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Does leaving the pit in the Guacamole keep it
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LETTUCE (Monday, June 30): There are two major
things that affect the price of produce. The first is Mother Nature.
The weather. Too hot, too cold, too much rain, too little rain, too
windy. Adverse weather conditions reduce harvest yields. Less supplies
mean higher prices. The second is demand. A rising tide raises all
ships. When you have a rising tide of demand, it raises prices. So
much for a little economics lesson. The question for lettuce right
now, is why there is higher demand. Take a look the next time you
pass a fast food restaurant. What are they promoting? Burger? Fries?
Milkshakes? Nope. They are promoting salads. Virtually every major
fast food restaurant chain is in the salad business in a big way
now. That’s actually a very good thing. When you’re pressed
for time and going to a fast food restaurant, you can actually buy
something that won’t make you fat. A fresh lettuce salad. Unfortunately,
with restaurants taking so much supplies, that is limiting supplies
for grocery stores, and that means higher prices. You are finding
that mostly iceberg and romaine are the hardest hit with this increase
restaurant demand. You should find better pricing on red and green
leaf lettuce.
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Supersweet Summer Corn is here!
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Look how fast corn losses sugar!
Eat your corn quickly. Don’t refrigerate it.
Eat it now!
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CORN (Tuesday,
July 1): Just how fast does the starch turn to sugar in our summer
sweet corn? There was a time when the only way to get
super sweet corn was to get the water boiling, go to your garden,
pick the corn, rush it into the boiling water for 3 minutes, then
smoother it with butter. Well, today, supersweet summer corn has
more sugar, and does tend to stay sweeter…longer. But they
still lose sugar. Even if corn is kept at a perfect 32 degrees, it
still loses about 20% of its sugar after just four days. If you keep
your corn at 50 degrees, you lose over 40% of the sugar in just two
days! If you accidentally leave your corn out of refrigeration, you’ll
lose over half of the sugar in just one day! The moral is: Eat your
corn quickly. Don’t treat it like a potato or onion. For every
day you don’t eat the corn, more sugars in the corn have turned
to starch. You want to literally watch corn grow? One Iowa farmer
has set up CornCam so you can do just that. More than just boil,
there is a world of corn
recipes available.
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Nothing like an ice-cold melon on
a hot summer day.
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How do you pick out the best watermelon?
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WATERMELON (Wednesday,
July 2): July 4th is just two days away. How do you pick out the best
Watermelon for the 4th of July picnic?
First, click here to test your Watermelon knowledge with this quick
quiz. Before we get picking out the best Watermelon, let’s
chat about watermelon. Nothing like an ice cold melon on a hot summer
day. Between Texas and Florida, they grow about 75% of the nation’s
supply of watermelons. The rest come from Arizona and California.
In the off season, most of our watermelons come from Mexico, from
northern Mexico, from the state of Sonora. Chefs around the country
are coming up with some great recipes for watermelons, even a Watermelon
Salsa. Watermelon may actually be the largest vitamin
pill, loaded
with vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. In fact, watermelons are
loaded with lycopene, the anti-oxidant that gives it the red color.
So, here’s how to pick out the best watermelon for your July
4th picnics:
- 1. Look for a watermelon symmetrical in shape, even from side
to side.
- Look at the belly of watermelon, where it laid on the
ground. If the color is white, you don’t want it. It should
be yellow to dark yellow.
- Pick it up. It should feel very heavy
for its size, a sign of great juice content.
- Gently scrape
your fingernails along the rind. If the rind comes up easily
under your fingernails, then that is a mature
watermelon.
- For a seeded watermelon, look at the stem end.
There should be a hole where the stem used to be. That’s
called a “full
slip,” which means the melon fully slipped off the
vine without having to be cut off. That means the melon
was ripe and
ready to
come off the vine.
- Look for black crystallized sugar
around the stem, or beads of sugar on the surface of the
melon, a sign of good
sugar
content inside.
- Finally, when you hit it, hit it to “feel” it,
not hear it. If you feel the watermelon vibrate in the
hand you’re
holding the melon with, then that means the melon is solid.
The vibration is the sound waves that you are feeling.
If it doesn’t
vibrate, then the melon is most likely overripe and mushy
inside.
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How do you pick out the best watermelon?
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PERSONAL WATERMELON (Thursday, July 3): It took scientists and growers
working together about 10 years to come up with the biggest thing
in Watermelons, the tiny personal sized Watermelon. Its variety name
is “Pure Heart.” And it is. The seed company had to do
three things. First, make it seedless. To do that, you cross a diploid
with a tetraploid to come up with a triploid. It’s genetics
talk. It’s kind of like crossing a horse (that’s your
diploid) with a donkey (that’s your tetraploid), to come up
with a mule that does not reproduce (that’s your triploid).
The 2nd thing they had to do was to make it small. They are only
about 5 – 7 pounds each, small enough to fit right where your
gallon of milk sits. No more cleaning out the an entire shelf. The
third thing was to make the rind as thin as a cantaloupe rind. And
they did. The melon is sweet, from its very core right out to the
rind. They may be more expensive, but they are worth every penny.
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The Zespri Gold Kiwifruit, as gold as a golden
pineapple.
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The very sexy
Rainier Cherry
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GOLD
KIWIFRUIT AND RAINIER CHERRIES (Friday,
July 4): Celebrate 4th of July with one of the sexiest cherries around,
the Rainier,
named after Mt. Rainier in Washington state. They have less acid
than a Bing, so is milder in flavor. They also get “rug burns” quite
easily, so don’t bang them around. Look for Rainiers that still
have the stem on. Those are fresher. Celebrate also with Zespri
Gold Kiwifruit, now coming in from New Zealand. They are fuzzless with
a beautiful golden inside color when ripe. Ripen them in a brown
paper bag What a dynamic color in your fruit salad.
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