The sweetness of fruit

Have you ever noticed that fruit seems to be sweeter at the bottom?  I’ve been eating a lot of fruit lately and I’ve noticed this is not only peaches but plums, oranges and pears.  Apples seem to be sweet all over and so do bananas but softer fruit isn’t.  It’s like all the sugar in the fruit has run to the bottom!

My fruit cube has had quite the variety of fruits in it the past few weeks – a welcome change from the winter where it was mostly apples and oranges with 2 bananas every week.  Now we have fewer apples and oranges + plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots and of course the 2 bananas.  I really am not a plum fan I’ve discovered.  I’ll eat them but lately they have been too sour.  I eat the bottom half and throw away the rest because the only part that’s sweet is the bottom.  And I don’t like the skin – it is too thick and tart.  I have learned to eat the fuzzy skin of the peaches and apricots though – I used to peal them.  Well, I used to peal just about everything but lately I’ve been eating that too!

At home Erik and I have been going through a watermelon about every other day!  They are in season and we both LOVE watermelon.  Last weekend Bill and I found a vendor that had Black Diamond watermelons from SE Missouri – yummy!  If you’ve ever eaten one of these, you won’t want the striped ones.  Black Diamonds are solid dark green and very red inside.  The red seems to go deeper into the rind that other melons and so you get more to eat.  And Sweet!  Oh MY!

Bill used to ‘pitch melons’ back in the day and every once in a while they would ‘drop’ one and it would bust open.  They would eat the heart out.  What a great treat when working out in the hot sun – a cool melon!  And so full of juice – I have to eat it outside or over the sink!

Ah summer.  It’s hot outside but cool and sweet in fruit!

What’s cookin?

For those of you new to this blog (and those joining me here from LJ), this is a regular feature of my blog now.  Usually on Monday or Tuesday I post what the menu is for dinner that week.  This helps me plan ahead which saves money, helps me stay on program (weight watchers), and helps me remember what I planned! 

At my work we have a service from the Bellville Farmer’s Market every week called Fruit my Cube.  We get a box of fruit – usually about 18 pieces – delivered to our office on Tuesdays.  Recently they have started doing a veggie cube as well.  So while the fruit usually stays on my desk all week for me to snack on at work, the veggie cube goes home and gets incorporated into meals that week.

This week we have 8 ears of corn and 6 tomatoes – all home grown right there within sight of the St. Louis Arch!  The corn is great but this is like the 4rth or 5^th week of corn every week and they keep sending us more each week!  I can only fix so many corn recipes.  So if you have a great recipe that you would like to share – please do!  Otherwise, I’m going to have to start cutting it off the cob and freezing it until this winter when I don’t have fresh corn and want some.  BTW, did you know that when you cut corn off the cob with a dull knife it goes everywhere?  I found this out last week.  J

Tuesday:     we had breakfast for dinner.  A friend of mine here at work traded me eggs for blackberries.  I was expecting a dozen – I got 2!  Bill had already given me a dozen this past weekend as he wanted farm fresh eggs as well.  So we had bacon and eggs and English muffins with juice and milk – the kids said I was the best mom!  ;)

Wednesday:  Smothered Steaks – this is a favorite recipe of a friend of mine who recently moved to Colorado.  I am going to mix up my Salisbury steak recipe for the steak part and then follow hers from there.  Mushrooms, onions, stewed tomatoes (I’ll be using fresh) and cream of mushroom soup – yummy!

Thursday:     Tuna casserole – my kids favorite

Friday:          Hamburger Mac Skillet – basically what ever veggies you have on hand, stir into some browned hamburger and add pasta – I still have some veggies left from last weeks foray into my friend Cheri’s garden – I’m going to use those.

Saturday:      Stir fry – sounds a lot like Friday’s meal but this will be at Bill’s house and we will use up the rest of those veggies with chicken over rice.

Sunday:         Grilled Salmon with grilled corn on the cob and assorted veggies

Monday:       I haven’t really gotten this far yet – probably leftovers.  This will be the last night we are home before we leave for SC but Bill will be at the house all week to watch the critters so he will need leftovers too… I’ll have to think on this one.