Hello! Welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m glad you’ve joined me today!
Mr. Stone Soup and I were traveling last week and I had only 10 minutes to shop at the farmer’s market on Saturday when we got home. I decided to make this week’s posts a farmer’s market haul challenge and see what I could make out of this haul, plus a minimal run to the grocery store to get proteins and a few staples. I ended up spending about $210.00 total on the food.
Here’s what I got at the farmer’s market for about $60.00:
3 bunches of very fresh sweet basil
6 large, ripe tomatoes
2 zucchinis and 1 yellow squash
3 bell peppers of assorted colors
1 small eggplant
1 basket of cherry tomatoes
1 bag of salad greens
4 pears
2 baskets of blackberries and 1 basket of raspberries
1 small watermelon
4 large Yukon gold potatoes
At home, I had onions (yellow and red), garlic, a small red cabbage, 3 peaches, a few grapes and a kabocha squash sitting on the counter.
At the grocery store, I bought a very small chicken, about 1.5 pounds of fresh salmon, some deli-meat for sandwiches, burrata cheese and some shrimp, along with some staples like milk, butter, eggs and yogurt.
First thing I did was make a big load of pesto–I froze most of it in small jars, and kept a jar out for use this week. I made seared salmon, pesto pasta and seared zucchini on Sunday night for dinner. On Monday, I made a gorgeous vegetarian shepherd’s pie, plus a salad for dinner; Tuesday, I made roast chicken and squash boats and Wednesday evening, I made this delicious tomato tart with cornmeal crust:
With it, I served some of the leftover roast chicken and this beauty of a salad with watermelon, tomatoes, red onions and salad greens:
After Wednesday evening’s dinner, I still had most of those tomatoes, some salad greens, some cherry tomatoes, an orange bell pepper, a yellow squash, a potato, the pears, some of the grapes, the kabocha squash and the cabbage left. Also, I still have a little of the roasted chicken meat plus the carcass, plus the shrimp, some ground lamb and a pork tenderloin in the freezer from an earlier shopping trip.
Since I still had most of the tomatoes left from the week’s grocery run, I decided the best thing to do with them was to make a big load of basic tomato sauce–this would use up the tomatoes and feed my inner squirrel need to put food away for the winter. I checked in the dry good pantry and found everything I needed for the basic tomato sauce–the only substitution I had to make was to use a red onion instead of a yellow onion–red onions are a little sweeter, but it still should be fine. This project yielded 5 quart bags of basic tomato sauce that I’ll stash in the freezer for later.
Thursday night, I used the chicken carcass and the rest of the chicken to make chicken soup, plus a salad and sourdough bread:
I used the potato and the yellow squash (plus the remainder of a bag of mixed vegetables I found in the freezer) for the soup. I used up some of the salad greens, 1/2 the orange bell pepper and the rest of the cherry tomatoes for the salad.
After Thursday evening’s dinner and sauce-making, I now have a little bit of the salad greens, although some of it is starting to get kinda limp, 1/2 an orange bell pepper, the pears, some of the grapes, the kabocha squash and the cabbage left. Plus, I still have the shrimp, a pound of ground lamb and a pork tenderloin in the freezer (the lamb and the tenderloin being from an earlier shopping trip).
For Friday’s dinner, I’m thinking lamb-stuffed kabocha and a salad with whatever greens can be salvaged, pears and pecans…and maybe a pear crumble or cobbler for dessert…but tune in tomorrow and see for sure!
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
