Tag Archives: eat your veggies

from the market (and garden) / june 30

we didn’t get a whole lot from the farmer’s market this week…we’re still transitioning into our new apartment, and the kitchen is still in a little bit of a disarray, so we’re starting back up slowly. i made sure to pick up tomatoes and cucumbers this week so that we could make these sandwiches for lunches this week. the broccoli will be going in this recipe for broccoli-almond pesto with rice noodles. and the carrots and fingerling potatoes…not sure yet, but will probably just be roasted or put into a hash some night this week when we can’t decide what to make.the community garden we belong to has a few community plots that garden members can harvest from, which we think is pretty awesome. we swung by this weekend to harvest some rainbow chard and couple different kinds of kales. i was feeling a little sad that we didn’t decide to plant kale in our own garden, but i think the community plots will have enough for us all summer. and, the chard and spinach from our own plot are going to be ready for harvest soon, which i’m pretty stoked about!

what did you all find at your markets this weekend? what are you making this week?

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from the market / june 16

after a couple of weekends away from home we were definitely missing our sunday morning farmer’s market ritual. it was a pleasant surprise to come back to so much more variety than a few weeks ago…i think summer is finally here to stay, so we are finally seeing lots of late spring/early summer produce here like greens, broccoli, carrots, etc. it’s making me excited for our own little garden to start producing (still need to write a post about that…)

here’s what we got this week:
-2 heads of broccoli (with their leaves still on!)
-a bunch of easter egg radishes
-green garlic and green onions
-yellow tomatoes
-red new potatoes
-snap peas
-a giant yellow zucchini
-kohlrabi
-eggs

i’ve always been intrigued by kohlrabi, but we’ve never tried it, so when when saw it for pretty cheap at several of the vendors this week, we thought we would give it a shot this week. i think we’ll try it in a stir-fry with broccoli, greens, green onions and some kind of asian sauce over ramen. i’ve heard it’s good roasted, too. if anyone has any good recipes, please share!

i also got fresh peonies for the first time ever at the market this week. they are such a gorgeous flower, but are always kind of hard to find or cost prohibitive. one vendor this week had 20 stems for $10, so we obviously snatched some up! they are making our apartment look (and smell) so pretty :) i’m definitely in flower heaven over here.

what’s everyone making for dinners this week? find anything fun at your local market?

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from the market / may 18

this time around we decided to go to the downtown’s farmer’s market on saturday instead of our usual sunday trip to aksarben. saturday morning blessed us with pretty much perfect weather so we figured a bike ride down to the market was in order. after this weekend, i think we might be downtown market converts. it’s only about a mile away so it’s a pretty easy bike ride, with the exception that all of our veggies didn’t really fit in my bike basket. if we decide to keep riding down on saturdays, i’m thinking about investing in a flat bed bike basket like this one so we can fit more stuff and bungee it down!

although summer produce is undoubtedly my favorite, i’m kind of enjoying the products of a late start to growing season because we’re getting to enjoy lots of spring stuff for longer than usual. nebraska seems to kind of skip out on spring weather and jump from winter to summer so this year has been kind of a nice change. i was telling k that i don’t remember seeing much asparagus or rhubarb at the markets last year around this time, but this year, it’s everywhere!

here’s what we got from the market this week:
-more GIANT green onions!
-bunch of asparagus
-red radishes
-rhubarb
-2 heads of lettuce: 1 green leaf (not pictured) and the head in the photo above (anyone know what kind?)
-cherry tomatoes
-cucumber
-yellow-orange tomatoes
-greek flatbreads
-bouquet of lilacs!


p.s. we also planted a garden this past weekend! if tonight’s rain/hail/tornadoes don’t kill or freeze all of our starter plants, i’ll post photos later this week! :)

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{recipe of the week} heirloom tomato + kale bruschetta

we eat at geriatric dinner hour over here for the most part. as in, 90% of the time kevin is totally off the hook for preparing any part of dinner because usually by the time he comes home around 5, i either have something in the oven or, more often, already plated on the coffee table with a beer open and netflix cued up. yes, my feminist self is cringing, too, and yes, we watch tv while we eat dinner nine times out of ten because we don’t have room for a proper dining room table. #dormlife

even though we eat “dinner” early, it’s usually not normally what i would consider a full meal. over the last couple years, we’ve pretty much adapted to the 5-6 small meals versus 3 normal-size meals style of eating, so dinner is usually more like a glorified snack. i’ve grown to prefer it this way because if we want to hit up a happy hour later, or get dessert, or have a midnight snack, i don’t feel quite as guilty. so, that said, we usually end up eating something else later in the evening – sometimes just a greek yogurt or a piece of fruit, or chips and salsa. but yesterday, i had just gone to the grocery store and filled our fridge with lots of yummy things so we decided to make ourselves something a little more exciting and substantial for our 8 o’clock snack: bruschetta!

if there are any hardcore italians out there reading this, you might be screaming at me in a couple minutes because i don’t really know what technically qualifies bruschetta as bruschetta,  but in my mind, it’s just anything you choose to put on toasted, delicious bread. i didn’t rub this with fresh garlic like you’re supposed to because, well, we were hungry, yo! ain’t nobody got time for that! and with the buttery-ness of the bread, crispy-ness of the kale, sweetness of the tomatoes, and tangyness and saltiness of the cheese, this was chock full of flavor and didn’t miss the garlic one bit (though you could definitely add it).

we devoured this pretty quickly last night, and it’s definitely going to be a new staple snack and light dinner for us around here, especially since the farmer’s markets are staring back up in omaha this week (moment of silence for all of the non-local, pesticide-ridden vegetables we’ve had to consume over the past 6 months) and fresh tomatoes and greens will soon abound. this would be the perfect summer dinner party appetizer, along with some grilled shrimp as an entree and a good bottle of cava.

ingredients (makes 4 slices, serves 2):
-four big slices of crusty bread, such as ciabatta
-1 tbsp butter or vegan margarine
-1 large handful of kale, stems removed and coarsely chopped
-1 large handful of heirloom or cherry tomatoes, chopped
-feta cheese (or any other cheese)
-aged cheddar cheese (or any other cheese)
-salt & pepper to taste

directions:
1. preheat oven to 400 degrees. place kale and tomatoes on a foil-lined baking sheet, and drizzle or spray with olive oil. season with salt and pepper. bake in the preheated oven for about 8-10 minutes, until tomatoes are a little juicy and kale starts to crisp up.
2. while the vegetables cook, prepare the bread. cut four slices of your chosen bread, and spread a thin layer of butter or margarine on each slice.
3. remove vegetables from oven and turn your broiler on. remove the foil from the baking sheet so you can use the same sheet to build your bruschetta. grease the baking sheet with cooking spray, then place bread slices on the tray. first add kale, then tomatoes, and then top each slice with a little bit of cheese (we did feta on two, and aged cheddar on two, but you can obviously use all one cheese, or two cheeses on all your slices, or even no cheese at all).
4. place in the broiler for about 2 minutes, but keep a close eye on it – some broilers are faster/hotter than others. remove from oven, season with additional salt and pepper if desired, and enjoy immediately!

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in season / radishes

i’ve really meant to do more of these “in season” posts, but sadly this is the first one i’ve done since the inaugural pomegranate installment back in december. i’m going through a little online food photography class right now, though, and one of my goals is to get better at shooting fruits and vegetables, so i was inspired to restart this series.

i never really had radishes growing up; it was one of those vegetables my mom never bought because she said she’d eaten too many as a kid to put us through that. i figured that meant that radishes must be pretty bland, so i was pleasantly surprised when we picked some up at the farmer’s market for the first time last year and they were…spicy? i can’t say that radishes have become my favorite vegetable ever since, but i do buy a bunch every so often and am looking forward to the markets opening back up in a few weeks so we can get fresh, organic ones and some other varieties.

i have to admit that the standard way of eating radishes – raw, whole, in a veggie tray with dip – is not really my favorite. i like to chop them up a little smaller and use them as a condiment on any number of taco combinations, which we typically make several nights a week. and although cooking radishes isn’t very common, my friend ashly sauteed some in a little bit of butter during one of her visits, and we ate them with quinoa and swiss chard, which made for a delicious meal (you could also substitute in the radish greens for chard).

anyway, for being a super cheap, kinda dirty vegetable, i happen to think they’re actually quite pretty, and had a fun time photographing these. and it turns out that they’re pretty good for you, too – full of vitamin c and micronutrients like flouride (for your teeth!), magnesium, and phosphorus. they’re also low-calorie but have a high water content, so they’ll fill you up and provide you with some good fiber.

a few radish recipes if you’re feeling inspired to try one…

yogurt radish crostini | pita crisps with feta-radish spread | cinnamon sugar radish chips

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