Health
Habits
Food
Weight 
Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe
10 Simple Ways To Eat Less Without Noticing
Juicing: Stupid and Pretentious or Nourishing and Enlightening?
10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat
How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You’re Serious About Losing Weight
Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
Farmers Market Update: Veggie Hunting
Pluots
I’m starting to remember how much self-control is necessary this time of year. Not only is the market exploding with a zillion varieties of perfect stone fruits (the kind with pits), but the vegetable options are still somewhat limited.
Stone fruits are wonderful, and I know that cherries and apricots will be gone in a few weeks. The problem is they are not cheap ($3.50 – $7/lb) and are not something you can base a meal around. Dessert, obviously, is another story.
Late spring is filled with gorgeous herbs and lettuces, and I am loving it. But I noticed last week that I was getting a little tired of eating salad for every meal. My limit is about 10 salads per week.
Baby Savoy Cabbages
Summer Tomatoes
As a result I have been relying primarily on summer squash for my warm meals. Last week I bought some baby eggplant and made a delicious ratatouille. The baby savoy cabbages I got were wonderful pan-fried with spring onion and served on rice and lentils.
Artichokes are awesome right now, as are the fava beans, but both are a bit labor intensive.
I make an effort each week to buy some kale or chard so I have some nice hearty greens to eat. Today I splurged on some squash blossoms, which are wonderful with eggs or stuffed with cheese and rosemary and fried tempura style.
Fresh Lavender
Squash Blossoms
I’m very much looking forward to the arrival of sweet bell peppers (a few did actually pop up this week at Happy Quail Farms), which I have no trouble eating every single day in the summertime. Mmmm….roasted peppers.
If you’re a flower person, now is the time to buy fresh lavender.
What vegetables are you finding at your farmers market these days? What do you do with them?
Today’s purchases:
- Bing and rainier cherries (Paoletti Farms)
- Tomatoes (Madison Growers)
- Mediterranean cucumbers (Madison Growers)
- Boysenberries (Glashoff Farms)
- Summer squash (Lucero Organic Farms)
- Squash blossoms (The Peach Farm)
- Plums (Paradez Farms)
- Padrones (Happy Quail Farms)
- Green shallots (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Live basil (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Treviso (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Gem lettuces (Marin Roots Farm)
- Kale (Green Gulch Farm)
- Baby artichokes (Iacopi Farms)
- Garlic (Chue’s Farm)
- Fresh lavender (Eatwell Farm)
- Soul Food eggs (Prather Ranch)
I bought organic cherries ($2.50/lb), organic peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots ($2/lb), English peas, carrots, dino kale, red cabbage, baby bok choy, onions, beets, purple potatoes, bell peppers, a watermelon. I’ll make a soup out of beets and potatoes and barley, and eat it for a week, give some away, maybe freeze a bit. I’ll break into the watermelon this afternoon.
I am finding zephyr zucchini (olive oil, sea salt, pepper), bush wax beans, I make with butter and shallots), kale (olive oil saute) and spring peas (which I’ve posted) and squash blossoms (posted last week).
P.S. La Cucina Italia (a magazine) in this months issues has several amazing looking recipes for squash blossoms. But no one had them this week. I can’t wait to buy them again to try the recipes.
I absolutely addicted to bell peppers (I’m even growing some!). To me, it’s the best summer food, and it can be cooked so in many ways! Goes with everything.
Unfortunately, the market is quite small in Ottawa, but it has good basics: green beans, bell peppers, asparagus, mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes etc.
I usually shop at the Chinese market for the rest of my veggies.