A Food-centric Day

As it turned out, I DID get up early(ish) and went to the farmer's market.

I arrived a little after 8:30 a.m., before it got too miserably hot out. This market isn't the same one I visited last Sunday. This Saturday morning market is behind a local shopping mall in Citrus Heights; last Sunday I visited one that's located in downtown Sacramento, under the freeway.

Both markets were unique with different vendors and items for sale. As I mentioned last week, I loved the guy with all the fresh herbs--nothing like that at this market. But this market has some live music and several different vendors--like a booth with fresh pasta. As it turned out, the fresh pasta booth was perfect for my plans. AND one of the best things? They had a booth that served some pretty good coffee--which is a good thing since I'd only had time to microwave a cup of what Hubby had made the day before, and (SHHHHH! Don't tell him I said so!) Hubby just doesn't make very good coffee.

This multi-colored cauliflower display is stunning, isn't it? I had no idea there was orange cauliflower!

Here are my purchases, just before I unloaded the cart.

Some years back, my sister-in-law and I would go to the local flea market on Saturdays and buy produce and drink beer. (I was a little wilder then, and it was when I was into the whole microbrewery thing.) Anyway, that's where I purchased the cart. Over the years, it's come in handy now and then for hauling sewing stuff, but now I've put it back into action as a fresh produce transport vehicle.

And here's what I came home with. Beautiful, isn't it? And right away I used some of it--the fresh salted rosemary bread and berries--to make breakfast for Hubby and I--open faced ham and egg sandwiches with fresh fruit. Yum!

And that fresh pasta I mentioned? Here's why I was happy to come across that booth. My plans for the day involved making a large batch of spaghetti sauce with meatballs.

Many people brown their meatballs before they go into the sauce, but not my grandma, my mom, or me. Those pale things floating around in the sauce are the meatballs, and boy did they turn out good! Well, the whole thing did. And I ended up with enough meatballs and sauce for another couple meals this week and three more containers in the freezer.

Dinner ended up being the fresh pasta with meatballs and sauce and sauteed cauliflower--there was a recipe in the farmers' market cookbook I bought a few weeks ago, and it was excellent! I've not been a big cauliflower fan in the past, but this dish turned out crispy, nutty, and slightly sweet. I'll definitely make it again.

Finally, my last cooking accomplishment of the day was peach jam--two pint jars of "regular" peach jam and three pint jars of jalapeno peach jam--something a friend had suggested might be good. I bet it would make a good glaze for pork spareribs--yum!

Poor Hubby! It's his job to clean up the kitchen after I've made a mess, and I'm afraid I left him with a colossal chore this evening. But at least I fed him well today, so he doesn't hate me too much.

Tomorrow I have a few more food plans, but they don't involve the farmers' market and they certainly DON'T involve getting up early. I'm sleeping in!