Light and Lines at Pike Place Market

Cold but sunny. We are strolling the Market but have stopped for coffee at Local Color.

Road Trip to Yakima for Farm Fresh Produce

Each year we like to head to Yakima for the bountiful and affordable produce. It's an overnight road trip to get away from the city, have some authentic Mexican food, and bask in the farm fresh vegetable glow. We always head first to Jones Farms produce stand in Zillah, WA.Ornamental squash for the season.
Jones Farms has several beans, legumes, and pulses. We grabbed white beans, ceci beans (garbanzo/chick peas), and yellow lentils.
Apples, peaches, pears.
At the Yakima Farmer's Market (the link worked on Friday, cuz I was on it getting directions. Today, no luck with the link. It's been "suspended"?) we shared a "shaker cup" of huge blueberries. We also made a major score or two on various peppers and romas. Peppers got roasted. Romas are slow-roasting as a I type. Ultimately, the romas will reside in the freezer too. Freezing is an easy way to preserve and extend the harvest. Post on the roma roast to follow. Posts involving roasted peppers to follow all winter.
Misu wonders why the stem on the kabocha won't yield to her mighty claws.
Part of our haul.
Look at the size of these peppers form a stand at the market. Price - 3/$1?! I bought a very large bagful. As soon as we got home I lit the grill and roasted them and the eggplant (not pictured). After they cooled I peeled and seeded them. Now I have several freezer bags full of home-made roasted peppers for the winter. These will liven up soups, chili, frittatas, and just toast. The big, long green ones are aconcagua peppers. The grower said she would normally let them ripen to red but some were picked prematurely in error. No matter. They will taste very nice stuffed.

Flying Apron at West Seattle Farmers Market

On a recent walk to the West Seattle Farmers Market we stopped at the Flying Apron Baking Co., Seattle's best vegan bakery. My favorite item is the Apricot Thumbprint (organic brown rice flour, organic garbanzo bean flour, organic canola oil, filtered water, organic evaporated cane juice, organic Turkish apricots, organic lemon juice, pure vanilla extract, baking powder, sea salt). You can spot them in the forefront. Thumbprint? More like a palm print. They are delicious. S snagged a Ginger Wheel, also delicious. Nope, we're not vegans. We just love good food.

What are the bakery items at your farmers market?

Roasted Peppers and Chocolate Croissants

The perfect combination, right?

What a beautiful day. Blue sky, sun, 70 degrees. This is October, right? They (the cosmic weather prophets) are calling for a high of around 78 tomorrow?! No complaints. After a rare lazy morning of coffee and general leisure, we hit the sidewalk for the West Seattle Farmer's Market. We knew for a fact that there would be one vendor roasting peppers on the spot. And we finally decided to stand in line at Bakery Nouveau in order to sample the amazing looking pastries. We hit the bakery first and it was worth the wait in line. Granted, the decadence in caloric intake and price makes this place a once in a while treat. But we were already having a celebratory weekend for a couple of reasons so it was the right time. One chocolate croissant (not pictured), one double-baked chocolate croissant, and one cherry almond croissant were more than enough and half of the double-baked croissant came home with us. We figured this much sugar would help us on the 2.5 mile trek back home after the market.The markets in Seattle are still full of variety and color. From tomatoes to turnips and peaches to peppers, all still being harvested and all still vibrant. We quickly got a couple of pounds of freshly roasted, organic Anaheim chiles. What a wonderful smell coming from this vendor's stand. The peppers tumble for several minutes over an open flame in order to char the skins. They go from tumbler into large plastic bins for a bit of steaming and then into the one pound containers. Some of this bounty went into a chili and corn soup for dinner. The rest was stashed away in the freezer.

Strawberry No-Bake Pie

Strawberry season doesn't last very long so you need to take advantage of it. Our strawberry patch isn't terribly big and never gives up a large quantity at any one time. But we do get a small, steady supply. We combined some of our berrries with those from our friend Sally's yard with some from the West Seattle Farmer's Market to make this delicious, no-bake strawberry pie. It's a recipe from Julie's family that she has enjoyed all her life. Sally supplied the homemade crust. The recipes for the crust and the pie are below. It's very easy. But I admit I don't know the first thing about making a pie crust. So all you pie crust makers out there just take these ingredients and do with them whatever it is you do. Luckily, we shared the pie with neighbhors so there was absolutely none left over. Everyone got one piece.













Sally's Pie Crust from her friend Claudia

3 2/3 (approximately 4 C sifted) flour 1 C cold oil
9 tbsp milk
1 tsp salt

Strawberry Pie

1 1/2 C water
3/4 C sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 3 oz. box Wild Strawberry flavored Jello
1 quart fresh strawberries

Clean strawberries and slice in half. Mix sugar and cornstarch. Add water. Cook in sauce pan until thick and clear. Add Jello and dissolve. Remove from heat and cool 15 minutes. While the syrup is cooling, fill the pie crust with the strawberries. Keep in mind that the syrup will take up some of the room so don't over fill. Pour the cooled sauce over the berries and chill in the refrigerator at least two hours.
You might not need all of the sauce. If you have left over sauce you also have some left over berries, make individual dessert cups in ramicans. Just fill the cups with berries and cover with the sauce. Really tasty!