Farmers Market Finds this week

We are very seasonal eaters around here and since our farmers market is open year round it makes meal planning simple. We show up at 8 am, wander through the produce, cheese, bread and meat (We don't buy meat, of course but we do buy eggs at some of the meat vendors. They are the only ones with the duck and turkey eggs) stalls, pick out what looks good and make meals from whatever we pick up. This is one of the best ways to spend a Saturday morning and makes me very happy.

At this time of year herbs and lettuces are plentiful but since I grow my own herbs and I didn't need any lettuce I didn't pick any up. What I did get was all this:

Kale, two colors of beets, green onions, eggs, strawberries, purple cauliflower, three types of mushrooms (crimini, portabella and oyster), cherry tomatoes and green tomatoes. The avocados were not from the farmers market. They were from Costco. I buy them really green so they take a couple of days to ripen up. There is nothing I hate worse than too soft avocados.

First thing I did was roast up the beets.

Aren't they pretty? A little olive oil, some salt and pepper and a handful of tarragon. They were outrageously good. I served them with quinoa and fried green tomato stacks. If I could go back and eat Saturday night dinner again I would. I do have to say that it all made for some wonderful leftover baked eggs breakfast the next day.

These green tomatoes were ideal for fried green tomato stacks. I simply breaded them, fried them in olive oil, sandwiched a quarter inch slice of cheve goat cheese between two of them and let them stay warm in the oven while everything else was finishing up. Yum! I still have a couple of uncooked tomatoes left so I think those will become part of a pasta free veggie lasagna.

I used the mushrooms last night in a ragout. Something we love and is very versatile. The leftovers will make their way into the lasagna along with the kale also. Have I mentioned that I am a leftover aficionado? Leftovers, if there are any, rarely go bad in my refrigerator. They get used in creative ways. I have a thing against refrigerator science projects.

The cherry tomatoes are so sweet that we are eating them like candy. The strawberries are a little under-ripe but still good. By next week the strawberries will be perfect. So I'll buy more.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the purple cauliflower but it was so pretty I couldn't resist it. I thought about making Jan's cauliflower bisque but Jason (a commenter) tried it and says it turned out an ugly gray color. I think I'll just steam it up.


So that was part of my weekend. The other part I'll talk about tomorrow. How was your weekend? Anything exciting?

Love,
M

PS: It's Monday. Try to commit one day to eating meatless.