farmer’s market – Peaceful Reader

Weekend Cooking; Market fresh produce with an easy recipe

Weekend Cooking:

It’s a busy day here in the Holt household. My husband is off doing a shoot for 3M and I’m diligently working on homework to finish my Fantasy Literature course for Fresno Pacific.We also have a casual wedding this evening.

I did sneak out early this morning to go to our beautiful Farmer’s Market which I missed while in Colorado.

I picked up two baby eggplants, a basket of okra, and a nice-looking cucumber. I’ve been making a lot of easy dishes using garden produce especially using the large box of tomatoes I carted home from my mom’s house.

I plan to make this eggplant recipe from The Chew; a cooking show my mom introduced me to. For dinner last night I whipped this recipe up created by me using lots of fresh produce.

Garden-Fresh Vegetables and Rice

1-2 T. of olive oil

1 yellow squash, diced without the inner seed section

1 small zucchini, diced

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

4-5 soft tomatoes, diced

1 can of garbanzo beans

Several large pinches of sea salt and curry powder

Fresh ground pepper

Cooked brown rice as much as will feed your family

Saute the zucchini and yellow squash in olive oil for a few minutes and then added the garlic. Continue to saute to soften the dreaded squashes that my children despise but will eat if cut small enough. Add the chopped tomatoes which will create a nice juice. Add the can of garbanzo beans and stir to mix. Sprinkle in sea salt, ground pepper and curry. Serve in low bowls over brown rice. Garnish with grated Parmesan cheese, cilantro, or torn basil leaves. This is a perfect summer recipe because you can tailor it to what ever extra veggies you have on hand or what you find at the market. Spice it up with cumin or change the garbanzos to black beans for variety.

My husband just finished Ragbrai (the famous ride across Iowa) yesterday and he had three helpings. My kids each ate one bowl and the only complaint Groovy Girl had was that I hadn’t added enough tomatoes to her bowl. Enjoy!

Oh and Adam Duritz: What? Yes. He was part of my week!

The last night of Ragbrai I met up with my husband and we saw The Counting Crows together. I still love Duritz’s hair (real or not). He was fun to watch and the music was fantastic!

Happy eating.

I've been to the market…

(Beet Greens, Broccoli, basil leaves and Kale peeking
out of my pink market basket)

and at the market I smelled in the beautiful earthy smells of vegetables and dirt. I watched loads of smiling people swirl around all the market stands, picking and choosing food for the week. I love to listen to the questions others ask; “what is this?”, “what do I do with this?”, and “how do I cook this?” I listen to the farmer’s answers, learning myself and sometimes I answer…I love the sense of community a farmer’s market creates.

Myself, I picked a bouquet of kale, a bundle of beets, a small forest of “trees” (broccoli, in our family), and a bag of basil. I plan to roast the beets and steam the head of broccoli for a nice veggie dinner tonight. We also have okra growing in our own garden and I will use my mother-in-law’s recipe for okra mixed with potato to add to our meal.

I look forward to paging through some of my recipe books to figure out something new to do with these beautiful kale leaves. I’ve yet to hit upon a stunning recipe for this healthy vegetable. Any suggestions?

I do have basil growing in our garden but it is not at the BIG leaf stage, which is just how I like it sprinkled on my pasta, sandwich or grains. We planted late after our vacation and I hope to have basil well into September when I can heap it into the food processor and make jars and bags of pesto to help me through the winter season.

What’s selling at your local market? Have you been yet? I encourage everyone to find their local Farmer’s Market and shop their at least once a week. There’s a handy website to locate a market near you: Local Harvest offers lots of information.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Anyone with a food-related post can play along; click on her link to see her review of Gloria Whelan’s book, The Boy Who Wanted To Cook.

Cucumbers to Pickles

We made pickles for the first time ever as a family and it was a fantastic learning experience for everyone. I dream up lots of plans but don’t always follow through so when I announced part way through the summer that I was interested in making bread and butter pickles they males in my house did small eye rolls and gently nodded their heads. My daughter, of course, was gung-ho from the beginning. I googled bread and butter pickles and found this man, Drew Kime’s wonderful website/blog and just followed his easy steps. We bought baskets of smaller cucumbers and mixed them with regular sized cukes from our farmer’s market, rinsed them and my son took charge of slicing.

From above cucumbers to these delicious pickles. We will have pickles all winter long plus I’ve given a few jars away. They are just the right amount of spicy to sweet. My husband and I just sat down and ate lunch together: two pieces of soft bread, stone ground mustard, thinly sliced radishes, salad greens (two scores from this morning’s market), sharp cheddar, and a jar of homemade pickles to dig into=YUM sandwich!

This post is part of Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads. She’s got something appropriately timed about witches and wine with a giveaway included.

Other news: I’m very close to finishing linger by maggie stiefvater. I wish I was in Mpls this weekend for the Kid Lit conference as she is the headliner and I would love to hear her speak and maybe have an opportunity to shake her hand. I have this weird excitement about shaking hands with certain peeps. I can feel the eye rolls and fond smirks even as I type this!

Lasagna

Fall is definetely peeking around the corner and my recipes are changing as the temperatures drop. My daughter and I generally go to our local farmer’s market every Saturday morning. Sometimes I have a general idea of what I’m want/need but today we just wandered. I wanted a basket of groundcherries but felt too stingy to pay the $4.25 they were asking. I used to pick them up for free from my grandmother’s garden and I love them but if I bought that little basket I would have to make a pie and I already had a lot on my plate for today.

We did buy a beautiful pumpkin to put at our fairy tale door-it seemed like the right time since we both had to wear our fleeces to the market and leaves swirled around us as we shopped. My daugher wants me to eventually to turn it into a pumpkin pie. I just let her be excited about the seeds we will scoop from the insides and didn’t get into how pies come from a smaller pumpkin.

I did do some serious cooking though as I had an beautiful eggplant staring me down from last week’s FM. I don’t like to leave fresh, delicious produce sit in our veggie basket for that long but we’ve had a busy week and well, there sat the eggplant. I looked through a few of my trusty recipe books for something different but didn’t find anything that stole my heart and begged to be cooked so I went back to my trusty eggplant standby-which seemed like it was calling my name anyway! I’ve made this recipe for the first time like 9 years ago and probably make it 5-6 times a year. If you ever were to come and visit-this is probably the recipe I would cook for you. This recipe demonstrates my love of cooking, which sits just an 1/2 inch behind my love of reading.

Shop Indie Bookstores“>The Healthy Kitchen; Recipes for a better body, life and spirit written by Andrew Weil, M.D. and Rosie Daley hold within its pages this trusted recipe which I share with you tonight. Once again the five of us around the table left happy and full. This book is so well-loved there is a break in the spine, right about where this recipe is listed!
Vegetable Lasagna

Marinara Sauce

1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup chopped carrots
3 T. olive oil
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
16 blanched plum tomatoes or 28 ozs canned peeled whole toms.
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1 T. honey
1/2 tsp. salt (to taste)
1 T. Italian Seasoning

Eggplant
I med. eggplant, sliced length-wise 1/2 inch thick
salt, to taste
less than 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 T. olive oil

Spinach
2 bunches washed, de-stemmed spinach
5 ozs goat cheese or ricotta
1 T. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped white onion
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 T. chopped fresh basil

Lasagna

12 sheets oven-ready lasagna noodles
1 cup purified water
1 1/2 cups mozzarella, shredded
10 kalamata olives, pitted and halved

     Make the marinara sauce first: Saute the onion, garlic, and carrots in olive oil in a medium saucepan over low heat for 3 minutes. Add the red wine, oregano, and basil, and cook for an additional 5 minutes until the wine is reduced by half. Add the tomatoes, mushrooms, honey, salt and Italian Seasoning and continue to cook until the mushrooms become limp, about 15 minutes.
Preheat the broiler.
     Broil the eggplant: Brush both sides of the eggplant with olive oil, salt, little bit of cayenne and lay on a baking pan. Broil for 3 minutes on middle rack under the broiler until it turns brown. Remove from oven and let cool.
Prepare the spinach: Steam the spinach for 1 minute in a pot filled with 1/2 cup purified water. Remove from heat and let cool.
     Squeeze the spinach, using clean hands, to remove excess water. Put softened goat cheese or ricotta in a medium bowl. Add the cooked spinach and mix together thoroughly with a fork. Put the olive oil, onions and sliced garlic in a small saute pan over low heat. Saute for 2 minutes until the onions turn light golden brown. Remove from heat and cool. Add it to softened cheese and spinach mixture. Add the pepper and the fresh basil and mix together.
     Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Assemble lasagna: Cover bottom of 13 X 9 inch baking dish with 1/2 cup of tomato sauce. Lay 4 sheets of the oven-ready noodles on top. Spoon the spinach filling over noodles and spread it around. Lay 4 more sheets of noodles on top of spinach. Lay eggplant slices length-wise over the noodles. Sprinkle the mozzarella on top. Pour 1 cup of marinara sauce over the cheese. Lay another 4 sheets of noodles over the sauce. Slowly pour the water over the lasagna noodles. Pour the remaining marinara sauce on top. Sprinkle the top with remaining mozzarella cheese and olives. Cover with foil and cook for 1/2 hours in the oven. When it is completely cooked, remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes-or longer, it lets everything set and juices to absorb. Cut into squares and eat.

Okay, I know it sounds like a lot of steps-and it is, but so well-worth it. What’s funny is the recipe actually includes a white sauce, which I have made exactly once and none of us thought it added to the flavor thus making it not worth the time to make it. If anybody is a white sauce fan, let me know and I will email the recipe to you. I have tweaked this recipe quite a bit over the years but I’ve given you the true recipe.

I love eggplants-they have such a intense color! This recipe is perfect on a just-about-fall-table, as a potluck dish, or as a I-love-you family treat. What about you? Did you shop at your local farmer’s market? Did you cook with any vegetables today?? What was it? This post is part of Beth Fish Reads for Weekend Cooking. Head there to read an excellent cookbook review as well as a list of other Weekend Cooking participants. I hope you might try this delicious eggpland dish-just to try something different. There is something so wonderful about making this from start to finish; all from scratch.

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