Market to Table - July 16, 2009

With a California vacation approaching, the theme this week was emptying that over-stuffed fridge full of all-local goodies! No problem, right? I've certainly worked my way through quite a bit of it - loading up on watermelon and apples at breakfast; and digging into the veggies for lunch and dinner.

Of course, my favorite thing about eating local is it just tastes better. But don't local foods make for beautiful meals as well? Check this out:

Veggie Stir-fry

What would a week in the SGF household be without my stir-fries? Because I had so many all-local veggies to choose from (swiss chard, sweet potato leaves, lambs-quarter, tomatoes, yellow squash, eggplant, onion, mushrooms, carrots, ...), the stir-fries were a little different each time. The meal pictured here included tomatoes, eggplant, lambs-quarter, sweet potato leaves, and swiss chard which were sauteed in olive oil. I then added some local brown rice to the mix. Mmm, mmm! Bring on the local food anytime!

"Spaghetti"

As some of the long-term readers know, I'm not much of a pasta person, but I love pasta sauces. So I'm a big fan of spaghetti squash which (to me) translates into veggies topped with veggies. My kinda meal! I baked the spaghetti squash (delivered from a friend's garden) for an hour, then forked out the wonderful innards and topped them with some of my homemade spaghetti sauce that was made from tomatoes right out of my own backyard. It doesn't get much more local than that! And it was delicious - looks good too, doesn't it?

Of course spaghetti squash also means I had toasted spaghetti squash seeds to enjoy for snacks this week.

So those were this week's highlights. I still have a few more goodies to clear out of the fridge before I head out of town, but I can do it. The catch will be getting away from the market on Saturday without buying anything new...

Have a great Thursday, everyone. And as always, Happy (and mindful) eating!