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Check Out This Weeks Recipe from Your Produce Man. Click Here.
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AVOCADOS (Monday, June 23): I’ve been asked many times about leaving the pit in the guacamole. The folklore is that if you leave the pit in, it keeps the guacamole from turning brown. Well, the pit does make the guacamole look authentic, but the folklore is simply…folklore. You can perform the same experiment I did. Get two ripe avocados. Mash the flesh of one and put it into a small bowl. Place the pit right in the middle and sink it down a little. Mash the second avocado and put it into a second small bowl. Get a small clear light bulb and place it right in the middle. Sink it down just a little. Cover both and refrigerate. Bring it out the next day and take a look. You will notice that both have turned brown. But didn’t the pit work? Now carefully remove the pit. You will notice that the guacamole that touched the pit, is still nice and green. Now look through the clear light bulb. Yes, indeed, the guacamole touching the bulb is still green. There is no magic in the pit. With the pit, or the light bulb in the guacamole, it is simply a matter of keeping oxygen from mixing with the enzymes from the guacamole, which causes oxidation…browning. The key is not the pit, but the lack of oxygen. Whenever I wrap my left over guacamole, I press the plastic wrap right onto the guacamole, thereby allowing far less oxygen to reach my guacamole. So my guacamole stays greener, longer.
FRESH HERBS (Tuesday, June 24): I have done several reports on fresh herbs, rying to get you to try fresh herbs. The flavor is so dynamic and brings a “WOW” to any recipe. A viewer wrote me and asked how they can learn the different flavors of herbs. It was a great question, with a very fun way of learning. In fact, I want you to include your kids or grandkids in this flavor experiment. Go to the store, buy one bunch each of the fresh herbs, and also buy a container of cream cheese, and a box of plain crackers. Once you get home, I want you to finely chop a portion of each fresh herb. Add your herbs to a small amount of cream cheese, each separately, so you will end up with 5 – 8 different cream cheese mixtures. Then simply take a knife and spread a little of herbed cream cheese onto a cracker. You, your kids or grandkids, will now be able to taste the different flavors, one at a time. Once you have done this, make a note of the herbs you liked and didn’t like. Once you know the flavors, you will be able to better tell whether one herb goes better with chicken or pasta, or beef. You’ll learn the sweet herbs, the savory herbs. It’s a fun way of doing it.
FRESH HERBS (Wednesday, June 25): Now that you have learned the various flavors of fresh herbs, now you can make your own herb butter to use in the winter months, when fresh herbs are more expensive. You may only want to do a couple different flavors, like basil and butter, rosemary and butter, parsley and butter. Here’s what you do. Simply get a stick of butter and set it out to soften. Chop up a bunch of fresh herbs, then mix it with a fork into your softened butter. Then lay out about 6” of plastic wrap on about 6” of wax paper. Put your herb butter in the middle and begin to roll up the paper. You will want to work the roll into a tight roll, then twist the ends. Now you can put this in the freezer, labeled of course. When you steam some carrots, you can simply slice off a little of your favorite flavored herb butter. Slice some rosemary butter into your steamed potatoes. It makes it very simple.
SEEDLESS WATERMELON (Thursday, June 26): A watermelon seed-spitting contest begins today, through this weekend in Luling, TX. It’s going to be tough having a seed-spitting contest when the vast majority of watermelons being grown today are seedless. About 75% of all watermelons eaten today, are seedless. One way to ensure that the watermelons you buy will be completely eaten up, is to cut them up…as soon as you get home. It’s not that tough. Simply cut both ends off the melon, the north pole and the south pole. Then stand the melon on one end. Take your knife and begin slicing the rind off the melon. Now you have just the flesh of the watermelon. Take your seedless watermelon, place it on its side and slice it two times, so that each section is about 3” tall. Now you can begin slicing each section into these long cylinders. By cutting the melon this way, less juice will seep out and you end up with juicier melons. Next, put these long cylinders into a bowl, cover and refrigerate. When you or the kids want a snack, pull out the watermelons and watch them disappear.
LEAF LETTUCE (Friday, June 27): It’s summer, and that means we need to be eating more summer lettuce salads. Have you ever gone to the store, bought a head of red leaf lettuce, put it in the refrigerator, and in just a few days, it’s wilting and spoiling. You end up throwing about half of it away because it spoils before you get to it. Frustrating, huh? Well, how would you like to have leaf lettuce for 21 days, without throwing any away? It can be done. A few weeks ago, we told you how. Stand your leaf lettuce on end, with the leaves pointing up. Gently find the center of the lettuce and gently push the leaves down, tearing them for the core. By tearing the leaves off the core, you are tearing around the natural cell structure of the leaf. By doing this, the cell structure won’t “bleed moisture” and will keep the moisture in the leaf. If you cut the leaves off with a knife, then you are cutting through the cell structure, causing the leaf to “bleed” precious moisture, causing the leaf to dehydrate. Once you have torn the leaves off, swish them gently in the ice water. Don’t let them soak. Soaking would saturate the cell structure with water, bloating the leaves and actually would cause the leaves to go bad much faster. Lay the leaves on a paper towel or terry cloth towel and gently pat them dry. Then stack them up and place them in a zip-lock type baggie. Push as much air out as possible before you zip it shut. This process is a great way of using your kids in the kitchen. They can easily swish the leaves and pat them dry and stack them up. Prep your leaf lettuce this way and you will never have to throw lettuce away again…unless, of course you go on a three-week vacation. In today’s Produce Man show, Michael brings out his science experiment, three-week old red leaf lettuce. One whole head was in a zip-lock baggie. One baggie was filled with lettuce leaves that had been cut off. The third baggie had lettuce leaves prepared as written about above. When he opened the bags, the whole lettuce was very wilted. You see, the core still draws moisture out of the leaves, wilting the leaves. The cut lettuce leaves looked better, but were very limp and wilted. The leaves that had been torn from the core, still looked like it had been purchased just yesterday.
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