Score!

While I was at work on Saturday, my hubbie braved the crowds at the farmer’s market and scored some beautiful locally-grown produce. How cool is that? For $20 he got purple kale, a bag of walnuts, salad greens, beets with the tops on, leeks and shallots. It was all so amazingly perfect that I had to take a picture.



Of course, by the time I thought to take the picture we had already eaten half of the salad greens. It was the best salad I’ve had in ages.

I was so excited by the selection that I had trouble deciding what to make. What a wonderful dilemma! I got over that in a hurry though, and got cooking. First I roasted the leeks and the shallots with other vegetables then used the roasted veggies to make broth. I then cooked beet tops, kale and rice noodles in a bit of the broth and topped that with baked salmon steaks. I’ve never made anything like it before, and was surprised at how well the meal turned out, particularly since I didn’t exactly follow the recipe that inspired the meal.

The broth and the salmon dish hardly made a dent in the farmer’s market haul. I still had enough broth and kale left to make smoked sausage, kale and potato soup. Again, I didn’t exactly follow the recipe , but the results were yummy. I served the soup with a side of salad greens topped with cold steamed beets, walnuts and some feta cheese left from a tart I made earlier in the week.

It’s been inspiring to see how what I have in the house works with the farmer’s market goodies. So far all I’ve had to purchase was the smoked garlic sausage and the salmon. The garlic sausage was made by a local butcher, and for less than $5 I got enough for 3 meals. The wild salmon steaks were slightly over $2 each. They were small, but with the broth, greens and noodles they were enough. The best part is we had two delicious meals, leftovers, 1 ½ litres of broth to freeze, a few snacks, several salads and I still have produce from the farmer’s market trip. I’m so pleased. Pleased with the results, pleased with the value, but most of all I’m pleased with my hubbie for his shopping expertise. I wonder if I can convince him to go again this Saturday?