Farmer's market veggies

Thanks to a hot tip from a friend of ours, I found out that my little town has a farmer's market. Doubleplus fun, they meet each week on my off day! I had to investigate. It's a pretty small gig. They had probably about a dozen tables there if that, but the selection there was great. Somebody had live tomato plants for sale (I'll probably buy some next week if they've got heirloom varieties maybe?). Another booth was actually a neighbor of mine who keeps bees, and he sold his honey there. I bought a pound of his stuff. There was a Chilton county peach farmer, but they sold out of peaches by the time I got there. I bought some weird sour plums from them and they're kind of awesome. Another guy had a few nice things. I got a pound of his Texas Sweet onions that I'll make some Les Halles style French Onion soup later this week. He also had some red potatoes that looked good, and threw in some homemade pecan brittle for me.

Best news was that Snow's Bend Farms had a booth too. I've blogged about these guys, mainly sad that I can't get a spot in their CSA program :( but they seriously have some amazing produce. Their produce frequently ends up featured on the menus of a lot of really nice restaurants. There's a reason; it's amazing stuff. Their arugula is toothsome and thick. Their butternut squash is rich and sweet. I bought rainbow chard, broccoli, and green onion from them. Never cooked with chard before, so I wanted to try it. Decided to cook all three in a big catch-all asian noodle soup thingy.


The green onions, mind you, were enormous. I kind of wish I got pics of the veg before I chopped it all up, but I can do that later. The green onions might as well have been small leeks, they were that thick. The chard cooked tender with ease, and gave a nice slight bitterness to the soup. The broccoli however was the best part. I've never eaten broccoli that good before. I could eat pounds of it. Before the soup, I steamed some and had it with rice and edamame. I was picking the broccoli out and eating it before everything else. I normally hate steamed veg, but that stuff stood out so far on its own that it blew my mind.

Okay, enough praise singing about Snow's Bend. They've got great veggies. Such a love/hate thing, and I wish I could get on their CSA more than ever!

Also at the market, there was this really awesome family making authentic Mexican food. I've somehow gotten this far in life without eating a tamale before. Three down the hatch in short order with a Mexican coke, and I really hope they're at the market next week that's for sure!