San Francisco

Just back from a whirlwind weekend in San Francisco for Nike Women’s Marathon (I did the half). Running aside, my real goal was to eat well.

The biggest mind shift? Realizing that the California produce is local. And oh, what they can count as local.

The Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market was fantastic, not just for its produce but for eating. I could spend days there without having to leave.

The fresh produce was excellent, and vendors kept plying us with snack-size bites of fruit.

And the dried fruit and nuts… I ate a scary amount of dried fruit this weekend. Plums, peaches, cherries… all super soft and so, so flavourful.

I had a few too many pastries, and coffee. (Check out the awesome personal-drip system they’ve got going on.)

Basically, the market was endless. We were full before we realized we should have made some more calculated eating decisions.

We also had some great restaurant meals. Brunch at Spork was a hit – those are the veggie Mission Eggs, which almost satisfied me post-race.

And on one of our walks, we spotted a lime tree. Oh, California.

 

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A trip to the market

Finally got up to the Green Barns market this weekend to pick up a few groceries. In my bag: a dozen chicken eggs, half a dozen duck eggs, some local pasta, a hot cross bun and – most important – the first cheese bought with my Monforte vouchers! I picked up some soft goat cheese and a cheddar. If you haven’t signed up for a cheese CSA share yet, there’s still time – click the link to find out more, or ask at the market.

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One-pot local pasta

I’ve gotten back into pasta again after discovering the yummy local stuff sold at the Green Barn Market – I buy the rotini, divide it into three zip-locs and throw it in the freezer for when I want a quick meal. But instead of doing anything fancy, I’ve been throwing together one-pot what’s-in-the-fridge meals. It’s quick and easy and all you really want in the summer.

Boiling isn’t my favourite way to cook vegetables because you lose nutrients in the water, but it’s worth the sacrifice for how easy this is.

Basically, decide on your ingredients and figure out how long each will take to cook, boil a pot of water and add ingredients from longest cooking time to shortest. Tonight, my dish consisted of (in cooking order):

• asparagus stems (Plan B)
• asparagus tips (they cook faster)
• pasta (Green Barn)
• frozen edamame (not local)
• beet greens (stems first, then leaves)*
• green onions (Plan B)

Once everything’s cooked, drain it and then mix in some sauce-like ingredients: pesto if you have it, or tomato sauce, or tonight I did a combo of cream, chevre (local, from Nancy’s Cheese), lemon juice and pepper. I topped the dish with pine nuts (also not local) and dinner was done in 10 minutes! Take that, Kraft Dinner.

* I have a ton of beets growing in the community garden – I went a little crazy planting them. I ate a couple of harvests of baby beet greens when I first thinned them, and while I was watering tonight I pulled out another beet to see how big they were getting. It was about the size of a ping-pong ball and I washed it and sliced it and ate it raw, then used the stems and leaves for dinner.

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The Stop’s Green Barn Market at Wychwood Barns

I finally made it this morning to the (relatively) new farmers’ market at the gorgeous new Wychwood Barns complex at Christie and St. Clair. I’m in love – not only is the space amazing, but I bought lots of yummy food until I ran out of money. (Although everyone I saw took credit cards.)

My take? Two kinds of cheese (goat and sheep),

a loaf of olive bread, locally made seed crackers,

local organic pasta,

local organic salad mix and flour and a dozen eggs. And a sweet potato cupcake (“Golden Brownie”) and cup of coffee for breakfast.

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