Raw Corn Salad with Cherry Tomotoes and Avocado

Now that I am sober I am aware of how much of what I ate depended on how it went with red wine. Now what I make for dinner is pretty much only about what is available locally, as in local to my fridge.

After tonight's meeting I was right down the street from Farmer and the Cook, so I picked up some:

- golden cherry tomatoes
- 2 ripe avocados
- a bag of pre husked corn
- cilantro
- 2 jalepenos
- 3 limes
- some spelt tortillas
- some cheese
- some chips

All the produce was grown by Steve.

Obviously I was thinking quesadillas or just guacamole but when I got home eric said cheese sounded heavy.

So I made up a corn salad with the raw corn, halved cherry tomatoes, serranos olivia had given me the other day, red onion, cilantro, lime and salt.

Fried the tortillas up in olive oil.

Spooned the salad on top.
Sliced an avocado on top of each.
And put the last of the smoked salmon on top of that.

YUM.

Olivia's Turnips

Who knew?
Turnips are delicious.

Steve Sprinkle's farm is exploding with all sorts of new and unfamilar vegetables.
Olivia showed me this easy way to eat turnips.

1. Thinly slice turnips up raw.
2. Mix with Soy Sauce and some sliced green onions or pepods for color
3. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top

Yum!

Endive, Fennel, Blood Orange and Avocado Salad

Uschi was my wingman on this one.

These proportions serve 20.

Use knife to slice all skin and white parts off the blood oranges. Squeeze juice out of the slices and reserve. Slice oranges into shy 1/4 rounds.
Slice 10 Endive diagonally. Toss with a few good squeezes of lemon.
Thinly slice 5 bulbs of fennel. Toss with juice of a lemon.
Open and pit 4 ripe avocados.

There are many ways you could assemble this salad. Last night we had a big round platter, so we arranged the ingredients on top of each other in circles.

Put endive down first and over the entire platter.
Layer Fennel on top but closer to the center so you can see the endive on the outside.
Layer blood oranges on top, but closer to the center.
Using sharp knife, slice avocados in radiating pattern while still in skin and use big spoon to scoop out. Fan avocado around the edges of the blood orange circle.

Mix the reserve blood orange dressing with finely diced red onion, a little maple syrup, salt and pepper to taste, and Ojai Olive Oil. Pour the dressing around the platter over the endive, fennel and avocados.

I wanted to put fresh mint on the salad, but could not find it in my packed fridge. So we used fresh rosemary and it worked great.