My favorite part of my job is like this week when my neighbor Linda emailed me to ask what to do with the overabundance of banana peppers in her garden. I suggested a mild, baked Chile Relleno: char and remove the skins, remove seeds and replace with cheese, put in a baking dish with tomatillo sauce, cover with egg batter (separate eggs, whip whites, recombine), sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Or she should pickle them. Or roast, peel and can them. What would you tell her? Banana peppers are mild, yellow, a nice alternative to bell peppers, and we have plenty of them at market if you want to experiment before advising!
Fresh edamame from the farm is one of my favorite summer treats! Boil for about 4 minutes in salted water then just pop the little soy beans out of their pod directly into your mouth. Super fun snack and a small cupful has as much iron as a piece of chicken. Smallwood’s has them up at the top end of market.
Lamb is back at Groff’s Content! Hard to get wrong, roasts and chops are easy to cook and ground lamb lends itself to beautiful burgers with fresh herbs, goat cheese, open faced buns, and slabs of heirloom tomato.
Local Events:
Melissa Running will be playing folk music for us, featuring the nyckelharpa, a Swedish kind of fiddle kind of thing with keys sticking out of all over the neck and making an absolutely lovely sound.
Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: Tent, tools, pump, stand, and helpful neighbors who drag themselves out of bed at some ungodly MtP hour to help you get your steed back in sweet running order.
Farmers’ Market Knit Clinic: Do we want the Warm and Fuzzies back? Oh, yeah, do we ever! What fun! Bring your projects this week and get some help or just come for unbridled praise.
Public Media Corps: Back again with a survey for you to help them out with and information about their efforts to provide broadband Internet access to anyone and everyone.
I have no idea where we rank, but I guess I gotta keep pitching for your vote until Aug 31 for Your Favorite Farmers’ Market at American Farmland Trust. I feel like this organization is doing good things, so it’s worth a visit.
Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: Fig, Cucumber Chili, Blackberry Basil Cream, Watermelon Cucumber and Peaches & Ginger. All local fruits from Quaker Valley Orchard, Truck Patch, Richfield Farm, Barajas Produce, Trickling Springs Creamery and one unwitting Brookland neighbor.
Adelante Co-op: Wow! They have unearthed la abuelita – Grandma’s recipe for grilled beef with Peruvian spices that, I quote, “makes your mouth go crazy with flavors never tasted before, let’s not even mention that it really melts in your mouth.” Plus Peruvian “borracho” chicken grilled slowly over wood charcoal. Ask for the Peruvian salad with potatoes, beets, celery, tomatoes, olive oil and lime. Freshly made watermelon water – agua fresca de sandia.
Groff’s Content Farm: Family farm raises 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef on organic fields, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chickens, whole, cut up or smoked. Dog treats and nice big beef bones. Ground beef, steaks, big sausages. Soap made from their own beef tallow.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Reid Orchard: New this week are Cresthaven peaches, an old variety with excellent flavor, large size, and not much blush. White Lady peaches, plums, nectarines, blackberries, Aurora blueberries, seedless table grapes, and Concord type Buffalo grapes – with seeds, wonderful flavor, first picking. Dry weather has given us an outstanding harvest of flavorful heirloom tomatoes. Apples varieties are Paula Red, Ginger Gold, Zesta, Summer Rambo, Summer Treat, Gravenstein, Tsugaru.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Bi-color sweet corn this week! Madison yellow peaches, Sugar Giant white peaches, Arctic Jay white nectarines, Asian pears, and Ginger Gold apples. Fortune plums are large red plums with yellow flesh, Vanier plums are small, sweet, red plums. Blackberries, red raspberries and sweet, red Candice grapes. Potatoes, onions, tomatoes. Lots of Sweet Delight honeydew melons and canary melons. Plus jams, tomato sauce, applesauce, etc.
Smallwood’s Veggieporium: Edamame! Regular and cherry tomatoes, hot and bell peppers, several kinds of basil, squash, cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, onions, pretty pink and white canary beans, potatoes, okra, mint, and eggs.
Richfield Farm: Melons, okra, eggplants, peppers, corn, cherry tomatoes, heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers. Green beans. Cut flowers.
Truck Patch Farms: Heirloom, cherry, and hybrid tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers. Summer squash and green beans. Salad mix, arugula, spinach, kale and Swiss chard. Radishes and beets. Cut herbs.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: Eggs. Pork and beef. Chickens if you pre-order at order@truckpatchfarms.com. Ground beef and patties, ground pork, loose sausage, and ground ham. Sausages: smoked kielbasa and andouille, Polish sausage, sage, celery, applewurst, country hot, mild and hot Italian, sweet Italian with fennel, kielbasa, bratwurst. Steaks, chops and tenderloins, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pork shoulder. Breakfast sausage and bacon. Ask Bryan about goat meat.
Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and several flavors of granola.
Panorama Bakery: Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, mini ciabattas, sliced loaves, danishes, sticky buns, apple turnovers.
Aug 21 – Banana Peppers, Edamame and Lamb
Fresh edamame from the farm is one of my favorite summer treats! Boil for about 4 minutes in salted water then just pop the little soy beans out of their pod directly into your mouth. Super fun snack and a small cupful has as much iron as a piece of chicken. Smallwood’s has them up at the top end of market.
Lamb is back at Groff’s Content! Hard to get wrong, roasts and chops are easy to cook and ground lamb lends itself to beautiful burgers with fresh herbs, goat cheese, open faced buns, and slabs of heirloom tomato.
Local Events:
Melissa Running will be playing folk music for us, featuring the nyckelharpa, a Swedish kind of fiddle kind of thing with keys sticking out of all over the neck and making an absolutely lovely sound.
Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: Tent, tools, pump, stand, and helpful neighbors who drag themselves out of bed at some ungodly MtP hour to help you get your steed back in sweet running order.
Farmers’ Market Knit Clinic: Do we want the Warm and Fuzzies back? Oh, yeah, do we ever! What fun! Bring your projects this week and get some help or just come for unbridled praise.
Public Media Corps: Back again with a survey for you to help them out with and information about their efforts to provide broadband Internet access to anyone and everyone.
I have no idea where we rank, but I guess I gotta keep pitching for your vote until Aug 31 for Your Favorite Farmers’ Market at American Farmland Trust. I feel like this organization is doing good things, so it’s worth a visit.
Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: Fig, Cucumber Chili, Blackberry Basil Cream, Watermelon Cucumber and Peaches & Ginger. All local fruits from Quaker Valley Orchard, Truck Patch, Richfield Farm, Barajas Produce, Trickling Springs Creamery and one unwitting Brookland neighbor.
Adelante Co-op: Wow! They have unearthed la abuelita – Grandma’s recipe for grilled beef with Peruvian spices that, I quote, “makes your mouth go crazy with flavors never tasted before, let’s not even mention that it really melts in your mouth.” Plus Peruvian “borracho” chicken grilled slowly over wood charcoal. Ask for the Peruvian salad with potatoes, beets, celery, tomatoes, olive oil and lime. Freshly made watermelon water – agua fresca de sandia.
Groff’s Content Farm: Family farm raises 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef on organic fields, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chickens, whole, cut up or smoked. Dog treats and nice big beef bones. Ground beef, steaks, big sausages. Soap made from their own beef tallow.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Reid Orchard: New this week are Cresthaven peaches, an old variety with excellent flavor, large size, and not much blush. White Lady peaches, plums, nectarines, blackberries, Aurora blueberries, seedless table grapes, and Concord type Buffalo grapes – with seeds, wonderful flavor, first picking. Dry weather has given us an outstanding harvest of flavorful heirloom tomatoes. Apples varieties are Paula Red, Ginger Gold, Zesta, Summer Rambo, Summer Treat, Gravenstein, Tsugaru.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Bi-color sweet corn this week! Madison yellow peaches, Sugar Giant white peaches, Arctic Jay white nectarines, Asian pears, and Ginger Gold apples. Fortune plums are large red plums with yellow flesh, Vanier plums are small, sweet, red plums. Blackberries, red raspberries and sweet, red Candice grapes. Potatoes, onions, tomatoes. Lots of Sweet Delight honeydew melons and canary melons. Plus jams, tomato sauce, applesauce, etc.
Smallwood’s Veggieporium: Edamame! Regular and cherry tomatoes, hot and bell peppers, several kinds of basil, squash, cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, onions, pretty pink and white canary beans, potatoes, okra, mint, and eggs.
Richfield Farm: Melons, okra, eggplants, peppers, corn, cherry tomatoes, heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers. Green beans. Cut flowers.
Truck Patch Farms: Heirloom, cherry, and hybrid tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers. Summer squash and green beans. Salad mix, arugula, spinach, kale and Swiss chard. Radishes and beets. Cut herbs.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: Eggs. Pork and beef. Chickens if you pre-order at order@truckpatchfarms.com. Ground beef and patties, ground pork, loose sausage, and ground ham. Sausages: smoked kielbasa and andouille, Polish sausage, sage, celery, applewurst, country hot, mild and hot Italian, sweet Italian with fennel, kielbasa, bratwurst. Steaks, chops and tenderloins, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pork shoulder. Breakfast sausage and bacon. Ask Bryan about goat meat.
Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and several flavors of granola.
Panorama Bakery: Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, mini ciabattas, sliced loaves, danishes, sticky buns, apple turnovers.