cost in my suburban supermarket.

Sweet Corn, Apples, and More
What kind of potatoes did you want?
Featured Produce
Assorted Fruit
Just to the west of Iovine Brothers is the deservedly famous pastry shop of Termini Brothers. There is nearly always a line down the front of these counters so this picture is a small miracle!

Cake!
Opposite Termini Brothers is the chocolate wonderland of Chocolate by Mueller. If you watch Bizarre Foods, this is where Andrew Zimmern tasted the chocolate covered onion.

Chocolate!
Just around the corner to the left is Downtown Cheese. And yes, Andrew Zimmern stopped here too. Between Downtown Cheese and DiBruno Brothers you could probably source just about any cheese on the planet.

Cheese and Salumi at Downtown Cheese
There are three fish dealers in Reading Terminal Market. John Yi Seafood is generally my "go to" for most things like diver scallops and other shellfish. Wan's Seafood is pretty comparable and if I don't see what I want at John Yi's Wan's will probably have it. Finally, there's Golden Fish Market, today's destination.
Whole fish at Golden Fish Market
Golden Fish Market had one huge advantage for me today - they tend to leave things like tuna in big pieces instead of slicing them into steaks. Like this:

Come to me my pretty...
That smaller piece of Ahi on the right weighs a bit over two pounds and is in my refrigerator right now waiting to become tonno sott' olio.

Of course those are just the places I tend to always check out. There still all the Pennsylvania Dutch vendors (who are closed on Sundays), Bassett's Ice Cream, a couple bakeries, the coffee roaster, the cookie place, about 20 restaurants, at least four butchers, the flower shop... Oh yea, there's the Italian Market too, just about 11 blocks south.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Gardening 2012 - Thunderstorm Update

Rolled Zucchini

Friday evening we had the first real thunderstorm of the season. I managed to get the lawn mowed before it started and although there were a few flickers, the power stayed on. This morning I went out to see how the garden had fared, particularly the tomatoes, as they have gotten rather tall.

As you can see, the zucchini got sort of rolled over in the wind. Although a few of the male blossoms broke off, they're none the worse for the experience.

You can't hide anymore

And it was easier to trim off a couple unfertilized zucchini that were hiding underneath (they'll gradually decay if you don't).

Eggplant!

The eggplants don't seem to have noticed the storm at all. As you can see we'll be getting plenty of these purple beauties this year. The big one on the lower right is now in the kitchen awaiting it's fate.

Some of the pepper plants got knocked over. Since they're all a little on the spindly side, I took the PVC pipes we used early in the spring to support a frost cover and converted them to stakes.

Almost 6 feet tall

And then there are the tomatoes. These San Marzano plants are huge and are going to need some careful pruning. A couple branches were partially broken in the storm so they'll have to come off and a few other branches are intruding on the onions and Swiss Chard.

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