Saturday morning we got up and headed up to the Avenue for a special
farmer's market. On normal Saturday's our local community market is head at our community center. But this past Saturday, the community market turns into a street fair on our humble town's main drag. We left with a typical bounty of goods. I was hoping to get enough goods to make a full dinner at home and boy oh boy were we lucky!
We started with some freshly picked beets. Peeled and quartered, I roasted them at 400 with a pinch of salt and a dab of butter for an hour. They were tender and good. But I didn't plan things right, so the rest of dinner wasn't ready. I left the beets in the oven, with the heat turned off, for about another 20 minutes. That was just enough time for the beets to develop a beautiful caramelized crust on the bottom beets. Chewy candy!
We grabbed a nice bag of mixed greens for a salad. I washed them three times and let them sit in a towel lined bowl until dinner time. Then I pulled them out and started to tear the leaves into pieces for serving. Oops, found a big nasty eating one of the leaves. NO PESTICIDES my friends. At least it wasn't half a nasty attached to the leaf. I made a dressing out of fresh herbs from the garden--thyme, basil, oregano and rosemary. Chopped with shallot, a squeeze of lemon, salt & pepper. I finished the dressing off with a splash of chardonnay vinegar and avocado oil. Adjust for taste--little more salt and pepper--good to go. Tart and herby!
This season our market is super duper lucky. We have a local sausage maker now coming and selling their goods--
Simply Sausage. We had a sample and bought two packs. A "Christmas Breakfast" sausage with some warm spices added in. And these little heaven snausages! Pork with tarragon, shallot and thyme. So delightful. Especially with the salad dressing I made. Perfect match to the salad. I put the sausages in a pan with about 1/2 cup of water, brought to a heavy simmer and covered for about 5-10 minutes. This cooks the sausages most of the way through. I removed the cover and drizzled a little olive oil on. Now let them sear for a few minutes per side, shaking the pan as you go. Golden brown and awesome all around. Oops, correction...tarragon, shallots and parsley...doesn't matter...so good!
The remants of the salad bowl. The greens didn't need anything else to make the salad. Well, that's a lie, we had a French baguette, the beets and the sausages. Perfect dinner. Only thing missing was the forthought to put of bottle of vino blanco into the chill box. Oops.
We started with some freshly picked beets. Peeled and quartered, I roasted them at 400 with a pinch of salt and a dab of butter for an hour. They were tender and good. But I didn't plan things right, so the rest of dinner wasn't ready. I left the beets in the oven, with the heat turned off, for about another 20 minutes. That was just enough time for the beets to develop a beautiful caramelized crust on the bottom beets. Chewy candy!
We grabbed a nice bag of mixed greens for a salad. I washed them three times and let them sit in a towel lined bowl until dinner time. Then I pulled them out and started to tear the leaves into pieces for serving. Oops, found a big nasty eating one of the leaves. NO PESTICIDES my friends. At least it wasn't half a nasty attached to the leaf. I made a dressing out of fresh herbs from the garden--thyme, basil, oregano and rosemary. Chopped with shallot, a squeeze of lemon, salt & pepper. I finished the dressing off with a splash of chardonnay vinegar and avocado oil. Adjust for taste--little more salt and pepper--good to go. Tart and herby!
This season our market is super duper lucky. We have a local sausage maker now coming and selling their goods--Simply Sausage. We had a sample and bought two packs. A "Christmas Breakfast" sausage with some warm spices added in. And these little heaven snausages! Pork with tarragon, shallot and thyme. So delightful. Especially with the salad dressing I made. Perfect match to the salad. I put the sausages in a pan with about 1/2 cup of water, brought to a heavy simmer and covered for about 5-10 minutes. This cooks the sausages most of the way through. I removed the cover and drizzled a little olive oil on. Now let them sear for a few minutes per side, shaking the pan as you go. Golden brown and awesome all around. Oops, correction...tarragon, shallots and parsley...doesn't matter...so good!
The remants of the salad bowl. The greens didn't need anything else to make the salad. Well, that's a lie, we had a French baguette, the beets and the sausages. Perfect dinner. Only thing missing was the forthought to put of bottle of vino blanco into the chill box. Oops.
1 comment:
So very good! It was rather amazing that we had a salad that was just greens - but they were really great. I had the leftovers for lunch today, and they held up in the fridge just fine.
Sausages were tasty - in retrospect I would have loved to try them with a few types of mustard!
And beets...ah, beets. Once my mortal enemy, now my sweet friend. One of these days I'll learn to do something with the beet greens as well.
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