Weekly Local Booty - Farmer's Market and CSA - October 10, 2009

Yes, so it is becoming apparent that I cannot focus on very many things at one time. I have been very much into reading and writing, and while I have been cooking, I realized that I haven't been blogging - at all. It has been a few weeks! Eeek!

In good news though, I have read quite a few good books. Even better news though is that I have been writing up a storm and now have 94 pages on my piece. 94 pages! That is a LOT. I am going to have a lot of editing to do! I am very pleased where it is going. The story line and dialogue need to be "beefed up" a bit, but overall I am very pleased.

Like I mentioned earlier, I have been cooking, and even taking pictures. I have just yet to blog about any of that. Well, do not despair (as I know you all so very much are), I plan on getting those posts written and schedule before I have a chance to forget about it again.

And though it is a bit late, I will now show you the tasty local booty we got from market this weekend.

First off, our Week 22 (only three weeks left!), DanJo Farms, quarter share veggie CSA:

















Starting from the bottom right: a turnip, 2 tomatoes, collard greens, lettuce, lots of green beans, a little butternut squash, and radishes.

And check out our haul from the farmer's market!

















From the bottom right: Goatsbeard Farm feta, lots of little yellow onions, 2 packages of DanJo Bakeries foccacia, and 4 acorn squash.

Though I haven't been documenting it, I have obtained a few other winter squash for storage in the past couple of weeks and also gotten more chiles to freeze. I need a few more sweet chiles and I was hoping to find some serranos to freeze, but I'm not sure that is going to happen. At least we have tons of jalapenos though!

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weekend and keep your eyes posted for an onslaught of posts this week.

'Til next time.

Two Weeks of Local Booty - Garden Grub, CSA, and Farmer's Market - September 5th and 12th, 2009 (aka J Sucks)

So, um, yeah, I suck, I'll admit it - I've been a bad blogger as of late. I realized mid-week last week that I never did a local booty update last weekend (and we got some really good stuff!).

Not to worry though, my reasons for my lack of blogging are not necessarily bad ones. First off, I have been really into writing. I had been working on one fiction piece, a more serious work, and got bogged down with it. So I put it down and began to pursue another idea I had and it has just been pouring out of me. At the current moment, I am up to page 33 and I am very pleased with it. With my more serious work, I saw its potential, but I also knew it was going to take an awful lot of work to make it something I could be proud of. And in all honesty, the subject material, while initially therapeutic, began to get a little depressing and I decided to put it down. That wasn't easy for me to do, as I like to finish things, but I knew if I continued to force myself, what I produced wasn't going to be very good.

So I put it down and began to work on a piece with a plot that wasn't quite so close to home. It is funny, quirky, and I have had a blast writing it. The writing is coming quite naturally and I think it might actually be, well, decent. In all honesty, I wasn't really expecting that. But when I began reading over what I had written to edit it, I found myself interested in the plot, in the characters. When I discussed it with Brett, he seemed really into it, making comments along the lines of "that sounds like something you would actually want to read". That might sound really lame, but it is harder to do that one might imagine, and in all honesty, I read a lot, there is a lot of crap out there. More crap than quality.

What I've discovered too, with some of my favorite books, TV shows, movies, is that humor can be used in very interesting ways. For example, one can broach and incredibly difficult topic like religion in a light, non-offensive way, while still making a point. Daily life for average folks is also fun to write about because we are all secretly closet weirdos with strange hobbies, habits, and behaviors. I've always been one to say that the ordinary, when looked at closely, is almost always more interesting than the extraordinary.

Anyway, along with writing, I have also been firmly ensconced in reading mode. Like I noted above, there is a lot of crap out there. If any of you actually look at the 'Books J's Read - 2009' list, you will notice that not a lot of the fiction books are rated very highly. This might also make you wonder why I bother to read books that I know I wouldn't rate highly. The explanation for that is fairly straight forward, to me a good book is one that is novel, well written, not predictable, one that makes me think or laugh, with solid characters, good plots, and whenever possible, a good dose of humor. But, a book doesn't have to be an award winning or best selling work to be entertaining, and I think entertainment, the light and fluffy variety are fun too. So while I wouldn't never dare to call a lot of what I read literature, I still enjoy it in its own right. (And I am always open to book suggestions, if you have 'em, send 'em my way.)

Occasionally, very occasionally, I come across something really good, and I rate it accordingly. These are books that I wouldn't be afraid to recommend or defend the merits of to a friend. My tastes in books is also just that - my taste. You all might disagree with my ratings and would have valid reasons for doing so. I will admit that I am much more forgiving of non-fiction than I am fiction. Even if a non-fiction work isn't all that interesting, if I learn something, something of value, a new perspective, whatever, I am going to give it a high rating even if the person has a tendency to have really freakin' long paragraphs and horrible punctuation (like the first edition of Clive Ponting's awesome environmental history novel A Green History of the World).

Anyway, I will admit that I have also been into watching old episodes of Iron Chef lately too. So all and all, those are my excuses.

Since I didn't post a local booty update last weekend, I am going to do last week's and this week's in one post.

We got some garden grub last weekend from our container garden:


Starting from the bottom right: a hot Hungarian wax chile, a sweet banana, 15 serranos, and 2 more cayennes.

Here is last weeks CSA:


Starting from the bottom right: a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper, a small yellow summer squash, a large yellow onion, and 4 tomatoes.

And this week's Danjo Farms quarter veggie CSA share:


Starting again from the bottom right: a cucumber, a zucchini, 2 yellow onions, 4 tomatoes, 2 New Mexico chiles, and 5 ears of sweet corn.

Here is our farmer's market haul from last week:


Again from the bottom right: a quart of jalapenos from Danjo Farms (I froze them for use over the winter), cilantro, fingerling potatoes, an heirloom tomato (we didn't catch what variety), and two gorgeous acorn squash (one of which has been roasted with pure maple syrup, cinnamon, and a touch of brown sugar, so yummy).

And this week's farmer's market haul:


Okay so this is the best picture of this week's farmer's market loot and it is at kind of an odd angle, I apologize.

Let's start from the rightish area: a quart of banana peppers from Danjo Farms (going to be frozen for use over winter), home-made focaccia from Danjo Farms (more on that below), sundried tomatoes from Danjo Farms (what can I say? we are loyal and their stuff rocks), a pie pumpkin (I broke the stem off because I needed it to fit in my bag without puncturing everything else and we plan on eating it soon), and one freakin' massive sweet potato.

A note on the focaccia: anyone in Columbia with a heartbeat, get to Danjo Farms stand and try their focaccia - but don't buy too much, leave some for 'ol J&B. I'm not normally one to be out there championing people to buy things, but there are rare times that come along where it would be wrong not to share. This stuff is so good I cannot begin to describe to you how wonderful it is. I want a focaccia share - now there is an idea. Seriously though, this bread is amazing, both B and I agree that it is probably the best bread we've every had - light, fluffy, slightly chewy, with just enough seasoning so as not to overpower the tastiness that is good home-made bread. Mmmmmm.

So, I promise to try to be a better blogger, though I am really into the writing and I apologize in advance to poor Selina for having to read my long winded ramblings.

J's Song of the Day:
"Elevator is Temporary" - The Lilys

Have a great weekend everyone!

'Til next time!

Weekly Local Booty - Garden Grub and CSA - August 29, 2009

It has been a wonderful, lazy weekend for us here in Mid-Missouri - a little reading, a little writing, lots of yacking, some programming, pretty much the usual. I actually read a couple of really good fiction titles this weekend - they are some of the few fiction titles that I gave decent ratings on the "Books J's Read - 2009" post. I am pretty tough of fiction as there is a lot of crap out there, it can still be entertaining, but that doesn't mean I think it is quality writing that is worth a high rating.

Moving on.

The weather has been mild, and our walk to market yesterday was probably the most gorgeous thus far. We didn't get very much, yet again, but I will be getting more grub next week to start testing out some of the "fall recipes" for the cookbook.

We got some garden grub this week too! I hate to say it, but our community garden efforts have been, well, a complete failure this year. We have 11 tomato plants and have yet to see a tomato. We've seen lots of them rot though. I don't know if it is the weather or the moisture, or just us, but the tomatoes are tiny and they crack and rot before they are even fully red. I've given up and decided to just plan for market tomatoes. If we get some from our garden - great - but I won't expect it.

Anyways, our tomatillo plant didn't disappoint. We are going to have to go back down soon as there were quite a few tomatillos that were getting close, but not quite ready to be picked.


Check out about 2 1/8 lbs. of green husk tomatillos! I've already used a couple of them in a tasty quesadilla recipe I will be posting soon, the rest are either going to go in a soup or a sauce, I haven't quite decided yet.

Not pictured are two serranos I stole from the plant on our porch. I have included them in the Garden Harvest element on the sidebar though.

And here is our week sixteen DanJo Farms quarter share veggie CSA:


Starting from the bottom left: a red and green bell pepper, three tomatoes, two gorgeous yellow summer squash, two onions, a zucchini, and an English cucumber.

Yum!

Well, I'm off to do a little writing, and of course, a little reading. Have a great weekend!

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - CSA - August 22, 2009

So yeah, I have been a bit of a bum with the blog as of late - if anyone can tell. We went to the farmer's market last weekend and somewhere along the way, I completely forgot to post a local booty update, or anything else for that matter. It was a rough week, lots going on, but things are starting to settle down and I am looking forward to a weekend of reading, writing, and perhaps a bit of cooking as well. I have always loved writing and awhile back Selina and I started working on a creative writing project which really brought writing back to me, so I have been playing around with a little bit of fiction - nothing good really, but it has been a lot of fun to work on.

Anyways, we didn't get much at market this weekend - we just picked up our CSA. I am taking it a bit easy in the cooking department and our CSA was packed with goodies that all work for the rough meal plan I had going in my head. I'm thinking a nice Mexican-inspired creamy soup sounds nice...

But enough of my yammering, check our our week 15 DanJo Farms quarter CSA share:


















Starting from the bottom right: 2 tomatoes, a ripe jalapeno, a banana pepper, 4 New Mexico chiles (some ripe, one not), a cayenne, 2 sweet peppers, a yellow squash, a zucchini, an onion, and a mighty large acorn squash.

So as I mentioned earlier, we haven't been focusing all that much in the kitchen. I have been on a reading kick - if you look at the Books J's Read - 2009 post you will see how I spend a good deal of my time and have now been writing as well. Brett is working on programming a baseball simulation game he developed and is having a couple of friends help with the things needed for implementation. It is really exciting - I am so proud of him! I love seeing him so dedicated, so passionate about something he is doing. He has a really good concept for the game and it is an interface that hasn't been done yet but that fans of this genre have been interested in for years. Y'all might want to watch out, Brett could be the next big internet game designer, and you can say you knew him way back when... :-)

Maybe that will help to explain our absence in the blogosphere, we've both got our head in creative projects and often get sucked in for days at a time! But it is nice to use your mind, to be creative, and who knows what will come from it.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Garden Grub, CSA, and Farmer's Market - August 8, 2009

Yesterday was one of the hottest days of the year, so that made our trip to the farmer's market a bit less pleasant than usual, but the variety available at market during the height of summer makes all the sweating and heat worth it. We even got a bit more garden grub this week. I think our chiles are finally starting to take off, though our tomatoes are suffering horribly from "brown thumb" and too much rain.

Anyways, check out our garden grub for this week:


12 more ripe cayennes to add to our ristra!


3/4 lb. Clemson Spineless Okra. We are going to have some fried okra with brunch and I am also making an Asian dish tonight I think some of this might find its way into.

And onto week 13 of our DanJo Farms quarter CSA share:


Starting from the bottom right: long green beans, a zucchini, a cucumber, a yellow pepper, an eggplant, a green bell pepper, and beet greens.

Here is this week's farmer's market haul. I don't remember exactly what this ran us, but I know it was less than $30.


Starting from the bottom right: epazote, 6 jalapenos, a quart of spicy, beautiful, and perfectly rip New Mexico chiles, 3 red bell peppers, 6 ears of sweet corn, yukon gold potatoes, red boiler onions, two yellow onions, and 4 tomatoes. Not pictured is a bunch of cilantro that for some reason didn't make it into the photo.

We have some tasty eats in the works this week.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend - I wish it weren't almost over!

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Farmer's Market and CSA - August 1, 2009 and Some Errant Eats

The Columbia Farmer's Market runs from 8-12 every Saturday morning. We generally try to get there as early as possible for two people who like to sleep in, usually sometime between 9:30-10:00. Well, I woke up this morning to rain pouring down, only to realize that I had left our only umbrella in my office at work. Drat! So we waited awhile, a bit worried that there wasn't going to be much left at market by the time we got there, but resigning ourselves to the fact that, well, Mother Nature is going to do what she does. The rain let up and we headed to market at 11:00 to find it packed - with both people and produce.

I overheard a conversation at Brett's preferred meat vendor that the rain had driven everyone away and there was a good span of time with few patrons. Once the rain let up, folks ventured back out and it was pretty darn packed when we were there. But needless to say, we were still able to find everything we wanted. Wahoo for that!

I have been a bit lazy in the kitchen these past couple of weeks - cooking yes, but not anything very involved or for our cookbook. That is about to change this week, I've got tons of fresh and tasty ingredients to work with and an arsenal of recipes I've created for the cookbook to try out. I am getting hungry just thinking about it!

Anywho - check out our week 12 DanJo Farms quarter CSA veggie share:


Let's start from the left this week: a zucchini, two cucumbers, 2 tomatoes, some rosemary, some long green beans, a red bell peppers, and a yellow bell pepper.

And this week's farmer's market booty:


Starting from the top left: 4 ears of sweet corn, cilantro, 4 large-ish yellow potatoes, 1 lb. Sho-Me-Farms beef for Brett, squash blossoms, 6 tomatoes, 2 heads of Bogatyr garlic and 1 Georgian Fire garlic from Chert Hollow Farm, 5 fish chiles, 2 gypsy peppers, and 3 Anaheim chiles.

I had mentioned last week that I would take some pictures and do a "some of what we ate this week" post, and I did take pictures, I just never got around to posting it, so here she be.


This was something that was just supposed to be a quick, after work, weeknight meal, but it ended up being so tasty, it is going to be considered for inclusion in the cookbook.

It is black beans, with veggies and seasonings, roasted yellow zucchini, and cotija cheese.


This was my falafel plate which included homemade falafel, local feta cheese (turns out goat cheese doesn't really stuff me up), local tomato, kalamata olives, homemade hummus, local cucumbers, lettuce, pickled peppers from Selina, and a pita.


This was Brett's gyro.


Tomato bruschetta on Uprise Bakery ciabattini. The tomatoes, garlic, and onion were from the market, the basil was from our garden, salt and olive oil from the store.


And finally Brett's garlic and herb Boursin and local veggie sandwich.

Well, I am off to make some bagel sandwiches with local veggies for a quick lunch, and then I will be spending the rest of my day reading novels - one published, one from someone who very soon could be published. That is my idea of a darn fun day.

Have a great weekend everyone!

J's Song of the Day:
"Caravan" - Chet Atkins and Les Paul

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Garden Grub, CSA, and Farmer's Market - July 25, 2009

Well, my cold decided to stick around for most of the week, which means I didn't cook very much. I made a couple of rounds of fried zucchini, we ate lots of tomatoes and salt, but aside from that, Brett was doing "husband duty" and keeping me loaded down with soup, orange juice, and plenty of tissues.

With that said, happily, I am feeling much better. We still had quite a bit left from the farmer's market last weekend, so we didn't need to pick up much today. I've got plans this week for some things we have been craving for awhile.

Selina has been torturing me via email with her tales of her wonderful-sounding roasted squash, onion, and hummus sandwiches on sourdough rolls. This got me to thinking hummus, which also got me to thinking falafel, which in turn got me to thinking about Greek salads. So needless to say, I am going to make a batch of Classic Hummus, falafel, tzatziki, and keep plenty of cut tomatoes, cucumbers, pickled peppers, and kalamata olives around. I also have the fixin's to make her roasted veggie and hummus sandwiches. We've also been craving our Super Easy Tasty Taco Salad, so I am going to make up a batch of Traditional Refried Beans and season up some cooked green lentils with fresh garlic, onions, chiles (sweet and hot), cilantro, cumin, salt, and pepper and we are going to have taco salad with some local Country Goodies hot salsa. While I'm not planning on working on any cookbook tester recipes this week, we are going to be eating some damn tasty grub, starting with a bruschetta I am making as sooon as I am done with this post. Stay tuned, I'll take pictures and take a cue from Heather from Simple-Green-Frugal and her Market to Table posts (so drool worthy, I am telling you), and do a little "what we've eaten this week" kind of post - that is if I don't go all lazy on y'all. :-)

Anywho, our cayenne plant is working overtime! Check it out:


Another 13 gorgeous cayenne peppers.

When we were at the community garden last week, a fellow gardener was there as well. She tends to at least half a dozen plots and as a result has far more produce than she and her husband can handle, so she gives away the excess to her fellow gardeners, check out what she gave us:


First off, how cool is it that she shared? As soon as our gardens start to produce, if she is ever there with us again, we'll try to share as well. Though I'm not sure there is much we are growing that she isn't. Starting from the bottom right: a ripe banana pepper, 3 gypsy peppers, onions, baby garlic, a tomato, and a cucumber.

And here is our week 11, DanJo Farms quarter CSA veggie share:


We seriously get hooked up, I am so pleased with our CSA, the variety, the quality, and the farmer's themselves. I have heard horror stories of CSA's filled with limp and rotting vegetables, no shares at all, but we've been nothing but happy with DanJo Farm. I just wish we could afford a fruit share as well. Sigh. Someday maybe...

Starting from the bottom right: 3 tomatoes, boiler onions, a cucumber, 2 sweet peppers, a cantaloupe (!!!!!), a head of cabbage, a zucchini, and a summer squash.

Here is this week's farmer's market haul. Most of this, obviously, was for Brett. As I mentioned earlier, we still have a lot of stuff from market last week, and with our CSA share, we didn't need much from the general farmer's market area. This haul ran us $37.


Starting from the bottom right: a pound of Susie's Grass Fed Meats gyro meat (on a plastic bag so it doen't drip anything icky on our chair), a pound of Sho-Me-Farms ground beef (on the plastic bag for the same reason), Goatsbeard Farm feta, 2 bulbs of garlic from Chert Hollow Farm - one German Extra Hardy and the other Bogatyr, Country Goodies hot and regular salsa, and a bag of Uprise Bakery ciabattini.

Well, I've got some cooking to do and then there is much laziness to be had, the weekend is still young.

J' Song of the Day:
"Long Line of Cars" - Cake

Have a great weekend everyone!

'Til next time!

Weekly Local Booty - Garden Grub, CSA, and Farmer's Market - July 18, 2009

It is a gorgeous day here in Columbia this fine Saturday. Not even 70 yet, sunny, with a slight breeze - you really couldn't ask for better weather. Which is why, I suppose, Mother Nature determined that I was due for a cold. But, we did have a very successful trip to the farmer's market and I also stopped by the library yesterday for a new haul of books, so I think I'm going to open up the apartment and settle into a book for the day, try to rest and keep the cold from getting too bad. The uncontrollably runny nose, cloudy head, and slight cough really feel out of place in the summer, but hey - what are you going to do? Spending a Saturday in a comfy chair reading a good book doesn't sound too bad, eh? Always gotta look for that bright side, that silver lining, and all those other cliches that I can't think of at the moment.

Anyways, we got a bit of garden booty this week, check it out:


Twelve ripe and beautiful cayennes. There are probably close to that number of chiles on the three plants in various stages of ripening as well. The cayennes do quite well here I must say. Looks like I'm going to have to start a ristra tomorrow.

And this lovely load of booty below is our week ten DanJo Farms CSA quarter veggie share, I'm telling you, it just keeps getting better and better each week!


Starting from the top: 3 ears of sweet corn, an onion, green beans, 2 cucumbers, and a zucchini.

Check out this week's farmer's market haul. This ran us $24 and not pictured is a pound of Sho-Me-Farms ground beef we got for Brett that was put into the freezer before the picture was taken.


Starting from the top: cilantro, 6 ears of sweet corn, 5 tomatoes, 6 small boiler onions, 12 jalapenos, 6 unripe cherry bomb chiles, a yellow zucchini, a regular zucchini, and a quart of Country Goodies zesty dill pickles (they put a jalapeno in the brine with the cukes!).

We made out quite well this week. I am always surprised when folks say that the farmer's market is too expensive. While processed things like bread, cheese, salsa, jam, etc., do cost a little bit more than the corporate versions at the grocery store, the quality is far better and the produce is where the real savings lie. Try getting the haul above at the grocery store (it is almost all organic too mind you) for $24, I don't think it would happen.

Well, I'm off to do a little garden work at the community garden with Brett while I still feel good enough to do something, then we'll have some corn on the cob, and I will settle myself into a good book.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Farmer's Market and CSA - July 11, 2009

Happy Sunday everyone. It is a rainy day here in Mid-Missouri, but we aren't going to complain, now we don't have to water the gardens, nature will do it for us! A bit of an aside - I apologize for the lack of Garden Updates this year, we have had some issues with our community garden that we have finally figured out a solution to, so hopefully next week I can get some pictures of both gardens and give an update.

As you will notice, we didn't get much from market this week. We decided it would be nice for me to have a bit of a break in the kitchen, so this week we are going to do really easy, tried and true meals, instead of 3-5 tester recipes that I have tried to plan each week. It will be nice to have a break, it is no fun when cooking feels like a chore. Not to mention, I still have some goodies from last week's market left over to use up.

Enough of my rambling, check out this week's goodies!

This is this week's DanJo Farms quarter veggie CSA share:


I decided to take the pictures outside this week for better lighting and a little change-up. Starting from the bottom: green beans, carrots, a cucumber, a very large zucchini, and four orange tomatoes.

And this week's farmer's market haul. This ran us a whopping $7.


Two heads of German Extra Hardy garlic from Chert Hollow Farm and two of the first of the season cantaloupe. To me, summer hasn't really begun until the cantaloupe have arrived. And I'm not sure if any of you care or are aware of this but cantaloupe is my favorite food - period, it even tops out sriracha and spicy food, there is nothing like a perfectly ripe cantaloupe.

Speaking of our cookbook though, I have enough new recipes for another teaser post which I will work on sometime this week.

I hope everyone has had a great weekend - though I must say, weekends are never long enough.

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Garden Grub, CSA, and Farmer's Market - July 4, 2009

This week's market fell on the 4th of July, but that didn't stop anyone from coming out - neither vendors nor patrons. It was an excellent market, albeit the weather was overcast, but it was also fairly cool so I won't complain. My grandparents, known as Nanny and Papa, came down on Saturday and went to market with us. After market we came back and went through wedding pictures and had a nice brunch served family style. We had veggies and scrambled eggs, spicy black beans, plain brown rice, roasted potatoes, sour cream and cheese for the dairy eaters, small tortillas, and Indiana salsa from the one and only Selina. I also made corn on the cob slathered with butter, chipotle chile powder, garlic, and cotija cheese. I had mine sans cotija and it rocked nonetheless. All around it was an awesome visit complete with good food.

We also got a tiny bit of garden grub this week, so let's start off with that.


3 more cayennes from the cayenne plant we refer to as "the Big Cayenne". We have three cayenne pepper plants, but one was started inside back in February and got a mighty head start on the others.

Check out this week's Danjo Farms quarter CSA share. We didn't have to get nearly as much from market after getting our CSA share, it had all sorts of needed goodies in it:


Starting from the bottom right: carrots (!!!!!), a yellow summer squash, 3 zucchini, 4 cucumbers, and 2 orange tomatoes.

And finally, this week's farmer's market haul. This ran us $32.


Starting from the bottom right: epazote (!!!!!), 2 black Hungarian peppers, 4 jalapenos, 2 gypsy sweet peppers, 2 Anaheim peppers, 6 ears of sweet corn, a pinto of yellow new potatoes, cilantro, 3 heads of green garlic from Chert Hollow Farm (one is Georgian Fire like we got last week, I cannot remember what the other two were called but it was a fairly "standard" variety in terms of flavor), Country Goodies zesty dill pickles, and 2 bunches of small, sweet red onions.

We tried the Georgian Fire garlic last week at the suggestion of Eric, from Chert Hollow. He suggested it as it was a spicier variety of garlic and we were planning on using it in Mexican food. I was a bit nervous as I know that some varieties of garlic, especially the strong ones, can have a bit of a bitter quality to them. Not this garlic, it is very, very good garlic. It is spicy, and the flavor is bold, but it is also smooth, and not bitter at all. It is even a bit creamy. We used it in both Mexican and Asian food (the Manchurian-ish Mushrooms) and we really enjoyed it. I'd like to try Georgian Fire out in refried beans, but we were only able to get one head of it this weekend and it is almost already gone. Eric informed us that the cured garlic, in all their varieties, will be available next weekend at market. I am really looking forward to that. So far, in our garlic tasting experience, our favorites are Music, Georgian Fire, and German Extra Hardy.

There is lots of good food to be made this week. Most of it will be cookbook related. Selina and I are very focused on making the cookbook a priority when we determine what we are going to make for our daily meals, so we've both been immersed in the world of Mexican. I hope to have a second cookbook teaser post up in a week or two.

I hope everyone has had a great weekend, any American's out there had a wonderful 4th of July, and everyone has a wonderful Sunday.

J's Song of the Day:
"Fever" - Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Smith

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Farmer's Market and CSA - June 27, 2009

We've been in the midst of a heat wave here in Mid-Missouri and today is slated to be no different - highs in the upper 90s, heat index well into the 100s, and humidity, humidity, humidity. Neither Brett or I are fans of the whole "early to bed, early to rise" mentality, but not wanting to have heat exhaustion or come home feeling like a hot oozing mass of sweat, we decided to get up early and hit the market first thing. Apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea as the market was really packed already at eight in the morning.

It was a mighty success at market this week and this week's CSA share is the best one yet. Only one oddity - there are some Amish folks who are at market every week and have some of the best tomatoes I have ever tasted. I actually can't recall them ever not being there. Well, today they weren't. We're not sure if it was the weather or what, but there were only two stands that I saw that were selling tomatoes and boy, were their lines long. We decided to risk it and get tomatoes right before we left. The wait in line was well worth it, we have a lovely haul of some very gorgeous tomatoes.

Anywho, check out Week 7's Danjo Farms quarter share veggie CSA:


Starting from the bottom right: red spring onions, beets with their gorgeous greens, a yellow summer squash, two cucumbers (I'm not sure what kind the curled one is, but whatever they are, they are really, really good cukes), a full sized onion (!!!!!), and a lovely head of tasty cabbage (!!!!!).

That cabbage isn't going to even last a day in our house, I'm using part of it for dinner tonight.

And here is this week's farmer's market haul. It ran us $47.


Starting from the bottom right: 1/2 pound Beau Solais oyster mushrooms (seriously, any folks in Columbia who like mushrooms, try these, we've tried the other oyster mushroom purveyor at market and this one is just hands down way better), 2 red bell peppers (!!!!!), 2 green bell peppers, a bunch of banana peppers, 7 gorgeous tomatoes (we meant to get 6 and ended up with 7 on the scale and decided to go ahead and get the additional one), Stanton Brothers eggs (again, the best eggs we've found in Mid-Missouri), 2 heads of Georgian Fire garlic from Chert Hollow Farm, 2 bunches of small red onions from "The Awesome Guy that I Always Forget to Look at the Stand Name but Get His Onions Every Week Because They Rock" (talk about an "Indian Name"), a bunch of cilantro from the Korean/Vietnamese stand Kea International Market, a box of locally produced Pasta Italia penne pasta, Yukon Gold potatoes from The Veggie Patch, and two Texas candy onions.

I used to be one of those people who thought garlic was garlic - it didn't really matter. That was until I was introduced to the beauty that is heirloom varieties from the farmer's market. So far, our favorite was the Music garlic we had last year, funnily enough, unbeknownst to us, that was from Chert Hollow Farm. We also enjoyed the German Extra Hardy as well, but that Music garlic, man it made some killer refried beans. Anyway, there is a difference in the flavors and qualities of different garlics and we are trying to figure out what our favorite varieties are.

As I metioned in last week's Local Booty Update, we missed the first of the year garlic from Chert Hollow Farm. Eric, the owner/operator of the farm offered to hold some back for us so we could make sure we got some this weekend at market (super cool of him by the way, something that again, makes the farmer's market stand out from the grocery store, you wouldn't get that kind of service and treatment from Wal-Mart). He asked what we planned on doing with the garlic (Mexican food, of course) and picked out a variety he thought would work well. He chose Georgian Fire garlic.


It is lovely garlic that smells amazing even through the skin. We only got two heads because it is "green garlic" meaning it hasn't been cured and thus isn't meant to be stored. It will keep in the fridge for about a week. I can't wait to try it with dinner tonight. We are some mad garlic eaters around here, so two heads should tide us over until next Saturday. However, if we make refried beans again, all bets are off. :-)

I will be back sometime this weekend for a "cookbook teaser post" with pictures of the things Selina and I have been working on for the cookbook.

J's Songs of the Day:

With Words:
"Tonight She Comes" - The Cars
"Crawling King Snake" - The Doors
"Puddin' Taine" - Primus

Without Words:
"Classical Gas" - Mason Williams
"Grey's Groove" - Greyboy Allstars featuring Karl Denson
"Loose Cannon" - Los Angeles Guitar Quartet

I hope everyone is having an excellent weekend, stay cool!

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Farmer's Market and CSA - June 20, 2009

Brett and I went to market this morning with Mexican food in mind and as usual, the market and our CSA did not disappoint. The only thing I was bummed about was that I missed Chert Hollow Farms' garlic - some of the first full bulbs of the year. I read about the prospects for garlic bulbs of Eric's Chert Hollow blog yesterday and tried to get there early, but alas, I was not early enough - there is always next week. Aside from that little bummer (which isn't really when you think about it, Eric sold out, and that is a sign of folks enjoying the offerings at market) we had quite a successful trip.

A bit of notice to any Columbia readers out there - the first peaches of the season will be available at market on Monday and Wednesday!

And boy is summer upon us in Mid-Missouri. It was hot, humid, and sunny for our trek to market this morning. Whew!

Check out week six of our Danjo Farms quarter CSA veggie share:


Starting from the bottom right: beets with their greens! (we had some rough weather here this week so the greens being intact was a pleasant surprise), spring onions, a cucumber, a zucchini, rashishes, and a really nice looking head of lettuce that is bound for our tummies in just a few minutes as our lunch.

And this week's farmer's market haul.


(I'm sorry I am so bad at taking pictures, I am working on learning how to use my camera.)

Starting from the bottom right: sweet cherries (!!!!!), 3 Anaheim peppers, a zucchini, a yellow summer squash, 2 bunches of cilantro, 2 green bell peppers, 2 bunches of red onions, tomatoes, and chard.

Our counters were so overloaded with produce last year that my space to actually, you know, cook was limited. My Dad and step-mom Stacey gave us some very festive plates, bowls, cups, etc., last year (really awesome hand-me-downs, I love hand-me-downs), included in this set were two large, what I assume to be some sort of serving bowls which are perfect for storing veggies. Now I have counter space again!


This is one of two. The other is on our really big shelf in our kitchen and contains the tomatoes and some of the left over Yukon Gold potatoes from last week's market.

J's Songs of the Day:
"Blood" - Jimmie's Chicken Shack

"When You Sleep" - Cake (I'm in a weird mood today)

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Homegrown Grub, CSA, and Farmer's Market - May 23, 2009

I think summer is making its presence known in Mid-Missouri - we have enjoyed a week in the 80s with lots of sun! This means that the community garden was finally able to be tilled, so Brett and I went down and got our stuff in the ground. We transplanted tomato, cucumber, and butternut squash, and sowed cucumber, Tiger's Eye bean, Genovese basil, cilantro, cumin, Renegade spinach, Bright Lights chard, Clemson Spineless okra, dwarf sugar snap peas, nantes carrot, and some marigolds for their beneficial effects. We were stoked to finally be able to work in the soil! As soon as things begin to sprout I'll take some pictures of both the community and container garden.

We had our first harvest this week - from the AeroGarden. The Red Rubin basil looked great and was ready to go, so we harvested it last night, weighed it, and then made pesto with it. I know that is really uncreative, and I do plan on making more than pesto with all the basil we are growing, but I wanted to see how it would taste with the Red Rubin and we wanted a quick and easy meal. You can't get a whole lot fresher than "farm to table" in less than 10 minutes!

We are planning on weighing our yields this summer to get an idea of what produces best in our soils as well as to just get a general idea of the level of production in our gardens, so we will add a sidebar element to keep a tally.

Check it out:


1 1/2 ounces of Red Rubin basil. Our lemon basil is ready to harvest as well; I will probably get it tomorrow.

Check out this week's CSA:


Starting from the bottom right: spring onions, herbs of some sort, 2 bunches of the world's best asparagus, radishes, and salad greens.

The super awesome Callina, a fellow CoMo resident, assistant editor extraordinaire at MissouriLife magazine, and author of the cool blog The Gingerbread House, gave me a recipe awhile back for a radish salad she made. I am going to play around with it a bit with these radishes. They really are a new food to us so we've never quite known how to handle them. Thanks for the recipe Callina!

In other CSA news, our farm, Danjo Farms, now has a blog! Dan and Joanne have hooked up with a local writer to start a blog to give information about the goings on at the farm and also recipes using ingredients from that week's CSA share. After talking to Dan at market this morning, it looks like they are going to team up to write a Mid-Missouri CSA cookbook. I am really excited about their project and think the cookbook is a wonderful idea. And you can bet I will offer to be a tester should they need any!

Here is this week's farmer's market haul. This ran $44.


Um, starting from the mushrooms....: 1/2 lb. Beau Solais Farm oyster mushrooms, 3 bunches of baby garlic, 5 yummylicious tomatoes, a bunch of young field grown onions, 2 bunches of cilantro, spinach, spring onions (green onions), penne pasta, and Annie's Honey Wheat bread.

It was a really nice trip to the market this morning, the sun was shining and it wasn't too hot. My only complaint (and you know I'll always have one) was that there was quite a bit of traffic this morning and we walk everywhere. I am used to Saturday mornings being kind of lax in terms of traffic, but I guess with it being a holiday weekend, everyone is out and about.

Needless to say, I have many plans for this grub!

To let you all in on a little plan that has been 'a brewin' in the good 'ol Midwest, Selina, author of the blog Indiana Girl and one of my very best friends, and I have decided to take the plunge and write a cookbook. It has been suggested a few times that I do so, but there are certain areas that are not my strong suit that I think would be missing (breads, desserts, presentation). Well these are areas that Selina is not only good at, but enjoys (the thought of having to figure out how to make beans and salsa look pretty just gives me anxiety) and she and I have not only a very similar philosophy on food, but also similar palettes. We have decided to do a sort of Midwest Mex-Latino kind of cookbook, one that focuses on the flavor profiles of the Southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America, using simple techniques, and mostly seasonally available ingredients used at the height of their quality. We also think it should be more than just a simple recipe book - we will provide tables for substitutions - food should be simple, and a lot of things are interchangeable, we don't want you to have to go buy something special for just one meal, we will also provide instructions for basic techniques, and tips on how things like vinegar and seasoning affect a dish so that you can use our recipes and make them your own. Cooking is an expression of creativity, and we hope that the people (if there are any) who would get our cookbook would feel as though they are able to express themselves and their tastes without changing the overall integrity of the dish.

We have a long way to go and are in no rush. Quality is what is most important to us. Right now we are just going through all our compiled recipes for the ones we think have potential and will work from there. I hope that some of you might consider being testers when the time arrives, and just know, we will be having a lot of fun in the kitchen over the summer. I am so excited to be able to work on this project, and work on it with Selina, it brings a new level of excitement to the kitchen and one of my co-workers has already essentially placed a pre-order. ;-)

In other news, Brett and I's wedding is just a few weeks off and I realized that I have a farmer's tan and am planning on wearing a strapless dress. I am not a vain person, and I really don't care much about all the frilly stuff that goes into a wedding, but a farmer's tan is blaringly obvious, even to me. Something must be done about this....

:-)

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! All you US of A'ers out there - enjoy the holiday weekend!

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Farmer's Market and First CSA Share - May 16, 2009

The weather in Mid-Missouri has been typically unstable for the past few days - oh, and of course the rain just keeps 'a comin'. Yesterday it was in the 80s and really humid. We spent the evening getting flash floods in our parking lot and this morning it was in the 50s on my way to market. And windy, though that is something I am just going to have to get used to. Needless to say, even with Missouri's moody weather patterns, my trip to the farmer's market this morning was a resounding success, though I missed having Brett with me. He is taking his finals today (on a Saturday, doesn't that suck?), so I was on my own, but I managed all right. I've got a bit of a shoulder cramp after carrying it all home, but I survived. We also got our first CSA share this week!

I think he will be excited to come home to the beautiful local dinner I have planned. It will also be our "One Local Summer" entry for the week - nothing special, but super tasty and almost all local - pesto pasta with fresh tomatoes, garlicky roasted asparagus, and a simple local salad. The only things in the meal that will not be local is the olive oil in the pesto and some of the ingredients in the dressing - though the dressing is locally made.

Anyway, enough of my incessant yammering check out our grub!

Here is our first CSA of the year:


Starting from the bottom right: fresh oregano, two bunches of asparagus (Danjo Farms has the best asparagus we have ever had), spring onions, fresh salad greens, and radishes.

Here is the weekly farmer's market haul. This cost around $80. More than I usually spend at market by a long shot, but I wanted to get tomato starts and we needed to stock up on some of the more expensive things we get like honey.


Starting from the bottom right: 2 bunches of spring onions, a bunch of garlic chives, 2 cucumbers, 4 big 'ol tomatoes, 1/2 lb. oyster mushrooms (I love this new purveyor, I will have to make sure to note the name of the stand next weekend, they have the best oyster mushrooms we've ever had. We got some over the winter from the Root Cellar, but they don't hold a candle to these.), 2 bunches of baby garlic, a dozen eggs, 2 bunches of sweet basil, asparagus, Moneymaker tomato starts, Country Goodies hot chow chow, Tigerella tomato starts, strawberries (!!!!!), Bonne Femme Honey Farms alfalfa honey, Thai basil, cilantro, and spinach.

Whew! What a list! We have a lot of good grub to work with this week. I was already planning the menu on my walk home from market. I love getting whatever is freshest and figuring out how to make it shine from there.

We got some really awesome things this week, and a lot of them, so I thought I would photograph individually some of my favorite finds of the week.


This has to be one of the most gorgeous bunches of oyster mushrooms I have ever seen.


Strawberries! I got to market pretty early this morning - it opens at 8:00 and I got there a little after 8:30 and this was the last container of strawberries the purveyor had, and the one other purveyor with strawberries had two or three containers left. The broccoli had already been cleaned out!


Thai basil! I haven't quite decided what I am going to do with all of this yet, but I have wanted to try it for a couple of years and I have saved a bunch of recipes that call for it in hopes that I would eventually find it. I had no idea it was as pretty as it is.


Four Tigerella tomato starts. We got these from Danjo Farms - the farm we get our CSA through. Dan sells all sorts of varieties of open pollinated heirloom tomatoes; it was really hard to choose. We've had a bit of trouble with our tomato starts from seed this year - they are growing, but not as quickly as we had hoped they would, so we wanted to get a few mature tomato plants so that we will have solid production. We hope our tomato seedlings continue to grow; we can't wait to put them in the ground.


Four Moneymaker tomato starts - these should be good slicers which is one of our favorite ways to have tomatoes, raw with just a bit of salt. I don't even want to venture a guess as to how many pounds of tomatoes we ate like that last year.

So these are eight of our who knows how many tomato plants. We are hoping to have about a dozen or more tomato plants and half a dozen tomatillo plants, if they will ever grow that is.

A week or so ago, I transplanted all our pepper starts into containers on the porch. As of right now, we have about 20 pepper plants, and I imagine a few will make their way into the fold before all is said and done. We have a planter box of acorn squash on the porch, chard, spinach, kale, and basil will also be staying on the porch, and we have some beans, squash, cukes, peas, and tomato starts waiting to go in the community garden.

I don't know if anyone remembers the cayenne plant we had started from seed late last fall, but it survived and managed to thrive in our apartment and it has one full sized pepper on it already, two baby ones, and tons of blooms. We transplanted it into the container we had our broccoli in last year and hope it will get HUGE.

Anyway, if it ever decides to stay dry for more than a day around here, we can get down to the community garden and get to work. It is starting to look like we may have to just have to get stuff in rain or shine. Ugh.

Have a great weekend everyone!

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty - Farmer's Market May 9, 2009

It was another successful trip to the market. Though sadly, asparagus is on its way out. We had a pretty short season this year as we didn't seem to have much in the way of spring. Our first CSA share also had to be postponed until next weekend due to yet another unusually wet spring here in Mid-Missouri. I have noticed an abundance in mushrooms though, I think some things fare just fine in this type of weather. Anyway, all that aside, we made out really well at the market this weekend.

Check out this week's loot:















Starting from the bottom right: 2 bunches of asparagus, spring onions, cilantro, lemon balm, 4 tomatoes, 1/2 lb. oyster mushrooms (we really like these mushrooms), baby garlic, chard, a head of gorgeous lettuce, 2 bags of baby spinach, and some more penne pasta.

As you can see, the lack of asparagus thwarted my plan to freeze some. Last week the vendors were overloaded with it - it seemed like everyone was selling it. This week there were maybe half a dozen stands that had any. I went for the organic kind. I was especially stoked about the cilantro, chard, spinach, and gorgeous organic tomatoes.

We've already eaten some of our grub, but the rest is destined for some Mexican goodness and I'm thinking a fried rice dish. Those are super yummy and really easy.

We are also planning on getting some stuff in the ground at the community garden sometime this week. It rained today ruining my chances of getting stuff into the ground today as I had hoped, but we'll get it in sometime this week. Then...let the garden updates begin!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Am I the only one who thinks that they are just never long enough?

'Til next time.