Market to Table - April 16, 2009

Another wonderful week of food to report here at SGF. Spring has sprung and while we still have plenty of winter veggies in our harvest, some of the summer veggies are working their way in as well - like the summer squash last weekend, the first we've seen at the market since last fall. 

I mentioned in Monday's post that with an empty fridge, I went a little crazy at the market this weekend. So what did I do with all those goodies?

Stir-fry Veggies and Wheat Berries - This meal marks the last of the 5 cabbage plants from my backyard garden. I'm a little sad because they were really tasty (not to mention the excitement of having grown them myself), but more wonderful veggies are on the way. This stir fry started out with chopped cabbage, green onions (also from the backyard), mushrooms (local from Madisonville - 36 miles), and carrots (farmers' market). As usual, just a little olive oil (farmers' market) and some salt to saute until the veggies start to soften. Then, I added about a cup of cooked wheat berries (local from Rosebud TX - 68 miles) and mixed it all up as it heated through. Mmmm! I never get tired of a yummy stir fry and it's SO easy!

Sweet Onion Glazed Stir Fry - As I sit at my market booth every Saturday morning, I love to people watch; observing what people buy, what they comment on, and especially when they inquire about recipe suggestions. Last weekend, someone picked up a jar of sweet onion glaze and asked Lois Vaughn (the vendor in the booth next to me) what could be done with it. Lois immediately piped up saying that the onion glaze was tasty as a glaze over a meat (such as an Easter Ham - very timely). 

Then, for some reason, it occurred to me what I would use the sweet onion glaze on: stir fried rice and veggies as a sweet and sour-type sauce. I mentioned this and both women perked right up saying that actually, that sounded REALLY good. Lois vowed to go home and try it, I broke out another $4 for the jar of glaze (because now I was craving it). 

Well, as it turns out, it was just as wonderful as I imagined. Like all my other stir fries, I just started yanking stuff out of the fridge - some carrots, onion, kohlrabi, squash, and bok choy. Everything was chopped and sauteed in a frying pan with olive oil. Then I stirred in about a cup of local rice and some of that sweet onion glaze and let it heat through. Oh, for the love of all that is good in the world, was this dish a winner (and everything was local except the little bit of salt)! I managed an entire week of stir fries on this one jar. Mmmm! We'll definitely be trying that onion glaze again!

Pasta - This was one of Dave's dinners this week. The egg noodles are homemade from one of our farmers' market vendors (mmm, mmm!), the sauce is not local (sorry), but the mozzarella is from the local dairy and I made that gorgeous yogurt sandwich roll from scratch. And the most important part: Dave loved it!

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Of course, the week also featured some of those wonderful strawberries from Plantersville (about 40 miles southeast of town); I had some of my all-local canned soups and stewed tomatoes over local rice; I made pizzas for Dave from scratch with more of that local mozzarella from the dairy north of town; and Kelsey was just drooling over her puppy treats from the farmers' market. We're all living local this week and it's never tasted better!

Hope the spring is bringing the opening to farmers' markets and CSAs in your neck of the woods. For more recipe ideas, feel free to peruse some of the older "Market to Table" posts. I'm not great at following recipes, but I'm always full of ideas. 

Happy (and mindful) Eating!