Farmer's Market

I have been slacking. I took most of June off from my blog and I have no excuse besides that it was vacation time with the parents. Well, that's not always a vacation either. It's also hard to be away from home for 3 1/2 weeks and even think about doing anything but enjoying perfect Southern California weather and our 13 day road trip to Canada. The road trip was exhausting (future blog post), but it was a good bonding with the parents. Yet I don't be doing it anytime soon with them again unless we rent a huge RV and I can hide in the back the whole ride.

One of the worst things about road trips is that no matter how well I eat, after about a week, is that I am done with eating out. I just can't stand the sight of another menu and don't get me started about fast food. We rarely eat it when at home, so when you are forced to on road trips (so that you can make good time)--blah. I never want to see Wendy's again.

So I was thrilled to get back to the Farmer's Market today and see LOTS of new things on the tables. Potatoes, onions, peaches, cabbage, tomatoes are starting to ripen, etc. etc. I was like a kid in a candy store!

My bounty today: carrots, radishes, beets, small potatoes, eggs, snap peas, garlic, green cabbage, yellow cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, zucchini, onions and peaches. I am glad that I went early because the peaches were gone by 7:20! No salad mix this weekend due to the extreme heat that we have had in the Midwest, but I was pleased with everything else that I picked up.



When I was uploading my pics to my computer, I noticed that I had an old Farmer's Market pic from May 23 that I never got up on the blog. My husband was gone in Chile for work, so I didn't purchase a lot of things--peonies, salad mix, arugula, radishes and some tomatoes. But I did LOVE my peonies. I wanted to buy a bush this year, but was too late. I need to purchase one before they start to bloom out here because there were no bushes left by the time I decided to buy one.

I'll be cooking a lot more this week, so blogs to follow!

Farmer's Market

I am finally back from my Spain trip and I have been CRAVING vegetables since I got back. The Spanish food was amazing, but it's hard to find vegetables at restaurants especially green ones (potatoes are very common). So yesterday's visit to the Co-op grocery store consisted of buying only vegetables and milk. Today's trip to the farmer's market resulted in buying tomatoes, leeks, radishes, green onions, spinach, salad mix, basil, thyme, eggs, shittake mushrooms and a piece of aged goat cheese from Landeria Farmstead (read their story here). The goat cheese cost $8.50 for a 4.5 oz piece, but I figured it wasn't much more than some of the foreign cheeses that I buy. It's not like the goat cheese that you would typically think of, but more like a Gouda. He also had a swiss goat cheese, but I am not a huge fan of swiss cheese.

I'll post some Spain pics soon. I will also be cooking a lot since I haven't done any in almost 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll have some recipes to post. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Pendleton's Farm 04/24 and Farmer's Market 04/25

One of the greatest things about living in the Midwest is the proximity to farms. We are able to get great local vegetables at a decent price and that tastes better than anything you can get in the grocery store. At the outskirt of town, there is a wonderful place called Pendleton's, where you can pick your own asparagus during this time of year. I called up Megan to see if she wanted to join me to pick some (which was a lot more fun to have a friend around). For $2.50/lb or was it's $3.50? (I can't remember, but it was a great deal either way), we picked some delicious asparagus. So perfect that I picked 3 lbs of it. We also got some spinach (picking it was a big job since it was medium sized leaves) and I was thrilled to find fresh tomatoes up at the store when we went to pay. They also have great pots of flowers, plants and herbs for your garden, which I skipped this time (I have 150 bulbs that need planting as I type). They also should have morel mushrooms soon, but I am afraid that I might miss them while I am out of town for my honeymoon!

We didn't pick up a lot at the farmer's market this weekend since I had just gone to Pendleton's the day before. I did pick up a couple of pounds of ground pork (we have LOTS of beef still from our CSA subscription--we plan on continuing a smaller sized one when we eat through some of the meat), the carton of eggs that Chris forgot last week when I was out of town, green onions, cilantro (which wasn't very flavorful and very disappointing), some homemade potato & pea samosas (which were bland), a lb of bacon and a lb of grass feed meat bacon. Meat bacon? We'll see how it tastes, but I figured that we would give it a try. Since Amy's Meats hasn't had bacon lately, I have bought mine from the wonderful lady at Homespun Hill Farm.

This Saturday is the grand opening of the Farmer's Market, which also means that the Tuesday/Thursday markets will also be starting up next week. I am looking forward to buying minimal vegetables at the grocery store (even if I have become very fond of our local Co-op, mostly because a father of friends works there and it's nice to chat with him weekly) and will probably be making less trips to the chain grocery stores in town as the summer goes on. Hope that everyone is going to take advantage of their local Farmer's Markets this summer!

Opening of Farmer's Market 2009

First of all, this is my 200th post. Wow. That's a lot.

The farmer's market had a soft opening today (grand opening is the first Saturday of May). Even with the weather being in the 40's, it was a great day to get out to see some of the farmers back in the swing of things. I was thrilled since it meant that I will not be spending all my time in the grocery store anymore. To me, the farmer's market means six months of great local vegetables and that spring is really here (finally). While the selection was pretty limited still, I was able to pick up some great stuff.

Here is the list of what I picked up today: salad mix, rosemary, arugula, green onions, spinach, curly parsley and honey.

Everything looks great. I am also hoping that I'll be able to go asparagus picking at one of the local farms next week. Their estimated date of picking is April 15, so I am hoping that they are right on the date. I have plenty of asparagus recipes ready to go!

I am heading out to Kansas City today to hit the Asian markets, so that I can finally make some of the incredibly yummy recipes that Chef Nancy made in her last cooking class that I took. Also, I know that I am behind on my New Orleans posts---I'll work on them soon!