Chipotle's in Santa Clarita

I had a veggie bowl-burrito on Monday night at Chipotle’s on Newhall Ranch Road. It was a big step for me because last time I had some Chipotle fare, the digestive aftermath erased any benefits of good food. But because Chipotle is one chain eatery that has been consistently providing food that is grown or raised sustainably and humanely, it certainly deserved a second visit.

It was surprisingly very tasty. I loved the rice and the fresh pico-de-gallo most of all. The rice was herby with fresh cilantro leafs and what tasted slightly of oregano infused seasoning. The black beans could not have been from a can and cheese still retained a sticky quality that freshly grated cheese often has. I skipped the lettuce and ordered guacamole on top. The chips (which at Chipotle live in cold brown bags are dispersed by the cashier readily after ordering) were crusted with coarse salt and some were way too salty. But using them to scoop the fresh and tangy guacamole eased the saltines to acceptable levels. I did not have a good camera so until I get some pictures here's link to Chipotle's menu

Town Grind - Oatmeal cookies with my au lait

Weekends start late for me as I am not a morning person . How late? I think it's safe to say that if there is nothing else going on, I'm not awake before 10 am, and the biggest accomplishment for such mornings would be readings sections the A and B of the LA Times by 12 pm . Despite the general laziness I do like to do something of value on the weekends so whenever I get a chance I walk over to the Town Grind Coffee Cafe ( I think I'll start calling it TGCC for short) order a cafe au lait, and match it with whatever home made pastry they suggest on their "today's special" dry/erase board.

Their cafe au lait is made with coffee that is consistently robust and steamed milk so smooth it provides the best cure to the coffee's edge. This past Saturday I decided against my usual splurge of banana and nutella toasted panini and introduced my au lait to their crispy yet chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. It made for a simple but very tasty breakfast.

The TGCC is a small but cozy spot in Newhall. It is open till 8:00pm most days and while it does sell some lunch and supper fare I'm mostly interested in their coffee drinks so I have yet to go there for lunch.

I didn't plan to take pictures of my breakfast so I hope that this low light, and low resolution cellphone snapshot will suffice .

Three eggplanst from a peach farm

One dollar got me three eggplants at the AnandaDham PeachRanch Farm's stand last Thursday at Newhall's Farmer's Market. The people managing the stand did not match my stereotype of "farmer material" and that made me more curious about the farm. I googled the name and there is was: AnandaDhamPeach farm a buddhist colony where people mediate and live off the land. That explained why one guy at the stand looked sort of like a dark haired white lotus or Pai Mei from Kill Bill 2.

I did salt the eggplant for 20 mins and followed the recipe I had recently seen on justhungry, a gem of a website. It was hands down the best eggplant-dish I have made.

Their eggplants were very tasty, had no bitterness and had very little seeds. For the quality and considering that they were also organically raised I thought they were pretty inexpensive .

I bought more of the same eggplant variety at yesterday's market. This time at the stand I was greeted by a guy with a beard not as substantial as the white lotus' from last week, but very willing to share information about the farm. After some small talk about organic farming benefits and few other purchases I left Newhall's farmer's market thinking how even a small and unassuming market can bring people of unlikely of backgrounds together. Is a bazaar no?

I found my thrill/on the blueberry hill/

September marks the theoretical end of the North America's blueberry season. This means that soon ,*tear*, I won't (unless I slip and purchase South American blueberries, which I am sure I won't) have these blue gems for a while.

This summer Trader Joe's on Cinema Drive had stacked their fridge's berry section with lots of blueberries and for a mere $6.25 you could get a whole lot of them. Stuck inside 16 oz. plastic containers they were bursting with flagrance and sweet tasting flesh while waiting to be liberated. I liberated some, ok I liberated a whole lot, and just fresh out of the colander popped them into my mouth with gusto. Then I decided to do the responsible thing and make a blueberry tart.

This recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini is unusual as it doesn't ask the baker/experimental blueberry fiend, to cook the blueberries first, but it actually works. The small explosions of baked blueberries were welcome bursts of moisture given that I kind of dried out the tart crust a bit too much in my 400 degree oven.

Summertime...it goes so fast.

tomatoes and basil, but mostly tomatoes

Summertime is truly wonderful for a tomato lover like me. Tomatoes are everywhere, I even saw some on a billboard boasting of "robust" summer taste or something like that. Magazines and seasonal sections of cookbooks are filled with receipes for cooking tomatoes and incorporating them in simple dishes too. But most of my tomatoes don't even make it into dishes. Only after a second or third one can I exercise some self-control pair them with some feta cheese or drizzle them with some extra virgin olive oil.

I had bought so many yellow tomatoes at the Old Town Newhall Farmer's Market on Thursday that two of them got to meet the Cherokee heart variety from Sunday's Ventura County's Certified Farmers market at College of the Canyons Parking Lot 8. They looked very happy tossed with some fresh basil and young onions and eating them I felt what grizzly bears must feel when they eat their first salmon after a long season of hybernation.

Sometimes a quick tomato fix from the supermarkets near my place will suffice, but the heirlooms or the picked-after-they're- ripe tomatoes from a few miles away are really worth it. Judging by how many tomatoes are left by 9:30 am at the organic produce stand across from Beylik farm stand, one can deduce that many Santa Claritians are with me on this one.