You Ate What...?

My new job starts next week, but I'll be working from home so I will still be able to make crazy and delicious things for my family. This week has been a little crazier than usual because of our Bountiful Baskets haul. Fruit, it's what's for dinner...and lunch...and breakfast  We have so much fruit. This isn't even all of it. This is just the stuff that didn't need to be refrigerated, was forgotten in the picture (bananas), or that we hadn't eaten the first day we got it (Italian Prune Plums). Apples, apricots, pluots, watermelon, avocados, limes, prickly pear cactus fruit, and the refrigerated grapes. We got tomatoes too, but we aren't keeping those. We're not big raw tomato fans. I've eaten most of these things, but one thing was pretty new even to me. Weird looking, huh? This is a prickly pear cactus fruit, also known as tuna. It's common in the Southwest, and this basket seemed to be aglow with Southwest foods. We'll talk more a

This past week has been a flurry of activity with getting a job set up as an independent contractor, being sick with a virus or maybe allergies that waxed and waned throughout the week, remembering how to knit (especially the casting on and purl parts of knitting), and just general gear up to a more structured time. All of that being said, I was unable to cook quite as much as I had been. Setting up shop and being sick was the biggest part of that, so hopefully I will be able to go back to some of it as things settle into a new normal. I did, however, have some time to cook. So, here are the feastings of the last week: Roasted Okra This is my absolute favorite side dish ever, except maybe mashed potatoes with my mom's roast gravy. I would seriously eat this every single day, and if I didn't live in an apartment I would totally plant okra for next year. Roasting the okra takes away a lot of the gooey-gummy fluid. It still tastes "green" but in the best way po