Provencal Tomato Tart

Gropius and I visited the Farmers Market this morning (you can see pictures of the farmers market here).

We came home with quite a haul, including a variety of delicious heirloom tomatoes. So, tonight for dinner, we made a tomato tart that our friend Miriam first made for us last spring when she and Andy invited us over for breakfast. She was kind enough to share the recipe with me and it was TASTY! It's an interesting recipe in that it uses dijon mustard and herbs de Provence, in addition to cheese and an egg/cream custard. We used the cheese we had on hand (a Piave we bought in Berkeley back when we bought ice cream) and I didn't have as much cream as the recipe called for, but the results were still outstanding.

We also made an indian-spiced okra dish and fresh corn. Pictures are below:

First Harvest!

We had our first harvest from the garden today--okra! Okay, okay, it was only ONE okra, but still--a plant we have been tending has flowered, borne fruit, and that fruit has matured and ripened! Okra grows pretty fast and you want to pick it while it's still relatively short because once it gets longer, it gets tougher. So, here she is:







And, our neighbor's apricot tree is finally ripened and we got a whole BOX of fruit this morning:





Wow--talk about an embarrassment of riches!

Farmers Market Bounty

Gropius and I went to the farmers market this morning. For those of you not from Sacramento, hearing about a farmers market that takes place UNDER a freeway sounds more like ministering to the homeless. But, every Sunday morning, the largest farmers market does indeed take place in a large parking lot underneath the I-80 freeway south of downtown. You can buy all sorts of fruits and vegetables, plants, honey, breads, cheeses, and even pork and fresh fish! And all for prices MUCH cheaper than at Whole Paycheck...

Gropius decided to buy a skin-on pork shoulder from the pork man, we bought some bread from the Bavarian bread woman, and we loaded up on fruits and vegetables. We bought...

Pears


Peaches & Nectarines


Cherries




Apricots


Bavarian Seed and Grain Bread (heavy as a brick!)






This afternoon, Gropius worked on repairing Derellek's turntable. Apparently, a capacitor (sp?) was blown and he had to replace it and then torture me with Evergreen Zum Tausen records. Not quite strings, not quite jazz, not quite swing band. Not good!

While he did that, I experimented with another exterior paint color. This makes paint color #4: crushed oregano. I painted a splotch over paints #2 & 3 (tate olive on the left and mossy rock/diaper green on the right) to compare all three





and then painted a different section of the house to get a better sense of how it would look overall. Opinions, anyone??