Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m glad you’re here!
I had so much fun last week with the market haul challenge that I decided to do another one this week.
Last week, I decided to do the challenge because I had limited time to shop at the farmer’s market, having only gotten back into town 10 minutes before the market closed. This week, I took a little more curated approach to the shopping, buying more according to a plan than to what I could find. I bought some things that are a little more luxurious, but also stuck to some tried and true recipes.
Between the grocery store and the farmer’s market, I spent $280.00 on food this week. This included staples, such as butter, milk, cheese and flour.
Here’s what I bought at the farmer’s market:
Beets, tomatoes (san marzano, globe varieties and cherry), 3 bunches of sweet basil, a bag of salad greens, 3 melons, six baskets of assorted berries, a big bag of spinach, 4 Yukon gold potatoes, 2 zucchinis, onions (red and yellow), garlic, bell peppers (orange, red and yellow), 1 bunch carrots, celery, sage, ginger and cucubers.
At the grocery store, I bought the following:
Butter, cheese, milk, cream, pine nuts, pasta, deli meat, 1.5 pounds ground veal, 1.5 pounds ground pork, 2 pounds ground chuck, halibut, and a very small chicken. I bought enough meat to make not only a meatloaf, but also ragu sauce to freeze and serve along with the tomato sauce I made last week. In the freezer, I still have a pork tenderloin and the shrimp I bought last week.
On Saturday, I roasted the beets and made a big load of pesto.
. For dinner, I steamed the halibut in parchment:
On Sunday, I made my famous meatloaf, plus roasted potatoes and sautéed spinach:
Also on Sunday, I made a load of ragu sauce, most of which I portioned out to store in the freezer for use later.
This sauce is a big, rich, hearty meat sauce that is wonderful on its own, but I particularly like it when mixed with basic tomato sauce and served over either pappardelle or rigatoni pasta, which is what I served for dinner on Monday, along with a green salad:
Both the ragu and the basic tomato sauce make about a ton, so when I make them, I always freeze them in portions for later. I find that about a quart of the tomato sauce and a couple of cups of the ragu sauce is plenty for a batch of pasta.
On Tuesday, I roasted up the little chicken (and I mean little–it was only about 2.5 pounds!) and served it with mashed potatoes and this lovely husk cherry, roasted beet, red onion and greens salad:
So–if you’re keeping score, I have now used up all the ground meat, most of the sweet basil, about half the greens, the chicken, one of the zucchinis, one of the bell peppers, about half the spinach, about 1/4 of the husk cherries and all of the potatoes. I have used up a couple of cartons of berries for breakfast in the morning, along with yogurt, granola and oatmeal, and had the melons with lunch or as a snack between meals.
Additionally, today, I am oven roasting the San Marzano tomatoes.
I still have the pork tenderloin and the shrimp in the freezer for use later in the week.
And just as a quick update on how my inner squirrel is feeling about the winter: Pretty good: I will make one more big load of pesto and once I put these oven-roasted tomatoes into the freezer, I think I might have room for one more load of them before my little freezer will run out of room. Look for a couple of future posts dedicated to living off my squirreled up freezer bounty 😉
Tune in tomorrow for more information on husk cherries!
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
