Life in Silver Spring
Posted: May 12, 2012 Filed under: silver spring | Tags: farmers market, fenton street market, Silver Spring Leave a comment »We have lived in Silver Spring for almost 4 months. We are truly enjoying our time here.
Every Saturday morning I make my way to the Farmer’s Market and now there is a street occurring. I finally had enough time to walk into town and snap some pictures instead of dashing in and out.
It was an awesome day to be outside!
Other than spending time in town we have been exploring the local restaurants and have plans to get strawberry rhubarb cocktails tonight at 8407 Kitchen Bar!
I hope you are enjoying your Saturday!
Rhubarb!
Posted: April 30, 2012 Filed under: farmers market | Tags: baking, compote, farmers market, rhubarb Leave a comment »This weekend I was fortunate enough to pick up some rhubarb from Three Springs Fruit Farm at the Farmer’s Market.
Rhubarb grows like a weed but hardly anyone keeps it on their land because it is a bit of an eyesore. It is however, one of my favorite flavors of springtime! Strawberry rhubarb is my second favorite pie flavor behind pumpkin. Given my shortage of butter and oats I was stuck looking up some recipes for my rhubarb. I found a cake recipe on a Rhubarb website (yes there are entire sites dedicated to the stuff) that did not involve butter or oil, so I was sold. I cut down the sugar and made it half whole wheat. I also used pecans instead of walnuts because I am allergic, and I have a big bag of pecans on hand. Lastly I added some lemon zest to the batter because it really helps to bring out the flavor of rhubarb.
This was delicious! The cinnamon, pecans and rhubarb really came out in this. I had some rhubarb leftover after making my cake so I whipped up a quick compote to slather on top of my oatmeal and toast.
Just boiled sliced rhubarb, a little water and a little sugar. I might need to figure out how to get one of these growing at our non-existent future house!
Farmers Market Finds
Posted: April 21, 2012 Filed under: farmers market | Tags: farmers market 2 Comments »
Farm eggs, ramps, asparagus, and cut flowers. Sissy inspected and approved.
Give Them A Chance!
Posted: November 15, 2011 Filed under: dinner | Tags: bike trainer, farmers market, turnip 2 Comments »It is the second to last Farmer’s Market Tuesday 
It was dark when I was at the market today, but thankfully the weather was seasonally warm and the rain was just spitting.
As the choices become fewer and fewer I have to get creative. One item at the market that I like to get are small turnips.
They usually come with greens which give me a second meal out of the plant! At the grocery store you can’t really find them together and if you do the greens are usually pretty wilted and gross.
Tonight I just sautéed the greens in some olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.
I had them alongside two duck eggs on toast with goat cheese.
I eat eggs probably once a week – they are easy, full of protein and if they weren’t duck they would be pretty cheap!
I am really sad for the markets to end and to have to say goodbye until next spring.
*What do you miss most about summer produce?
Outtake from photographing dinner…
Sissy attacking my dishtowel!
And lastly…a PSA about bike trainers…
They will wear your tire much faster than the road, fling rubber and will be hot after use. I asked the people at REI and they said it was normal and suggest getting a cheap tire for indoor use. Learn something new every day!
Quack!
Posted: November 8, 2011 Filed under: dinner | Tags: dinner, duck egg, farmers market 4 Comments »I got something new at the farmer’s market today!
Duck eggs! My egg lady had them today, and I thought why not? It is now or never! They are larger than your average chicken egg and I was told they had a deeper flavor. One reason I buy local eggs is for their better flavor so I was sold.
Check out the yoke on that guy!
Served up with sautéed greens and black beans cooked with onion, garlic, yellow pepper, oregano and steamed in vegetable stock (these beans were a close second to the egg – I must use veggie stock in stove top cooking thing more often!). I also had a piece of toast for yoke dipping because it is the best part of any egg.
Have you ever had a duck egg? I know they are kind of trendy right now, but I don’t remember having one and I definitely have never made them. I can’t wait for Nick to try one this weekend!
Cipollini Onions!
Posted: November 1, 2011 Filed under: food | Tags: farmers market, wedding 2 Comments »Yes!!!! Our wedding pictures are up!
If you would like to see our pictures you can visit the website of our awesome photographers Matt and Jess, but you are going to need to know our wedding date 
I need to have some backstops!
Anyway, back to our regular Tuesday programing of Farmer’s Market Tuesday!
Every week there seems to be one less vendor and my egg lady was gone today 
She said she would not be leaving until the end so I really hope she comes back! At least I have Springfield Farms for my winter eggs.
Today I got something new…
Cipollini onions! I usually stick with the yellow onion but I thought I would branch out a little bit today.
One observation of these onions is they make you cry like no other. They are also much stronger than my yellow onion, and this could also be due to the fact that they are from the market and have not been sitting on a shelf forever.
After I finished crying I cooked up the little buggers along with some yellow pepper, beans and mushrooms.
I topped it all off with some delicious blue cheese. I also added a lovely side of acorn squash coated in chili powder.
I can still taste the onion so I am not sure what to do with the other 3 I have…maybe if I caramelize them they won’t taste as strong?
Are you a big onion person? I didn’t eat onions until a few years ago and now I only eat them cooked.
One for for the books!
Cilantro Pesto!
Posted: October 19, 2011 Filed under: farmers market, recipe | Tags: cilantro, farmers market, pesto 1 Comment »I am a day late with Farmers Market Tuesday (now Wednesday!). I got home from yoga late last night and all I wanted to do was eat some dinner and go to sleep.
The pickin’s are getting slim at the market and I will miss summer produce, but one surprise I found was a huge bunch of cilantro (root and all)! I really wanted it but one person cannot eat 3 cups of cilantro before it goes bad. I opted for making cilantro pesto!
I wanted it to be semi-thick because I want to use it on bread. I also do not have pine nuts because they are super expensive.
Simple Cilantro Pesto
- 2 cups cilantro
- 1/4 cup pecans
- EVOO to your thickness taste
- juice of 1/2 one lemon
- 1/2 jalapeno
- pinch salt
Throw everything but the olive oil into a food processor and blend! Add the olive oil gradually until you get the consistency you like.
I cannot believe from 2 cups of cilantro I only got 1/2 cup of pesto! I guess that is why the stuff is kind of expensive.
What would you use cilantro pesto on?
p.s. I am never cooking rice on the stove top again…my new rice maker we got as a wedding gift is amazing!
Italian Spaghetti Squash and Lentil Soup
Posted: October 11, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: farmers market, lentils, soup, spaghetti squash Leave a comment »Finally I am back with an edition of Farmer’s Market Tuesday!
It has been really warm in Maryland lately but we have a lot of rain in forecast and Fall + rain = soup in my book.
I love all squash in the fall and I usually make the spaghetti variety as yep, spaghetti. Tonight I wanted to try something different and man did it work out!
What you will need:
- 1 small to medium spaghetti squash
- 1 large can of fire roasted tomatoes
- 2 cups veggie broth (or chicken/beef)
- 1 onion diced
- 1 clove of garlic pressed
- 2 tsp dried thyme or fresh to your taste
- 2 sprigs of rosemary de-stemmed or 1 tbsp dried
- dash of hot pepper flakes
- 1/2 bunch kale
- 1/2 cup uncooked lentils
- pepper (no salt needed due to tomatoes and veggie broth)
I started by cutting the squash in half lengthwise and roasting it for 45min in the oven. While it was roasting I cooked down the onion and garlic then added everything but the rosemary, thyme and kale. 45min late pull out the squash to cool and add the herbs and kale to the pot to cook for a few min while you pull out the spaghetti.
Now, the squash can be really hot and I don’t like waiting so I usually wear an oven mitt to get things going. Add the squash to the lentils and stir before serving.
I seriously have not made something this good since I made butternut chili before the wedding.
The herbs really came out in this and I loved the addition of a different squash.
I just wish I could have slurped up some of these “spaghetti” noodles!
What is your favorite way to eat spaghetti squash?
Peachy Keen
Posted: September 13, 2011 Filed under: farmers market | Tags: farmers market, peach, wedding 1 Comment »I am going to make this addition of Farmers Market Tuesday short because I have been up since 4:45AM and to Lancaster and back. I know lasts week’s was short but we are in wedding crunch time and things are cray cray in crunch time.
If you have not enjoyed a summer peach or stone fruit, get on it. They are leaving soon and it is sad. The week of rain we just had killed a lot of the tomatoes too, so get on those too.
One peach and one nectarine. Fuzz vs. no fuzz.
Which one do you like better? I have to say I am leaning towards the nectarine. I remember as a kid I liked them better too but nothing beats a fresh local peach.
Nectarine = winner!!!
Besides hitting up the farmers market, I checked on our growing wedding flowers, had my final walk through at Rock Ford (which got me flusters because there were so many details coming at me fast…), 2+ hour in the car annnnnd my final hair cut and color!
I also threw in a 6:30AM yoga class just because I was already awake so why not?
Final sprit woot woot!!
What Is It?
Posted: September 7, 2011 Filed under: farmers market | Tags: farmers market Leave a comment »Just stopping in for a quick Farmer’s Market Tuesday!
Can you guess what this is?
It is a bit spicy
It is used in a lot of Asian dishes and has great medicinal properties such as a digestive aid.
It is fresh ginger!!! I had never seen this stuff before so I had to grab some. I didn’t have time to make anything super special with it so I just grated a little bit over my soup last night. It has an amazing fresh taste to it and is not as concentrated as its brown scabbed over ginger cousin.
17 days until the wedding, yikes! Final walk through today!
