Tuesday night I fixed my favorite salad for dinner. We had had chicken salad with avocado for lunch and it was an easy dinner to put together after cardio drumming which is still a lot of fun. Anyway, the ingredients are always the same but quantities vary...mixed baby greens, celery, granny smith apple, dried cranberries, mandarin orange segments, pecans, orecchiette pasta. Tonight I'm fixing the Italian sausage with shallots and apples.
Here's two tips for keeping food fresh longer, one I tried and it works...if your avocados are getting/have gotten ripe but you aren't ready to eat them/it yet, immerse it in a glass of water and put it in the refrigerator. It will keep the avocado from going bad. It really does work. I had one in water in the refrigerator for almost two weeks (because I kept forgetting it was in there) and, yes, it was perfect when I finally ate it.
The other I haven't tried but my neighbor says it works...wrap your celery in aluminum foil to keep it fresh longer. I don't use much celery, just cooking with it now and then or in a salad and so it always goes bad before I use it all up. I've wrapped mine in foil. I'll let you know how well it works.
We're having winter this week. Of course we are, I took the plumerias and bird of paradise out of the garage. It's in the 40s and rainy (and yay for that) and a little windy and only supposed to get in the 50s with drops in the 30s the next two nights but as long as it doesn't freeze it'll be OK.
In the meantime, the indian paintbrush has painted the pastures and empty acres reddish orange.
A field on the way to the grocery store.
The fallow 12 acres behind me
is also spotted with little yellow flowers.
The evening primrose is coming into full bloom and the stretch between Wharton and El Campo is a mosaic of pale pink to dark pink. Unfortunately, I can't get a picture of that as I'm hauling ass down the highway.
Some are so pale as to be white like this patch over at the shop.
The fleabane is also in full bloom.
The bluebonnets are at or past peak,
my little clump of blue eyed grass I dug up from the side of the road,
and the baby blue eyes are looking good.
That salad looks so good. I sometimes make a very similar one and like to put some blue cheese in it but not everyone likes blue cheese.
ReplyDeleteYour flowers are sure looking good. You still have cool weather? Ours has gotten warmer today but it's supposed to rain and get cooler tonight. Right now it's blowing outside, bringing more branches down. The electricity must be out because our generator's on. We've had more use out of this year than all of last year.
I love seeing spring blooming there. It's so full of color and promise. The salad looks so yummy. And the avocado idea is very interesting. I'm definitely going to try that.
ReplyDeleteThat is a nice looking salad you've got there! I will try the avocado in water. I had planned to eat my weight in them while we were in Tucson, but they're so hard in the grocery store and then they go to over ripe just like that. Your wild flowers are lovely.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy you have so many flowers going on. That blue eyed grass is completely new to me, and quite lovely.
ReplyDeleteavocado tip is going t be employed here! Little weirdos- they are just right for about ten minutes.
ReplyDeleteLove the blue eyed grass! My tulips are trying to open, but we are in for a hard freeze tonight! I have tomato seedlings thriving inside close to the turtle habitat. They like the heat lamp almost as much as Dora does! I read that about celery, too. I am heading to the kitchen right now before I forget!!
ReplyDeleteThe carpets of flowers are so great. I guess it's until the canopy fills out with leaves?
ReplyDeleteI've never heard either of your kitchen tips, but I sure enough will try both. I nearly stopped buying avocados because I didn't want to eat a whole one at one sitting, and they always went bad. Being able to keep one for even a couple of days would be a great improvement. Interesting that a friend and I were just talking about the relative absence of pink evening primrose this year. Even when I was running 90A a week or so ago I saw hardly any, but just like with real estate, with flowers it's always location/location/location.
ReplyDeletebeautiful!
ReplyDeleteWe always had a problem with avocados but have found that keeping them in the fridge works. We take them out one at a time and it takes about two days to ripen, while the others stay perfect in the crisper until it is their turn to emerge and be eaten! I think I could eat avocado every day. Come to think of it, most days I do!
ReplyDeleteYour salad sounds yummy. I will have to make that one of these days.
ReplyDeleteThe celery wrapped in foil does work. I do it all the time now with my celery and it lasts for weeks in the drawer of my fridge. I will try the avocado trick. Thanks for the tip!
I have done the celery trick, however, with a different fridge now, the celery stays tightly wrapped in its plastic bag and stays edible a lot longer!
ReplyDeleteI will definitely try the avocado tip since using lemon juice doesn't quite work.
Gorgeous flowers! I'd love to see fields of Indian Paintbrush... I am definitely going to try the avocado trick - we had two go bad just last week because we didn't remember to eat them.
ReplyDeleteI bought a clump of blue-eyed grass years ago but it did not prosper in our garden. Probably not enough light and too chilly. The avocado trick sounds right -- I think oxidation is what makes them get mucky so if you block the oxygen they'll hang on.
ReplyDeleteThat avocado tip is one I've never heard, but I'm sure going to give it a try. As you know, an avocado may not be ready for weeks, and then it is and in the blink of any eye, it's turned bad.
ReplyDelete