Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Time Out For Lunch


We had a nice frost here last night and the plants in the vegetable garden which survived the early frost we had at the end of September looked pretty bad after the temperature rose this morning...so I pulled up the peppers, the eggplants and most of the zuchinnis. We still have lettuce in the little greenhouse.
It was a bad year for fruit, except for strawberries and raspberries, but tree fruit all got zapped by a late frost in April. No plums and the figs never got ripe this year.
I dug up the beets. They were very nice looking. I sliced one in half and put it on the scanner to make this image.
Then, I grated the other half, which was fairly huge and made a vinagrette of wine vinegar, oil and a table spoon of Dijon mustard.
I peeled an orange and cut the slices up and mixed them and the juice with the grated beet with a handfull of chopped parsely. To top it off and really spice it up, I picked a few handfulls of nasturtium blossoms. If you have never eaten nasturtium blossoms, now is the time to try them. They are peppery and sweet, nasturtium leaves as well have a peppery flavor and a real surprise in a salad.
The grated beet orange mixture was in a bowl with the nasturtium blossoms on top. A truly esthetic fall salad that was as good to eat as beautiful to look at!
Bon apetit, bien sur!

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