Summer’s here and a heat wave is waiting on the wings here in Northern California! Here’s a round up of recipes with our favorite summer ingredients – Juicy tomatoes, spicy bell peppers and fragrant herbs!
For the tomatoes & peppers, make sure they are organic (or grow them yourself) as both notoriously appear on the Dirty Dozen list every single year. I must confess that I don’t have much luck growing peppers myself, but tomatoes grow well. Mint and basil are pretty easy to grow as well, without even trying a whole lot, but again cilantro is another story! It either bolts or stays unproductive. In any case, it is easy to find huge bunches of herbs in the market for less than a dollar! That’s what I love about this time of year!
Here are bunch of unique accompaniments – spreads, chutneys and salsa and a couple of thirst quenching beverages:
5. Mint Chutney – This chutney bursts with the fresh taste of summer
6. A cleansing juice with peppers and tomatoes – If you are like me, you get overenthusiastic in the markets and buy too much of that lovely summer produce. And if you are like me, you hate throwing food away. So here’s the perfect way to use your produce in a cleansing juice. Throw in herbs as well or any other veggies you may have on hand.
7. Soda with Ginger Mint Shrub – You can use fresh mint in pretty much any drink and it would brighten it up, but this shrub is special as it is fermented for added benefits.
I had kicked off the Dirty Dozen series in the last post with a focus on greens, such as spinach. This year, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) moved spinach to #2 on the Dirty Dozen list, citing that it has more pesticide residue by weight than all other produce tested! Yikes! While going organic for all produce does burn a big hole in the wallet, I would definitely choose to go organic for a few select produce like greens, tomatoes, potatoes and bell peppers.
I had intended to continue to cover other culprits of contamination, but was stumped when I realized that it may not be the season for specific produce, like say strawberries, in Fall. Strawberries by the way, are at the top of the list in 2017, which breaks my heart. In late spring and summer, when V and I visit friends in Sacramento, our car whizzes past vast stretches of farms where bright red strawberries stand out gloriously on low lying shrubs. What a sight to watch! Strawberry picking with kids is a popular activity here in Northern California and it is sad that one cannot snack on strawberries right off the bush if the farm is not an organic one.
The same applies to stone fruit like nectarines and peaches, which grow abundantly in Northern California and ripen in peak summer. In fact, Silicon Valley used to be called “The Valley of the Heart’s Delight” for all the amazing drupes that grew here. Unfortunately they are also on the Dirty Dozen list.
And come Fall, it is time to visit Apple Hill at the foothills of the Sierras. Last month, one of my hiking buddies, who was looking forward to this year’s festival, remarked how she and her husband make the pilgrimage to Apple Hill every year in Fall just to get one single caramel apple each from their favorite farm, and they have been doing this for over 18 years! Several others make an annual pilgrimage to Napa Valley in late Fall to watch the year’s grape harvest being metamorphosed into world-class California wine.
Such is California’s devotion to local produce! If only we could banish excessive use of pesticides so that we can freely enjoy this abundance without worries!
Sunnyvale Farmers Market Open Saturdays 9 AM to 1 PM
Before moving on to recipes, here are a few rules that I follow to minimize exposure to pesticides through produce:
Use the EWG shopping guide to buy organic on the most contaminated produce. However, if you can afford it, go organic all the way.
Shop at local Farmers Markets but do not assume that everything sold there is organic. Talk to the farmer and get information. I find organic potatoes in the farmers market, while it is not that commonly seen in regular grocery stores.
Buy organic frozen berries for smoothies and desserts. While there is nothing more satisfying than snacking on a fresh berry, organic fresh berries are exorbitantly expensive, and go bad so quickly that you are left feeling guilty. So opt for frozen if you are buying berries for smoothies or desserts.
Wash thoroughly and peel non-organic produce. Typically I would keep the peel on apples and pears to benefit from the nutrients and fiber in the peel, but if they happen to be non-organic, I do peel them before eating.
Try your hand at growing some of the notorious produce. Tomatoes, for example, are a favorite for house gardening and given enough water and sunshine, they produce abundantly even in containers. Bell peppers do really well in hot weather, like in Sacramento, but here in the Bay Area with cool nights, they produce only in late summer. Figure out what works in your garden or kitchen counter.
Finally, as a bonus, try activism perhaps in small doses, like contributing to the Environmental Working Group and talking to the farmers in your Farmers Markets and letting them know which vegetables you would prefer to buy organic.
Home-made peach jam
Here are 8 recipes from previous posts featuring some of the Dirty Dozen culprits. Feel free to add your own recipes, and remember to buy organic for the Dirty Dozen.
