Autumnal squashes
A beautiful morning at the North Market and as usual there were new things – daffodil bulbs; a variety of pak choi at Toad Hill; amber raspberries at Rhoads and chiogga beets at Wayward farm. I bought eggs, zucchini, jonathan apples, plums, haricot verts, radishes, cilantro, jalapeños, corn and carrots. There were also lots of squashes, peppers and a wide variety of apples.
Rhoads baby bell peppers
Blue Jacket Dairy were there (apparently they had been there the previous week, I am not sure how I missed them. I bought some of their fantastic gretna grillin’ cheese (that Lisa used at her August dinner) and some chevre. I resisted the lemon quark but it was also delicious.
Amber raspberries
I also bought some Ciabatta rolls from Omega (great value at 65c for a fresh baked roll). Inspired by Nigel Slater’s Kitchen diaries (where he rapturously describes peaches with goat cheese), I made a ciabatta, peach and chevre sandwich with some arugula from the garden. It was pretty fantastic.
Peach Chevre and arugula sandwich
Oh, and I also bought an ice cream sandwich from Jeni’s – earl grey. Stunning but a little on the sweet side. The salty caramel one is still my favorite, although the covert CU Ugandan vanilla with brownie is pretty special. I noticed that Jeni’s had a new flavor heirloom peach – but somehow missed the olive oil with sea-salt pepitas. That I need to try!
Earl Grey ice cream sandwich
I haven’t been to Tai’s recently and was missing their schezwan green beans, so I made my own version with haricot verts from Elizabeth Telling Farm. I added ginger, which I am not sure that theirs has and I was a bit heavy handed with the tamari. It was different, but good.
Stir fried haricot verts
I was given extra cilantro and extra jalapeños (thank you Sandy and Margaret) at the market and that inspired me to make a salsa. I thought about trying a peach one but decided on corn and black bean, loosely based on one I saw at a North Market cookery demonstration last year. Theirs used bell peppers and I hadn’t bought any so I omitted that and I messed around with the proportions. It turned out milder than I expected.
Black bean and corn salsa
I finally used up all the apples I got from my friend’s windfall apples. Sadly it was the whole tree that wind-fell and not just the apples. Another result of hurricane Ike. I also made applesauce, but it is extremely unphotogenic, despite being delicious. I found this non-Canadian apple cake recipe on the blog nami-nami, an estonian food blog. I did add a touch of maple syrup, but as it was the end of my Vermont maple syrup, I don’t think that makes it Canadian. Next project is the paw paws!
Apple cake
Late lunch today at the Starliner diner in Hilliard with some of the Slow Food crowd. I wish it wasn’t so far away as it is a great place – eclectic decor, casual atmosphere and cuban, american diner and tex-mex fusion food. Some of us shared huevos rancheros, chiles rellenos, chiliquiles (Southwestern scramble) and some ripe plantains. From the mmms from the other end of the table it sounded like the cuban sandwich, vegetable sandwich and salad were good too. You can read a fuller review and some background on CMH Gourmand.
Chiles rellenos
The chef modeled his T shirt for us – Colleen was quite taken with it. If you want one (or you want to get Colleen a gift) you can get them here.
