Fresh Fig and Arugula Salad with Gorgonzola & Balsamico Vinaigrette

 It's FIG SEASON!  

I'm so excited and jazzed about this brief season, of which it is their second (and last) season of the year.  I'm going to savor every brief moment of their arrival in the markets!  In Italy, a garden just isn't a garden without a fig tree, and that goes all the way back to the times of the Roman empire.  After all figs are one of the oldest known fruits!

Most Italians are crazy, no . . . obsessed over figs.  So much so that many Italian immigrants had to bring a precious fig tree over to America with them.  Figs are quite simply Italian staples used in both sweet and savory recipes.  They have a very brief life, you must use them immediately or they will spoil . . . and that would be a very sad thing!

To enjoy figs, here is another bursting-with-brilliant-flavors salad . . . only this time the shining star of the show is the humble little fig!  These delicious and subtly sweet gems add incredibly seductive beauty to a bed of greenery in a salad.

There is so much going on in this superb salad with the creamy gorgonzola, peppery arugula, tangy balsamico vinaigrette, sweet figs, and crunchy walnuts . . . it's like (excuse me) a fabulous symphony of flavor!  Your tastebuds are sent to gastronomic heaven.  I just love it when that happens!  This salad could easily be enlarged to a size to make it a main entree and that would be perfectly fine with me!

aren't they just beautiful?

so exotic and provocative in appearance!

I can see why figs have been so prized throughout time!

fresh fig and arugula salad with gorgonzola & balsamic vinaigrette

6 - 8 fresh black mission figs, sliced and/or halved
2 - 4 cups fresh baby arugula
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
Balsamico Vinaigrette

Place the baby arugula on individual salad plates.
Scatter the figs over the arugula.
Sprinkle on the walnuts and the gorgonzola cheese.
Drizzle with the vinaigrette or pass it around to your guests.

balsamico vinaigrette

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 - 5 Tbsp. balsamico vinegar
1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. honey 
1/8 tsp. freshly cracked sea salt
1/8 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper

Blend all ingredients.
Make any adjustments necessary for your taste preferences.
Add more honey, if you like your vinaigrette more sweet, or
add more balsamic vinegar or dijon mustard if you like your vinaigrette more tart.

2 - 3 servings

Mangia!
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Butterflies, Bumblebees, and Blue Blossoms in The Gardens

Blue . . . one of the most difficult colors to include in a garden, and especially in large amounts that bloom for longer periods of time to enjoy!  And who doesn't love the color of blue?

I've got blue iris that bloom for about a week and a half in the spring, little blue pansies in the winter that you can barely see, some Russian sage, and a few blue hydrangea that I can't grow further than a few inches with the hungry deer out here in the countryside.

So for this "Wordless Wednesday", which I am now officially re-naming "A Walk in The Gardens Wednesday" (at least on my blogs that's what I'm going to focus my Wednesdays on), I'm focusing on the color of blue in our gardens!  While outside mowing the front pasture this afternoon before the rains set in, I was just staring at these huge, awesome, and completely-covered-with-blue-blossom bushes, and had this little 'a ha' moment for today's post.

These beautiful perennial blue bushes grow larger every year, are incredibly carefree (well you might want to give them some nice fertilizer food twice a month like I do to keep them extra happy and blooming), THRIVE in the heat and drought, require minimal watering, are deer resistant (YAY!) and attract butterflies and bumblebees to 'healthily' your gardens even more!

About four years ago, we lined our very long driveway with these blue floral bushes mixed with taller pink crepe myrtle trees and some green 'adiago' grasses (also beginning to bloom right now . . . but that's another garden post).  All heat and drought lovers!  And when you live on an acreage with a 'well', you have to be ever-so-careful with your water use!

Everyone asks me:  what is the name of those bushes?  "Blue Mist Shrubs" aka: "Caryopteris".  You can buy these guys in small pots in a specialty nursery (not Lowe's, Home Depot, or WalMart) for around $5.00 or so.  THEY GROW FAST, so don't worry!  The second year of bloom is mind-boggling with how fast and how large they grow with so many blue blooms.  They reach about 4 to 5 feet tall and so you need to plant them at least 3 feet apart, a point at which they will grow together into a lovely hedge!

PLUS, when summer is ending and everything else in your garden has finished blooming, except for those annuals that we plant for color, these bushes just show off among the greenery, along with the flowering crepe myrtles!

Only a few negatives:  They lose their leaves in the winter because they are woody bushes, not evergreen.  Plus, as a good gardener, you need to cut them back in the spring just like you would do with your ornamental grasses so that they have a healthy growth in the coming summer season.

But let me tell you, they are so worth it!  I look forward to these blue blooms at the end of every summer before everything turns yellow, gold, orange, and red in fall.

This is just one of summer's 'last hurrah' in the gardens!

one bumblebee so drunk in happiness, he's upside down!

we have these bushes mixed in with our pink crepe myrtle trees (for height).  

This little crepe myrtle is 3 years old that we planted at just about 2 feet tall 

-- the deer made it difficult to get them to this height, but with patience, 

they will continue to grow and fill out!

blue, blue, blue . . . covered with blue blossoms!

a BIG THANK YOU to the editors of "Bon Bon Break" an on-line e-magazine for featuring this post in their publication which you can find by clicking on this link!

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Roasted Red Pepper Panini ~ ~ Classic!

Do you love panini?  Fresh sandwiches?  Healthy sandwiches?  Fast and easy sandwiches?  Hot sandwiches?  Flavorful, new, sandwiches that aren't the same-old, same-old go-to sandwiches?  Anything delicious between two slices of crispy on the outside and soft on the inside artisan bread calls my name!

By now most Americans have fallen in love with Italian panini, basically amped up sandwiches beyond our delicious grilled cheese sammies, but then heated up on a panini press or grilled pan.   However, most Americans don't realize that ONE of these is correctly termed a "panino", (panini is plural for more than one).  But why sweat the small stuff?  Panini literally means 'small breads' in Italian which began their popularity trend here in the States in the 70's and 80's, originating from 'paninoteche' Milanese bars.  How about that for a trivia question?

Now if you don't have a panini press, you can use a grilled skillet and place another heavy pan on top to 'press' the bread into the grills of the skillet.  Half-way through cooking (when you see a golden color and dark grill marks on the bread) you need to turn the panino over and grill the other side, once again with something heavy to press the panino down into the grills.

What you put inside of your bread is totally up to your imagination, but here's a great end of summer recipe for you that I find absolutely marvelous, especially with the dipping herbs in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  For this panino, I used roasted red peppers, so here is a tutorial with photos of how to roast red peppers on my blog:  roasting red peppers!

please click on the link below to read this delicious recipe!

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