Looks awesome, Wally!
It’s that time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, isn’t it?
Grape tomatoes fresh from the garden, along with basil, oregano, sweet onion, garlic, and chive - all home-grown. Jacobsen’s sea salt, fresh ground Penzey’s black tellicherry pepper, and TJ’s Sicilian extra virgin olive oil. Simmered for 30-ish minutes.
Served on fusilli pasta with shaved pecorino Romano.
Oh ho ho! Nice!!! I’m going to do that this weekend. Going to get a nice balsamic, sweet glaze on them. I only use Penzey’s!
That’s what I love about this time of year. Most of my ingredients are from the garden, some of the remainder are local. The only things that went in there that had to travel more than a couple of hours are the peppercorns and the olive oil. And I could probably “settle” for California olive oil.
Do you use Oro Bailen? I swear that is the best olive oil I’ve ever had. It’s worth the $$$
Trader Joe’s Sicilian EVOO.
ETA: Just looked into the Oro Bailen. Intrigued. Not unreasonably pricey for a high-quality oil.
We used to get EVOO from a local place that had a source in rural Turkey. Simply insanely good early harvest EVOO. Not something you’d even think to cook with, just drizzle on whatever you had in front of you that you wanted to make more awesome. I used to drizzle it on ice cream. Then the place closed. 
TJs FTW. Seriously, lay hands on some Oro Bailen. If you don’t like Bezos, there are some other gourmet places to order from.
I will look for it. More towards the spicy/peppery side or buttery side?
The Picual is definitely to the intense, somewhat peppery side. But not the kind of spicy that you go, EEW! like it burns your throat. Smoother than that. Also, if you do get some, be careful of the vintage year. They are still selling stuff from 2016 and 2017. Look for 2019. And there are a few varieties other than Picual. I have not yet tried all of them.
I’ve had a lot of olive oils, and my honest opinion is that the best come from Spain. My knee jerk would have been Italy, or even Greece. But I have found consistently better oils from Spain. I have no idea why and I would totally throw down a debate about this!!! LOL
Fancy salad:
2020 salsa prototype. Cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, cajun belle peppers, banana peppers, onion, cilantro, all from the garden. Splash of lemon juice to make it zippy. Came out okay, not fantastic.
If you like Mexican food, you might enjoy the delightful cooking abuela’s YouTube channel, de mi rancho a tu cocina:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJjyyWFwUIOfKhb35WgCqVg
I don’t remember if she has a salsa recipe, but I imagine she must.
Most of the ones I’ve watched are some variation of: take a bunch of fresh veggies, char them on the stove, (Optional: fry some bread in oil) then add it and the veggies to a blender. Cook something delicious in the resulting sauce. It’s very soothing viewing.
Thanks, I’ll take a look!
Oh, my! That is one pretty salad!
Thanks 
We’ve been getting 2-pounds of the baby romaine every week from a local aquaponics facility, so I’ve upped my salad game to make sure we eat it all up.
This one’s by far the prettiest, but another favorite is the romaine topped with chèvre, fresh strawberries or blueberries, and candies nuts (pecans or walnuts coated in melted brown sugar & butter) With a balsamic dressing.
WOWSERS! That sounds DEvine!
I like romaine to make little “boats” for a Cambodian dish of herbs like Thai basil, mint, cilantro and spicy red chilies tossed with a thin-sliced steak, cured overnight in rice vinegar, fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar and soy (and more chilies). Chill and scoop that and some rice noodle vermicelli into the romaine leaves and crunch down!
Friday virtual happy hour with my brother, Dr. Brad in Philadelphia. Here in the ever so humble Conch home bar, we are having lemon drop martinis. Have a look:
Apologies to all those who don’t like big piles of meat. I will post more veggie oriented content sometime. This is what’s going down tonight: teriyaki tri-tip and shrimp kebabs. With bell peppers and red onions. Cannot wait!!!
