The Naperville Farmers' Market

Every week this summer, Greg and I have tried to take Nick to one of the local farmers' markets. This week we went back to Naperville for one of our favorite ones. The Naperville Farmers' Market is in the parking lot for the 5th Avenue Train Station, and runs on Saturdays from 7 a.m. until 12 p.m. Our biggest complaint is that it ends at noon.

Some of them have plenty of vendors but few farmers, but this one seemed to have plenty of produce as well as other kinds of food. They must have strict criteria for vendors, because we didn't see any wacky stuff for sale, only the traditional farmers' market stuff: produce, herbs, fresh flowers, meat, seafood, cheeses, baked goods, and some specialty food products, like salsas and olive oils. There was a very nice selection, and we actually ran out of cash since we found so many things we liked.

Since we visit farmers' markets often, we have noticed a disturbing trend at places like Downers Grove and Plainfield--rather than produce and homemade food products, some vendors are selling things like tupperware, purses, and even clothes. These farmers' markets end up being more like craft fairs. Not this one--in Naperville, the farmers' market is very similar to ones that you would see in Europe. Here is a picture of Nick posing in front of the cucumbers.

Today it was incredibly steamy and sunny, so we kept Nick well hydrated and in the shade as much as possible. He was having fun checking out the ladies and waving at every baby or child he saw. Greg stuck to only "checking out" the produce, and he picked out some nice carrots and mushrooms.

We ended up with quite a haul, and will be feasting tonight. I think my favorite purchase was the fresh peaches, which Greg needed for the white sangria. I used the potatoes he is picking out below to go with our bison burgers with portabello mushrooms. (Plus, a salad and some fresh green beans. Yum.)

While I am interested in local and organic produce, I am in no way naive about the realities of farmers' markets. I know that unless food says it is organically grown, it probably isn't. But the farmers who sell at farmers' markets are often small farmers who use less pesticides, and I feel better buying from local farmers when I can. The vendors at this market clearly labeled their products and told the buyers where each item was from. I do tend to frequent the local farmers over those selling, for example, tomatoes from Kentucky. I also made a point to buy some organic potatoes from the one farmer who was selling organic produce.

So here is our haul.

Total spent? We brought $60 in cash, and all of it was gone. However, Greg bought some extravagent crab meat that cost $26, so that was half of our money right there. Tomorrow he's going to make a fancy crab cake dish from his new Bobby Flay cookbook, and I told him that for $26, they'd better be the best darned crab cakes we've ever had. I will report back about that.

Oh, and we also bought Nick a delicious scone that was eaten long before the picture was taken. I can tell you that the portabella mushrooms were divine tonight, sauteed in a little bit of butter with some of the garlic.

The Shopping Cart Blues and Tuscan Bean Soup

I had to post this picture because I love the way he's slouched down in the shopping cart with his feet up and his tongue out. Daddy taught him to make noises with his tongue, and he does, frequently. Even in the shopping cart. Both of these pictures made me laugh, actually. Poor guy has the shopping cart blues.

"Come on, Mommy, aren't you done already?" We've been here forever and you didn't even buy anything good. Just cans of stuff and leaves. What is kale, anyway? And when do I get to play outside?"

Well, the kale was for a recipe I wanted to try. I usually don't go for meatless recipes, and neither Greg nor I generally like kale, but I figured I'd try this one because we like bean soups. It turned out to be pretty good, and I will definitely be making it again. Apparently, kale is just fine in soups.

Tuscan Bean Soup

Originally from “Living the GI Diet,” by Rick Gallop, but I made some changes.


Ingredients

-2T extra virgin olive oil
-5 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 1/2 large Vidalia onions, chopped
-3 carrots, chopped
-2 stalks of celery, chopped
-6 fresh sage leaves, cut up
-A few fresh thyme leaves
-6 cups of chicken broth, low-fat, reduced sodium
-2 cans of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
-5 cups of shredded kale
-A sprinkle of garlic powder
-Pinch of salt and pepper

Directions

1. Start heating the oil in a big pot on medium heat, then add the onion and garlic. Chop the carrot, and celery, and add it along with the sage. Cook it for 5-7 minutes.

2. Add everything else. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the kale starts tasting yummy, for about 20 minutes. I always keep tasting the soup and adding stuff until I like it. Not a bad way to cook.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Served with a piece of whole wheat toast and a spinach salad with croutons, yellow pepper, and tomatoes, I think this dinner was a success. I love having soup for dinner.

Are They Serious?

Greg and I couldn't decide if this sign is actually some kind of joke, or if it's for real. What do you think?

How many errors can you find? We counted three. Since this is a coffee shop, we were wondering if perhaps it's some kind of joke, as in: "Unless you've had your coffee, you will spell like this."

I saw this sign when we were on our way to Morris, IL for a farmers' market last week, and no, we didn't stop for coffee at Brewed Awakening's. I think I'm going to use this photo as a lesson starter for some of my intermediate ESL students next year. It'd be neat to see if they could find all of the mistakes. I am also going to submit this picture to the Apostrophe Catastrophe website, for the obvious reason.

Wordless Wednesday

Breakfast for Dinner

After a long day of playing, running, dancing, and swinging. . .

Nick gets a little hungry. Last week, I was inspired to make a special breakfast for our dinner. Greg has been watching a ton of Food Network, and after watching the cooks make scrambled eggs, I decided I was in the mood to try my own recipe. Plus, I forgot to defrost any meat or fish.

What you see on the plate is a dinner in three parts. First, a spinach salad with oranges, strawberries, and goat cheese. Then, a lemon blueberry cinnamon bran muffin. Finally, there are scrambled eggs with spinach, peppers, and a generous amount of goat cheese. Because in this world, you can never have too much goat cheese.

The muffins are a recipe from Rick Gallop's "Living the GI Diet." I've been trying (not very hard, but trying nonetheless) to incorporate more foods that are GI friendly. GI stands for Glycemic Index, and this diet was recommended to me by my doctor since I have trouble with insulin resistance and post-prandial hypoglycemia. The idea with this program is to balance good carbs and proteins, to eat lots of fiber from good carbs, and to avoid white flour, sugar, and too much fat. I try to stick to white whole wheat flour, and I add things like flax seed and wheat germ to recipes all the time. Nick and Greg don't even notice.

Anyway, I'm going to share with you the way I've been making my scrambled eggs. I think this is my favorite way ever to have eggs. It's also quicker and easier than making an omelet.

Goat Cheese Omelet with Spinach and Bell Pepper

1. Dice most of a bell pepper (orange or red) and place in the frying pan (on medium heat) with a tablespoon of olive oil, a few sprigs of fresh thyme, and a big bhandful of spinach, torn into small pieces. Heat until the peppers are mostly cooked. Put the vegetables aside.
2. Heat a big frying pan (medium high heat) and place about a tablespoon of unsalted butter on it to melt.
3. Take five or six eggs and beat. I use Costco's organic cage free brown eggs. They really do taste better.
4. Add in two to three tablespoons of whole milk and beat some more.
5. Take the butter from the pan and pour just a bit into the mixture. There should still be enough butter in the pan to coat it. Beat the egg mixture a little more.
6. Pour the eggs into the pan and use a rubber scraper or plastic spatula to scrape the mixture towards the center as it cooks. Keep scraping as the eggs cook.
7. When the eggs are mostly cooked, add in the vegetables and keep scraping and stirring.
8. Add crumbled goat cheese (to taste, I use a ton) and a bit of salt and pepper. Enjoy. Nick sure did.

Actually, looking at these pictures is making me hungry. Perhaps I'll do breakfast for dinner again tonight. . .

Fruits, Vegetables, and a Cream Puff WAY Too Big for a Little Man

Nearly every weekend, we take Nick to a farmers' market to get fresh fruits and vegetables, and whatever else we can find. The Downers Grove market is one we explored recently, and it is one of the bigger markets, with tons of vendors. Only four or five were actually selling produce, but there were lots of booths selling other edible stuff, like muffins from a gluten-free bakery. Nick has no allergies (that we know of), but he loved the samples muffins, and insisted on having one. Here you can see Nick deliberating over what kind of muffin he'd prefer. "Nana!" he finally announced, and then did not understand why the banana muffin did not magically appear in his hand. "Nana! Mama Nana Nana Na Na," Nick insisted as I paid and then tried to get the wrapper open.

"Mmm. Nana Mmm.," he declared happily as he shoved muffin pieces into his mouth. "Mmmm." We ended up with quite a haul: spinach, asparagus, orange tomatoes, peaches, green beans, free range steaks, and those little multicolored potatoes. Nick loved looking at the dogs and the people, but I think he liked the trains best. He's learned to say "choo-choo" when he sees a train, and since this farmers' market is right by the tracks, he got to see plenty of trains.

I used to live in Downers Grove, back when Greg and I first met, so it was kind of neat to go back and visit again. We went for lunch at an Irish restaurant called Ballydoyle, and I love the way the place is decorated. I feel bad for the waitresses, though, who have to wear very short plaid skirts. I think, to be fair, they should make their male bartenders and waiters wear equally short skirts.

 

The food was good, too. We had something called a boxty. Greg had one with chicken and spinach, and I had one with steak and vegetables. You can't get more irish than a boxty. It is a fried potato pancake, and inside is your meat, more potatoes, and vegetables. It is served with, get this, a side of mashed potatoes. Yup, potatoes with potatoes inside and a side of potatoes. The boxtys (boxties?) were pretty good, and it gave me a reason to give Greg my lecture on the Irish potato famine. I was a history minor as an undergraduate, and I love it when history comes up in real situations and becomes meaningful rather than just interesting. My husband rolls his eyes at me, but there are far worse hobbies I could have.

Here's the short version: the potato originates in South America, probably in the Andes mountains, and was taken to Spain in the 1570s. Importantly, only a few varieties of potato (ones with high crop yields) were grown in Europe. When the potato finally caught on as a nutritious staple food, it became often literally the only food eaten by many peasants in Ireland. I read somewhere that you can actually survive on only potatoes and milk, since you can get all of the vitamins necessary from just those two foods. I think it'd be a pretty bland diet, but it kept lots of Irish people alive. In fact, it wasn't uncommon for an Irishman to eat 14 pounds of potatoes in one day! Talk about taking the idea of monoculture to the limit. I wonder how many potatoes were in my boxty?

Lots of poor Irish families grew large because the potatoes kept them alive. In fact, the population of Ireland skyrocketed once they started growing this yummy tuber. Problem is, because only a few varieties of potato existed in Ireland, the plant hadn't had any time and diversity to evolve resistance to any kind of fungus. When potato blight (a fungus spread through the air that probably came off of a ship from South America) arrived, it spread across Ireland and killed all of the potatoes. I can't imagine how horrible that must've been for the families. Imagine that you wake up one morning, and your entire crop has turned black. Every potato you dig up has turned into black mush, and your family has nothing else to eat. The government of course, was very laissez-faire, and thus nearly a million people starved to death. All because of monoculture and selfishness.

Anyway, pardon my digression. Do you understand now why the potato is central to the Irish meal? Nick loved the boxty, anyway, but he loved even more what we ordered for dessert: Irish Cream Puffs. While I was trying to take this picture, he snuck his hand in to try to snatch one of them.

They were delicious and messy and just perfect after a lunch of potatoes with potatoes and a side of potatoes. Our son heartily approved.

Garden Update and a Dark, Handsome Visitor

I haven't posted in awhile as to the state of my garden. Thank goodness my plants seem to thrive on neglect, because I was gone for a few days in Chicago, and then it was too hot to go outside most of last week. I was outside on Friday, watering the plants (and Nick) with the hose, and I got some nice surprises. Let's start with the front porch. I planted way too many seeds, and thus I have extra tomato plants living here. I believe these are yellow pear tomatoes, or they will be when they're ripe. I bought both Roma and Yellow Pear tomato seeds from the seed saver's exchange, but most of the Roma tomatoes succumbed to either bugs or too much rain. Nature at work, I guess. I love this picture because of the angle. Greg's new camera rocks. You can see my sedum growing in the background, as well as my salvia.

Everything in the actual garden is bigger and greener, except for the carrots, most of which were eaten to the dirt by my bunny "friends." All of the empty spots in the garden were originally either carrots or spinach, and they disappeared due to rabbit reasons. I do have a few carrots left, at least for now.

I think you can see my peppers, basil, tomatoes, and broccoli from here. No flowers on the broccoli yet, but the tomatoes are doing well, and I have enough basil to last literally all year. Oh, and yes, I know that i planted the broccoli too close together. Live and learn. I'll do better next year. I just hope I'll get some broccoli this year. My peppers haven't made any peppers. Actually, I saw a baby one a few weeks ago, but it "mysteriously" disappeared. It was those bastard bunnies, I'm sure.

Here's what I think must be a Bushy Cucumber. Either that or it's some weird alien vegetable.

Oh, look at what's growing. It's. . . oh, it's junk leftover from the fireworks last week. Argh! I've picked up at least ten separate pieces of fireworks debris, and I'm sure there's more. I caught Nick playing with another one of these earlier today. Hopefully they're not harmful.

I love this picture because it catches the blackberries and the sunset at the same time. They're not ripe yet, but they are looking good. The raspberries, unfortunately, are not making raspberries. Just leaves. Sigh.

And here we have. . . (drumroll please) the first tomato of the season! It is a Roma, so at least one of the Roma tomato plants must've survived. It was small but delicious, and I hope that more are to come.

This evening, I had a dark, handsome visitor to my strawberry/catnip patch. He comes from next door and enjoys the ambiance of the mini-garden. I've let this part of my garden go, since the strawberries are done strawberrying, and I mainly just pluck catnip leaves for my cats, who are addicted. So this patch is filled with weeds and tons of flowering catnip. And one happy pussycat.