Spring…fresh fruits and vegetables
It is very hard to find good fruits and vegetables here in Alaska. A couple of years ago, I joined a CSA(community supported agriculture), and get a box flown up here every other week. The CSA I belong to is called Full Circle Farm. They are based in Washington, and do the majority of their business all over Alaska. They fly the boxes up on Alaska Air, and then we pick them up at our chosen location.
This week among my selection were peaches, grapes, apricots, spinach, zucchini, baby bok choy, spring onions, plus 6 other items. I made a dinner last night using many of these items. I fixed sauteed chicken breasts with a peach salsa, spinach, and zucchini.
The zucchini was sauteed in olive oil with just salt and pepper.
The spinach was cooked with chopped garlic in a small amount of olive oil, salt and pepper.
The salsa was made by stirring together chopped peaches, spring onion, jalapeno, olive oil, sea salt. I was going to put a little lime or orange juice on it, but it didn’t seem to need it.
I love have fresh, flavorful ingredients where you can cook simply and have the flavors really shine.
That looks so yummy!! Can I hire you as my personal chef?
I know what you mean about getting good fruits/vegetables. Although I am sure we get more than you, most of the produce shipped in has been on a barge for days and it is never the same as what you can get on the mainland. At least we have good local fruits/vegetables.
Thanks girasoli. You’re right, things aren’t so fresh after being on a barge for a few days. You do get a larger variety of fresh items grown there on the islands than us, esp. fruit. We get berries here, but not a lot else. And our season is so short here. We can get good greens, potatoes, carrots, & cabbage, but not a lot of other things, at least not in decent quantities.
Yummy!
We’re very lucky in that we can get decent produce year round, and a lot of fabulous local stuff in season. In Winter sometimes its difficult walking away from all that Chilean stuff sprayed with God-knows-what at the grocery store.