The Fruit Company

I know it sounds crazy, but seriously, this sandwich is the most delicious, most surprising food twist I’ve tried in a long time, and when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. Tomatoes are a red fruit. Watermelon are red fruit. You can kind of make the exchange without too much of a stretch. Right?

Okay, I know it’s odd, but in the South, they’ve been salting watermelon for years at picnics and barbecues, and what a more delicious “salt” to use than crispy bacon. The peppered bacon really makes this sandwich pop along with interplay of the sweet juicy watermelon. Then the spicy watercress in place of traditional lettuce, and the zip from raw garlic in the mayo really give additional zest. The creamy avocado just adds that last bit of desired unctuousness against an altogether refreshing and great summer sandwich.

This is how it happened. You get a watermelon. You slice it up. It’s delicious, but then you have the other huge half and unless you have a party or huge barbecue at your house, the rest often spoils before you get to it.

This sandwich is a great and unexpected way to use that watermelon that will astound your family and friends. Plus, if you use my technique of slicing it thin and then cutting out rounds with a upturned glass or biscuit cutter, no one will be the wiser until they’ve already sunk their teeth into it’s juicy wonders.

It’s also really fun to turn this whole sandwich into a salad. You can slice all the ingredients into bit sized pieces and use a 1/4 cup of your mayo with an additional 1/4 c of lemon juice and a few tablespoons of olive oil with some salt and pepper to taste for another twist on a savory watermelon recipe.

The basil mayo is also great to use on all your summer sandwiches. You can make a bit batch of it and it’ll keep in the fridge for about two weeks. Just give it a good stir before you use it as the basil releases it’s natural juices.

But of course the big surprise here is the watermelon. It’s a fruit that we often only think of in sweet preparations, but this sandwich makes it’s the star with all of the other complementary flavors.

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BLW – Bacon, Lettuce and Watermelon Sandwich with Basil Mayonnaise.

(per sandwich)

1 ciabatta or similar sandwich roll

3 slices peppered bacon

1 slice of watermelon, approximately 1/2 in. thick (to fit bread)

1/4 cup watercress (washed and dried)

1/4 avocado, sliced

2 T basil mayo (recipe follows)

1 clove garlic

• Slice sandwich roll in half and toast till slightly browned while keeping a soft center. When bread is toasted rub the toasted cut side with your clove of garlic, infusing the roll with the aroma of garlic.

• Slice each piece of bacon in half and prepare to desired crispness.

• Prepare watermelon by slicing into 1/2 in. thick slices and trimming edges so that your slices will fit your sandwich rolls.
  • Note: I like to use a glass turned upside down to cut out round shapes from the             watermelon to mimic the look and shape of a tomato. (see picture)

• Assemble sandwich by first spreading a generous tablespoon of basil mayo on each side of your toasted roll and then putting down a bed of watercress followed by your slices of avocado. This triple layer will help stop your roll from getting soggy from the juicy watermelon that follows.

• After your slice of watermelon, top it off with your slices of bacon and another roll half smeared with your basil mayo.

• Enjoy the surprising deliciousness.

Basil Mayo  (makes 1 1/4 cup)

1 c mayonnaise (best possible quality)

1/2 c basil (shredded)

1 clove garlic, finely minced or grated

2 T lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

• Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and allow to sit for at least an hour to allow flavors to marry.

About the Author
A former baker, chef, caterer, and a forever foodie, John is now a writer and essayist, who has written for newspapers and magazines across the country, and enjoys spending his spare time traveling and collecting bow ties.

*Pre-Summer Sale* Save 40% off select gifts now through midnight May 27 with coupon code: MAY40 ! A perfect assortment of gifts for upcoming Birthdays, Weddings and Baby showers! We Have a perfect assortment for all your upcoming summer events.  Be sure to visit our sale page here!

“M” is for the many things she gave you…and now you can give back many delights in return! The 8-box Mother’s Day Tower lets her know how much you love her in a big way with her favorite orchard-picked fruit combined with delightful sweet treats: dark chocolate fudge square, lemon yogurt pretzels, lemon shortbread mini-cookies, fruit biscotti bites and so much more. What a towering tribute to mom!

Be sure to order your Mother’s Day Decadent Tower today!

April is a beautiful time of year at The Fruit Company. After surviving cold winds, snow showers, and rainy winter nights Spring begins to show itself everywhere you look when you step out  the front door. The Hood River valley is filled with orchards that run all the way to the base of Mt Hood.  As the temperature warms the trees begin to bud and we see a the entire landscape flower before our eyes.  Its a quintessentially perfect!

Naturally we celebrate this gorgeous time of year with the Hood River Valley Blossom Festival. Thousands of people from around the world come to our charming hamlet to view the cheerful blooms set against the looming snow-capped peaks of the Cascade mountains and relish the opening weekend for many of our local fruit, food and craft stands located all along the Fruit Loop.

Its a perfect time to come and visit the Gorge!

 If you’ve never had a passion fruit before, prepare for a pleasant surprise! Roughly between the size of a golf ball and a small apple, the thick skin of a ripe passion fruit is purple, leathery and wrinkled. Inside are a number of seeds covered in a juicy yellow to orange pulp, which are edible and have a very flavorful and tart taste. Due to its similarities the Spanish nicknamed the fruit “little pomegranate”.

The passion fruit was named for its flower by Catholic missionaries in South America, who saw symbolism between the passion flower’s complex structure and the passion of Christ. They saw the flower’s corona threads as a symbol of the crown of thorns, the five stamens for wounds, the five petals and five sepals as the ten apostles (excluding Judas and Peter) and the three stigmas for the nails on the cross.

Passion fruit juice is often used with other fruit juices to enhance flavor and aroma. They’re fairly easy to eat fresh—all you need to do is cut one in half and scoop out the pulpy seeds with a spoon and enjoy! Passion fruit are rich in vitamin C and potassium. When selecting a ripe passion fruit, make sure the skin is slightly wrinkled; if it’s smooth the fruit is still immature and not ready to eat. Ripen your passion fruit by leaving out of direct light at room temperature. Avoid passion fruit with a lot of black marks on the skin.

-Photo Source

You’ve probably seen Chicken Apple Sausage in your grocery store or favorite restaurant for years now. It’s delicious. It’s moist. It delivers that perfect blend of sweet and savory. It’s a fantastic option to have when you have friends coming over that don’t eat red meat or pork, and it’s great when you want something hearty and satisfying that’s not going to weigh you down. The thing that most of us didn’t know (until now) is now foolishly easy it is to make at home.

I love this recipe because I am crazy about the mixing of sweet and savory, and the addition of maple syrup in the mix really delivers in flavor. I love eating this sausage with pancakes or waffles and letting the maple syrup and butter migrate over for the perfect sweet and salty bite.

However, the sweetness is still subtle enough to have with scrambled eggs or to crumble into am omelet. I’ve even used the leftover patties to create one of those “griddle sandwiches” from that drive through restaurant (I’m sure you know which one I’m talking about, and with a little Swiss cheese on a soft breakfast bun, the flavors are complimentary surprising.

The golden delicious apples are of course the star of this recipe, they shine against the mild flavors of the chicken and do their job of keeping the sausage patties insanely moist. Some recipes call for sautéing the apples first, and you can certainly do that for a richer apple flavor, but I prefer to put them in raw. The raw apple adds a ton more moisture and has a fresher crisper apple flavor.

These patties are so easy to make that I often double or even triple the batch. You’ll be done start to finish in less than half an hour and the patties freeze perfectly for up to a year. They’re definitely the kind of thing you’re going to pull into your everyday arsenal of recipes.

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground chicken

1 lg. golden delicious apple, grated

1/2 small onion, grated

1/4 c Fresh Sage, minced fine

1/4 c Maple Syrup

1T Olive Oil

1T Fennel Seeds, toasted

1 T. Salt

2 t. Pepper

1 t. Ground Mustard

Additional oil for frying

• Grate onion and apple into a large mixing bowl, making sure not to lose any of the juice created by grating.

• Mix in all remaining ingredients, incorporating well but not over mixing, this could make your sausage gummy, and we want the mixture to remain light.

• Head a heavy bottomed skillet on medium heat with enough oil to thinly coat the bottom of the pan.

• Using a measuring cup or portioned scoop, create patties directly into the preheated oil that are about 1/4 cup in volume and about 1/2 inch thick.

• Cook on each side for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown and the chicken is just cooked all the way through.

About the Author
A former baker, chef, caterer, and a forever foodie, John is now a writer and essayist, who has written for newspapers and magazines across the country, and enjoys spending his spare time traveling and collecting bow ties.

The Golden is one of the most popular and enduring apple varieties worldwide, and for just cause. Tasting mellow and sweet with a gentle tang, its slightly crisp texture and striking pale yellow color have garnered many lifelong fans. It can be difficult to find a perfect Golden as they are thin skinned and bruise very easily. Your best bet is enjoying one soon after harvest, when they are bursting with a warm and agreeable flavor and crispness.

West Virginia’s Clay County is reportedly the first place where these Goldens were grown, as they were discovered there as a chance seedling in 1890. They were originally known as Mullin’s Yellow Seedling, but were renamed in 1916 and the rest is delicious history.

While eating a Golden fresh is always the best way to enjoy the full extent of its flavor, the delicate apples also do remarkably well in fresh cut salads as they resist browning. They also make great baking apples, especially as they’re so sweet that you don’t need as much sugar when using them in pies and desserts.

Be sure to look for them soon after harvest in September, but rest assured that they are often available year round, from The Fruit Company.

I love grapefruit, but what always happens is I’ll have half a dozen at home, and then after half a week of eating grapefruit halves for breakfast, I start thinking about how else I could prepare them or incorporate them into my meals. Their flavor is so distinct and special that it can overpower other flavors if not balanced.

This grapefruit tostada recipe is something really easy to pull out of your pantry staples. Regular shrimp cut up into small pieces can easily replace the rock shrimp, and I actually also love salmon quickly seared off and flaked here as a great replacement for the shrimp.

It’s not often that I make tostadas actually, even though I love them so much, and what that means is that I rarely think to buy the shells when I’m at the grocery store. However, I always have tortillas on hand, and once you learn how easy it is to make your own tostada shells I daresay you’ll never buy them at the store again.

Making them yourself is also an easy way to impart whatever flavor you want. Why pay $6 for chili lime shells at the store, when you can make them yourself for $1 with stuff you already have at home.

Another trick is that you can make tortilla chips this way by simply stacking and cutting your tortillas into wedges after you’ve oiled and seasoned them and spreading them on an even layer on a cookie sheet.

If you don’t have tortillas, I’ve even made this whole thing into an open faced sandwich on toasted crusty french bread. All the same ingredients work, and it’s equally delicious.

You even prepare all the elements the night before, and have them on hand to assemble quickly the next day. You can reheat everything the day off, or just serve at room temperature.

This is also a great way to entertain. Have all the ingredients on hand in little bowls, set them out on your buffet table, and allow your guests to create their own combinations. Bolster the options with black beans, grilled chicken, and mango salsa for an easy party that your friends will never forget.

Rock Shrimp and Grapefruit Tostadas with Arugula and Garlic-Thyme Cannellini Beans

(Serves 4)

Ingredients:

8 homemade tostada shells (recipe follows)

2, 16 oz. cans cannellini beans,  drained

2 T fresh thyme, chopped

1 lg clove garlic, minced

1 lb. rock shrimp

salt and pepper to taste

2 c of arugula (about 6 oz.)

Olive Oil, salt and pepper to taste

4 large sugar red grapefruit, peeled and supremed with 1/4 cup of the juice reserved

1/2 sm. red onion sliced thinly

Crème fraîche (or sour cream) and avocado for garnish

• In a medium sauce pan over low heat, combine 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and your minced garlic and thyme. Leave on the heat for 1-2 minutes or until you begin to smell the seasons and the oil is infused with their flavor. Pour in your drained cannellini beans, add salt and pepper to taste and allow to heat on low until warm while your preparing the rest of your ingredients.

• In a large sauté pan, heat another tablespoon of olive oil to just before smoking before adding your rock shrimp that you’ve seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. The flavors in this recipe are so dynamic that we want each one to shine, and a simple seasoning of salt and pepper is all we need. Allow the shrimp to sauté, stirring occasionally, and remove immediately to another plate or bowl once the flesh begins to turn pink and slightly opaque. This should take 1 to 1 1/2 minutes tops as long as your pan is hot.

• Dress the arugula with your reserved grapefruit juice, 2 T of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

• Once your beans are reheated, using a potato masher or the back of a fork, mash them until just broken up, leaving some whole beans for texture.

• Now to assemble: Taking one of your homemade tostada shells, spread on a couple of heaping tablespoons of your cannellini bean mixture. Then begin to layer on 1/8 of your arugula and shrimp, 5 to 6 wedges of grapefruit, a few slices of onion, and finally garnishing with sliced avocado and a generous dollop of Crème fraîche. Dusting on a little chili power or smoked paprika is desired.

Homemade (and ridiculously easy) tostada shells

8 corn tortillas

2 T. olive oil

1 T chili powder

2 t ground cumin

salt to taste (if desired)

• Preheat an oven to 400ºF.

• Brush tortillas on both sides with olive oil and arrange on a cookie sheet. You may need two sheets. It’s ok if they’re touching, as long as they don’t over lap.

• Sprinkle on your spices and salt if desired.

• Bake for 10-12 minutes, flipping once midway through.

• When they are crisp and slightly browned around the edges, remove to a rack to cool.

About the Author
A former baker, chef, caterer, and a forever foodie, John is now a writer and essayist, who has written for newspapers and magazines across the country, and enjoys spending his spare time traveling and collecting bow ties.

The Easter Surprise Tower is a delicious Easter Holiday gift!

Show your true colors this Easter – by sending a lucky friend, relative or hostess these colorful lilac-and-green surprise boxes. Every box reveals another delight: blueberry yogurt pretzels, butterfly cookies, white chocolate flower bites, and scrumptious green D’Anjou pears and Fuji apples. How sweet it is!