Saturday market, mid-May... waiting for squash

I can't wait for summer squash. I don't remember when it comes in, so every Saturday I go to the market hoping it will be there. I want to roast some with sweet potatoes. But today was not the day.

Saturday Shopping List

about a dozen large carrots
8 of the tomatoes you see above
6 white potatoes
4 red potatoes
5 yellow sweet onions
2 of the bunches of asparagus you see above
a large head of buttercrisp lettuce
a jar of apple syrup
a pint of strawberries
a pint of crimini mushrooms
1 large portobello cap
2 bunches of dark green curly kale

Total: about $27

We want to start juicing again, so I got a bunch of carrots and the two bunches of dark green kale. We haven't had kale in a while. No sense in that. It is a great source of protein, calcium, and iron. The carrots are really big and I got plenty, so there should be enough to both juice and roast.

My favorite dish lately has been to roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, asparagus and onions in the the cast iron skillet in the oven at 425 for about 35 minutes. So good. I put on sea salt, black pepper, and fennel seeds. I cut up a whole, small sweet onion, in big chunks, and put in there, and it makes the whole house smell savory and foodie. Garlic is also good to add.

Saw an apartment on Craigslist that advertises if you live there you might have to help with the vegetable gardening and composting in the back yard. Hmm. That would be awesome. We e-mailed about it. Will keep you posted.

Saturday: purple kale, mushrooms, and winter apples

Got to the market late today, not until after one o'clock. My sleeping has been a little off, due to training institute getting underway this week, and the wave of excitement and anxiety that came with it. I got my practice teaching assignment and started to practice the daily routines that will become familiar to me over the next four weeks. Early morning, trolley, subway, walking a few blocks in my old neighborhood, checking in at the principal's office, taking a tiny elevator up to the fourth floor. Then, after a day in the classroom, taking the subway north to gather in a hot, second-floor high school classroom for framework sessions with other new teachers like me. I did not really meet, but sort of briefly glimpsed, some of the students who will be kind of my students over the next four weeks. They're not mine for keeps. I'll meet those students in February and they'll be mine until June. I don't know where they'll be, what age, or what they'll need. All of these questions require good nutrition to gather and answer. Which brings us to this sunny, cold Saturday.

Saturday Shopping List

Several bunches of purple and green curly kale
A paper sack full of carrots - orange, purple, and white
4 big yellow onions and 2 small shallot-sized yellow onions
About a quart of white mushrooms
1 Portobello cap
3 sweet-tart apples
a 12-oz. jar of apple syrup
a 23-oz. jar of apple sauce

total: $25.40

No one had any leeks, but I still have one from last week, for a soup. We are all stocked up on potatoes. We still have about half a head of cauliflower and a little broccoli. No one brings beans anymore. I guess the bean people have quit for the winter. The spice lady seems to have packed it in until spring as well. I need to find a place to get fennel seeds. That's how I flavor my breakfast mushroom scramble. That's the key ingredient that makes that breakfast taste like breakfast. We have beans, though. We were fairly well stocked on those. We have kidney beans, black beans, and red lentils. We do need to make a trip to Trader Joe's for flaxseed and tea, along with a few household basics like dishsoap.


One thing you'll find in abundance at the farmers' market in winter is apples, in various forms. One table has nothing but apples, apple cider, apple sauce, apple butter, and today for the first time, apple syrup. The lady says it's good on pancakes, just like any other syrup. We have buckwheat pancake mix. This may necessitate getting some rice milk or almond milk and making pancakes this week.



The kale in winter seems frail, less juicy. Maybe it's been frozen, I'm not sure. We buy it from a different person now. It's still curly kale, but it's more in a bunch or bouquet, rather than a "head" formation. And he has the dark purple kale you saw in the picture above.

When I got home, Mark was in the middle of juicing some carrots and kale (leftover from last week). I threw some purple kale into the mix, and when he ran it through the juicer, it gave off a sweet smell, almost like fruit. The resulting juice was the best-tasting juice we've made so far. It seemed to have mostly the flavor of carrots, rather than greens. The carrots were dark purple, and the dark purple kale I'm sure added some sweetness as well. That purple is good for you. The purple comes from flavonoids.

Here is how our juicer works, working on the kale:



So, what do we have to eat this week? The menu will probably shape up to look something like this:

potato-leek soup
lentil soup
bean and vegetable stew
mushroom hoagies
baked potatoes
fried potatoes with mushrooms and gravy
noodles with mushrooms
raw carrot snacks
carrot and kale juice
pasta with marinara and mushrooms
onion-pepper quinoa
buckwheat pancakes with apple syrup
oat bran
apple tarts

That's it for this week's groceries. Write me with any questions. Comment, bookmark, or otherwise follow the blog. And, as always, remember the animals. Have a great weekend!

Juicing carrots, kale, and broccoli

Juicing is so simple, I can't even imagine why we don't do it more frequently. It takes ten minutes. You split the carrots in half lengthwise so they'll go into the shoot easily, you rinse everything, and you drop everything into the juicer. Every time I do it, I insist that I'm going to remember how quick and easy it is, but somehow I always forget.

This evening, I juiced some of the maroon carrots we bought last Saturday. Maroon carrot juice is not as pretty as orange-skinned carrot juice, but the pulp is beautiful. It's orange with red flecks. To that, I added some broccoli stalks and a lot of kale.

Saturday Market in the Rain

It's raining on the farmers' market. That's different. All summer, it has rained maybe twice on the market, which I didn't realize until we were walking down to the park this morning in a light, gray, drizzly sort of rain. I know it rained at least one other Saturday morning, because I do remember clomping around the market in rain boots once, but almost every Saturday has been sunny.

We went kind of late, too. We're usually there at 10 a.m. when it opens. We didn't make it there until around 11 this morning, after cleaning the kitchen and making room for the new groceries.

Here's the list:

Lots of small white potatoes
Large bunch of broccoli
3 pints of okra!
1 quart of green beans
Lots of maroon carrots
3 bunches of kale (you'll see exactly how much in a minute)
2 bunches of leeks
2 ears of sweet corn
3 yellow onions
A small head of cabbage
6 tomatoes
5 apples of different varieties
1 loaf sourdough bread
1 loaf multi-grain bread
2 brownies

Total spent: $53.44


The theme this week was green. With okra, broccoli, green beans, and all that kale, we'll have no shortage of protein, calcium, or iron (the three magic nutrients people tend to worry they might not get if they don't eat animals).

We bought dry beans last week, so we have plenty of those. This week, we were able to stock up on green veggies and still spend the same amount of money as last week. See what I was saying? It all evens out.

We're going to get back to juicing, which we've been neglecting for weeks and weeks. We have a perfectly good Omega Juicer sitting in the kitchen taking up space. Juicing is a perfect way to get nutrition from greens, so that's why we loaded up on kale this morning. Carrots are finally here in bulk (they've been scant), including maroon carrots, which have extra nutrients, including anti-oxidants. Anything purple or blue is pretty much good news, nutritionally.

We spent quite a bit on the greens. The curly kale is $2.50 per "bunch." We got three bunches, so that was $7.50. The maroon carrots were kind of pricey too, I think they weighed in around $9, but we got a ton of them. Because of our lack of resolve regarding juicing lately, I had reservations about getting so much kale.

I'm doubting. You can see the doubt there, can't you? But that's a lot of protein, calcium, and iron on that tray, so I'm just going to calm down. Those are onions on top, there. There's also a tiny head of cabbage, for the stew, underneath. Everything else on the tray is kale.

We spent $9.25 at the Slow Rise Bakery table, for a loaf of sourdough, a loaf of multi-grain, and two brownies.

$6.59 at another table for the white potatoes, apples, and broccoli. Two bunches of leeks and a quart and a half of okra added up to $8. We were psyched to find okra, which has been scarce this summer. Okra is a staple for me.

$3.50 for tomatoes. $1 for two ears of corn (we still have two more in the fridge). $3 for a quart of green beans.

Now, here's the scary part. I still don't know how much those maroon carrots were per pound but with the carrots, all that kale, three yellow onions, and the head of cabbage, we spent $22.10 at that one table. Worth it if we juice. Wouldn't be worth it if we don't end up juicing. Therefore, yes, we must juice. But that means I'll have pictures and perhaps even video of juicing, and we're talking about maroon carrots here, remember, so it's going to be quite pretty. (At least until we mix in the green.)

Milling about in the rain, with lots of people and tents and mud, with expensive equipment on me (camera, in this case), and a pen and soggy folded-up paper in my hand as I shift things around trying not to drop anything as I record information and capture images... reminds me of being at the radio station, going out on a Saturday to cover stories, festivals, parades, talking with local vendors.

I wish I could get some of the carrots from my parents' garden. Their garden is far away in West Virginia, where they are, but my mom sent pictures of the latest haul of carrots. Oh my god. Biggest carrots I have ever seen. I mean, these are fat carrots. So much goodness in there for juicing. So many sweet carrot bites for stew.

I regret that I wasn't vegan when I lived in the country. It's great that the farmers' market is a few blocks from my apartment and that all these farmers bring their good food to the city for me to buy. All those PSA's I did promoting various farmers' markets in Pocahontas County, WV, and Highland and Bath Counties, VA, for the radio stations, and I never took full advantage of what was available. Better late than never, but don't repeat my mistake: Over on the right side of your screen, there's a link where you can go and look up local farmers' markets in your area.

I'm going to go put some things away and cook something. I don't know what I'll cook yet. I like to get out a plate and a knife, heat some oil on the stove and start cutting things up, whatever looks good. I'll start with blue potatoes and we'll go from there.