Still beautifully sunny in Columbus but we had our first frost this weekend and this was the last week for some of the North Market farmers including the Rhoads’. I will be sad not to see them each week. Brent said that they had picked everything off the vines they could before the frost. They probably would have raspberries next week but they are so scattered that it is hardly economical to pick them. Toad Hill expects to be at the market until Thanksgiving, so there will still be some stalls. There was still a lot of color this week with sunflowers, lots of peppers, squashes and pumpkins and a huge variety of apples. Also lots of greens – kale, chard, bok choi and mustard greens. My new vegetable this week was jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes).
Pumpkin with hull-less seeds from Toad Hill
I bought two types of radishes this week (the addiction continues)- french breakfast from Wayward seeds and the purple plum radishes from Amy Frost, the lovely lady who I have been buying things from regularly all summer (but whose name I only found out this week). A busy woman she runs In Good Taste Catering and A Tasteful Garden.
Another lovely lady is Toni, who works for the Rhoades’ and who remembered to save me 2 pints of raspberries. I was so excited that I couldn’t help giving her a hug. Brent said that he had reminded her three times that morning – that’s what I call service and why I love shopping at the market.
freezing raspberries
Other purchases this week included delicata squash, Mr ugly man tomatoes (Rhoads), garlic (Toad Hill), candy onions (from the greener grocer and recommended by Alana – apparently they are so sweet you can eat them like apples), braeburn apples, peppers, broccoli (Toad Hill), baby zucchini (Rhoads), fennel (Wayward seeds) and some dried horticulture beans from the greener grocer. They are red and white like the christmas lima beans I had earlier in the summer.
Blue Jacket Dairy had a new flavor of Quark this week – pumpkin. It tastes like pumpkin cheesecake. I also bought some of their herb garden chevre.
Taking heed from Mr Rhoads I picked everything I could and covered the rest of the lettuce. There are still a lot of green tomatoes, but you can see I picked a lot and also chives, arugula, two types of basil, mint and parsley. I have really loved having my own lettuce. It is amazing how much you get from one pack of seeds, how much money I must have saved and how easy it is. Also it is so delicate and you can just pick the amount you need. I used the basil to make pesto (mostly for the freezer – so you leave out the cheese when you freeze it and add it before use when you thaw it).
Spagetti squash with tomato sauce (a combination of Mr Ugly tomatoes and cherry tomatoes from the garden), parmesan and baby zucchini halved and grilled with homemade pesto. The rest of the tomato sauce went into the freezer.
Roasted vegetables: a mix of beets, sweet potato, cippolini onions, kabocha squash and jerusalem artichokes.
