Red Stick Farmer’s Market was on this weekend.
With gorgeous weather.
And gorgeous produce.
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| Green and yellow beans |
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| Eggplant |
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| Fall corn |
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| Green onion |
Lately my busy has been busy and I have not been to the market in 3-4 weeks. I allowed junky foods into my eating and consequently I felt sluggish, and my sinuses started cutting up. Food is medicine and eating well helps me feel well. Getting back to the farmer’s market felt like pressing a reset button.
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| Pumpkins! |
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| Radishes and eggplant |
Gorgeous right!
Everything looked good, but I controlled myself and picked up just a few things – including two new to me items – a savory microgreens mix and one-ball squash.
(One-ball squash – the name makes the 9-year old in me giggle.)
I’ve enjoyed microgreens in restaurants but wasn’t quite sure what they were. Microgreens are the itty bitty teeny weeny baby vegetables harvested shortly after the seeds sprout. They are flavor rich and nutrient dense. Research shows the antioxidant level in microgreens is much higher than the full-grown versions.
One of my favorite aspects of farmer’s markets is the ability to talk with and learn from farmers. Amy from
Westdome Nursery introduced me to microgreens. Here is a bit of her sharing.
As soon as I got home, I made a delicious microgreens salad. This particular savory mix contains broccoli, garnet mustard, kohlarbi, rainbow radish, kale, upland cress, arugula, pacchoi, and flax. The flavor is bright, sharp and spicy. For balance, I added cucumber and a homemade avocado lime dressing.
To make it more substantial, I topped with quinoa.
The next day, I prepared down home greens. (Semi down home.)
Check out my green cleaning song.
Kale n Mustard Greeeeens!
You know you want it. Uh!
You know you want it.
Sing it over and over to the Blurred Lines tune. Or not.
I mixed mustard greens picked up at the farmer’s market with some kale on hand.
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| Kale n mustard greens! |
Beautiful right!
I grew up on mustard greens and adore them. These greens differ from the greens of my childhood in that they contain no pig parts.
I washed the greens mix, removed the hard stems from the kale, and roughly chopped the mixture.
In a big pot, I sauteed 1/3 chopped sweet onion in a bit of canola oil.
When the onions turned translucent, I added the greens and wilted them down- similar to smothering cabbage.
When soft and reduced to almost nothing, (don’t you hate that about greens), I seasoned with kosher salt, red pepper flakes and a poured in good quality vegetable broth to barely cover.
The greens simmered for about 5 minutes; then I stirred in a touch of sugar to cut the bitterness.
That’s it. No fuss, no hours of stewing, and the flavor of the greens shine. My husband ate them with cornbread and said it was fantastic.
Tuesday, I hit the one-ball squash.
This variety was new to me. One-ball squash is sweeter than typical yellow squash. Looking it up on Pinterest, stuffed is a common preparation. Cooking Light had a recipe with a tomato, spinach and cheese based stuffing with bread crumbs that looked amazing. I’m eating vegan this week, and opted for a simple herbed saute.
The mixture of zucchini and one-ball squash was quickly cooked with olive oil, red onion, salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary.
It was wonderful with quinoa and a side of steamed broccoli with lemon.
At three days into this new week, I’m starting to feel like new. My energy is back; sinuses are clear, and my appetite has reset to fresh and fulfilling.
Food is a powerful tool for health, energy, mood and weight management.
What new nutritious foods have you tried lately?
