Miss Rachel

Katie, the Chocolate-Covered Vegan is featuring “Hug a Fruit” month, and I decided to participate as a challenge. Although I eat some fruit (usually apples and bananas) regularly, fruit is not something that I generally want to “hug.” It’s something that I know is nutritious, and it’s convenient to carry so I do eat it, but I don’t have the love for it that I do for my vegetables. If I were to hug a fruit, it would have to be blueberries. Sweet and juicy, blueberries are definitely my favorite fruits, and they are having their heyday in the grocery store right now. Granted I like blueberries best baked in pie, but they’re also good raw and and they make a great topping for sorbet, along with raspberries.

I guess I like raspberries also.

Let’s give them both a hug!

So what about you? Have you hugged a fruit lately?

Lately, Whole Foods is sporting and touting a lot of “local” produce. I’m not sure what the criteria for local is because I’ve seen stuff from Maine labeled local and the Maine border has got to be at least 200 miles from here. Still that’s a lot more local than New Zealand or Peru where stuff frequently comes from during the winter months.

Today I found *local* (from Massachusetts) green patty pan squash and I picked up six of them. I cooked them “the balsamic vinegar way” and then served them alongside some whole wheat linguine with pesto. I bought the *vegan* pesto already prepared from the frozen section from a company called Linnabella. I like their website because it explains exactly what you need to know and gives good answers. Such as… how should you thaw it and how much do you use and what do you do with the rest of it once it’s thawed? You can refreeze it! I was afraid I was going to be forced to refrigerate it and use it within a week or something. As delicious as pesto is, it’s a strong flavor and not something I want to eat more than once in a week. Hey, and I just noticed Linnabella’s a local farm too.

Dinner was yummy, and I was pretty tired after my day of doing laundry, grocery shopping and cooking, but I managed to muster the energy to make a blueberry pie afterward – !!! Pie is pretty major for me because the crust is my nemesis, but I’m a baking snob and I don’t think you’re really making a pie if you don’t make the crust yourself. I managed to do a pretty good job (with minimal cracking) of it by rolling the dough between two sheets of wax paper. And the blueberries were local of course (super local – from Connecticut). The pie is cooling now, but Sweetie and I will be sure to delve into a little later tonight.

So I’ve been struggling with depression lately and felt really shitty earlier this week. Like, I was getting a little scared about how bad I felt, but I persevered and seem to be holding it together pretty well. I did feel like crying once at work today, but then I realized the work stuff I was getting agitated about was really no big deal. As I said, I’m holding it together.

Somehow in spite of the depression I have managed to keep working out. This morning workout regimen I decided to try out a few weeks ago has really caught on. All the good things I’ve heard about working out in the morning – it gives you energy, you get it over with, it kick starts your metabolism – were things I always believed, but the idea of waking up and working out right away just sounded awful to me. In fact, that still sounds awful to me, but waking up and doing my normal morning routine (coffee, blog reading, packing my lunch), and then going to work out is great.

Wednesday is the day I go running with a coworker friend. I was feeling rotten au gratin on Tuesday afternoon, but I IM-d her, and asked are we running tomorrow, and she said yes. Wednesday morning we met and I said I don’t want to do this, and she said, but we’re going to do this. And we did. And by the end of the run I was smiling. Wednesday is running day. Even Anthony Martignetti runs on Wednesday.

I remember last year we had some of the worst weather for summer. I remember lying on the couch under a blanket in July – !!! I’m not super crazy about hot humid weather, but I do like for the weather to be seasonal. Like when it gets warm in the winter, I find it disturbing because it’s not supposed to be warm, even if the warm weather is “nice.” Warm weather is nice in spring and fall, not winter. This is New England and we’re supposed to have four seasons. So anyway, now it’s summer and the weather is acting like summer. The cicadas start singing early in the morning, and you just know you’re in for another hot summer day.

On Friday, I had a real scare when I looked at my bank account online. I was just checking to see if a payment I’d made had gone through, and I saw an overdraft charge and a couple days previous a charge for $499.99 that I had not made. What???!!! I googled the name of the company and found a website with very little info. No “about” page, no “contact us” link. There was also an “888″ number (on my bank statement, not the website) that I called once I got to work and the number just rang and rang so I hung up. I tried it again a few minutes later and finally after about a gazilion rings I got someone’s voice mail. I gave my name and told them that there was an unauthorized charge and corresponding overdraft fee on my bank account and that it was “unacceptable” and that they needed to call me back. They never did.

At first, I was afraid that I had made a mistake and inadvertently signed up for something without reading the fine print, but I’m pretty convinced that this was not my mistake. I just googled the company again, and nothing comes up. Fortunately, I called my bank and they refunded the charge and the overdraft fee and are starting a fraud investigation. The charge was made at 6 PM on July 7th and I happen to remember that at that time I was getting a pedicure. I sincerely hope it wasn’t anyone at the spa who fraudulently used my card, but it does make me wonder. At least my toes look nice.

And now it’s time for our random meal of the day picture. I had some sliced mushrooms, shredded carrots and an onion hanging around, and I decided they would work well stir-fried with greens and served over soba noodles. I just needed something green. There is a lot of local produce becoming available right now, and I found some nice small cabbages that fit the bill. Unfortunately, once they’re cooked, they don’t really look that green, but the meal still tasted good. Sweetie and I seasoned our plates with nutritional yeast, sesame oil, sesame seeds and tamari.

One of my favorite foods is squash, but I always found summer squash and zucchini a little ho-hum until I learned some different ways to cook them. See, I was steaming them which results in a somewhat bland and mushy product. Tasty with some salt, pepper and Earth Balance, but still a bit lackluster. Then with the help of google, I discovered a recipe for Pan-Seared Balsamic Baby Squashon the blog Vegan Yum Yum. Oh my, summer squash has never been the same since. I’ve made it several times, and I have been so pleased with the discovery. Yum yum indeed.

Here it is served up with some quinoa, a nice summer dinner we had last week.

Cooking sqaush this way has sent me in a whole new direction with it even when I don’t follow that exact recipe. For example, a couple weeks ago, I cut the squash into rounds and seared them that way, without vinegar. I like my food cooked, and sometimes even a little burned so these were A-OK with me. I don’t think I’ll ever become a raw food aficionado, but then I never thought I’d become a vegan either. I served it with some seitan and fried rice Sweetie had bought frozen at Trader Joe’s.

And then there’s zucchini. I found a great way to make zucchini “fries” on this “flashback” post on the blog Peas and Thank You: Groundhog Day. I think I cooked mine a bit longer than she recommended, but they were delish. I seasoned them with nutritional yeast and served them alongside some seitan. I don’t think I want my zucchini cooked any other way.

Unless it’s grilled. I don’t own a grill, but my mom does, and when we visited her on Fourth of July weekend, I suggested we have a grilled dinner. I had brought some Gardein BBQ Skewers with me for this purpose. Sweetie and I had those and my mom and sister had some kind of beef. We also had corn on the cob and some Swiss chard I steamed up. My mom suggested that she would cook the zucchini with some stewed tomatoes and onions as she likes to do, but I said, “You know what I’d really like – if you’d grill it. As long as it’s not too much trouble.” She replied that grilling them would actually be easier. She sliced them lengthwise, scored them and seasoned them (I’m not sure with what – probably oregano was involved). I’m not sure how long she cooked them, but they were pretty much perfect. And they made a delicious addition to this summer holiday meal.

As is my tradition I’m in Rockport for the holiday weekend. Plans include a trip to the beach, vegan grilling and watching the rest of the Wimbledon final.

Last night Sweetie and I went for a leisurely walk in Rockport, just enjoy the scenery and the weather. I also bought myself a pair of silver hoop earrings. I love silver hoops, and with the exception of these super huge ones that I haven’t ever worn, all my hoops had gotten lost or broken so I definitely needed some new ones.

Pathway off of Bearskin Neck:

Rockport Art Association:

Front Beach after sunset:

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans!