Farmer's Market Menu 6/10

I'm going to try and make this a regular feature to help inspire others to really get into shopping/cooking local. To allow myself the time to actually do this, I'm going to keep the commentary to a minimum. Basically, I'll share what I bought and how I used it with photos and links to recipes with modifications.

Pint of Battenkill Creamery half and half
Pint of Battenkill Creamery chocolate milk
Dozen Cornell Farms eggs
Head of Chinese cabbage
Large bunch of cilantro
2 quarts of white mushrooms
1 pound of cube steak
3/4 pound of lamb steak
1.5 pounds hot sausage
Garlic scapes
Bag of spinach

Sunday - Slow Cooker Lamb Curry. I modified by swapping a can of organic garbanzo beans for the potatoes. Next time, I would add more spices to punch it up a bit and decrease the amount of broth to make the sauce thicker. Overall, a tasty recipe.

Monday - Stir-fried Cabbage, Mushrooms, and Broccoli in Garlic Sauce with Brown Basmati Fried Rice. I cooked the fried rice in the pan first, removed it to a covered dish, and then made the stir-fry in the same pot to save dishes. I made the garlic sauce ahead of time and added it to the pan after cooking the vegetables. I just cooked it long enough to thicken the sauce. 

For dessert, bug and I attempted to make some ice cream. This turned into somewhat of a disaster because my ice cream canister wasn't frozen enough and the mixture didn't churn properly. As I had already invested so much time and valuable raw ingredients (milk, natural sugar, half and half, vanilla beans, and eggs) into the project, I froze it anyway. The consistency was off, but the flavor was there. It was essentially a rich, creamy frozen vanilla custard. I served it drizzled with clover honey and toasted almonds.

Tuesday - Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna. I ran into a sale on all natural/grass fed ground beef, so I decided to make this a meat lasagna for my husband. I used Trader Joe's no boil lasagna noodles. I cooked the beef first and added the onions/mushrooms to it. I didn't bother to cook the spinach, I just chopped it and mixed it into the ricotta. I didn't use Romano cheese, I had Parmesan so that's what I used. I didn't add egg to the ricotta mixture. I decreased the total amount of mozzarella to 2 cups. Everyone, including the bug and baby bear, loved this dinner.

Wednesday - I am home with the girls on Wednesday mornings, so we usually have a full cooked breakfast. This week I heated up some frozen pancakes that I originally made on Monday and made us omelettes. I used the egg whites that were leftover from the ice cream experiment mixed with fresh dill, fresh chopped spinach, ham, mushrooms, and feta for my breakfast. 

My husband liked the cube steak we made last week so much, I used the same exact recipe this week. For sides, I sauteed some leftover radishes with a bit of olive oil and then finished them with butter, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper. I also made a simple side salad of chopped organic romaine, organic grape tomatoes, and mozzarella pearls tossed with homemade Italian dressing. 

Thursday - I attended a CME (Continuing Medical Education) training session on Adolescent Reproductive Health (one of my special areas of interest at work) this evening so the family just had leftover lasagna with some simple buttered carrots and baby zucchini.

Friday - I was really burnt out by the end of the week and couldn't bear the thought of cooking another meal, so we opted for some (not so healthy) take-out.

Other special things I cooked up this week were a big batch of plain whole milk yogurt and a dozen whole wheat tortilla shells.