Farmers Market Dinners

Here are two dinners I made out almost exclusively out of stuff I bought at the market in the park accross the street. They aren't rocket science; just a bunch of sauteed vegetables really; both served with polenta two different ways.
Zucchini, tatsoi, yellow tomato, smoked eggplant, carrots, smoked onions, and polenta cakes coated in panko and baked. Thanks to Bridget for the photo styling! The limes were for drinks.


The corn didn't make the cut for this particular dish, but it was delicious. Precious precious sungold tomatoes, chantrelles and shitakes from ozark forest mushrooms, patty pan squash, kalamata olives, chinese broccoli, pumpkin blossoms stuffed with taleggio cheese on a bed of herbed polenta.

Slightly Out of Control Pumpkin Patch

One halloween pumpkin left to rot on side of house = yard full of pumpkins!

Chilled Spicy Cucumer and Avocado Soup

It is crazy hot out, so much so that the thermostat is ten degrees behind itself. So I had the girls over for dinner for some wine and summery food. Rebecca shown here accenting the soup with her awesome shirt.

2 cucumbers - peeled and seeded
2 avocados - chopped
3 cups water
2 tsp. green curry paste
1 serrano pepper - seeded
10 oz. coconut milk
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper to taste
cilantro and finely chopped green onion for garnish

Put each ingredient in blender in order until fully blended. Place soup in fridge and chill for at least an hour. Handiest to store it in a pitcher for serving ease.

Smoky Spicy Fava Bean Dip

I recently purchased a stove top smoker and I've been smoking everything I can get my hands on since. I've also got a cherry tomato and jalapeno plant that won't quit, so I have to keep making up recipes that include them. And I'm constantly looking for ways to reinvent hummus, so that's how this recipe came about.

6 cherry tomatoes - halved and smoked
1/2 yellow onion - smoked
3 smoked jalapenos de-stemmed and de-seeded
1 can fava beans - rinsed and drained
1 generous handful cilantro
2 T Braggs liquid aminos
1 t tumeric - just because this might be true

Salad Towers

After my gig at the farmer's market near my house, I bought a few treats for myself and incorporated them all into one dinner, the second course of which I forgot to photograph before I gobbled it. It was whole wheat rotini with fresh chanterelle mushrooms and a light garlic cream sauce. The first course was this salad:

1 large yellow patty pan squash - sliced in 1/8 inch slices and sauteed until lightly browned

1 smoked or carmelized onion sliced - i did smoked

1 homegrown tomato sliced

1 head bibb lettuce

bleu cheese - melted into more of a sauce if you like

black pepper and sea salt

balsamic vinegar (optional)

layer them in the following order - lettuce leaf, tomato slice, squash slice, cheese - then sprinkle the onions all around.