Farmer's Market May 23

Wilted Spinach Salad with Caramelized Onions and Apricots



 

 

Sorry for no recipe, I forgot to write it down exactly before I left for the summer, but it went something like this.

 

Caramelize onions (thinly sliced onion in put in a sauté pan on high heat with a little oil or butter and cook until you can smell the onions, but no color change has happened, once you can smell them cooking, TURN the heat down to medium, leave the onions alone [NO STIRRING] and let them get all brown and sugary; about 15-20 minutes.) and apricots (cook the same as onions, except turn down the heat when you start to see color getting on the apricots and they can move around in the pan without sticking. They should take longer to soften than onions and you might need to add a little water to steam them, but watch them and see if they soften on their own).

 

Wash and dry fresh baby spinach. While the Onions and Apricots are still hot toss them in the spinach, thus wilting the spinach with the residual heat.

 

Add salt and pepper to taste and any other goodies you might like. Roasted walnuts or almonds would be good.

 

Any questions about the salad concept, holler and I'll try to answer ya.

Roasted Root Veggie Quinoa

 

 

Sorry, I don't remember exactly what I did, but I know there was some beets, carrots, kidney beans, onions, and garlic in there *wink*

 

 

Enjoy the pic and adventure in your kitchen to get some great color combinations too! hehe

Simple and Delicious Potatoes, Kale, and Egg

 

Red Potatoes, Kale, Green Onion, a Fried Egg and Butter round out the goodness that is in this pic.

 

Bake or microwave the potato, fry an egg in a sauté pan with a little olive oil (or butter), use the other side of the pan to cook a couple leaves of kale while the egg is cooking :)

 

Put everything in a bowl, cut up the potatoes anyway you like, slap on some butter, salt and pepper to taste, and you have the above.

 

It was super tasty and super simple! 

Pasta with fresh tomatoes and zucchini

 

I cooked up a half of box of whole wheat spaghetti, pan sautéed some fresh tomatoes, zucchini, onions, and garlic (with fresh dried basil and rosemary) with olive oil until veggies were all wilted and soft. I then added the pasta into the same pan and coated the noodles with the "sauce" of veggies and olive oil and added salt to taste.

 

Super easy and super good. 

Savory Sweet Potato Waffles



Servings: 8 waffles

Farmers Market-

2 medium sweet potatoes, baked. About 1 1/4-1 1/2 cups mashed

1 egg 

2 tsp dried and crushed rosemary

1 tbs dried and crushed basil

Co-Op

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup milk (or opt dairy out and use all water)

1/4 cup olive oil, coconut oil, or melted butter

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp granulated garlic

Combine the water, milk, and oil with the flour and let "soak" in the fridge for an hour (or overnight, this softens the wheat) before mixing with other ingredients. 

Pre heat waffle iron. 

Whisk together all other ingredients and then combine the two sets of igredients together.  You'll have to mix really well because the wet flour might try to stay clumped to itself. Just keep mixing and it'll eventually pull together. The batter should resemble clumpy melted ice cream with all ingredients incorporated. 

Now you're ready to ladle the quantity your waffle maker desires. Once there done, they're ready to eat! 

They taste amazing with just butter as a side bread, or cover them with cheese and roasted veggies for an entree. Oh man, savory waffles are tasty!

 

Barley and Shiitake Mushroom Soup

Servings, about 5

Super Easy, I threw all the ingredients into a shallow baking dish (well except the tofu, I like a crunch coating of flavor on it so I pan fried that with garlic powder and salt in sesame oil then added it too the soup) and put it in the oven at 350 for an hour. Super easy.

Farmer Market
Bok Choy - 1large head chopped in 2 inch dice
Carrots - 2 medium carrots (I don't usually peel them when they're super fresh because they don't have that old dirt flavor;) cut into 1/2inch round dices
Garlic - 2 cloves diced
Onion (last little bulb from last weeks trip) - 1 small onion 1/2 dice (or whatever size you like onion in your soup)

Co-Op
Bulk Organic Soy Sauce - to taste, but you can probably start with 2 tbs (the barley with suck up the salt and make everything taste more bland, be prepared to put more soy or even salt in to get the flavor right.
Organic Whole Barley - 1/2cup
Organic Firm Tofu - 2/3 package cut in whatever shape and size you prefer (you can totally leave this out, I just happened to have an opened package and thought it would go well with the other flavors)

Costco
Dehydrated Sliced Shiitake Mushrooms - 1/2 cup rinsed

My kitchen sink
Water, Tucson flavor 4-5cups

The barley and the dried mushrooms both need water so start with 4 cups and add more if ya need it 30minutes in.

Try this with other greens and grains too! Add diced tomatoes and different spices to get something new ;)

 

Farmers Market May 2

Today I think I went a little wild because last week I don't think I bought enough because I ran out of fresh stuff (mainly salad fixins) a few days ago.

I'm not gonna lie, I never thought that I would be someone who would crave salads, but oh momma, now that its hot out, they hit the right spot!

This week I bought multiple greens (and some purples;) for salads including red leaf lettuce, spring leaf red lettuce, and spinach. Im going to try a new green (I'll find the name of it and insert it in when I get it :) thats native to the desert, tons if health benefits in it the farmers told me.

I also bought bok choy and a giant cucumber from a new vendor which I'm excited for. Bok Choy was $1.50 and huge cucumber was .80 cents... Love those deals.

I bought amazing chard and kale to cook up with some grains too. Carrots are usually a must (they add soooo much flavor to stuff)

I'm a potato kinda gal so I made sure to get the reds and sweets again too.

And I got purple garlic! It's super pungent and spicy and sadly only the skin and husk are purple, but I like it! I'll buy more next week and maybe preserve some in mason jars with oil? Mmmm, garlicky oil.

Ideas floating around in my head:

Soup with Barley, Bok Choy and Shitake mushrooms

Stuffed chard with spicy rice and pumpkin seeds

Salads up the wazoo with a couple new homemade vinaigrettes, maybe I'll try strawberry/blueberry combo...

Pasta with fresh roasted tomatoes, basil, olive oil and roasted garlic

I'm thinking I should also try making a quiche this week... Spinach and lentil?

Mmmmmm...

Now I'm hungry! Haha.

Pics galore! Well not galore, but a couple :)

Sorry for not updating pics and recipes lately. I'm thinking school was getting the better of me. Now its almost done and yummy pics and recipes are coming again soon!

Here are a few dishes I made in the last week or so...

Fried Rice with tofu and crimini mushrooms
Bean and veggie burrito
Quinoa with tofu, Swiss chard, onion, garlic, green chilies, and lime.

Mmmmm, tasty goodness.