Unboxing Pacific Northwest Fresh This Week Brings Pluots

I feel like mid-August is producing some especially delicious and bright colored fruits and vegetables.

This week's Pacific Northwest Fresh box included a mini watermelon that was devoured right at the sink. So bright and juicy without seeds, it was heaven.

Each week's list of fruits and produce also comes with a recipe and this week was a take on crustless pizza, using green bell peppers. Seriously, no carbs but still all the cheese, yum. It got me thinking of all the other uses for green bell peppers.

You can stuff them, chop them up and add them to salads, grill them for fajitas, or slice them and use the circles to cook an egg in the middle. I use green bell peppers in my favorite turkey chili and I will for sure be slicing them and dipping them in hummus.

I forgot how much I love nectarines, better than a peach in my opinion (barely) but the real surprise of this week's box was a pluot. Mostly plum this fruit was created intentionally and it is CRAZY good. It all began a century ago when a man named Luther Burbank crossed a plum and apricot tree making a 50/50 mix he named a plumcot. Then a gentleman by the name of Floyd Zaiger, who just passed away in early June of this year, bred a plumcot with a plum to create a "three-fifths plum and two-fifths apricot" fruit he named the pluot.

This thing is crazy good. It's juicy and full of sweet flavor. When you take a bite it sounds like an apple but has the texture of a plum without the watery flavor. They are firmer than a plum but look a bit like them with their dark coloring. If you haven't had the  chance to experience I  recommend grabbing one if not a whole bag because I guarantee you will be coming back for more.