Farmers Market Friday

I consider myself quite lucky - I live 30 minutes from the mountains/foothills where there are apple trees, pear trees, pumpkins, mountain blackberries and 30 minutes from the hot hot valley where heirloom tomatoes, squash, peaches, plums, pluots and strawberries thrive. So the farmers markets here, although not huge, are really great. On Friday mornings there is one just down the street, so I get up, get little A fed and dressed, throw on a baseball hat and sunglasses, grab my $20 and go!

 

We wander around, try the fruits, talk to the vendors and I sip on my coffee. Today I realized that we are becoming regulars. The vendors recognize little A and give me some of my fruit free since I "buy so much from them". I buy the usual peaches, plums, apricots, tomatoes, berries and summer squash. Some days I get lucky and the vendors have fresh eggs or bread. I try to take advantage of what is in season, so during the summer I make a lot of things with stone fruit and berries - since these fruits in any other season are just not even close to being as sweet. To be honest, I would rather buy the local fruit from the farmers market than the organic fruit from a chain grocery store.

I decided that I need to buy one "new" fruit or veggie each week to try out in a recipe. I tried pluots this year for the first time and both me and little A loved them. So, today I grabbed a bunch fresh beets - complete with dirt - for the bargain price of $1. I plan on making the sweet beet cookies from weelicious.com - they look way to intriguing not to try!

What are your favorite farmers market finds?