Return to the Farmers Market

I finally made it to a Santa Monica farmer's market after several months of absence. It was nice to simply walk around, enjoy the fresh air and check out all the seasonal produce. Looks like we are in the height of stone fruit season and my favorite, tomato season is beginning. I picked up some peaches for one of my favorite summer salads, a grilled peach, burrata, arugula salad to go with some slow cooked short ribs (Mario Batali's Brasato Al Barolo recipe) over fresh rigatoni from Bay Cities.

My favorite summer salad: grilled peaches, burrata, arugula with a little drizzled balsamic and olive oil. Optional additions: grilled radicchio, speck

Some beautifully marbled short ribs from Whole Foods

Nothing beats fresh made pasta. A worthwhile splurge

January Farmers Market

80 degrees and sunny in Santa Monica. Unfortunately the produce isn't that inspiring, stands are looking emptier than usual. Waning of the winter squash season, still some root vegetables and winter greens here and there. All we picked up were some kale, red butter lettuce and cilantro.

November Farmers Market

I didn't actually buy anything as I'm headed out of town soon but I took a quick stroll around the Santa Monica Wednesday farmer's market today as I was at the office, right next door. All sorts of varieties of winter squash: delicata, acorn, butternut, kabocha and spaghetti, and lots of dark leafy greens. The market was quite busy as I think quite a few people were getting a head start on Thanksgiving shopping. A little sad to be missing Thanksgiving this year, but I'll be having lots of beef noodle soup, stinky tofu and nasi goreng (any guesses on where I'm going? I guess its pretty obvious).

October Farmer's Market Report: Looks like Fall

It may not feel like fall with temperatures in Santa Monica in the 80's but at least it looked like fall at the Wednesday Santa Monica farmer's market. I'm a little sad that all the beautiful colorful summer produce like tomatoes and peppers are waning, but there's definitely something festive about all the pumpkins and squash; time to get out the Halloween decorations! We kept it simple and just bought salad greens (next to Mark Peel of Campanile who was putting in a large order), beets, radishes, Japanese celery stems, avocados, and the last of the good organic grapes. I'm in a bit of a cooking rut with the change of seasons, I need some inspiration!

Apples are starting to proliferate

Saw persimmons at several stands

What IS that ginormous squash and how in the world do you cook it?

Learned our lessons a few years ago, can't buy pumpkins too early

Not Just Soup

3 lbs combination of roma tomatoes and Early Girl tomatoes from the farmer's market

Despite the still warm fall weather, I couldn't wait to make Smitten Kitchen's roasted tomato soup with broiled cheddar as soon as I saw the mouthwatering pictures and while tomatoes are still abundant and in season. I love grilled cheese and tomato soup, as well as french onion soups, so I knew I was going to like this dish. There's nothing better than a big bowl of warm soup covered by plenty of bubbly melted cheese and soft broth soaked bread. I pretty much followed the Smitten Kitchen recipe exactly with the exception of substituting vegan Daiya cheddar cheese on top, using half a sprig of rosemary and basil (removing before serving) instead of thyme, and using an immersion blender in a Le Creuset pot as opposed to the food processor. It's a little time consuming as you have to roast the tomatoes, then make the soup on the stove, finish it in the oven for another 20 minutes, and wait for the piping hot bowls to cool, but its worth it, although in the winter time I will probably use organic Cream of Tomato soup from Trader Joe's for a really quick meal. It's really filling with all the bread and cheese and makes for a great lunch or quick dinner. I now have french onion soup crocks on my wishlist!

The Perfect Tomato Sauce

Beautiful vine ripened tomatoes from the farmer's markets

 Tomatoes are currently at their peak season right now and I've been finding ways to eat tomatoes for every meal; fresh heirloom tomatoes on toast with mayo for breakfast and lunch, cherry tomatoes from the garden in salads, sliced tomatoes on pizza. No better time to try Scarpetta's famous spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce recipe that I found on Serious Eats. I've heard about Scarpetta's spaghetti for so many years now from so many sources, I think first from an episode of Anthony Bourdain's show. Just a few simple ingredients: fresh tomatoes and basil from the farmer's market, garlic, olive oil, butter, parmigiano reggiano, red chili flakes and salt. The sauce was perfect, so fresh and simple but also with richness, with each deep flavor standing on its own. The sauce is very "round" tasting and smooth without any acidity; almost sweet with the natural freshness of the tomatoes. I think the key is the olive oil infused with garlic and basil as well as the finishing pat of butter at the end. I've never actually been to Scarpetta, so I'll have to go check it out to see how it compares. Takes a little time to cook, with the blanching of the tomatoes in order to peel them, and the cooking of the sauce for at least 45 minutes, but it is totally worth it. Plus it fills the whole house with the intoxicating aroma of garlic, basil, and olive oil. I've already made another batch of sauce, it was so good. I used perciatelli from DeCecco, a hollow spaghetti, like bucatini, which was perfect with the delicious sauce. Recipe served two, without any side dishes / appetizers. Could serve 4-6 as a pasta course.

Core 2 lbs of tomatoes and score the bottoms with an "x". Blanche in boiling water for about 30 seconds until they start to split, like on the right, and put them in ice water. Peel the tomatoes, cut in half and remove the seeds and juice and set aside the seeds and juice

Heat up a couple of TB of olive oil over medium heat and put the tomatoes in, seasoning with salt and some chili flakes, stirring occasionally

After about 5 minutes, smash the tomatoes with a potato masher. Continue stirring and mashing the tomatoes, simmering for about 45 minutes

While the tomatoes are cooking, heat up over medium low heat 1/4 cup of olive oil, with 6 cloves of garlic and 2 stems of basil, and some red chili flakes. Continue stirring, turning the heat to low when the oil starts bubbling. Let the garlic and basil cook for about 30 mins. When the garlic starts lightly browning, remove from heat for a few minutes and strain into the tomato sauce

Cook about 3/4 lbs of pasta short of al dente. Transfer the pasta to the saucepan with sauce with a little pasta water and toss until the pasta is al dente. Remove from heat and add about 10 leaves of fresh chiffonade basil, freshly grated parmesan and 1 TB of butter, toss, and serve

You can see the hollow perciatelli in this pic

Perfect with a bottle of 2009 Curran Grenache Blanc

Farmer's Market Vegetarian Summer Pizzas

Mexican Pizza, a new favorite

Wednesday night was K.'s favorite night, pizza night! Pizzas are a nice way to highlight seasonal vegetables as the baking really brings out the sweetness in summer vegetables and we had a ton fresh from the morning's farmer's market. Usually I used canned tomatoes as the base for the pizza sauce but since we are at the height of tomato season, I used freshly sliced early girl tomatoes and even heirloom tomatoes (a little sacrilegious not to eat them fresh on their own). Since we had an abundance of wonderful vegetables, I kept the pizzas almost completely vegan with the exception of a little avocado sour cream topping. The first pizza was a new experiment for us; a Mexican inspired pizza based off of this recipe from the kitchn with chipotle black bean spread, fresh summer corn, early girl sliced tomatoes, yellow peppers, red onions, green onions, chorizo seitan, Daiya vegan cheddar cheese and some spinach and arugula, topped with a cool smooth dollop of avocado, cilantro, lime sour cream. It was one of my favorite pizzas ever, like a big taco pizza with lots of big flavors from all the vegetables and spices and heartiness from the black beans and chorizo seitan. The second pizza was a summer squash, eggplant, red onion, garlic and heirloom tomato pizza topped with Daiya vegan cheddar cheese and spinach and arugula. It was also very good, definitely tasted like summer with all the sweet juicy vegetables.

Mexican Pizza Recipe (inspired by thekitchn recipe, but vegan style and with a lot more fresh vegetables):

• Stretch out the pizza dough, made a day ahead of time, preheat oven to 525 degrees with a pizza stone
• To prep: mince 1 chipotle pepper, shave corn off of two cobs, cut 1 yellow pepper into strips, thinly slice 1/2 a red onion, chop a handful of cilantro, slice 3-4 small tomatoes, chop 3 green onions
• Microwave a 16 oz can of black beans in a bowl for 30 seconds. Add the minced chipotle, 1/2 tsp of chili powder, 1/4 tsp of cumin, 1/4 tsp of salt and 1 TB of olive oil and smash everything together with the back of a fork
• Spread a spoonful of adobo sauce from the chipotle pepper over the dough, spoon on the black bean paste
• Layer the tomatoes, corn, red onions, yellow peppers, on top of the black bean paste and then crumble 1/2 package of Upton Chorizo Seitan and shredded Daiya cheddar cheese all over the pizza
• Bake for about 16 minutes, add the green onions and handful of arugula and spinach and bake for another minute
• While the pizza is baking, mash 1/2 avocado with juice from 1/2 a lime, minced cilantro and 2 TB of sour cream together to form a smooth creamy topping
• Serve with the avocado cream on the side or on top

Just a few of the vegetables that went into the pizza. Happy to say that almost all colors of vegetables were represented for a healthy meal with all sorts of good vitamins

Can't say enough about the heirloom tomatoes in season now

Mexican pizza before the oven

Mexican pizza after (but before the last layer of arugula and spinach for more greens). Still vegan at this point.

Summer squash, eggplant, peppers, red onions (all first roasted) and heirloom tomato pizza (before the cheese). Tried to fit as many in season summer vegetables on the pizza as possible

Summer vegetable pizza. A bit of a juicy mess from all the vegetables, but the freshness of the produce really shone. Totally vegan pizza.

Curran 2009 Grenache rose: a light, but crisp rose that paired well with the pizzas

The Simplicity of Summer

My idea of a perfect summer breakfast: two pieces of whole wheat toast topped with 1/4 of a mashed ripe avocado and a thick slice of organic heirloom tomato each with a little basil, salt, chili flakes and good olive oil. The heirloom tomatoes right now are simply wonderful: soft and tender without being mushy or mealy, and very sweet and juicy with very low acid. These tomatoes are fresh from the market and have never been the fridge. The creamy richness of the avocado mixed with the ripe juicy sweet tomato with the freshness of the basil on top of warm nutty and crispy toast is just heavenly.

Alternative: for an even simpler version, use light mayonnaise instead of avocados. I was out of avocados so I just had the mayo version for lunch, so wonderful! I want to eat it for dinner as well! It's really all about the tomato. I want to go out and buy more heirlooms now.

Late August Farmer's Market Report: Time for Tomatoes

I love this time of year at the farmer's market, all the produce is so vibrant and colorful and stands appear to be overflowing with beautiful produce. Yesterday's Wednesday farmer's market in Santa Monica was the perfect reflection of all that is good out there. We finally bought our first heirloom tomatoes and I'm happy to say that they were well worth the wait. I also bought a lot of beautiful early girl and heirloom tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, summer squash (season starting to wane) along with some fresh herbs, salad greens and avocados. Peppers and tomatoes really are overflowing right now. Corn has been really sweet the last few weeks, melons are really starting to get big and grapes are starting to really come into season as well, although I've been having a hard time finding organic grapes at the stands. I've been buying my organic grapes from the Co-op the last few weeks; they've been really good and relatively reasonable at $2.99 / lb. Cooking is fun this time of year; it's all about letting the ingredients shine. I love cooking on Wednesdays with the produce just picked up in the morning from the farmer's market. These ingredients have never even seen a refrigerator, at least not mine, and I like to think that they came straight from the farm to the market to my plate. I made two excellent vegetarian / vegan pizzas last night with a lot of the produce that I bought in the morning (post to come later).

The heirloom tomatoes at Tutti Frutti are excellent

This stand always has the most beautiful varieties of pepper, eggplants and summer squash (same stand as first photo)

The various melons smell so intoxicatingly sweet as you walk by the stand

You can always tell the serious shoppers (ie the chefs) from the rest of us amateurs by their dollies loaded with crates

Mid-August Farmer's Market Report and Meal

OT: still a big fan of the 35mm f/1.8g lens. I've been using it exclusively for the last couple of weeks; still need practice, but colors and textures are so sharp, I never touch up any images ever.

Today was one of those days of running around where I hit up pretty much all the markets in Santa Monica: the farmer's market, Co-op, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, my parent's house (where I picked some fresh tomatoes from the garden plus raided their never empty stash of garlic and ginger). Farmer's market currently is all about tomatoes, grapes, peppers and eggplants. Stone fruit is starting to wane and I saw quite a few stands with figs; may be time for another fig pizza soon. I bought some salad greens, red and yellow peppers, eggplants and bicolor corn. I couldn't find limes at any stands, so I went to the Co-op, which was also out of limes, but I ended up buying another bag of organic red grapes which were really good the first time and a bunch of vegan goods including some prepared Ethiopian food from Rahel's for my lunch. I then went to Trader Joe's, which finally had limes. After leaving Trader Joe's and my parents house, I realized I needed more cilantro and tomatoes, so I stopped by Whole Foods. Way too much running around! For dinner tonight, I made a shrimp and clam thai curry with seared tofu, eggplant and peppers from the morning's farmer's market. I basically followed this recipe, but added a little bit of white wine which always goes good with seafood and used an additional 2 cups of water instead of the 2nd can of light coconut milk (I realized too late that I only had 1 can in my pantry, although using my water to thin it out may actually be better). We paired the curry with a lovely crisp bottle of 2010 Denner Rose from our pass through Paso Robles in May.

Farm Box Meals 2&3: Broccoli Feta Whole Wheat Penne, Corn in XO Sauce, Fresh Heirloom Tomatoes

We've pretty finished up our entire farm box over the course of three consecutive meals with four people, with only a single cucumber and grapefruit remaining. Not too shabby. Last night, I made a healthy broccoli feta whole wheat pasta based off of this recipe from the kitchn with some additions such as some greek yogurt and dill. It tastes good for a quick weekday family meal, but I probably wouldn't serve it to company as it is just a little bland; it feels like it is missing something but I'm not sure what I would add. The corn was very fresh and sweet (at least 3 out of the 4 ears) and really tasty, sauteed with the XO sauce, Taiwanese sausage and scallions. The tomatoes weren't quite as sweet as they will be at peak season. All in all, we had fun and we all feel pretty good with three consecutive relatively healthy meals at home with lots of varieties of vegetables.

Not from the farm box, but cantaloupe season is reaching its peak: sweet and juicy

One funny looking one

Broccoli Feta Penne Recipe:

• To prep, mince 3-4 shallots, 3 cloves of garlic and chop ~1 lb of broccoli into pieces, including the stem
• Cook 1 lb of whole wheat penne in a separate pot
• Heat up some olive oil over medium and saute the shallots and garlic for about 3 minutes. Add the broccoli, season with a little salt, pepper, red chili flakes. Add about 1/2 cup of water and cover, steaming the broccoli for about 5 minutes until tender (easily pierced with a fork). Remove the cover and boil until most of the water evaporates. Squeeze juice of 1/2 a large meyer lemon
• Transfer the vegetables into a blender and blend with 1/3 cup of light feta cheese and a few ladles of pasta water. Add a couple TB of non fat greek yogurt and some dill. (I also added about 1/4 cup of leftover tzaziki that I had made to complement the overall tanginess of the dish)
• Toss with the penne and crumble another handful of feta over the dish and serve