going to country...

Gonna eat a lot of PEACHES!

Despite the 100 degree high humidity weather, we made our annual foray up into the mountains of VA for some pick-your-own fun. Hollins Farm in Delaplane has an amazing orchard of peaches, both white and yellow, as well as other fruits, veggies, and farm fresh products. You can also get farm-raised beef from them, which they sell in bulk. Still trying to get enough people together to one day make a purchase from them! Smallest denomination is something like a quarter of a whole cow, which is something like 100 pounds of beef...err......

Anyway, our family members are all loyal white peach eaters so we were after the lovely white lady peaches, that have this amazing peachy floral aroma. We have this kinda crazy gene in our family that when we see fruit on trees, we start making involuntary grabby motions with our hands and foaming at the mouth. And then once we start pickin', we don't stop until we're forcibly put into a straight-jacket, blind-folded and removed from the farm quickly and efficiently. I kid you not.

So we picked a lot of peaches.

And I do mean a lot of peaches.

These photos still don't do our craziness full justice. We have something on the order of 150+ peaches chilling in our house right now. Did I also mention we're going back next weekend? Uh huh. Peach season is far from over.

We also got some beautiful and ridiculously sweet Japanese shiro plums.

And I totally went batshiz for these BLACKBERRIES!!! Just gawjuss!

Have you ever seen blackberry blossoms?

I'm in there somewhere.

Can't contain the crazy.

Yeah we got quite a bit of these too.

But wait, there's more! As if we'd pass up the opportunity to get all the super fresh produce we can. Hello, my favorite members of the solanaceae family!

Seriously, fruit have got to be some of the most beautiful things on this planet.

Last, but definitely not least, we got two of these babies. Overgrown babies. Ignore my messy house.

So, in conclusion, we have fruits and veggies coming out of our ears. If I've turned into a rabbit the next time you see me, please give me a loving home. If this is impossible, just promise me you'll use me to make the friggin most delicious batch of lapin a la cocotte known to mankind.

Until next time! Got a favorite recipe involving peaches or zucchini? Gimme a hollah!

hummus in the house!

Commence attempt number 193282904 to start/restart the whole blogging thang! This time, I've resolved not to put too much pressure on myself and have already accepted the fact that this will most likely not be a daily blog. And most DEFINITELY not a 'here's everything I eat and do in a day' type of blog. While I loooove the food/health bloggers who document their lives in such fun and interesting ways, and would love to try doing what they do one day, I've decided to commit this blog to random food ramblings, my own culinary creations, and my regular adventures in the kitchen, whenever they happen to occur.

And what better way to jump start a new era in the Hummusphere then a recipe involving...dunununuh...HUMMUS!

You know, I realized that hummus hasn't actually had much facetime on this blog. SHAMEFUL I know. I promise, as a loyal citizen of the Hummusphere, that I will pay more tribute in the future to this fabulous food item.

So we had eggs. A lot of eggs. And so in an effort to render them all edible as efficiently as possible, I decided to hard-boil them. But hard-boiled eggs are so...vanilla, you know? So in a fit of rebellion, I grabbed some not-so-typically-found-in-egg-salad ingredients and lo and behold, made egg salad.

HUMMUSY EGG SALAD

• 2-3 hard-boiled, peeled eggs
• 2 tbsp hummus
• splash of olive oil
• generous sprinkling of black pepper
• heaping spoonful of nutritional yeast

Mash up the eggs and mix everything together and tada!

Serve on a sandwich, on a bed of greens, on a spoon...

Hummus is an excellent substitute for the usual mayo+ mustard combo. And let me say something about nutritional yeast! I've seen it around the foodie intarweb communities for a while now and I've always been mildly intrigued and terrified at the same time. What is this stuff that looks and smells kinda like fish food but have all these health aficionados leaping in fungus induced joy? So finally, I picked up some and tentatively started sprinkling it on my salads, sandwiches and what not. Verdict? I like it! It gives a nice savory flavor to anything you add it to. I wouldn't call it cheesy, as many others do, but it's definitely not bad. Props for the insta-umami!

Now, let's look at this picture.

Ummmmmmm yeah. There's also an unpictured bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the pantry. And another couple of bars in my room. Er. I may or may not have a slight problem.

If anyone knows any fab uses for dark chocolate, hollah at me! Right now, I'm just eating it straight, which is already divine; melting it and drizzling it on things, which is possibly more divine; or forgetting the damn spoon altogether and just drinking it out of a bowl, which is, duh, the best idea I've ever had.

Until next time!