Farmer's Market 6-18 & 6-23 - Playing Catch Up

This summer is a blur of visitors and we are enjoying it so much. I think we have visitors scheduled every week but one through the start of school in August. What fun! We are managing to get most of our "groceries" from the farmers market and we are also getting a lot of food put up which makes me happy. I love that our fall and winter meals will include some local foods that we are getting from farmers right now.

Last week we were given lots of squash and we dehydrated a good bit of it along with carrots, peppers, and tomatoes from the market to keep as a soup mix. We plan to add it to a crock pot full of our chicken stock in the winter and enjoy local veggie soup. We also dehydrated lots of tomatoes for snacking (we eat them like chips - yum!!) and for pizzas later, and we made blueberry "raisins". We are over run with peaches and squash this week, so I'm thinking peach leather and more dehydrated squash.

Last week from the market, we got, clockwise from top left: Personal watermelons, a big watermelon (one of the BEST I've ever tasted), blueberries, cantaloupe, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peaches, squash, cucumbers (with reddish brown skins), another cantaloupe, basil, zucchini, carrots and not pictured, milk. We enjoyed lots of it fresh and dehydrated or froze some.

On Thursday, a neighbor came over and brought us the lovely veggies pictured above. The tomatoes and peppers became salsa and the squash is in the dehydrator right now. The cucumbers are being enjoyed with meals.

We've been up to a lot at the little cabin. I'll try to post more soon :)

Farmer's Market and Menu Plan

For the last year or so, I have been going to the farmer's market without my older children. It was a nice chance to have some quiet time, plus they had lost interest in a lot of the process of shopping for food and preferred to hang out at home and have some "Dad time". With watermelon coming in to season and me having to shop with the baby, it was either one of them come with me or we have no watermelon . . . so my oldest came with me and, as it turned out, enjoyed himself :)

Most of the above photo contains our farmer's market purchases, though the dairy and seafood (!!!) is not pictured (milk and mozzarella, fresh water prawns and catfish) and the items in the front right corner come from our wonderful neighbor's garden. From top left, clockwise: Cucumber, blackberries, basil (in the baggie), tomatoes, round zucchini, individual sized watermelon, green bell peppers, onions, blueberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, more onions, garlic and potatoes (in the bowl), squash, cucumbers, banana peppers (all three from our neighbor), and peaches. We also bought another fig tree. When we couple these items with the chicken and beef we have in our freezer from past farmer's markets and a few other items with have stored up, there are many meal options. Here is what I've come up with so far (local items are in bold):

Roasted Veggie Omelet - (eggs from our hens, butter, onions, squash, zucchini) with tomato and cucumber salad.

Pesto Chicken Sandwich on homemade foccacia bread - (basil, olive oil, walnuts, Parmesan cheese; chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella) with cantaloupe

Roasted Chicken, squash/ zucchini pasta (cooked pasta, sauted onions and zucchini or squash, butter, basil, Parmesan cheese), peaches

Stuffed Zucchini (ground beef, onions, butter, squash, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, cheese), blueberries

Burgers, browned potatoes, caramelized onions, watermelon

Spaghetti with meat sauce, bread sticks, steamed broccoli (we can't go without broccoli, even if it is not in season or local - oldest ds loves it), cantaloupe

Stuffed Green Peppers (onions, peppers, some of the prawns, rice, butter, some sort of thickener - probably corn starch - for a binder, cheese), peaches

We are also planning to use some of our peaches and blueberries for smoothies. In addition, we have family coming in today and they are bringing tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini from the garden. We will make salsa for snacking (not enough to can) with some of it (using our peppers and onions and some store bought cilantro). I also envision blueberry smoothies in our future.

It is so exciting to be in the early days of summer with so much available to us from local growers. At the market over the weekend, we were told that plums and figs will soon be available. We love these both for eating fresh and also for preserving. Can't wait!! In addition, we have made arrangements to buy "canner" tomatoes from a farmer so that we can put up salsa, spaghetti sauce and tomato puree. We also have blueberries and blackberries in the freezer that are destined to become syrup this week. I used to put up jam, but we don't really eat much jam here. Syrup, I think, will work better (we've already used up all the peach syrup I made a few weeks ago - we use it on pancakes and waffles, plus we use it in yogurt).

What's on your menu this week?

I am submitting this to Menu Plan Monday at Organizing Junkie.

Farmers Market: May 21, 2011

Have I mentioned that I LOVE our farmers market? This was our haul for the week. Clockwise from top left: Milk (seven others not pictured), canataloupe, cornmeal (yes, its local!!), peaches approx. 10 lbs.), sweet onions, yukon gold and red potatoes, butter (wrapped in paper at the bottom), purple broccoli, purple onions, more red potatoes, squash, carrots, English cucumbers, blackberries, black and green olive hummus. Not pictured: several whole chickens.

When I got home from the market, we had eggs (from our hens) cooked in butter with potatoes and onions, blackberries and peaches.

Tonight, we are going to have leftover chicken from last weeks market with broccoli and caramelized onions and squash.

I LOVE the farmers market!!

Farmers Market: May 14, 2011

The market is offering better variety as the weeks go by. Today, I came home with everything in the picture as well as chicken, beef and milk. Clockwise from the left, we got bulb onions, peaches, purple broccoli, English cucumbers, red and Yukon gold potatoes and yellow squash.

Today everything we ate was local. In fact, the only thing consumed in our house that was not local was our coffee, and I soon hope to start getting it at the market as well, as we have a local coffee roaster at the market now. We had only two meals today, brunch and dinner. For brunch we had eggs from our hens cooked in butter from the market. On the side we had caramelized onions and yellow squash, also cooked in butter from the market. For dinner, we had hamburger patties with more caramelized onions (we could eat them with a spoon 3 times a day - we LOVE them!!), pan fried potatoes and peaches for dessert. Lately, we are finding it easier to have at least one meal per day and portions of the rest of our meals sourced from local growers or producers.

I am hoping that next week I can start buying from the market in quantities large enough to begin preserving. I want to start with peaches and yellow squash, prepping both for the freezer. Last year we had 12 quarts of yellow squash in the freezer and 6 quarts of peaches. We could easily double the amount of both, as we use the peaches in smoothies and the squash in soup and also to caramelize. I have already started dehydrating potatoes and have a quart jar filled with them. I plan to try dehydrating some onions at the end of the week if we have any left.

Are you preserving anything in your kitchen?

Menu Plan (Oct 4) and Farmer's Market

I visited the farmer's market on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised at some of the wonderful things I found. There was a wonderful "no spray" lettuce farmer there with an amazing array of lettuces. Its been a long time since we've had lettuce from the farmer's market. We are enjoying the red leaf and green leaf lettuces so much. I also found some cooking pumpkins, some "no spray" butternut squash and some sweet potatoes in addition to our beef order (we are getting several this fall to carry us through until spring/ early summer when there will be more available).

Our beef order comes with each cut individually wrapped in butcher paper and the hamburger is wrapped up in one pound portions. Each time we get slightly different cuts and different amounts of hamburger. This order had a few t-bones, a few sirloins, two roasts, some ribs and lots of hamburger (what we use most). We also got soup bones.

This is the cooler I bring it home in. Each order is somewhere between 25 & 30 pounds. It takes us between three and four months to finish off one order.

We are going to use some of the local food we have in the freezer, as well as the farmer's market finds for our menu this week. As usual, I will put the local items in bold.

Breakfast (with repeats):

*Oatmeal with coconut oil, pecans, honey and blueberries
*Eggs and grits with cut up fruit
*Fruit smoothies made with homemade yogurt, blueberries, peaches and bananas
*Homemade granola with pecans, honey, butter, coconut oil, pepitas and dried bananas

Lunches:

*Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and applesauce
*Peanut butter sandwiches and cut up fruit
*Green Salad with feta cheese, walnuts, pecans, kalamata olives
*Leftovers

Snacks:

*Pumpkin bread or muffins (eggs are from our hens)
*Smoothies (blueberries, peaches)
*Apple slices
*Pears
*Cheese cubes
*Oatmeal cookies
*homemade bread and honey butter

Dinner:

*French Onion Soup (beef stock from soup bones - also will include small amount of beef; the dog was THRILLED with his jackpot when I gave him the bones earlier) with grilled cheese sandwiches and a green salad

*Roasted Chicken, sweet potatoes (probably just cooked in some butter - so yummy!!), green salad

*Dinner Salad with leftover roasted chicken, pecans, cheese, boiled eggs, cucumbers, carrots and some homemade bread

*Cheese Burgers with caramelized onions, green salad, mashed butternut squash

*Soup (not sure what kind, but I'm leaning towards Italian Black Eyed Pea Soup) and homemade biscuits

*Pizza with leftovers (some of which will be local) and maybe caramelized onions and black olives as toppings and a green salad

*Crustless Quiche (eggs) to use up any veggies that need to be eaten before they go bad and a green salad (if we still have lettuce or if ours is ready to begin using).

Our hens are consistently laying 7 eggs a day now (1 blue/ green, 1 dark brown and white speckled and 5 light brown). That means we are getting about 4 dozen a week - plenty for us to use and enough to share with our neighbors, too :) Earlier, when dh and I were out feeding/ watering the chickens and collecting the eggs, a katydid flew at me and I jumped/ screamed (eek!!) and dh laughed (because it was really funny). My response? To begin crying - so out of character for me. I am obviously experiencing some sort of pregnancy hormone thing. I am now entering my third trimester (time is flying for me this time) and I think we are having a really big boy - check out that profile:


To me, I look much farther along than just 6 months, lol. I think I better get to work with farm projects, Christmas shopping and freezer cooking!! It will be here before I know it.

I will be submitting this to Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.

Weekend Farmer's Market Finds

A few weeks ago, I was delighted to find a pastured chicken farmer at the Farmer's Market. I placed an order with her that day and we were able to pick up our first chickens this past Saturday. These were game hens (under 2 lbs each). We will be picking up heritage fryers next weekend. I cannot wait! This week at the market we also found sweet corn, plums, blackberries, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, spring mix lettuce, swiss chard, a purple bell pepper (it has a nice spicy taste), two dozen eggs and (I couldn't help it) a sunflower bouquet.

Between the market we attended this weekend and another in a nearby town, we now have access to farmer's markets on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Ahhhhh . . . summer :)

Farmer's Market Finds -Woo Hoo!!

Just got back from the farmer's market and I am so excited. The produce farmers were there today!! With produce!!! I came home with pastured eggs, broccoli, spring mix salad greens (can you see the edible flowers?), english peas, baby zucchini and baby yellow squash!! Woo Hoo! I am so excited. They all said that they were expecting to have even more next week - yay!

This is what the market looks like from the outside. Its a really nice building dedicated strictly to the farmer's market which is just Saturdays right now, but during the summer it runs Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday.

This is what it looks like inside. I was standing in the middle when I took this (blurry) shot. Behind me was a mirror image of the side you can see.

There is an outdoor market in another town, a little closer to us that will open on Saturday and Wednesday starting in two weeks. Last year, that market had even more produce than the one I went to today, in particular, homegrown fruit. I cannot wait!!

Did you get anything at the farmer's market this week?

Another E Coli Outbreak

I just heard on the news that there has been a recall of romaine lettuce associated with an e coli outbreak that has 12 people hospitalized, two in critical condition. This frustrates me on so many levels. First, I am frustrated because e coli is so dangerous. It is not the "bad stomach bug" most people think it is. It is a deadly infection that, in children especially, often causes something called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome or HUS. This is scary stuff, folks. Basically, the body's systems begin to shut down, one at a time and may or may not start working again. Hospitalization lasts for MONTHS. I understand why the media does not explain how deadly e coli can be - if they did it would shut down our food growing and distribution industry. But still, it frustrates me that it is portrayed so lightly.

I am also frustrated that our congress will most likely "respond" by passing legislation that does not actually help anything, and might actually make things worse. This sort of problem is caused by large scale industrial agriculture-farmers who do not have to look their customers in the eyes; farmers who must compete on price alone, so they must cut corners elsewhere just to keep from going under. These kinds of things rarely happen in small scale farming, so why does our government try to solve the problems by tying the hands of the small farmer?

I'm also frustrated because this kind of thing makes me more scared to buy from the grocery store. My garden is small this year and the farmer's market is still not offering much in the way of produce; mostly just lettuce and strawberries, for which I am very grateful. But, thank God we are in May and last year the farmer's market had more fresh veggies and fruit than we could want by the beginning of June. Thank God!!

Stepping down off the soapbox, now.

Farmer's Market Haul :)

We went to the farmer's market in the nearest big city this past weekend and met many wonderful farmers we had not met before. We met a grass-fed beef/ lamb farmer who also raises pastured chickens. We bought eggs from them and got on their waiting list for beef.

I didn't get many pictures, but I did get a pic of these beautiful eggs.

We also met goat farmers who make cheese and also sell milk. This time, we tried their Greek Feta (so delicious) and some of their goat milk (my children LOVE goat milk). We also met a strawberry farmer, some farmers who grow lettuces and such and we bought a fig tree from a farmer. It was so great to get back to the farmer's market!

Farmer's Market Finds and Eat Local Challeng Update

There were only 3 farmer's at our mid week market, but they each had something different, so we ended up with a nice variety of things (we bought something from everyone). I am particularly excited about the cantaloupe as it may be one of the last we have this season. One of the amazing benefits of a challenge like that is that we are trying new things and since there is very little fruit in season in our area right now, we are learning to like pears (I'll be 40 in a few days and this is the FIRST time in my life that I've actually enjoyed eating pears!) We also made pear sauce out of some of them and have enjoyed that as well.

You know, eating locally has really stretched us over the years. Were it not for wanting to support local farmers we would never have tried and learned to like things like kale, cooked cabbage and beets. In fact, its hard for me to believe that only 3 years ago, I had to ask the farmer what to do with the cabbage we were buying, lol. I've also learned to like some things in their natural state that I used to only eat cooked into something else. For example, tomatoes and blueberries. Until this year, only my dh would eat blueberries out of hand, but now we all do and we love them! And until last year, I did not like fresh sliced tomatoes (I think because grocery store tomatoes are so Styrofoam like), but now - yum!

We have been eating local eggs for breakfast the last few days. Today I have an early appointment, so we will probably just have the leftover pancakes from Monday (in the freezer) with local honey. Tuesday we had pizza for lunch - they boys just wanted plain cheese, I made mine with caramelized local onions. Tuesday's supper was BBQ grassfed beef sandwiches with local tomatoes. I'm sure we had other things to eat that day, but on Tuesday I felt particularly sick, and I don't remember everything we had. Yesterday's lunch was PB sandwiches and we made and enjoyed some yummy fig pinwheel cookies (now I know what we will do with all of our fig preserves). The cookies are delicious, though a bit rich (they contain our homegrown fig preserves and local pecans), which is a good thing, because it keeps me from eating too many of them, lol.
We made burger buns yesterday and for supper we had tuna burgers (at dh's request) with pears and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. It is hard to imagine for me, but we are getting tired of eating beef. I think today we will probably have chicken to go with our yummy local veggies from the market.

So far, making an effort to eat only or almost only locally grown foods has been a fun and eye opening experiment. It has stretched us in some interesting ways and I'm hoping to put together a wrap up post about it over the weekend.

Saturday Farmer's Market and Canning Question

Tomatoes, plums, peppers, okra, cucumber, pickles, cherry jam, cookies, and cantaloupe (including cantaloupe slices, one of which we ate at the market). The banana peppers and okra were pickled on Saturday. The large tomatoes and jalapeno became salsa on Sunday (picture coming soon). The Roma tomatoes will be dehydrated on Monday along with some of the figs from the trees out back.

Ok, here is my canning question. Why is the vinegar cloudy in the banana peppers (pictured below)? Its the same vinegar that was used in the okra which did not get cloudy. The cloudiness is gone now, but I'd like to know what caused it and if its still safe to use.

Farmer's Market Finds

This was our Farmer's Market haul from the mid week market. I think we managed to buys a little something from each of the farmers there, which made the boys really happy (that watermelon is making ds#1 really happy, too). I found almost everything I needed to make salsa including three kinds of peppers. We are have to add onions from the grocery store, but they are locally grown, so I feel good about it. I'm making a really small "test batch" today. If we like it, we'll buy enough from the weekend market to make a full batch and can some. I'm also going to try pickling those banana peppers today. They were 10 for $1.00 and they are really big. I think we'll get at least one pint, maybe more out of it. Bryan likes banana peppers on his sandwiches, so if they turn out the way we like them, we'll buy more this weekend and preserve them, too.

What did you get at your market? Are you making anything special with it?

Farmer's Market

Our mid week market provided these yummy finds: Watermelon, peaches, nectarines (picked 30 minutes before we bought them) and plums, plus one cucumber. Much of this is already gone - hurry up Saturday :o)

Update:

We went to the market on Saturday and ate everything before I thought to get a picture, lol. We bought blueberries (these were gone almost before we got to the car, lol), squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, 8 ears of sweet corn, a jar of plum jam, a few peaches, a cantaloupe and some home baked pita bread. We spent less than $20 and although it was a little more than we would pay at the grocery store, the taste is so superior to what is available at the supermarket that it is worth a few cents more. Plus I love knowing that we are supporting the local farmers in our community. When we buy from the grocery store, mere pennies per dollar spent on food goes to the farmer. When we buy directly from the farmer, the whole dollar goes to the farmer.

Farmer's Market Finds

We debated even going to the farmer's market this morning since we definitely do not need any produce. We decided to go anyway since we'd never been to the Saturday morning market and were curious about what might be there. Our mid-week market is produce only, but the Saturday market is also home made goods such as food items, preserves and plants. I'm so glad we went. We were able to get our first local peaches (no picture - we ate them already). We also bought some pastries from one of the booths (again, no pictures - we already ate them). I'm most excited about the only other thing we bought at the market. These:



We purchased two blueberry shrubs from a blueberry farmer :o) I was planning to get some anyway, and I am so glad I was able to get them from a farmer instead of from a big box store. One of the plants even has berries on it. We'll try these out in containers and I'll have the first update on Thursday. Yay for blueberries :o)


After we left the market, we walked around a little in the downtown and river front areas. Here is a picture of the boys playing on a caboose that is on display near the train tracks.

Our Farmer's Market Haul

Look what we got at the farmer's market!!


Two cucumbers, 4 ears of sweet corn, 5 pounds of plums and 3 pounds of the biggest figs I've ever seen. Because we at at least 5 pounds of plums last week, some of these will be made into plum jam. The figs are my excuse to splurge a little. I'm going to the grocery store tomorrow for milk, and I plan to pick up prosciutto and some goat cheese to make Proscuitto Wrapped Figs. Its a pretty big splurge, but hubby said he liked the sound of the recipe, so I think we'll treat ourselves. If there are any figs left after we eat some (a lot), and make the Prosciutto Wrapped Figs, then I'll cook them as preserves to make fig cobbler.

What did you get at the market?