1st Visit of the Year to the Farmer's Market!

Just got back from our first visit of the year to the Portland Farmers Market. We had so much fun! We spent a good 30 minutes just wandering around the stands, looking, sampling, deciding.  We could have EASILY spent twice as much than we spent.

One nice thing about PFM is they have a match program when you use your EBT card (ie food stamps, which we qualify for right now). At the Buckman FM, where we were today, they match your first $5.  I, of course, spent twice that much.  But some of that was splurging on non-produce stuff.

Here's what we finally decided on (all the produce was organic):

• From Denison Farms, we picked up some sweet spring turnips, a bunch of green garlic, and a pint of sweet red strawberries. 
• From Gathering Together Farm, we picked up a bunch of radishes. 
• From Reister Farms, we picked up a couple of lamb pepperoni sticks. 
• From Pesto Outside the Box, we picked up... (yep, you guessed it) PESTO! Roasted Asparagus and Hazelnut Pesto to be exact.  Which we will be having for dinner tonight.  We sampled it and then couldn't say no. 

The kiddo was very excited about the radishes and turnips.  I chopped some up for him to take along, with some strawberries, as a snack tonight.  That would be why I don't have any pictures to share.  Half the food is gone before I had a chance to blink!  But really, who can blame him?

As for what's rest, here's the plan.  We'll chop of the remaining turnips and radishes to go in a salad.  The turnip and radish greens will be braised along with some of the green garlic.  I've never used the greens from the radishes before, and we never buy turnips.  So we'll see how they turn out!  I wasn't even sure if the radish greens were edible until I got home, but from the look of things we can braise them just like the turnip greens.

Green garlic is a new thing for us too, so I'm excited to taste the difference between them and mature garlic!  After doing a quick Google search, it seems green garlic is milder and can end up a bit sweeter when cooked.  I'm excited about the experiment!

This is definitely my favorite time of the year.  I love the excitement that comes from getting fresh, local, healthy produce.  And it's even more fun when you can try something new!

Linked at Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday.