I bought a basket of tomatoes at the farmers market yesterday and made a spicy roasted tomato sauce. I roasted some baby eggplants, sauteed a package of Upton’s Naturals chorizo-style seitan and served it all over some whole wheat bowtie pasta.
Posts Tagged ‘Farmers Market’
27 May
First Farmers Market
The Woodstock Farmers Market has actually been going on for three weeks, but this is the first time I made it this year. I only had $7 in cash, but I knew I wanted asparagus. The best thing about late spring is asparagus. I bought a couple bunches of it for $5 and a bag of spinach for $2 (love the prices at the farmers market). I was going to make risotto, but this dish was so loaded with veggies, I’m not sure it can even be considered risotto. It certainly didn’t meet the Top Chef criteria of spreading. But whatever its called, it tasted good.
- 1 tablespoon Earth Balance
- 1 1/2 shallots, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 1/2 cups of Arborio rice
- 4 cups of chick’n or vegetable broth
- 1 cup of dry white wine
- tons of farmers market veggies
- chopped chives
- splash of fresh lemon juice
Saute shallots in margarine until soft. Add garlic and saute a minute longer. Add rice and stir for a couple minutes. Add 1/2-1 cup of liquid at a time (starting with the broth and ending with the wine) and stir until rice is soft. Stir in veggies (the spinach wilted in the hot rice, but I steamed the asparagus before adding it) Stir in chives and lemon juice.
Served with a Gardein scallopini.
17 Oct
Martha Stewart Monday: Delicata Squash Salad
I changed so much from this recipe,Delicata Squash Salad with Kale and Cranberry Beans, that it is more of an “inspired by” post rather than a review. The grocery store was out of kale, so I used turnip greens; there are no cranberry beans in the burbs, so I used cannellini beans. I discovered half way through the recipe that I am out of balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar! And, of course, I substituted agave nectar for honey. That’s five of the eleven ingredients in this recipe. I also sauteed the greens, because that just sounded better.
19 Sep
Martha Stewart Monday: Pork Chops with Apple Chutney
Apples are everywhere at the farmers market, which means fall is officially here. I’m looking forward to some hot apple cider this weekend. I had a bag of apples from last week’s market that I needed to use, so I browsed through Martha’s apple slideshow this morning. This recipe was a quick and easy with the help of frozen vegan pork fillets from Chinatown. The apple chutney is vegan, so all I had to do was sub pork fillets.
8 Aug
Martha Stewart Monday:Grilled Vegetable & Tofu “Lasagna” with Pesto
Tonight on Martha Stewart Monday: Grilled Vegetable & Tofu “Lasagna” with Pesto. The tomatoes, zucchini and squash came from the Woodstock Farmers Market.
This was good, but there is a lot of olive oil in this recipe. I did not use as much as she suggests and it was plenty flavorful and nothing stuck to my stovetop grill. I also made an arugula pesto because Jewel was out of basil. If you have a real grill, this is a great summer night meal. Grilling inside makes it really hot and smokey. The smoke alarms went off and we turned on all the fans in house, but it was worth it.
For dessert we had this amazing strawberry daiquiri sorbet from Vegan Dad. I’m usually not one to get excited over sorbet, but this stuff is delicious!
25 Jul
Martha Stewart Monday: Wax-Bean Salad with Chorizo-Style Seitan
Wax beans were on sale 2 for $5.00 at the farmers market. I hate prepping beans, I don’t know why I keep buying them. I veganized this recipe with Upton Natural’s Chorizo-style seitan. I also made a spicy swiss chard dish.
Wax-Bean Salad with Chorizo-Style Seitan
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 package Chorizo-style seitan, crumbled
- 2 large shallots, thinly sliced
- 2 farmers market sized boxes of wax beans, trimmed
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
- Coarse salt and ground pepper
Directions
In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add shallot to skillet and cook, stirring, until it begins to brown, 2 minutes. Add beans and 1/4 cup water. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until water evaporates and beans are crisp-tender, about 6 minutes. Add seitan to skillet and stir in vinegar and parsley. Season with salt and pepper, if needed.
Spicy Chard with Ginger
I could not even taste the ginger; this was so spicy. I could not stop coughing while I was cooking this dish. I used farm stand jalapenos, so maybe they are more potent? I This is the hottest dish that I have ever made. Even worse than the time I halved only the seitan and didn’t remove the seeds of 6 jalapenos in an Ethiopian recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 bunch Swiss chard
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
- 2 sliced jalapenos
- Coarse salt and ground pepper
Directions
Separate stems and leaves from Swiss chard. Chop leaves and dice stems small. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high. Add chard stems, minced peeled fresh ginger, and jalapeno slices; cook until stems soften, 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add chard leaves, cover, and cook until wilted, 3 minutes. Uncover and cook until tender, 4 minutes.
24 Jul
A Long Ride + Zucchini
Today I joined my running friends for a 31 mile bike ride on the McHenry Prairie Trail and the Fox River Trail. We were delayed due to rain, but we finally took off around 10:30. We biked from Crystal Lake to Elgin and stopped in East Dundee for lunch at the Measuring Cup Cafe. It’s an adorable little cafe, but doesn’t offer many vegan options. I got a fruit salad and a peanut butter sandwich.
The gang
The rain delay allowed me to make zucchini bread this morning. I had 5 organic zucchinis from the Chicago farmers market and picked up two yellow ones at the Woodstock farmers market. This was my first time I made zucchini bread and I did not carefully read the instructions, so I pureed the zucchini in with the sugar, oil, applesauce & flax seed mixture. The recipe is from the Joy of Vegan Baking. It’s good, but it’s very sweet. At least it turned out better than the pumpkin bread recipe.
For dinner I made a green and yellow zucchini tart with cashew cheese and creamy zucchini soup.
Zucchini Tart
- 1 green zucchini
- 1 yellow zucchini
- 1 recipe of cashew cheese sauce (using very little water)
- 1 pie crust (I made the easy pie crust from Vegan Brunch)
- 1 head of roasted garlic
- 1 tablespoon or so of pesto paste
- Italian seasoning
Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Make pie crust, pierce it a few times with a fork and bake for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, make cashew cheese sauce and thinly slice the zucchini.
After taking the crust out of the oven, spread cashew cheese sauce and put a layer of zucchini around the edge, alternating yellow and green. Then move to the inner circle. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and spread roasted garlic and pesto paste over the zucchini. Repeat with another layer of zucchini. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and spray everything with olive oil. Bake for 45 minutes.
Creamy Zucchini Soup
- 3 medium zucchinis, sliced
- 2 small red onions, diced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 can of white beans, drained & rinsed
- 1/4 cup of veggie chick’n broth
- splash of almond milk
- 1-2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- red pepper flakes, salt & pepper to taste
Bring a pot of water to boil, add zucchini, bring back to a boil for 3 minutes. Drain zucchini and puree with beans in a food processor. In the same pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat and saute onion until tender. Add red pepper flakes and lemon zest and cook for a minute or two. Add zucchini mixture, lemon juice, and broth. Use immersion blender to make even smoother, add a splash of almond milk and simmer for 5 minutes.
21 Jul
Federal Plaza Farmers Market
On Tuesday, I had to go to court in Chicago, which meant that I would miss the Woodstock Farmers Market. I was pleasantly surprised to see a market right across the street from the courthouse. The Federal Plaza Farmers Market is every Tuesday from 7 a.m. -3 p.m. There was a lot of good stuff. I bought two bunches of basil and two bunches of kale, onions, green beans, zucchini, and berries.
Wednesday’s dinner revolved around kale, the poster vegetable of veganism.
(On a cart return at Whole Foods in Birmingham, AL)
Curry Lentils with Kale
Serves 4
- 1 bunch of kale, de-stemmed and chopped
- 2 cups of lentils
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 small onion, sliced
- 3-4 cloves garlic, sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
- 1 box brown rice couscous
Steam kale for 3-5 minutes, remove from hot water and soak in an ice bath. Toast seeds in cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Stir constantly to avoid burning. Add a teaspoon of olive oil and sauté onion and garlic until onions are tender. Stir in lentils and remaining spices. Add kale. Cook until lentils are hot.
Serve over brown rice couscous.
I also made some Spicy Kale Chips for the first time. Kale chips are everywhere and for good reason. These are some tasty treats.
Tonight was all about the basil. I made a big batch of walnut-basil pesto and served it over brown rice noodles and green beans. Sometimes when I get an idea for dinner, but have second thoughts over whether the combination in my head will translate to the plate, I do a search of foodgawker. Happily, someone else had made pesto with green beans. She also used black olives. I had kalamata olives, so I threw those in. It was good except for the green beans, but that was just a bad box of green beans, not the recipe’s fault.
13 Jul
BBQ Tofu (and how I almost burned down the house)
I bought a double burner cast iron griddle at World Market so I could make lots of pancakes for the post-Woodstock 10K breakfast. It reverses to a grill and I tried that out for the first time tonight. Except for the time when a big flame came out of nowhere (almost reaching the ceiling), it went really well. The tofu had perfect grill marks and this beer bbq tofu recipe is amazing. I had vegan Worcestershire sauce, so I added that to the marinade. I dipped the grilled tofu back into the marinade for a little more flavor. Inside grilling might be a little more dangerous, but it still tastes good.
To go with the tofu, I made roasted potatoes and garlicky beans, both from the Woodstock farmers market.
7 Jul
Farmers Market Dinner
Monday we had leftovers; Tuesday was pizza; and Wednesday we went out for sushi. I had lots of farmers market produce to use up. I made a swiss chard-arugula pesto, roasted portobello mushrooms and fava beans & chickpeas with red quinoa.
