customers willing to cook up these mouth-watering mushrooms, everyond here is ready to be-- yeah, you guessed it--stuffed to the gills with fungi success. for "california country," i'm tracy sellers. >> today, we're going to make a mushroom quiche, one of my favorites. so, let's get started. let's start over here. so, we get the quiche. just use a regular pie dough. and don't be afraid of your dough. get it rolled out. i'm using a mac daddy rolling pin. it's serrated, but it rolls and doesn't get the dough sticky. so, from here... you get it rolled out to the size you want. and it's pretty fast if you work quickly with a nice, cd dough. and from--i think at this point, you have a nice shape. put this in the refrigerator and chill it down just as it is, and you can fold it. it's really tough. so, what you want to achieve is, i would get here a nice fluted

pan. pie dgh is inside. just spray the inside and press this in and chill this for another 20 minutes. so, we get started with that. i'm going to slice up some of these shallots. and you can be messy with them, 'cause you want to taste them. you don't want them too fine. you don't knoq what they are. so, just a few on the bottom. and we're gonna start with, ohh, these beautiful mushrooms. look at that. pull them apart. people like to op them up too fine. when i eat a mushroom quiche, i want to see what it is. so, you get these beautiful colors. and i'm also going to add just a little bit of these small, beautiful sweet tomatoes. so, it makes the color pop and gives the quiche something to go for. so, next, i'm going to add some parmesan cheese. so, it's about layering. ok? just continue. and please be generous with spinach. it shrinks to absolutely nothing. ok so, it looks like a lot, but trust me. you won't even know it's there when it's done. so, i'm switching up all

these mushrooms. and you can see it's big chunks. i mean, it's just beautiful to eat quiche that's full of flavor. and i know it looks like a lot. but just continue. it is your friend, not your enemy, 'cause you're gonna eat it. ooh. one tomato is trying to get away. you get back in there. and pile it up, because with the egg base, it tends to be bland" so, be heavy on the spices and lots of salt. so, from the custard, i mean, that's pretty much done right there. if you feel--you got more cheese? add it. and you can use all kinds of cheese, from guillere--everything is just possible with a quiche. i'm using one of my favorites-- just a little heat will give you an extra added flavor. and nutmea and quiche, for some reasob, loves each other. and it's one of my new favorite spices, anyway. put the salt in. be generous. i know it looks like a lot. but when it's

spread out, it's really not a lot at all. ok? remember parmesan cheese is also salty. freshly ground pepper--i'm putting this in first. and you add your heavy cream, because that oil-based buttery in the heavy cream will help me multiply all this stuff together much better. and use--i have a flat whisk. ok? and once that's done, i'm gonna add the milk. so, it's about a cup each. keep it simple--8 eggs. just dump it all in, 'cause it's a quick dinner, lunch, breakfast, anytime with rolls, croissants. just with that alone, oh, my gosh. ok. now, the custard is gonna be filled about 3/4 to the top of the rim. we'll leave a little border. ok? take aluminum foil. lightly cover it. and we're gonna get it in the oven quickly at 375 for about 45 minutes.

let it cook. take the cover off. 15 minutes--let it finish on its own. and then take it out when it's lightly finished. in the center is the custard. and here's what you get--a beautiful quiche to serve all day long. i'm the executive pastry cf at mission beach ca. thank you and good-bye. >> so, if you think i get to taste a lot of great things for this job, well, you'd actually be right. but this next assignment was one of my favorites. for more than 30 years, visitors from all over the state have made massimo's restaurant a favorite when visiting the south bay city of fremont. and what may seem just like the classic italian fare being served here--'s actually mouth-watering meals that have italian flair, thanks to their special ingredient--pesto. >> i love working with pestos basically because, i mean it's so--you could do anything you want. you could do 80 different kinds of pesto, like you s there. we did a regular basil

pesto, did an artichoke pesto. we did chipgtle pesto. and they're so diverse, you could do anything. it could go with fish, meats, pastas, anything. basil pesto. >> supplying steve with all of that versatile greenery is bay area legend armanino foods. in business since the 1920s when the family supplied fresh vegetables and herbs to the growing italian community in san francisco, they are now the leader in fresh-from-the-farm pesto, all thanks to a special recipe for success. >> recipe for peso actually started with my grandmother, and we thought it was a great product, but no one knew about it. and so, we tried it d processed, brought it to the supermarket, and it started to work out. >> the armanino family says the first year, they sold only 1,000 or so cases. but now, they are shipping upwards of a million cases annually. and they attribute

much of their success to their special connection to agriculture. >> a lot of people don't realize just about everything you eat today, you know, originates on the farm. a lot of people don't even consider that or don't think about it. whether it's a cupcake or whether it's a hamburger, whether it's bread, everything starts on the farm. >> everything we eat does, indeed, start on the farm, including basil as the main ingredient in the family's famous pesto recipe, which brings us to supherb farms in the san joaquin valley. >> this area is the best place in the world to grow herbs. this area, from the delta to, probably 40 or 50 miles south of here, you get the combination of warm temperatures and then the nice delta breeze in the evening to cool things down. so, it is absolutely the best place in the world to grow herbs.

>> harvesting at the first sign of daylight is just part of everyday life here, as the fresh basil is plucked from the ground, shipped to the nearby processing facility where, during the busy seascn, almost 100 tons of basil are trucked in here daily. >> this is basil that was harvested this morning when we were out in the field. we brought it to the factory. we've unloaded it. and now we're washing it. >> here, the basil is cleaned, flash-frozen at 40 degrees below zero. brr! and then the stems are removed and sold to local dairies for feed. >> so, what we've done now is we've frozen the product, and then through a proprietary process, we've separated the leaf from the stem. so, what we have now is a free-flowing product that you'd use just like fresh, except it has all the stems removed, and it's cut into a certain particle size. our biggest customers are

the food processors. they put it in frozen meals. they'll put it in salad dressings. >> every step is taken to ensure the best product gets from the field to your fork, no matter what form the basil may come in. whether as a pesto pasta, a pizza, or maybe even a potpie, these farmers are ensurhng you can enjoy basil all year long. for "california country," i'm tracy sellers. creamy, rich, and decadent, avocados have become a staple for many of us. according to the california avocado commission, about 43% of all u.s. households buy avocados regularly now. so en you think of avocados, you probably think of this, right-- guacamole? but today farmers and chefs are proving that avocados can be so much more. good. ok, sure, what's not to like

about guacamole? i mean, we do eat a lot of it. in fact, more than 49 million pounds of avocados in the form of guacamole will be consumed on superbowl sunday alone. but at hawks restaurant in granite bay, they're exploring different ways to use the alligator pear, otherwise known as an avocado. >> we like using california avocados 'cause they're grown as close as an avocado can be. these are from the simi valley. they're really versatile. they're rich. as you can see, we puree them, we serve them somewhat chunky, we can wrap things in them, and they're just real versatile. and they're tasty. >> but chefs like michael are just part of the equation of educating consumers on the many fabulous attributes of avocados. the real groundwork begins just there on the ground of the 6,000 farmer across the state who now grow avocados.

california farmers produce about 90% of the nati's total avocado crop, and that includes farmers like mark and linda bruce of simi valley in ventura county. not from a farming background, and surrounded by a huge housing development, the couple really didn't ow what to do with all of the lush land they had when they bought the property back in 2000. >> because we had always talked about having a ranch. mark and i had talked about it. we did not know what that meant, but that was our--i guess it was a dream, but didn't have any idea how it was going to evolve. and then one day this is where we were. >> a friend of ours said, "it looks like good avocado property." and not knowing anything about avocados other than that's what i put on my tacos, uh, i said, "oh, sure, let's do avocados." >> so the couple learned as they

went along, everything frcm soil science to irrigation techniques. and before they knew it, they had developed a thriving avocado orchard along the way. they now have 8,500 avocado trees--trees that have come to mean more to the couple than they ever could have imagined. >> we like to think that we have 8,500 employees working for us here at the facility on our area. and we like to think of every tree as really an individual with its own personality. >> my husband calls them our employees, but they're kind of like my babies, and anytime anything happens to them, you feel horrible. and you see where a tree is stressed, and you have to take care of it. and if any of them die, you feel bad. you feel really bad. so you want to take of them as best you can. >> and those 8,500 employees continue to work hard for linda and mark, who continue to dote on them. they hope to harvest about 15,000 pounds of fruit per acre this season alone. each avocado is hand picked, making sure the stem is trimmed off so

it doesn't scrape or bruise other avocados when it is packed. and then the fruit is driven here to mission produce in nearby oxnard. >> well, these were just harvested today. they're, uh, brought by the growers right down the street here, so it's probably the first lot in today. it's one of probably 80--75 or 80 lots that'll come in. a lot could be anywhere from, oh, 10 to 100 bins depending on the size of the grower. >> here they are processing upwards of 650,000 pounds of fruit a day and shipping it across the country and the world as well. in fact, these avocados most likely will end up in grocery stores, club stores, and restaurants near you, perfectly ripe, just a few days after harvest. >> so what this is, this is what we call a ripening room. it can hold about 20 palettes, which is

a truckload. and we'll put food in here that's at about 40 degrees. we'll rase the temperature to the low 60s. we'll add some heat. >> and steve said they've steadily seen an increase in avocado consumption. on average, each american now consumes about 3 avocados per year, but steve thinks that will increase to 5 or 6 avocados within the next couple of years. so whether you try avocados in guacamole at your next party, or try them to support farmers like the bruces, the time is indeed ripe to try some california avocados today. for "california country," i'm tracy sellers. well, that is gonna do it for e show today. if you have any questions about anything you've seen, check out our website at californiacountry.org. and we'll see you again next week on "california country."

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