I love when it all works out!

I did make it to the farmers' market this weekend!  I love when that happens!  I had a moment of panic when I was loading my goods into my car to come home though- I thought I had lost my phone! Turns out it was buried in the pocket where I put it, but the weight of the produce crushing the pocket obscured it from me at first.  Silly mama.

First stop, as always, Salvaterra's Gardens
lettuce -2 heads
golden beets
cauliflower
summer squashes - 1 zucchini, 1 yellow summer squash, 1 israeli squash
tomatoes
potatoes


From School Orchards I bought some lovely peaches - "seconds"- which, for some reason, aren't as good as the regular ones, bruised, too small, dented, too ripe, whatever.  But these peaches are GORGEOUS, not a spot on them.  Such a deal!!!  I also grabbed a canteloupe.

Perfect peaches!

I stopped then at another vegetable vendor, whose name I can't recall right now, and got some heirloom tomatoes and a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.

I LOVE the combination of cock's comb and sunflowers!

And, of course, I couldn't leave the market without goat cheese (with dill this time) and eggs.


This time I spent about $45, but $8 of that was for the flowers- easily the most expensive item of the day!

I love to be able to get such good food for my family with the added bonus of shopping local and helping another family realize their own dreams.  Shopping local is just better in every way!!

Once I got home, I was actually able to knit for a while with my knitting group.  The sweet baby who lives here was compliant enough to have a nap during most of the hours of the knitting group.  :o)  Happy mama!  I'm almost done with the 2nd sock of the set I started last summer!

Then after the girls left, I was able to 'put up' 3 half-pints of blueberry jam while she was asleep!  (It was a GREAT nap yesterday!)  For some reason, I'm not the luckiest jam maker in the whole world.  I have a hard time getting jams to set up.  I made a small batch, followed the recipe and directions, boiled the heck of out it and used a whole pouch of pectin.  I've got very thick syrup / very thin jam on my hands.  I'm not sure what I did wrong and I'm not sure I have the will to reprocess it, so I might just keep it and puree it and use it as pancake/ waffle / ice cream syrup.  Not bad in any way, just an unexpected (sort of!) outcome!

Hey, mama, where is that blueberry jam?

Sorry for the cell phone crappy quality of the pictures- little bug is asleep and I wanted to get this done.

Peaceful and love-filled weeks to everyone!

Today's Haul

A quick little post today- until I can take and upload some pictures of the luscious goodness that's coming into and out of my kitchen!

First thing I do when I get to my farmers' market is to head to my favorite vegetable vendor, Salvaterra Gardens.  The owners, Matt and Jess, are the NICEST people at the market and their veggies are without equal!  SOOOOOOOOOOO good doesn't even scratch the surface!  This morning I brought home:

• cucumbers (about 1/3 of a bushel)- I'm going to make refrigerator pickles because the dear one doesn't love pickles that are cooked when they're canned
• kale- smoothies in our future- especially for me and the baby, we're the smoothie lovers here
• golden beets- for roasting and eating with goat cheese
• arugula - destined for sausage and tomato sandwiches- I'll write a whole post about these later- they are one of summer's true delights.  I'll use some of this tomorrow on grilled pizzas too.

Next, I headed to the fruit people and got some very pretty and perfectly ripe yellow peaches and a cantaloupe.  That melon smells so good that it makes my head swim whenever I walk past it in the kitchen.  These will be for snacking and smoothies.

I just love this brocoli, mama!

I got a foccacia for the knitting group to enjoy this morning and also a rustic italian loaf at the bread man's tent.  The italian loaf I'll use for the bread of the arugula and sausage sandwiches tonight.

Got some eggs and a lovely bouquet of flowers too.  It was a pretty light day at the market, but I still have some veggies left from last week....go figure!  With the big kid's swimming schedule, we're not home for dinner a couple of nights each week, so our grilling is on hiatus a little bit.  Also, it's been SO blasted hot here that it's been almost impossible to spend time outdoors, especially with the baby.  Her little body's not as good at regulating temperature as it will be when she's a little older, so we've been hanging around inside a lot- when we're not at a swim meet!  I spent about $30 this week.  Not to bad with buying flowers and a lot of cucumbers to pickle.

Getting ready to dive in and race to the finish!

Didn't make it to knitting, but I DID get to the market!

There are not many things that are ever allowed to get between me and my Saturday morning knitting group, but this week I actually had to miss it for an appointment.  It makes for a week that feels a little off-kilter when I don't have the anchor of Saturday morning knitting to define my week.  However, all was not lost, we got out of our appointment earlier than I expected and we decided to run over to the market for a quick trip around the square.  I NEEDED to get there because I'm having a few buddies over for lunch on Friday and I had to have fresh beets for a beet and goat cheese salad, I just couldn't see my luncheon without that salad!

First things first, I headed to Salvaterra's for my beets and I got some golden beets and some chiogga beets. I also got a few squashes- green and yellow- for grilling this week.  I think I got potatoes and green beans there too.  I wandered around a bit further and got some rainbow swiss chard.  The colors of this lovely and mild green are irresistible to me, I buy it every single time I see it!  Next, I hit the bread tent and got a roasted onion foccacia and skipped over to the goat cheese lady and got a nice wheel of goat cheese.....to die for good!!  Meanwhile, the dear one had stopped at the organic meat tent and got some organic breakfast sausage.  He's been looking for a good breakfast sausage since the day I met him, nothing that he's had here on the east coast quite fits his midwestern taste memory.  I hope this is the one that he's looking for!

chiogga beets

Next, I looked at the fruit tent and just didn't see anything that I was DYING to bring home.  Perhaps next week I'll be more in love with the peaches that I saw there.  I've got so much fruit in the freezer right now, waiting me to be able to can and jam it, that I think I feel too guilty to add more fruit to the stash!  A couple tents around the square and I got to the bakery that makes the most luscious olive rolls, so I got one to calm my starving belly!  After that it was on to grab some eggs and we were ready to head back home.  The dear one also picked up some more salsa, pineapple / tomatillo flavor, another market favorite we can't resist!

For dinner last night, I used this recipe as my base.  It's a bacon and swiss chard pasta recipe.  I had some bacon I wanted to use up and I had that gorgeous chard to use.  The recipe was very easy to prep and it was REALLY, REALLY good!  I'll definitely make it again.

Today I've whipped up a green bean and potato salad recipe that we'll have tonight at dinner. I threw in some kalamata olives that I had left in the fridge and I've got some grape tomatoes that need to be used too. I'll throw them in right before I serve it tonight.

All in all, I think we spent about $50.  I feel like there's more that we got, but I can't recollect it all right now. I find I don't keep all my details as organized as I used to before I had children.  I was recovering some of my mental acuity, but then we went and had that other baby.......looks like the details will have to wait a few more years- along with pictures for this blog!

Enjoy the week, friends!

Farmers Market Finds May 19

I'm in farmers' market heaven right now........what a lovely way to live!

Yesterday I got some beautiful mushrooms- cremini  and lions mane mushrooms.  Lions mane are weird, hairy little things that I've never cooked with before, so I HAD to bring them home.

Great info here
http://www.gastronomie-sf.com/2006/02/hericum_erinace.html

I sauteed them with butter and onion and served them as a side to foil wrapped packets of steamed cod with dill and lemon.  These mushrooms were better than the main course!!

Creminis will be sauteed and served over grilled rib-eyes for dinner tonight.  Leftovers will find there way into a fritatta later this week.

I also got some french breakfast radishes.  Normally I'm not a fan of bitter, spicy radishes, but these are not like that at all!  These are crunchy, cool and they sort of taste like the air smells right as it starts to rain on a hot summer evening.  Delicious!!

Food can look so naughty!

My favorite way to eat these is to slice them thinly and put them on crusty bread (in this case, semolina bread from the market) which has been buttered and sprinkle them with sea salt.  I like to put fresh thyme on them too, but I don't have any right now.

French breakfast radish sandwich delights!

So, I bought a loaf of semolina bread, french breakfast radishes, beets (can't resist!), fresh ricotta cheese, goat cheese, strawberries, lion's mane and cremini mushrooms and lots of lettuce for the dear one's lunches this week.  I think that's all.....spent about $30.

The beets and greens along with the goat cheese are going to be a tart to go on the side with dinner tonight.

Strawberries are just washed and sitting on the kitchen table so we can have healthy and delicious snacks all day long!  Maybe I'll make a quick little strawberry sauce for dessert tonight and put it over some ice cream for my dear ones.

Fresh ricotta was a 'garnish' on the fritatta we had for lunch yesterday and I'll plop it on everything I eat this week!

The bread has and will be the foundation of all of our snacking this weekend.

Food is just so spectacular and fresher is better.  I love being able to feed my people well and from local farms.  :o)

Back to the Farmers' Market at LONG last!!

My beloved farmers' market is open again for a new season.  And I'm back to moving at full speed- too pregnant last summer to get down to the market and back to my Saturday morning knitting group.  (Nothing, and I mean, nothing!, gets between us and our knitting time!)

Anyway, I went to the market yesterday and it was GLORIOUS.  I missed the energy of the market and seeing all the people and walking around smelling all the market goodness.  The beauty of all that fresh produce is a delight to the eyes.  It was wonderful to see my favorite vegetable farmers in a new, bigger, more fabulous spot and it was great to see that they've gotten so 'big' that they've had to call in the family to help run the stand!  Yay, Salvaterras!

The things that I came home with yesterday:
arugula  (I can't express my love of this peppery green.  It's a spiritual thing.  YUM!)

a mix of beautiful, tender spring lettuces

swiss chard (I can't resist the rainbow of the stems.  Who doesn't want to eat happy food that looks like sunshine in a stem??)

Beets with greens attached (So incredibly NOT like any kind of beets anyone remembers from childhood, unless you had parents who were remarkably cool)  *Beets are in the oven right now roasting- I'll toss them with some goat cheese over the greens that I've sauteed with some garlic and onion, add some oil and vinegar and, viola!,  a side dish for dinner tonight.
Roasted Beets with Sauteed Beet Greens


a loaf of olive bread

a small wheel of goat cheese rolled in fresh herbs (Already gone!  Ate it as a snack yesterday afternoon, smeared over the olive bread.)

tomatillo and pineapple salsa

a grass-fed london broil (Currently marinating in the fridge - will be grilled for dinner tonight and sandwiches for quick dinners this week.)

All in all, I spent about $40 for this week.  The most expensive was the meat, $23 for 2.5lb steak.  Expensive, but not when you consider what's actually gone into making this steak and that I'll get more than 1 dinner out of it.  AND, money spent locally stay within the community and helps the farmer continue to be a good steward of land that is local to me.  Win-win!!

#20 "handwriting" February 20 2012

So going back to work got in the way of being a good blogger.  That seems to be my M.O.  And the picture about 'hearts', oddly enough, didn't really inspire me.  What's so incredible about hearts on Valentine's day?  (Really, I think I was just tapped out for being creative, I could have come up with something if I'd had a little more mental energy!)

Ok for today- handwriting!

Oh, look!  Hearts too!  :o)

#13 "blue" February 13 2012

I wish we were here.