I am not a cook. At least, not until recently.

 

I have long avoided the kitchen. I used to live off eggs and grilled cheese before my husband came along. I developed a brilliant backstory of not cooking due to fears of poisoning myself and others. Note, my avoidance is likely more due to laziness than lack of skill that’s kept me off the grill. Whenever my parents, who are brilliant chefs, cooked, the sink would be stacked high of dishes; I hate doing dishes. Whenever I tried my hand at cooking, it seemed to take hours of prep work, hours that I could have been doing something more enjoyable. And so, that’s what I did – anything but cook.

And yet, here I am, one year into this $40 challenge, and last week I cooked a meal not once, not twice, but three times – two meals back to back. That is unprecedented. One meal a week, even, is unprecedented. Seriously, minds were blown. And not only that, it wasn’t just my husband and son I was cooking for, I had my parents over one night as well. What on earth has gotten into me?

The farmers’ market.

The farmers’ market is both exciting and challenging. I love food, I love exploring the world of food, I love learning about foods, and sampling new-to-me foods. The only thing I didn’t enjoy, until recently, was preparing it.

And that’s where the challenge comes to play.

I am competitive as heck. I compete for faster times when running, I compete for the best grades when studying, I compete for optimal health, and when a journalist, I competed for the best-written articles.

What can I say, I love accolades.

The world of cooking is full of accolades.

When I am able to take a food and transform it into something that brings joy not only to my stomach but to others as well – whoa! The smiles it brings to their faces, the verbal amazement that I, the non-cook, could achieve such culinary excellence, the going back for second and third helpings, the sheer bliss of discovering a new food at my hands – it’s like running a marathon and having the loudest cheer crew on the sidelines enthusiastically championing your name.

It doesn’t always come out perfect, sometimes there are criticisms, sometimes they plain don’t like what you put before them, and that sucks. But those times when you present them with a vegetable that they otherwise wouldn’t eat, like say my husband and summer squash, and they wolf it down and start in on a second serving before you’ve even had a chance to swallow your first bite, that is a 10.0 gold medal victory!

I am not saying I am going to become a regular, every day chef, nope, that’s not in the cards for me. But, it seems, this farmers’ market thing is slowly turning me into a part-time cook.

Whoa. Mind blown.

Market Loot

Zaklan Heritage Farm

• 2 bunches of collard greens $6
• 1 bunch pizzo mustard greens $3

Ripple Creek Organic Farm

• 2 basil plants $5
• 1 bunch garlic scapes $3

Fresh Quality Produce

• 1 bag English snap peas $5

Mandair Farms

• 1 small container strawberries $5
• 1 summer squash $1

Harvest Direct Farms

• 1 small container cherries $6

Solecito Salsas

• 1 container mild (with a kick) salsa verde $6

Total spent: $40

The three meals this week included a quiche that featured the green garlic I had leftover from the previous week’s market, Italian stuffed collard greens that I discovered a couple weeks ago and had to share with my parents, along with a rhubarb crisp dessert using rhubarb from the previous week, and finally a chicken apple sage dish with roasted potatoes and garlic scapes. I also made Mexican sunny-side up eggs for lunch that featured the salsa verde (oh my gosh, so good) scapes and squash using a recipe that Solecito gave me at the market. Links for the recipes below.

Of note, garlic scapes have pretty much been featured in every meal for the past two weeks whether roasted, or fresh in a salad, or sauteed in butter. I love the garlic essence they ooze with every crunch. I never knew garlic scapes existed prior to being introduced to them at the New West Farmer’s Market last year.

Also noteworthy, the English snap peas. I had a choice between sugar snap peas or English snap peas. The difference was the flavour and the fact you could eat the pods with the sugar snap peas, but not the English. Given my self-proclaimed laziness you might be surprised at my opting for the English over the sugar, but funnily the thing I liked about the English snap peas is the time it took to open the pods. I was less likely to eat a whole bag in two minutes like I probably could with the sugar snap peas. Plus, opening those pods and having peas fly everywhere was both fun for me and my son, who, by the way, LOVES them. Veggie win!

Links for this week’s recipes:

• Quiche (this is a go-to quiche recipe that I have altered many times depending on the ingredients I have on hand and it has never failed me)
• Italian Stuffed Collard Greens
• Chicken with Apples and Sage (This one was NOT rejoiced by my family)
• Vegetable Tian
• Rhubarb Crisp
• Mexican Sunny-Side Up Eggs

 

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Originally published on local blog Tenth to the Fraser, The Farmers Market Challenge, written by Katie Bartel (and the odd guest star) seeks to challenge the notice that you can’t get hardly anything for $40 at the farmers market. Each market, Katie explores what’s the best deal, and discovers food she’s never heard of.

by Katie Bartel

We made it a meal when it should have been an appetizer.

Last week’s market presented us with a bit of a conundrum. There were plenty of salad greens to be had, and normally that would be top of our shopping list, but because I still had greens leftover from the previous week, and had also acquired salad greens from two farms that I intern at, my fridge imposed a strict greens spending freeze.

My husband got to the market first, and right away he spotted market-newcomer Hibiscus Foods and their Jamaican patties. We had a busy week planned and he remarked it would be an easy meal. We could pair it with a healthy green salad, he suggested.

I was on the fence. I looked at the patties and right away I was jet set back to my Grade 9 year when all I ate were pizza pockets, so many that I vowed upon graduation of that year never to consume another such product. But Hibiscus Foods was a new vendor, and I was intrigued.

Upon sampling, I soon learned Jamaican patties are not the commercialized over-cheesed pizza pockets; they are savoury, meat-filled pastries with loads of heat. Hibiscus Foods had two varieties to sample: curry chicken and beef. I tried the chicken first; my mouth was on fire. I  tried the beef; it didn’t seem to have as much heat. My husband did the opposite and had the opposite effect.

“Jamaicans don’t know how to cook without spice,” laughed Brian Chin, who took over the family business three years ago and perfected his patties with scotch bonnet peppers to give them that authentic Jamaican flare.

I got a box of four and cooked all four for a dinner for two. It was TOO much. Way too much. We got through one each and packed the rest up to be a conversation piece for my husband’s coworkers.

They became an appetizer after all.

Market Loot

Hibiscus Foods

• 4-pack Jamaican patties $15

Greendale Herb and Vine

• 4 garlic scapes $1

Zaklan Heritage Farm

• 1 bunch green garlic $3
• 4 kohlrabis $3
• 1 bunch Swiss chard $2.50**

Fresh Quality Produce

• Large container (2 lb) strawberries $10
• 2 zucchinis $1.50
• 1 bag potatoes ($1.99 lb) $1.60*
• 7 stalks rhubarb (1.99 lb) $3.10*

Total spent: $40

* Note the asterisks above: Each represent savings. Fresh Quality Produce was one of my last stops of the shop, and it was within one hour of closing. The vendor knew I had a hard budget to work with. The strawberries and zucchini were a priority at a fixed price. The potatoes and rhubarb were a luxury, and were priced by pound. My first attempt at the potatoes came under budget. I filled a little more and was 10 cents over budget. Rather than send me back to empty the bag, they gave it to me for $1.50. Same with the rhubarb. I initially went up with four stalks and was way under my $2.50 allowable expenditure. I was advised to grab three or four more; I came back with three and was 60 cents over budget. No questions, they gave them to me at the price I needed.

I love our market vendors!!!

** Savings of the day number 2 came from Zaklan Heritage Farm. Usually the farm sells Swiss chard for $3 a bunch, but last week it was the deal of the week at $2.50. That brings us to a total savings of $1.20 – score!

And what did I do with all that chard? Well, they were the feature of our market-fresh, market meal of the week: Shrimp and Chard Quinoa. So light. So tasty. So refreshingly summery.

When I approached Greendale Herb and Vine, I saw a long list of suggestions for cooking with garlic scapes posted right next to the scapes. Right away I was interested; it took the guess work, and the how-to research out of the equation. Doug didn’t stop there. As soon as he recognized I was interested, he told me to check out his Facebook page where he had posted a how-to video on roasting scapes with asparagus, which we just so happened to have in our crisper.

Now, let me tell you, this video was not only informative, it was hilarious – scapes flying everywhere! I loved it. And the end result on my end were beautifully roasted, super garlic-tasting asparagus and potatoes. Yum. Yum.

I have yet to work with garlic onions, but am contemplating a quiche, and the rhubarb, which I will likely be featuring in a weekend dessert, possibly a crisp or upside down cake. I shall keep you all posted.

Happy Farmers Market Shopping!

 

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Originally published on local blog Tenth to the Fraser, The Farmers Market Challenge, written by Katie Bartel (and the odd guest star) seeks to challenge the notice that you can’t get hardly anything for $40 at the farmers market. Each market, Katie explores what’s the best deal, and discovers food she’s never heard of.

by Katie Bartel

A new week, a new discovery.

Collard Greens: I had never heard of them, I had never eaten them, but they were green, and I was intrigued. They were one of my first purchases last week and I knew they would be featured somehow in the resurgence of the market-fresh market meal.

My husband was working all weekend and I decided to take on dinner duty; this rarely happens. I fired up Pinterest and searched out collard recipes. I found recipes for stir fries, collards and grits (apparently it’s a Southern thing), dips, soups and sautées. But the most frequent recipes I found were for stuffed collard greens. Stuffed with rice. Stuffed with meat. Stuffed with beans and lentils. Pretty much anything you wanted could go into those greens.

For my family, I chose an Italian-based recipe that had chicken sausage, quinoa, onion, garlic, basil and mozzarella cheese, baked in a bed of marinara sauce and topped with parmesan.

The original recipe can be found here. Instead of brown rice, I used cooked quinoa, and because I didn’t have Italian chicken sausage, I added dried oregano to the filling.

It was an easy recipe to follow: I blanched the large leaves, boiling them in a pot of water for three minutes, then in a sink of a cold water immediately after to make them more pliable for folding. I stuffed and wrapped them like you would any old wrap. And put them atop a layer of marinara sauce and then in the oven with foil on top for 35 minutes. Finally, I plated them and grated parmesan over top.

I’m not going to lie, it looked pretty fancy, like restaurant fancy. I was somewhat concerned my husband and son would turn their noses at first bite, as they can be somewhat picky when it comes to their produce choices. I don’t know if it was the excitement of me making the meal, but both enthusiastically dug their forks right in.

The taste was fantastic. Every bite we were breaking it down. Every bite we had exclamations of how this is a recipe we could confidently serve our friends, and have them believing so much work and effort went into its creation, when really there wasn’t much at all.

I paired the meal with a simple salad made of the various greens I acquired at the market: Arugula. Mustard greens. Fava tips. Spring mix. This salad was so flavourful, it did not require dressing.

The beverage of choice was a cold glass of Steel and Oak’s new flagship Roselle brew. I was sure I tasted hints of apricot, but upon further research (re: Steel and Oak’s website) I discovered the taste wasn’t apricot but was a mix of banana and raspberry combined with hibiscus, rosehips, a touch of spice, and floral notes.

Finally, our dessert was a bowl of super sweet, super local, super strawberries.

Let’s break the meal down quantitatively. The collard greens cost $4 and gave our family of three a full dinner, plus two single lunches, so individually they cost 0.80 cents per meal. We had all the ingredients on hand for the filling except for the chicken sausage ($3.50) and the marinara sauce ($4) that we got from Donald’s Market. We shared a beer, which cost $3.25 per can. For our greens, I spent a total of $15 at the market. This will last us approximately 10 days give or take with three full-sized salads eaten per day. That means the two-serving salad cost about 0.50 cents each. The container of strawberries was $6 and we ate about half amounting to $3 worth. Add that up and our super fancy, super tasty, market-fresh meal cost us a whopping $5.43 each.

Not too shabby.

Market Loot

Zaklan Heritage Farm

• 1 bag arugula $4
• 1 bunch ruby streaks mustard greens $3
• 1 bag fava tips $4
• 6 large-leaf collard greens $3
• 1 bunch radishes $2.50

Country Village Market – Mandair Farms

• 1 carton strawberries $6

Ossome Acres

• 1 bag of 3 baby lettuce heads $4

Steel and Oak

• 4-pack Roselle wheat ale $13

Total spent: $39.50

For more market-fresh meal ideas check out my Pinterest Farmers’ Market Recipes board.

Originally published on local blog Tenth to the Fraser, The Farmers Market Challenge, written by Katie Bartel (and the odd guest star) seeks to challenge the notice that you can’t get hardly anything for $40 at the farmers market. Each market, Katie explores what’s the best deal, and discovers food she’s never heard of.