Weekly Local Booty 8/18-8/23/08

We didn't get too much from our gardens this week, as was expected. I think, unfortunately, the squash bugs have won. We are, however, still getting a nice harvest from our Roma tomato plant, and the Better Boy looks like it will produce at least half a dozen tomatoes before the end of the season. The container garden peppers are really starting to move along, since we picked all the jalapenos and serranos off the plants, they have been producing blooms like crazy. And the rest of the plants (with the exception of the dud poblano plant) have peppers at various stages of growth. It looks like we can expect to get quite a few more peppers before the end of the season as well.

Here's what we got from the container and community gardens this week:















Here we have a jalapeno, a petite bell, and a "regular" bell pepper.















Another butternut. Brett calls this our "naughty" butternut, 'cause, well, it resembles a.... Just use your imagination. ;-)















And here we have a banana pepper (from the community garden), and lots of tomatoes. These bad boys are hogging space in our windowsill to finish ripening

Here is this week's CSA. If it looks a little skimp compared to the previous weeks, that is because it is. The weather around here has been a real bane to farmers this year, but it's still a lovely little load of goodies.















Here we've got (starting from the left): onions, small cherry tomatoes of all different colors (!!), 2 large, lovely tomatoes, a cucumber, basil, and a couple of carrots.

Onto this week's farmers market booty. All this stuff cost us a whopping $21. I love the farmer's market. (Oh, and we got some special stuff this week, so there will be individual pictures as well.)















Starting from the left we've got: a loaf of ciabatta bread from a local bakery, Uprise Bakery, a HUGE flippin' cantaloupe, 2 ears of sweet corn, a yellow summer squash, a small eggplant, a large yellow onion, a quart of small "boiler" onions, purple potatoes (!!!), a pasilla pepper (!!!!!), an orchid pepper (!!!!!), 2 "fish" peppers (!!!!!), and 2 Peruvian yellow peppers (!!!!!).

We got some really awesome peppers from the market this weekend, we're going to save the seeds out of them and try our hand at growing some of these beauties next spring. These are so gorgeous that they needed their own individual photos. We've never had any of these peppers before, but once we do, I will update the Pepper Guide to include them as well. My only complaint about these peppers, which has nothing to do with them, is that the purveyor had no clue about any of these! Not what to do with them, how spicy they were or anything! How weird is that?! I think there is a market for a knowledgeable "pepper person" at the farmer's market, not only are there not many people that sell peppers beyond bells, most aren't really "fluent" in peppers, that's where I might be able to come in a few years from now. :-)!















These are the fish peppers. Notice the gorgeous striping? They are about the size of serrranos.















The orchid pepper. This is a funny looking little guy; it reminds me a little bit of a patty pan squash.















A pasilla pepper. These guys are a staple pepper in Mexico, here in the States we generally use Anaheim's in place of them since, well, they aren't widely available.















Here are the lovely Peruvian yellow peppers. Now this is just speculation, but with their lantern-like shape, very thin stem, and also thin skin, I am assuming that these are going to be very fiery little peppers. Maybe that is just wishful thinking, but we'll see.















This cantaloupe is HUGE, seriously. It was as big as a lot of the watermelons at the market. Brett said he wouldn't be surprised if it weighed more than 8 pounds!















A happy cantaloupe! We did this to give you all an idea of the size, and well, also to be cute.















And here is an individual picture of the purple potatoes. I've seen a few posts on other blogs about these beauties, but never saw them at the market until this weekend. They are just so vibrant and pretty. These bad boys are going to be turned into fried potatoes to go with a meal of Snobby Joes from Veganomicon and we'll be having some corn on cob as well. Lindsay (aka the Happy Herbivore) posted about the Snobby Joes a couple of days ago and they looked fantastic, so I decided to pull out my dusty copy of Veganomicon and test it out. Now I know that Isa and Terry are supposed to be the "goddesses" of the vegan cooking world, but I have to be honest, I am in no way impressed. Their baked good are alright, though I always have to modify their recipes because they are so unnecessarily unhealthy (white flour is NOT food guys), and their entrees - BLECH, all too salty, and really, they just don't send me. Nothing against them personally, or anyone who likes their food, it's just not for me. But I trust Lindsay's taste, so I'm going to give the Snobby Joes a shot.

Finally, I will end this post with some pictures of the annual hot air balloon festival that is held here in Columbia. The balloons were a lot closer than they seem in the pictures. A few times a year we are lucky to see the balloons flying around as they launch from fairly close to our apartment. These are some brave folks; let me tell you, I'm not sure I could do this! One of the "smoking ladies" I talk with regularly on break at work (but sadly, I don't know her actual name), is part of the crew on one of these balloons.





















'Til next time!