fresh from the market
Sunday marked the return of the full farmers' market. Between January and March, many farmers opt to take time off to rejuvenate and plan and sleep in on Sundays, leaving us with a third of the normal sellers. But come the first Sunday in April, they're back with fresh foods from their greenhouses and storerooms to tempt us.
This week we celebrated their return by buying:
- Milk
- Eggs
- Golden beets
- Watercress
- Grape tomatoes
- Spring lettuce
- A cucumber
- Pink lady apples
- A variety of cooking apples
- An onion
- Hon tsai tai (an Asian green particularly good in the spring)
- Red spring onions
- A baguette
- Croissants
- Apple tartes (these were especially tasty!)
- Cheddar
- Strawberry yogurt
- Orange poppies
- Daffodils
- A purple hyacinth
Next week, we're looking forward to blueberry scones and microgreens and some other spring Asian greens. And as the weather gets a bit warmer, we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for rhubarb, wild mushrooms, and ramps.
our market basket runneth over
We haven't been home a whole lot in the last few weeks so our cupboard was reminiscent of Mother Hubbard's.
We trekked out into the perfect Indian summer late-Sunday-morning sun to find something to fill our tummies and our souls.
We came home an hour later with:
- A new kind of soap the scent of which Ruth Ann's daughter Rachel described as lying down on a forest carpet of pine needles and fall leaves
- A half-gallon of whole milk (Rudi has promised me tapioca this week)
- A half-gallon of apple cider (because the house smells so nice when it's cooking on the stove)
- Jicama (a South American root vegetable that I'm eager to try)
- Turkish eggplant
- Peppers in fall colors
- Tomatoes from a greenhouse
- Broccoli for soup
- Leeks for soup
- Gigantic red beets (almost as big as your head!)
- Suncrisp apples
- A yellow onion
- Young, fresh garlic
- Brussels sprouts
- Mascarpone
- Blueberry scones
Next week I'm going to pick up nuts (if they still have some) and winter squash. I just wasn't ready to switch seasons quite yet!
farmers’ market bumper crop
Rudi went off on a bike ride this morning, leaving me to go the farmers' market myself. This was a mistake.
I started off with the best of intentions and self-restraint, but as the morning wore on (and I got hungrier), the basket began to get heavier until finally it overflowed and I was forced to accept a bag or two, as well.
I came home with:
- blueberries (the last of the season)
- peaches
- nectarines
- two kinds of lettuce
- Red Malabar spinach
- red and orange cherry tomatoes
- a yellow tomato
- two green tomatoes (for frying)
- seconds tomatoes (for gazpacho)
- Thai eggplants
- a giant head of cabbage
- beans (they might be something closely related to a cranberry bean, but I can't remember what kind they said they were)
- corn on the cob
- leeks (the first of the season; of course, I forgot to buy brocolli to make soup with)
- squash (five pounds -- including pattypans, bicolors, dark yellows, and star-shaped ones -- it got cheaper the more you bought and I figured I could make five pounds stretch to two, maybe three, weeks)
- blueberry scones
- milk
- a giant double sunflower
sunday farm market watch: 1 may 2005
Today’s Dupont Circle Freshfarm market brought some fun new things to our kitchen:
- morels (one of my favorite wild mushrooms - learn about ‘em here)
- ramps (a wild leek, which is a local delicacy)
- strawberries (first of the season - yum!)
- blueberry scones
- red beets
- 2% organic milk
- lilacs (not for eating)
We still have a lot of stuff from last week’s market (including purple asparagus, spring onions, pea shoots and beautiful lettuce), so a lot of good cooking lies ahead.
Any suggestions for recipes?
(Note: most of this was originally posted at randomduck.com.)