SUNDAY BEST #420 - CAPSICUM

Welcome to the meme, "My Sunday Best", which is a photographic and creative meme that allows you to showcase your talents in imaging. Every Sunday, you can post here showing an image you have created using your camera, (and/or) image processing software, and/or painting and drawing in the conventional way and have scanned in.
The rules are simple:
1) Create your image and post it up on your blog;
2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;
3) Leave a comment here once you have posted
4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity.

Please do not use this meme to advertise our goods or services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments shall be removed immediately.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Last week, csuhpat1 in the USA posted some lovely atmospheric photos. Here is my favourite one. Please visit his blog for more good shots.

MARKET MARIGOLDS

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme

CHICORY

Common chicory, Cichorium intybus, is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant of the dandelion family, usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Many varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons (blanched buds), or roots (var. sativum), which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and additive. It is also grown as a forage crop for livestock.

It lives as a wild plant on roadsides in its native Europe, and is now common in North America, China, and Australia, where it has become widely naturalised and regarded as a weed. “Chicory” is also the common name in the United States for curly endive (Cichorium endivia); these two closely related species are often confused.

The chicory plant is one of the earliest cited in recorded literature, reaching back to ancient Egyptian times. Horace mentions it in reference to his own diet, which he describes as very simple: “Me pascunt olivae, me cichorea, me malvae” (As for me, olives, endives, and mallows provide sustenance). Medieval monks raised the plants. A common meal in Rome, “puntarelle”, is made with tender chicory sprouts.

Nowadays, chicory may be cultivated for its leaves, usually eaten raw as salad leaves.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme

VEGETABLES

Verdant vegetables rich in vitamins make you feel full of vim and vigour!

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

PUMPKINS

Yes, it's that time of the year...

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

'V' IS FOR VEGETABLES

Eat more vegetables, everyday!

This post is part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the  ABC Wednesday meme.

EAT MORE VEGETABLES!

Eating vegetables provides health benefits – people who eat more vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet are likely to have a reduced risk of some chronic diseases. Vegetables provide nutrients vital for health and maintenance of your body. They are rich in fibre, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. Eating lots of vegetables can increase your lifespan and reduce the effects of ageing in your body. Besides, they taste great!

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Macro Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

CHILLIES

Our greengrocer has a formidable selection of chilli peppers and as usual the displays of the produce are very photogenic. Turns out these make a good mosaic!

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

MY SUNDAY BEST MEME #3 - TOMATO WISDOM

Welcome to this new meme, "My Sunday Best", which is a photographic and creative meme that allows you to showcase your talents in imaging. Every Sunday, you can post here showing an image you have created using your camera, (and/or) image processing software, and/or painting and drawing in the conventional way and have scanned in.

The rules are simple:
1) Create your image and post it up on your blog;
2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;
3) Leave a comment here once you have posted;
4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity!

Please do not use this meme to advertise your goods or services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments shall be removed immediately!

“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” ― Miles Kington

This post is part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

ARTICHOKE FLOWERS

The globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus) is a variety of a species of thistle cultivated as a food. The edible portion of the plant consists of the flower buds before the flowers come into bloom. The budding artichoke flower-head is a cluster of many budding small flowers (an inflorescence) together with many bracts, on an edible base. Once the buds bloom (as seen here), the structure changes to a coarse, barely edible form. Another variety of the species is the cardoon, a perennial plant native to the Mediterranean region. Both wild forms and cultivated varieties (cultivars) of artichoke exist.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Friday Greens meme.

PUMPKINS

This post is part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

EGGPLANT

Eggplant (Solanum melongena), or aubergine, is a species of nightshade in the Solanaceae family grown for its edible fruit. Eggplant is the common name in North America and Australia, but British English uses aubergine. It is known in South Asia, Southeast Asia and South Africa as brinjal. Other common names are melongene, garden egg, or guinea squash.

The fruit is widely used in cooking and treated as a vegetable. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is related to the tomato and the potato. It was originally domesticated from the wild nightshade species, the thorn or bitter apple, S. incanum, probably with two independent domestications, one in South Asia and one in East Asia.

Here is a vegetarian recipe for Eggplant Parmigiana.

This post is part of the Our Beautiful World meme,

and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme.

AUTUMN PUMPKINS

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES...

We have a few tomato plants in our garden, but this year they have not done well, it has not been much of a tomato year. Nevertheless, even if the tomato plants are dying, one can rescue quite a few of the green tomatoes and what better way to use them than...

Fried Green Tomatoes
Ingredients
3 green tomatoes
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup milk or buttermilk
1 egg
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1 cup vegetable oil

Method
1 Cut unpeeled tomatoes into 1 cm slices. Sprinkle slices with salt and pepper. Let tomato slices stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, place in separate shallow bowls: The flour; the buttermilk and egg; and the bread crumbs and cornmeal.
2 Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet on medium heat. Beat the egg and the buttermilk together. Dip tomato slices in the flour, then buttermilk-egg mixture, then the cornmeal-bread crumb mix. In the skillet, fry half of the coated tomato slices at a time, for 3-5 minutes on each side or until brown. Set the cooked tomatoes on paper towels to drain.

This post is part of the Friday Greens meme,
and also part of the Food Friday meme.

GARDEN ROCKET

Garden rocket (also known as arugula, rucola and roquette) is one of the nutritious green-leafy vegetables of Mediterranean origin. It is a small, low growing annual herb featuring dandelion like succulent, elongated, lobular leaves with green-veins. It belongs within the Brassicaceae family similar to as mustard greens, cauliflower, kale, etc, and has the scientific name, Eruca sativa.

Rocket is a quick growing, cool season crop. It prefers well-drained, fertile soil, and full sunlight to flourish. It grows to about 1 metre in height with creamy-white edible flowers. Its leaves can be ready for harvest within 40 days of sowing the seed. Younger rocket leaves feature light green colour, and appear identical to that of spinach without lobulation. Additionally, young, tender leaves are less peppery and sweet in contrast to strong, spicy flavour of mature greens.

As all members of the Brassicaceae family, rocket leaves are rich sources of indoles, thiocyanates, sulforaphane, and iso­thiocyanates. Together, these compounds have been found to counter carcinogenic effects of oestrogen and thus may offer protection against prostate, breast, cervical, colon, ovarian cancers by virtue of their cancer-cell growth inhibition, cytotoxic effects on cancer cells. It is rich in folates, vitamins A, B complex, C and K, and contains copper and iron. In addition, it has small amounts of some other essential minerals and electrolytes such as calcium, iron, potassium, manganese, and phosphorus.

This post is part of the Friday Greens meme,
and also part of the Food Friday meme.

AT THE MARKET

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

BULLHORN PEPPERS

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

BEANS, BROCCOLI & BITTER MELON

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Nature Footstep Digital Art Meme,

and also part of the Friday Greens meme.

AT THE GREENGROCER

Strolling into the local fruiterer's shop one can see why this is also called a GREENgrocer! There's green apples, avocadoes, capsicums, cucumbers, limes and okra, amongst other things...

This post is part of the Friday Greens meme.

CAPSICUM

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.