New West Farmers Market

You are here: Home / Archives for meal planning

Farmers Market Challenge: Week 13

September 28, 2016 By newwestfarmers

Last week’s market day may have been the first day of fall, but my brain was not letting go of summer. With the sun shining, warming my skin every time it peeked around the clouds, I could not shake summer from the mind.

Neither could my shopping list.

Roma tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro, and hot pepper filled the definites.

You see, I had recently been gifted Thug Kitchen, a vegetarian cookbook, with, ahem, rather racy language. I love cookbooks, I love looking at the pictures (pictures are key), and I love setting a new cooking challenge for the chef of the house, which is usually not me.

But perusing through the pages it was me who was drawn to the mid-summer, pico de gallo style salsa– everything in it reminded me of summer; everything in it reminded me of market freshness; everything in it screamed I could make it.

fm13salsa
Mid-summer salsa courtesy of Thug Kitchen.

I was dubious at how it would turn out at first, I mean, I’ve been all sorts of loving Muy Rico’s pico de gallo all summer long. What if I didn’t pick out the most perfect tomatoes; what if I didn’t chop the onion the right way; what if I didn’t use enough garlic; what if I made it too spicy, or not spicy enough? Yes folks, these are the questions that dominate my brain when taking over the meal-making reins. Baking, which I love to do, is exact, cooking is subjective – too much room for interpretation.

But here’s the thing, this recipe was crazy, crazy, crazy easy. I made it with a four-year-old running all around me and didn’t get frustrated once. Chop a few veg, don’t burn your fingers or eyes with the hot pepper, mix it together, throw it in the fridge, and BAM, done!

The unique touch: a 20 cent Macedonia hot pepper. Gemma at Zaklan Heritage Farms told me it was on the milder scale of hot peppers, but I was not taking any chances, I’ve been burned by the heat of jalapenos one too many times before!
The unique touch: a 20 cent Macedonia hot pepper. Gemma at Zaklan Heritage Farms told me it was on the milder scale of hot peppers, but I was not taking any chances, I’ve been burned by the heat of jalapenos one too many times before!

Some might associate easy with lacking – don’t do it!

I know I’ve said it before, but wow, the power of ultimate freshness – grabbing those ingredients right off the market tables, ingredients that have been picked fresh that day, and plopping them into your mouth hours later – is HUGE! So fresh. So flavourful. So marketlicious!

All but two of the ingredients (salt and lime) were acquired at the market.

We decided to appropriately pair the salsa with our vegetarian Mexican stuffed peppers (featuring market tomatoes, corn, and cilantro) that we discovered awhile back through this market-buying challenge. I made what I thought was a huge batch of salsa; it said it was good for 4-6 servings. We ate ALL of it. We had leftover fillings for the stuffed peppers, but no leftover salsa. We had leftover tomatoes, cilantro, onion, and hot pepper, but no leftover salsa.

The kitchen was most definitely calling for more!

Mid-summer salsa paired with end-of-summer stuffed peppers.
Mid-summer salsa paired with end-of-summer stuffed peppers.

This week’s loot:

Zaklan Heritage Farm:

  • ~ 2lbs roma tomatoes: $2 per pound
  • 1 red onion: $2.50 per pound
  • 2 sweet peppers: $2
  • 2 bags mustard greens: $5
  • 1 head red lettuce: $3
  • 1 Macedonia hot pepper: $0.20

Ripple Creek Farm:

  • 1 bunch cilantro: $2
  • 2 Georgian Fire garlic bulbs: $3.50
  • 1 zucchini: $2.50
  • 1 delicata squash: $3.50

Bose and Sons Family Farm:

  • 2 corn: $1

Nutrigreens:

  • 1 bag microgreens: $5
  • 1 bag green beans: $2

Jam Shack Preservery

  • 1 jar pear and pineapple ginger jam: $5

Total spent was $41.40. We had 90 cents to spend from the previous week, leaving us in the red for 50 cents.

You may have noticed I don’t have exact dollar amounts for the produce acquired at Zaklan Heritage Farms; I admittedly got excited, and distracted, by the Macedonia hot pepper, which I had never seen before!

Loot of the week
Loot of the week

Other market-lovely meals of the week included paella that featured the green beans, onion, garlic, and peppers from the market; weekend frittatas that also used peppers, zucchini, and onion; and a whole thwack of lunch and dinner salads.

My husband and son drooled happily over their morning (and snack) toasts thick with the pineapple and pear with ginger jam from Jam Shack Preservery.

We had hoped to get a loaf of chocolate bread from A Bread Affair, but sadly it wasn’t on the shelves due to quality control. It will again be on the list for this week with fingers crossed.

The expenditure wasn’t all summer, though. With a few of our definites for the week dashed, we had some unexpected money to spend to fill up the budget. On a whim, I grabbed this delicata squash off the Ripple Creek Eco Farm table; I have no idea what to do with it.

What oh what to do with a delicata squash???
What oh what to do with a delicata squash???

Please help – I am looking for any and all suggestions! With the dwindling days of the summer market, just one more left to go (don’t forget, the winter market starts November 5 in Uptown New West), any items you’ll be missing?

The complete series. 

Filed Under: Eats and Drinks, Uncategorized Tagged With: eating local, frugal living, meal planning, what can you get for $40

Farmers Market Challenge: Week 12

September 21, 2016 By newwestfarmers

Ask and you shall receive.

Two weeks ago there were at least two, possibly three market vendors displaying large, beautifully green and white fennel bulbs, this week, there were none. I was about to settle into panic mode, I was frantically stalking table after table looking for the feathery fronds.

I did NOT want to veer from this week’s plan.

With desperation in my voice, I asked Noella Oss of Ossome Acres if she had any, knowing full well there were none on her tables.

A winking smile spread across her face.

“We have one, but it’s old, from last week,” she said.

She opened up a plastic bin from behind the tent and pulled out a giant bulb. The fronds weren’t the luscious green of the week before, rather a light green, bordering on brown in spots. But the white bulb was large and thick and that’s exactly what I needed.

I told her my plans.

She told me the bulb would suit them perfectly.

Even better at the week-old, discounted price she gave!

And with that, the first cioppino of the season was born.

Ingredients
Ingredients

For cioppino, I usually use the Bon Appetit recipe as it has never steered me wrong. But this time I got a little adventurous and veered from the word-for-word recipe. While I kept to the base, I changed things up a bit to make it more market-fresh.

Because cioppino is usually a cold-weather meal, the veggie content has never been market-fresh. It’s always been canned tomatoes, shipped in fennel, onions, and seafood too. But with Saturday’s forecast calling for heavy rain, I thought it a perfect opportunity to experiment with my cioppino.

Instead of canned tomatoes, I used fresh roma tomatoes that I crushed in the blender; my onion, garlic and fennel were also fresh and local. The major seafood component, pacific cod, was acquired from Ron “the fish guy” at Wild Westcoast Seafoods.

In recipes past, I’ve used halibut for the white fish, but halibut is crazy expensive right now. Ron steered us towards the pacific cod (“chunkies”) that is similar to halibut, albeit a bit chewier, and at a fraction of the cost.

Technically the crusty bread wasn’t acquired at the market, but we did pick the loaf up from Bread Affair at Granville Island, which also has a booth at the market, so it, too, had a market connection.

Honestly, I don’t know if the taste was any better, but I do know it wasn’t worse. I love my cioppino. I’ve loved it ever since my first recollection of it when in San Francisco years ago, and this batch did not disappoint. Every slurp was a savoury adventure of glorious goodness.

Another market score!

Cioppino
Cioppino

This week’s loot:

Wild Westcoast Seafoods:

  • Pacific cod: $8

Ossome Acres:

  • 6 German butter potatoes: $2.30
  • 1 bag of dragon-tongue beans: $2.10
  • 1 fennel: $2.25

Zaklan Heritage Farm:

  • 1 onion: $0.70
  • 4 sweet peppers: $4.65
  • 2 mustard greens: $5
  • 1 garlic bulb: $1.80
  • 4 roma tomatoes: $2.28

Harvest Direct Farms:

  • 5 ambrosia apples: $5

Muy Rico:

  • 1 container pico de gallo: $5

Total spent was $39.10, leaving 90 cents to spend on next week’s $40 budget.

Last week Aaron Oss encouraged me to take a chomp out of one of his purple and white dragon tongue beans. It was crisp, it was juicy, and by golly that colour tugged at my pretty little taste buds.

Beans
Beans

I had hoped to throw the beans into a salad, but got so bogged down with my first week of physics, I didn’t end up using them beyond mixing them into a stir fry and eating them raw with hummus. Both of which were fine, but I wanted to really showcase their uniqueness. So for this week, I tracked down a salad recipe that called for fingerling potatoes, which I switched out for German butter potatoes.

I baked the potatoes, made my own viniagrette, blanched the beans, which were supposed to change from their pretty spots to green, but in the end only partially changed, mixed it all together.

Wow!

Every bite was an explosion of succulent flavour. So tasty. So good. So going to be making again.

Dragon Tongue Salad (recipe from:
Dragon Tongue Salad Recipe

Can you guess what I’m making next week?

I’m on the hunt for tomatoes, onion, garlic, jalapeño, cilantro and salt. It’s something already offered at the market, but something I’m going to try my hand at making market-fresh, homemade.

What are you on the hunt for?

Filed Under: Eats and Drinks, Uncategorized Tagged With: eating healthy, frugal living, meal planning, on a budget

Farmers Market Challenge: The Greens are Greener at the Market

August 15, 2016 By newwestfarmers

Let’s talk about salads.

I eat a LOT of salads. And not because it’s the trendy thing to do, or because it’s the healthy thing to do, I genuinely like the taste of greens and raw veggies. I eat salads for lunch, I eat salads for dinner, and sometimes I even have salads for breakfast.

This isn’t new. I’ve been loving on salads for years. But what is new is the level of super tasty greatness that market greens have added.

Seriously, the salads I’m creating these days are so crazy rich with flavour, I’ve stopped adding dressing. Salads before the market always had balsamic vinegar or oil and vinegar. Market salads get a squirt of fresh lemon, or parmesan shavings, or nothing at all.

They are that good.

What’s the difference?

Before the market, my greens were either solely spinach, or a mixed container variety. I have no idea when they were picked, how they were picked, where they were picked. I have no idea how long they were in transport, how long they were in a cooler or freezer, or how long they were on the floor before I grabbed them.

At the market, my greens have either been picked that morning, or at the latest, the day prior. It is the ultimate freshness.

On top of that, I’m getting varieties I’ve never had before. I’m mixing my straight up lettuce greens, with kale, and spicy mustard greens, and red spiky lettuces, and microgreens, and purslane, and rainbow chard. On average, I’ve got four or five different greens in my salads at once – plus all the fresh veggies and herbs, and pretty much anything else I can find in my fridge too!

It’s like a Whole Foods salad at a fraction of the cost!

Market salads: so rich in flavour, they don’t need dressing!
Market salads: so rich in flavour, they don’t need dressing!

This week’s loot:
• 1 bag of ruby streaks mustard greens: $3 (Zaklan Heritage Farms)
• 1 head of green leaf lettuce: $1 (Bose & Sons Family Farm)
• 1 green pepper: $1 (Fresh Quality Produce Ltd.)
• 1 bunch rainbow chard: $3 (Ossome Acres)
• 2 cucumbers: $2.50 (Yarrow Ecovillage)
• 6 eggs: $3.25 (Rockweld Farm)
• 1 block of smoked cheddar cheese: $8 (Golden Ears Cheesecrafters)
• 1 bottle of 2014 pinot gris: $20 (Blind Tiger Vineyards)

In total we spent $41.75, but had $1 leftover from the previous week, leaving us over budget by 75 cents.

This week’s market meal was centred on the celebration of me completing a chemistry course I had dreaded/avoided for 1.5 years. It was a hard slog this summer, and pass or fail, I deserved a reward. As such, the brunt of our expenditure went to the bottle of pinot gris from Blind Tiger Vineyards, an organic-certified vintner located in the Okanagan.

To compliment the wine, my husband cooked up a peasant-style French meal of simple omelettes with basil, green onion stems, and sharp cheddar, and a side of boiled nugget potatoes drizzled in browned butter.

Market Meal: a French-inspired peasant’s meal of omelettes and boiled potatoes.
Market Meal: a French-inspired peasant’s meal of omelettes and boiled potatoes.

The only thing missing from the meal was we should have been eating it on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean in the south of France.

Ahhh, dreams…

The great thing about eggs, they’re a surefire win with the toddler age.
The great thing about eggs, they’re a surefire win with the toddler age.

The week in meals:

• 3 breakfast smoothies – with rainbow chard
• 1 breakfast portobello and egg “sandwich” – with ruby streaks, purslane, smoked cheddar
• 1 breakfast frittata – with rainbow chard, Italian onion, smoked cheddar
• 4 full-plate lunch salads – with green lettuce, rainbow chard, kale (from last week), pizzo mustard greens (from last week), purslane (from last week), cilantro (from last week), ruby streaks, cucumber, onion stems (from last week), and Italian onions (from last week).
• 1 full-plate dinner salad
• 6 half-plate dinner salads
• 2 1/4-plate dinner salads
• 2 servings grilled green pepper
• 2.5 servings shrimp quinoa – with rainbow chard stems and leaves
• 3 servings omelette – with 6 eggs, basil (from last week), green onion stems (from last week), smoked cheddar
• 2.5 servings boiled potatoes (from last week)

The lesson learned this week: get to the market early.

In week’s past, my husband and I have arrived at the market around 3:30, shortly after it opens. Parking is ample, atmosphere is relaxed, and booths are stocked full. This week, however, we arrived closer to 5. Several vendors had sold out of items we wanted.

Farmers’ markets aren’t supermarkets; they don’t have an endless supply of product in storage; they’re going to run out. If you snooze, well, you lose.

Duly noted.

Filed Under: Blog, Buying local, Featured, Uncategorized Tagged With: blog series, buy local, Farmers, farmers market, Katie Bartel, meal planning, salads

Farmers Market Challenge: Best Laid Plans

August 10, 2016 By newwestfarmers

Going into market day, I try to plan as much as possible. I research the website, price out as much as I can, and plan our meals and shopping list accordingly. We only have $40 to spend, I want to make sure we’re spending it wisely, getting everything we need, and hopefully a couple extras on the list too.

But sometimes, plans just don’t go according to plan.

Because the products at the farmers’ market are so reliant on weather and crops, you’re not guaranteed the same stuff week in and week out. What you loved last week may not be there the next week. Something new may be stacking those tables instead – throwing your plan completely off kilter.

And that’s the adventure of it.

For us, purslane was the culprit this week.

It wasn’t on my list, and before last Thursday, it wasn’t even in my vocabulary. But when I was under the Zaklan Heritage Farm tent picking up my 2 for $5 greens, and saw those pretty leaves of purslane, I asked owner Gemma McNeil for details.

It’s a fast-growing succulent that’s super high in Omega-3 fatty acids and contains vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. It’s grown all over the world, and adds a lemony flavour to your salads.

She had me at Omega-3.

FM5purslane
Purslane

You know how sometimes when you discover something you’ve never heard of before, suddenly you’re hearing about it everywhere? This weekend my son and I went into the valley for a family birthday party. I packed along a lunch salad, and when my mom saw the purslane atop all the greens, she told me the old farm garden was full of it.

She had never tasted it until she took a bite of my salad. She liked it!

A few hours later we were in Chilliwack, and my great nephew’s grandma was giving me a bag full of freshly picked zucchini, cucumber, carrots, and pears (I don’t turn my nose up at free food). She told me she’d normally have beans ready to go too, but they got sacrificed in her effort to blow out the “annoying” purslane.

Yes, folks, although super healthy, and, in my opinion, super tasty, many farmers look at it more as a weed than a crop. Lucky for us, though, a few vendors at Royal City Farmers’ Market treat it as the latter.

Yet another market-great discovery.

This week’s loot:

  • 4 red peppers: $5.90
  • 1 zucchini: $1
  • 1 lb. green beans: $3
  • 1 bag each of kale and pizzo mustard greens: 2 for $5
  • 1 head red-leaf lettuce: $3
  • 1 oz. basil: $1
  • 1 bunch purslane: $2
  • 1 bunch cilantro: $2
  • 2 cucumbers: $2.40
  • 1 bunch Italian onions: $2.70
  • 3 corn on the cobs: $3
  • 1 handful each of mint and rosemary: free
  • 1 bag tortilla chips: $3
  • 1 container pico de gallo: $5
This week’s greens: pizzo, purslane, kale, and red-leaf lettuce.
This week’s greens: pizzo, purslane, kale, and red-leaf lettuce.

Every week we try to incorporate at least one full market meal into our meal plan. This week, we did stuffed Mexican peppers – no meat – with a side of fresh tortilla chips and pico de gallo (made that morning!!!), and a mix of market greens. It was a bit out of our comfort zone, as we are very much meat eaters in this house. I had been wanting to try to make stuffed peppers for quite sometime, but all the recipes I saw were filled with ground beef, and while we are meat eaters, we’re not so much beef eaters. So when I saw a recipe with quinoa and black beans, and saw that we could incorporate several ingredients from the market, and we had all others on hand, I thought it was perfect.

Red peppers: Greendale Herb and Vine; Stuffing: Roasted corn: Country Village Market; Italian onion stems: Yarrow EcoVillage; Cilantro: Zaklan Heritage Farm. Tortilla chips and pico de gallo: Muy Rico. Mixed greens: Zaklan Heritage Farm
Red peppers: Greendale Herb and Vine; Stuffing: Roasted corn: Country Village Market; Italian onion stems: Yarrow EcoVillage; Cilantro: Zaklan Heritage Farm. Tortilla chips and pico de gallo: Muy Rico. Mixed greens: Zaklan Heritage Farm

The recipe can be found at http://www.thegardengrazer.com/2015/10/mexican-quinoa-stuffed-peppers.html

We altered the recipe a bit. Instead of baking the peppers in the oven, we grilled them on the barbecue. We also grilled the corn, something my husband, the chef of the house, had been wanting to experiment with for quite some time. Both added a really nice, smoky flavour to the meal. And instead of the nutritional yeast, we opted for shaved parmesan. We made 4 peppers, and had leftover filling for two lunch salads.

Not only smoky, the sweetness really came through on the grilled corn too.
Not only smoky, the sweetness really came through on the grilled corn too.

In total, we spent $39, which means we’ve got an extra dollar to spend next week.

Happy shopping!

Filed Under: Blog, Buying local, Featured, Recipes Tagged With: farmers market, food challenge, Katie Bartel, meal planning, New Westminster, Shop Local

Farmers Market Challenge: The Taste of Microgreens

July 18, 2016 By newwestfarmers

“Daddy, why are you putting dead flowers onto mommy’s salad???”

Oh child, those aren’t dead flowers, nope, those are microgreens, and you better be liking them because they’re a new must-have staple in our market-buying groceries. (Note: Microgreens do not look like dead flowers; this was the observation of a three-year-old.)

When I walked past the Nutrigreens tent at last week’s market, I looked at my list and sure enough microgreens were there, but only on the maybe side. That meant that only after we got our necessities for the week purchased could we splurge on the maybes.

We are working with a budget after all; we’ve got to stick to the plan.

The list of definites and maybes.
The list of definites and maybes.

The maybes are things we don’t necessarily need but that may intrigue us, something we have yet to try, something that may only benefit one of us, not all three, or something that’s more a treat than a necessity.

Microgreens are like the premies of baby greens, seedlings loaded with mega nutrients. I’d seen them at the market before, but had never tried them. At $5 for a 300-gram container, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to commit; I thought I could find better value in veggies elsewhere.

But I got to chatting with the vendor, he told me if I got the plastic container instead of a bag, he could stuff more in there, and if I relocated them to a tupperware container at home with a damp cloth (I used paper towel) on both the bottom and top of the container they’d stay fresh – lasting up to 12-14 days without going bad.

He handed me a flower.

Market goers, I know you already know this, but for those of you new to market buying, this is a thing – we eat the produce before we buy.

Sampling: it’s a brilliant selling feature!
Sampling: it’s a brilliant selling feature!

The flavour that bursted in my mouth with that tiny sample, it was something I don’t think I’ve ever tasted in my greens before. So loud and prominent, like a kid jumping around in my mouth shouting “Look at me! Look at me!” Even my husband, who is a bit more reserved with his salad explorations, was wowed by the flavour kick – putting it atop our salads and into his tuna sandwiches for an added twist.

However, based on the amount we liked them, there’s no way they were going to last 12 days; by week’s end, there’s was enough for maybe two salads left.

This week’s loot:

Aged havarti cheese: $11
Half dozen eggs: $3
Microgreens: $5
Head of red spiky leafed lettuce: $3
2 yellow zucchinis: $1.50
1 red cabbage: $2.80
Bunch of green onions: $2.50
1 lb fava beans: $3.00
4 carrots: $3.50
Cluster of rainbow chard: $3.00
1 giant cookie: $2.00

The loot bag: veggies, eggs, cheese, oh my!
The loot bag: veggies, eggs, cheese, oh my!

Just like last week, we had a plan, but unfortunately a few things needed to be altered on the fly. When we’d heard Vale Farms was coming to town, we’d hoped to acquire lamb, but discovered lamb wouldn’t be available until September. A quick brainstorming session had us purchasing a half dozen eggs and the award-winning aged havarti from Golden Ears Cheese for a quiche-inspired market meal.

160712marketquiche

Market ingredients: Quiche = 4 eggs, 2-cups cheese, ~3/4 cup green onions, ~1 cup rainbow chard; Salad = red lettuce, red cabbage, ruby streaks mustard greens from 2 markets ago, microgreens, green onions, scapes from 3-4 markets ago, and broccoli from 2 markets ago.

A huge thumbs up from all three of us!

Carrots were on the necessity side this week. I wanted to compare between the bulk bags of carrots we usually get and the freshly pulled from the ground carrots offered at the market. As suspected, the market carrots did not disappoint. As soon as I took that first bite, it was a throwback to my childhood years growing up on the family farm, which after 30 years was sold last year. It’s a taste you don’t get in bulk: not just crunchy, but earthy and moist too.

Unfortunately, though, at $3.50 for a bunch of four, though bulky, the flavour was not enough to justify the expense.

Carrots are the easy, go-to vegetable for both my son and I. I, alone, eat at least two, sometimes three or more a day. Four carrots barely gets us through a day, let alone a week.

Sadly, the carrots will be more of a treat than a staple.

Tally for the week:
• 4 full-plate lunch salads
• 2 lunch side salads
• 7 dinner 1/2 plate salads
• 2 dinners with grilled zucchini and green beans
• 1 breakfast smoothie (with greens)
• 3 microgreen-infused tuna sandwiches
• 1 dinner with sautéd green beans (from last week’s loot)
• 1 dinner with quiche (plus 2 servings left over)
• 2 snacks of carrots
• 1 dessert cookie split between two happy boys

With the weather being somewhat crummy this week, we ate more dinner salads and stove-prepared meals than grilled vegetables, which meant that by Monday, we were running low on our greens, and still had quite a bit of zucchini left. I was able to off-set the greens with a small harvest of arugula and spinach from our patio pallet garden. We still have green beans left over from last week, and scapes from three markets ago that still look and taste fantastic. In fact, I think they’re getting even more garlicy with time.

Salads: I’ve always had mad salad-making skill, but these days, they’re becoming more and more Picasso-esque in both beauty and flavour!
Salads: I’ve always had mad salad-making skill, but these days, they’re becoming more and more Picasso-esque in both beauty and flavour!

This week we went 30 cents over budget. After all the necessities and a couple maybes were purchased, we had $1.70 remaining. My husband’s eyes drifted to the Artisan Bakery stand.

“Surely, we could splurge,” he suggested. “It could be a treat,” he offered.

After all, farmers’ markets aren’t just about the veggies, you know!

Filed Under: Blog, Buying local, Recipes Tagged With: blog series, budget, buy local, farmers market, Katie Bartel, meal planning, outside the box

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Search

Supported By

Newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

We’re Social

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

@newwestfarmers #newwestfarmers

Land Acknowledgement

Our market is grateful to operate on the unceded land of the Qayqayt, Kwikwetlem, and other Halkomelem speaking Peoples. We acknowledge that colonialism has made invisible their histories and connections to the land. We acknowledge the incredible gift this land is to our market and BC Agriculture. We commit to the ongoing work of decolonization and allyship.

Copyright © 2025 New West Farmers Market