Farmer's Market Bounty

I hate going to the farmer's market.  It's as far from my house as you can get and still be in Raleigh, the parking lot is terrible to get in and out of, and if the weather is nice, it's packed with wall-to-wall people meandering aimlessly.  It's basically my worst nightmare.  So that's my excuse for why I only get there about twice a year, even though every summer I swear I'm going to make better use of it.

On Saturday I had a panicky feeling realizing it's almost October and I've only been there once this summer, so I got up and trekked through town, trying to maintain a positive attitude.  It did not start off well: it took me a half-hour to get through downtown Raleigh, which is about seven blocks long.  The combination of a 5k and broken stoplights and construction projects created total gridlock.  At 8:45 on a Saturday morning. About three times I almost turned around and went home.  BUT I PERSISTED.  And it was a pretty awesome feeling when I finally wove my way around the streets and found a way onto the road leading in the right direction.

OK.  So I got some food at the farmer's market.  (And, incidentally, I am not going back there again for a very long time.)  (At least, not on the weekend.  Maybe I will try to go one day on my lunch break.) I have to say, after all that stuff I just complained about, that it was sort of worth it.  We ate some awesome stuff this weekend.  Here it is.

This is what I made for lunch on Saturday - quinoa, french lentils, and roasted eggplant, tomatoes, red pepper, and zucchini, over which I drizzled some tahini miso sauce.

Then last night for dinner, I made one of my favorite PPK recipes, Hottie Black Eyed Peas & Greens, with farmer's market collards, and served it over Veganomicon's Messy Rice.  It was a great combo!  My one complaint about that PPK recipe is that I'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes, so the savory rice was a nice change.

I also got some eggs.  As you know, I'm not vegan anymore but I still draw a hard line at supermarket eggs.  Farmer's market eggs, though, which come from chickens living truly freely and scritching around in the grass, are something I can feel good about.  This morning I made a (not pictured) breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs, some leftover lentils, hot sauce, and mozzarella Daiya from the freezer.  Daiya is not the best when its flavor is prominent but it's perfect in something like that.

The eggs were super small, with blue and brown shells.  That's because they're real food!  Not factoried!

I got a ton of sweet corn and tomatoes, and was searching for something to do with them that wasn't a salad, when my friend Beth suggested this Smitten Kitchen recipe for Tomato and Corn Pie and I knew instantly that was going to be in my belly within 24 hours.  Yeah, it calls for cheese, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.  I did use lowfat mayo, and soy milk rather than the whole milk it calls for.

Obviously the Smitten Kitchen lady's pictures are a lot better than mine, but here you go anyway.

I almost took the easy way out and bought pie crusts rather than making it from scratch, but I'm glad I didn't - this crust is more like biscuit than pastry.  It was outstanding.  

So, with that, tomorrow is October, which is traditionally a internet-wide blogging event called the Vegan Month of Food (or Vegan MoFo).  October is also the month when I decided, two years ago, to try being vegan for a month and see how it went.  So, for October, I'm going to really commit to cooking healthy vegan dinners every day and doing a better job of blogging it.  We've still been eating vegan almost all the time anyway, but it's been getting a little junkier and lazier and, probably not coincidentally, my jeans have mysteriously shrunk a tad.  Time to get back on track!