Better Late Than Never

What a dolt I've been.

Here I am, advertising pictures of gorgeous produce, promising follow ups and do I deliver?  No.  And it's been almost a month now.  My apologies.  So let's do the run down, shall we?

• The salad mix, bell peppers, candy stripe beets and Reed avocado all went into salads.  The creamy avocado contrasting nicely with the spicy greens and sweet crunch of thinly sliced beets and bell pepper.  I can eat salad for days.  Have I mentioned that before?  Ho-hum, moving on.

• The cherry tomatoes were transformed into smaller shriveled up versions of themselves when I oven roasted them.  Just set the oven temperature to 225F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Slice a pint of cherry tomatoes in half,  and place them on the baking sheet cut side up.  Drizzle a few teaspoons of olive oil over the top, a sprinkle of kosher salt a few unpeeled cloves of garlic.  Toss it in the oven for 2-3 hours, depending on the size of your tomatoes.  Start checking at 2 hours and then every 15 minutes until you have shriveled - but not burned! - morsels with just the slightest hint of juiciness left.  Use them in sandwiches, salads, on a bagel with cream cheese, or if you think they'll be hanging around for a while, pack them into a small jar, cover with olive oil and store in your fridge.  Intense tomato flavor in the dead of winter - oh, yes!

• With the eggplant I made caponata from Jamie Jamie's Italy cookbook (Jamie Oliver).  It was good stuff, especially after it had been sitting for a day so.  I know he gets a lot of flack for not so much printing "recipes" but more of guidelines but he creates some seriously amazing food.  Go ahead and try to look at that cookbook without drooling all over each page.  It's impossible.  I'll post the recipe next week.

• And lastly, the figs.  I bought them with no real idea of what was to become of them.  Stuffed with goat cheese, broiled and drizzled with honey and cracked pepper?  Salads?  Afternoon snacks?  They have such a woefully short season, and I love them so, I couldn't pass them up.  What I ended up making was a galette.  I was being taunted with pictures on Tastespotting and then Alice Q Foodie made one and all of a sudden I was rushing into the kitchen to jump on the bandwagon.  But with a twist!  I chopped up a bit of fresh rosemary and mixed it into the crust.  I could go on and on here, but I'll save it for next week.  You know, to keep you hanging.