Farmers' market finds: Ripe figs & heirloom tomatoes

Recently I've been trying to buy our produce at the Oceanside Farmers' Market. I have a flexible work schedule and I thought I should really take advantage of this little local gem. The market is open year round and is only about a mile from my home. I've gone every week for a month now and we've tried some food we wouldn't normally buy. I figured it was time to start keeping track of what we made so here I am! 

This week I got some really great mission figs and sweet heirloom cherry tomatoes. I wasn't planning on using them together but we found this recipe for Beef Tri-tip with Roasted Figs and hello, it was amazing. I didn't have any fancy little onions so I used regular sweet onions and roughly followed this recipe to gauge roasting time before adding the figs and tomatoes. 

Adding a olive oil and balsamic vinegar to the figs and tomatoes before roasting yielded a sweet sauce that we used over the beef rather than making a gravy. It was perfect and what I've learned is that I need to roast figs a lot more often!

Freezing Avocados

One of the perks of living in Southern California is the abundance of avocados. There are many different varieties of avocados and they ripen at different times throughout the year. Our neighbor's tree decided to choose this week to ripen and her little, 90 year old self was not going to eat all the fruit. We gladly accepted many heavy bags full of avocados and have since been gorging ourselves on the velvety goodness. We had about a dozen very ripe avocados and couldn't finish them so we decided to try and freeze them. Here's how:

1. Wash the avocados.

2. Cut and peel the avocados.

3. Place flesh in a bowl, add about 1 tbsp of lemon or lime juice per 3-4 avocados.

4. Mash the avocados with a potato masher or fork.

5. Put avocado in vacuum seal bags or airtight storage containers and freeze.

I am kind of excited to have a stockpile of avocado in my freezer. I'm not sure how the consistency will be on after freezing but I will update this post when I have some. I am expecting it to be perfect for guacamole, avocado smoothies or a sandwich spread.