Today's Tomatoes & Tempura

(Not together, of course)... First off, a quick swing by the garden gave us this lovely handful of tomatoes and herbs: Zips has her sights set on another arabic salad before the night is over. I grabbed some sprigs of parsley and mint and basil just for good measure.

Here are some of the happy melons we have growing in the melon patch. The watermelon is a crimson sweet. We refer to her as "Mama," as she has taken the lead in size. There are also two growing at the edge of the garden we call "the twins," and a small sugar baby we call "baby."
I hope it's not too weird to name fruit as it's growing. We also have several honeydew melons in the works (4 of 'em), and a lone cantaloupe growing that Zips has just dubbed Canaloupe. Because the cantaloupe CAN. Here's Canaloupe now. Growin'.

We did some yakisoba for dinner, and I tried tempura for the first time. I used a tempura batter mix (dynasty, I think), and panko crumbs. We made green bell pepper, broccoli, onion, green onion, carrot, snow pea, yellow squash, and zucchini squash tempura. Of course we used the lovely ginger sesame sauce. I also improvised a tentsuyu sauce with 1/4 c. mirin, 1/4 c. soy sauce, 1 tsp. sugar, and some water to taste (I didn't have any broth or dashi). It was very mild compared with the ginger sesame, but I really liked it. Tempura action shot: I think that's an onion cooking away. Zips was also the genius who figured out that the semi-circular wire thingy was probably made for this exact use.

It's the best kind of battered, deep-fried food around. I am seriously re-thinking my stance against fry-daddies.