Produce News for May 10, 2010

SPRING FANTASIA SALAD PART I (Monday, May 10): We are making one of my favorite Spring salads. I call it a Spring Fantasia salad and it starts with cantaloupe. Of course you always wash a cantaloupe before you cut it. Remember that the netting on the Cantaloupe, all of those little nooks and crannies, could possibly hold some dirt or bacteria. Once you wash it, just simply cut it in half along the equator…or the midriff of the Cantaloupe. Next, simply scoop the seeds out. Very simple so far, huh? Now we’re just going to make melon balls. Now, I know some people have the really fancy melon ballers. But if you don’t have one, no problem. Just take a little teaspoon and it’ll actually do the same thing. Just go round and round. My little Marks Brothers actually love to do this. Oh my goodness! Little Landon and Lincoln - they love to get these little teaspoons, and they’ll make their own little melon balls. Once you get all of your Cantaloupe balls, that becomes our very first item into our spring fantasia salad. This is such a simple salad. By the way, we’re finally getting some great supplies of cantaloupe.
SPRING FANTASIA SALAD PART II (Tuesday, May 11): Hey, all this week I’m going to be putting together a spring fantasia salad. I mean it’s a really simple recipe. Yesterday we just started with some cantaloupe. We just made some melon balls out of them. Now we’re going to be adding some grapefruit. Oh! This time of year it’s end of the season grapefruit, but these are some of the sweetest grapefruits you’re going to have. Basically what you do with the Grapefruit, you cut off the north pole and south pole. Then take your knife and simple cut off the Grapefruit peel. What you are left with is a beautiful ball of sweet, juicy Grapefruit. There are thin membranes between each segment. Take a sharp knife, and simply cut down those membranes to the core of Grapefruit. The sections then just slide right out. Do this part over the salad because I want some of that grapefruit juice right in the salad. Don’t waste any of it. I also use this for my green salads as well. If I’m doing a green salad, I will do this right over the green salad and I get some of the juice in there. Oh, my goodness! It makes a fantastic salad. Our next ingredient…Avocados.
SPRING FANTASIA SALAD PART III (Wednesday, May 12): All right. We started earlier this week with some cantaloupe and yesterday we had some beautiful red grapefruit. We’re making my Spring Fantasia Salad. Now we’re going to add avocadoes. Now avocadoes are the last one to the party. Why is that? Because avocadoes are the most tender of them all. So what I’ve done, I’ve just cut them in half, and then we’re just going to cut this into quarters, and now this becomes a whole lot easier to take the little peel off. Once they are peeled, simply rough chop the Avocados. Don’t cut the chunks too small. Nice big chunks is what you’re going to want into the salad because again this avocado is so smooth and creamy. If you put too small pieces in there, it’s just going to simply disintegrate by the time you serve it to everybody. So those avocadoes gently go in there. Do not in a million years mix it up yet. We’re not quite done. We have the dressing to go in. The less mixing of this the better.
SPRING FANTASIA SALAD PART IV (Thursday, May 13): Oh, my goodness! There’s nothing like the smell of fresh spearmint! Absolutely gorgeous! Of course we had mint for our mint juleps for the Kentucky Derby. Now we’re going to be using some mint in my Spring Fantasia salad. Now what are we going to do with these mint leaves? This is a great way, by the way, to get your kids into the kitchen. My little Marks Brothers, Landon and Lincoln, love dealing with fresh herbs. Little Babe Lincoln just turned six. His job is to pick the leaves off and then stack them up for me. Once they are stacked, I roll them up into tight, tiny rolls. Take your knife and easily slice very thin strips of the Mint. The trick here is to have a very sharp knife. If you don’t have a sharp knife, you’re just going to pound the oil content right into your cutting board, leaving a lot of the oil…and the flavor out of your recipe. Once you have your thin strips of Mint, chop them into fine pieces. This will be used in our dressing.
SPRING FANTASIA SALAD PART V (Friday, May 14): We have the Cantaloupe Balls in the bowl, Grapefruit sections and chunks of Avocados. With out chopped Mint, we’re going to put a tablespoon of vegetable oil… a tablespoon of honey. I love…okay two tablespoons of honey. Then we’re going to put a tablespoon of lemon juice right in here. Try to use fresh Lemons for this. It’ll taste so much better and you’ll be glad you did. Use a whisk to combine these ingredients. Once mixed, you can carefully pour over the fruit in the bowl. Gently mix so that the dressing will coat all ingredients of the salad. It looks beautiful…and tastes even better. That’s why I call it Spring Fantasia. Put that onto a salad bowl or into a salad dish. One of the best spring salads you’re going to eat!