Thanks to all of you who participated in the latest episode of Summer Tomato Live, your questions were great and I had a blast.

The recording of the show is above, and you’ll notice quickly that I had to re-record the audio since I had some trouble during the recording. Sorry about that, I’ll get this technical stuff right eventually.

The next live show is scheduled for Wednesday, March 16, at 6:30pm PST, and the topic is Habit forming and habit breaking. The following episode will be about healthy vegetarian and vegan diets, which I’ll try to make interesting for omnivores as well.

The episode will also be available soon on iTunes.

Today’s show notes:

Sponsors:

• Foodzie
• Zürsun Heirloom Beans

My go-to recipes:

• Quick Fix: Super Easy Kale With Pecans Recipe
• Quick Fix: Collards, Carrots and French Green Lentils
• How To Make Eggs Taste As Good As Bacon
• Pea Greens With Carrots And Scrambled Eggs
• 10 Ways To Make Your Salad More Satisfying
• 8 Reasons Breakfast Makes Your Life Better
• Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash
• Roasted Curried Cauliflower To Die For

My tricks for cooking without pasta:

• Better Than Pasta Substitutes: Summer Squash Noodle Recipe and Video
• Healthy Pasta Substitute: Chickpeas (with recipe)

Time saving tricks:

• How (And Why) To Cook And Freeze Large Batches Of Lentils
• How to cook dried beans using a pressure cooker
• How to cook and freeze single servings of brown rice

Exercise tips & alternatives:

• My weekly workout
• How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
• Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis – It’s NEAT!

How to:

• How to switch from coffee to tea
• Healthy Vegetable Sources of Protein and Iron

Recommended healthstyle gear:

• Fagor Splendid 6-Quart Pressure Cooker
• OXO Good Grips 10-Piece POP Container Set

Let me know if there are any other links you’d like me to include.

Baby Spring Onions

If there is one thing I never do it is skip my weekend Farmers Market trip, but today I am skipping it. The weather is beautiful in Northern California and I am spending the weekend hiking, eating and drinking in Tahoe with family. It’s Mother’s Day, it’s springtime and, mostly, I really need a vacation. Don’t worry, when I get back I will be able to pick up enough vegetables at Bi-Rite Market to last me until the UCSF Mission Bay farmers market on Wednesday (10am – 3pm), so my healthstyle will not suffer.

In the meantime I want to share with you some details of the Mission Bay farmers market, which has been an absolutely splendid addition to our quiet campus since it opened on Earth Day. Although the market is rather small, the quality and variety of the vendors makes it always worth a trip.

I love the exotic Asian greens available at Her Farm, where I found these beautiful baby spring onions. Other vendors offer more traditional seasonal produce, like jumbo artichokes and purple cabbages.

Purple Cabbage

Jumbo Artichokes

Fruits are also plentiful, and I have found some amazingly sweet strawberries (3 different varieties) and juicy navel oranges (only $1/lb!!). New this week were apricots–still a little tart–which are the first stone fruits to appear at this market (cherries showed up at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market last week). Summer is so close I can almost taste it!

First Pick Apricots

Huge Strawberries

Probably the coolest thing about the new market is all the artisan vendors selling homemade pasta, cured olives, nuts, smoked fish, raw honey, fresh tofu, crusty breads, Mediterranean dishes and vegan cookies. Though some of these sellers only come every other week, their presence really transforms the market from a simple vegetable stand into a true artisan marketplace where you can compose full gourmet meals using high-quality local ingredients.

Raw Honey

Il Pastaio Pasta

Tell us what you’re eating for Mother’s Day!