Two Food Ideas

I LOVE raspberries. In Maine I had a big bed of raspberry plants and froze LOTS for winter eating.

Here, one can buy raspberries fresh pretty much all year long. And I like to combine them with the blueberries and blackberries that also seem to be available all year long–with a drizzle of maple syrup–as a dessert at night, when I eat a lighter meal. (Pricey, but better for you than sweets like a fake ice cream.)

The berries come in little plastic containers–and the blueberries and blackberries do just fine stored in the refrigerator in those containers. But NOT the raspberries. I’ve discovered if I put them on a bed of paper towels and just loosely cover them with one of my “One World, Zero Waste” fabric sheets–NOT more plastic–they last without melting or molding for many days. In the plastic container, the raspberries start to go bad in one day or less.

I’ve blogged about these fabric tops and replacements for paper towels before now, and I continue to use them heavily. I use the sheets to top dishes in the microwave too and then into the wash they go. Mine were a very welcome gift from my DIL Corinne.

I especially like the string-drawn tops–the big ones will also cover a rectangular dish.

Here they are in use in my refrigerator–with one laid over the raspberries and the small one over a bowl:

I’ve had mine for nearly a year now, and they are going strong.

To the left of the milk you can see a quart jar of organic “olio nuevo” just harvested a few weeks ago at Organic Roots–a small farm in California. I bought a gallon and took quarts to each son. New oil like this comes with all the “bits” that will settle to the bottom of a vat in 5 or 6 weeks. And it comes with the most amazing fresh smell and taste, especially when warm. New olive oil only has a short shelf life–about 6 months.

So that leads me to this plate of food, which contains a “salad” of warm blanched and roughly chopped collard leaves–with a bit of this olive oil, the carrot part that was in the container with the raw onion I wanted and which I grated, and a bit of the raw onion–salt and herbs. It was and is delicious. I included some of this salad in three scrambled eggs last night: delicious!

The rest is no surprise to you blog readers: grilled lamb chops and sweet peppers and some of the Carolina Gold Rice. (I couldn’t find any organic Carolina Gold Rice at Whole Foods so will call Anson Mills again tomorrow.) Grilled sweet peppers are so much sweeter than they are roasted in the oven or the Air Fryer.

My little diffuser is happily diffusing this morning–loaded with Young Living lavender and lemon essential oils today. Then I’m going to switch to the green tree oils, like pine, cedar, and some of the firs and balsams. And I’ll soon also order some vanilla essential oil. I have peppermint on hand as I use it to keep bugs away in the summer. Who knew that pine and grapefruit would smell delicious, not me.

It’s overcast today, with gentle rain predicted! So I’m going upstairs to sew on the project that obsessed me for some days now.