The Weekend Homemaker

The chilly, wet days and long, dark nights are calling me back into the kitchen.  Although I have a small winter garden, my desire for crisp salads has been replaced by a hankering for all things warm and savoury.

Last Saturday was the last full-day farmer's market of the season and next Saturday will be the final market of the year.  With my looming lack of access to local veggies, I am debating on reinstating my weekly, mostly-local, food box delivery.  I have a love-hate relationship with the lack of choice involved with food box programs.  I'm forced to try new things, which is good, but I also have a low turnip tolerance.  

In any case, my last trip to the market resulted in a batch of goodies:

Apples, more apples, carrots, almond brioche,
 Red Pepper Jelly and Zucchini Pickles.  

Which resulted in a chicken casserole:

And a huge amount of applesauce:

I also made parmesan coated yam fries, which had no relationship to my market buys, but were delicious nonetheless!

From Market to Table

A long weekend . . . . ahhhhh . . .

Sleeping in, walks along the ocean, travel book reading and lots of cooking. Perfect.

(Except for the part where my Moka Pot died. That was sad.)

I started off my weekend with a trip to the farmer's market. The weather was a bit dreary, but it held off long enough for me to get this week's necessities.

Eggs, Mixed Greens, Sourdough bread, Baby Monkey Bread and a Pain au Chocolat.

The Monkey Bread was sooooooo good. I may be buying 37 next week.

After the farmer's market, I stopped at my new favourite spot, the Fairfield Market for a few other necessities: my favourite yogurt, a yam, a tomato, onions, asparagus, sunflower sprouts and bacon. Since I started eating meat again about 5 months ago, I have been pretty careful about how much meat I eat. I allow myself one chicken per month, bacon once per month and "red" meat once per month. I am not trying to be restrictive, but I do want to be mindful about my meat consumption. In any case, I don't always take the red meat option, but I never forgo the bacon!

The bacon, tomato, sourdough bread, eggs and some local brie were cooked up into delicious lunches on Saturday and Sunday.

Mmmm.

For dinners, I roasted the asparagus and yam until crispy and tossed with the greens, cucumber, sunflower sprouts, goat cheese and some homemade croutons.

I am so glad to be back in salad season!

From Market to Table

Now that the weather is cooler (and wetter), I am back in soup mode. I don't remember seasonal eating as a child, or at least my mother never mentioned a desire to match meals to the season, but now I rarely eat soup between May and October.

I also rarely eat tomatoes outside of the late summer or fall unless they are canned. I bought this pile of beautiful a couple of weekends ago at the farmer's market.

I oven rosted them to make the base for one of my favourite soups, Caramelized Red Onion Soup, from the ever-popular Rebar Cookbook.

This soup reminds me very much of French Onion soup, but without a beef stock base. Instead, rosemary roasted tomatoes give depth to the flavour.

I top each bowl of soup with parmesan toasts. And, despite the fact that this soup makes my apartment smell like onions for days, it is worth all of the effort.

I thought that this batch would last a couple of months once frozen (it makes about 10 servings), but I went through it in two weeks. It is delicious!

From Market to Table

I started off my Saturday with my weekly trip to the farmer's market. I brought home tomatoes, carrots, basil, hazelnut whole wheat bread, zucchini and a chocolate brioche.

Next, I ate the brioche. Mmmmm. Then, I chopped up the zucchini and tomatoes (plus some onion).

I then layered the tomatoes, zucchini and onions along with basil, parmesan, olive oil and salt and pepper in a ceramic pie plate. And I added another layer. And another.

And then I baked it.

That night, I stirred my summer casserole in with some pasta.

The next day, I had it for lunch with froccacia and goat cheese.

Good eats!