Farmer's Market Haul, 7/3/10

Super-big midsummer haul!

VEGGIES
yellow crookneck squash
squash blossoms
red carrots
lemon cucumbers
maroon snap peas
flat-leafed parsley
bush basil
onions
Rocambole garlic (with attached scape!)

FRUIT
black currants
golden raspberries
apricots
Tristar strawberries

OTHER
milk from Milk Thistle Farm
yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm
butter from Ronnybrook Farm
mozzarella from Tonjes Farm
eggs from Flying Pig Farm
hot Italian sausage from Grazin' Angus Acres (for July 4th, just doing our patriotic duty!)
goldenrod honey from Tremblay apiaries

Friday cat blogging, true love edition

 

 This is still Oscar's favorite rug, even when it's rolled up to make way for a little house cleaning.

Thursday: It's been so long, beans

 

Long beans cooked with mustard seeds and red pepper, served with toor dal and basmati rice.

It's been quite a while since long beans last appeared on the blog - but it'd be more often if we could find them more frequently!  These relatives of black-eyed peas have a deep, delicious flavor with less of the harsh greennness of green string beans, and have an almost dry but chewy texture.  In this recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East, they were flavored with asafoetida, mustard seeds, cumin, toasted urad dal, dried red chilies and cayenne pepper, and at the end of cooking we added grated coconut.  If you have those ingredients on hand, you could try this preparation with normal green beans too.  We really loved this dish.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 7/1/10

Today Lizz picked up yellow sweet cherries from the Columbia greenmarket.  (Not Queen Anne cherries, the ones that are bright yellow with blush-red patches - these are a different variety which are a solid, slightly translucent light yellow.)

Wednesday: Trouts and tarts

Rainbow trout baked with fennel, carrot and sweet peppers.

We improvised this bake to take advantage of the sweet, fatty flavor of upstate rainbow trout, which bears some resemblance to salmon.  (On the basis of that resemblance, we also added a generous amount of dill.)  We sauteed the vegetables with some onion before layering them over the fish in a casserole, and then baked it at 350F for about fifteen minutes.  We probably could have gotten away with a minute or two less - but this all depends on the size of the fish.

We also had a special dessert tonight: a red currant tart, cooked in the brand new ramekins we acquired thanks to Giselle's end-of-law-school Westlaw Points redemption extravaganza.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/30/10

Today's supplement, from the Union Square Wednesday greenmarket: eggs, three whole rainbow trout, sweet yellow and purple peppers, green and purple long beans (!), red raspberries, black raspberries, and red sweet cherries.

Tuesday: Spaghetti alla carbonara....sort of

"Spaghetti alla carbonara" with summer squash.

This recipe, from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, substitutes summer squash and an onion for the bacon or pancetta that gives spaghetti alla carbonara its artery-clogging goodness. Never fear, cholesterol lovers: this recipe still calls for some eggs and Parmesan, so we trust it's not TOO healthy.