Farmer's Market: Late June

Tonight, I managed to escape work early enough to hit up the second week of the local farmer's market. By most standards, it's a small market and further from my house than I would like, but I still enjoy it.

My main motivation were garlic scapes and strawberries. Last week, I devoured a quart of strawberries in 4 days. The local berries are nothing like what's available in the supermarket (either now, or any time of year): they're bright red all the way through, smaller and juicier. I love them. The garlic scapes were a first for me...more on that in a following post.
Ah, local bounty: garlic scapes, half a loaf of whole wheat bread, a pint of strawberries, fresh radishes and crisp lettuce. Wonderful!

The Real Deal

Recently, I was reminded that there is an amazing fish market near my office, New Deal Fish Market. New Deal is the real deal -- fresh fish, amazing quality, all from a local, family-run spot. Reprimanding myself for not going there more often, I decided the other day to pick up some fresh fish during my lunch break.

But getting fish is not so easy and required some advance planning on my part. First, I packed a cooler and a few ice packs. Once at work, I stashed the ice packs in the kitchen freezer and waited patiently until lunchtime. On my lunch break, I navigated narrow East Cambridge streets to reach New Deal. Inside, I quickly spotted yellow fin tuna steaks and boy, were they gorgeous. With my bounty purchased, I returned to work and dropped them in the kitchen fridge. When the 5 o'clock whistle sounded, I gathered up ice packs and fish and packed them up in the cooler waiting in my car.

Preparation of the fish was easy and quick! Salt & pepper and a cast iron skillet were my best friends -- less is more in this case. A quick sear in the pan and served with rice and soy made this all a delicious treat at home. Definitely worth repeating!

Tarragon and Figs

My herb garden has chives, tarragon, mint and oregano as perennials. The tarragon is extremely happy with its spot and grows like crazy. With so much tarragon, what's a girl to do? Happily, Mom was able to offer a suggestion: grill some pork chops with tarragon sprigs on top. They output a subtle flavor that works well with pork.

Here, we grilled 1.5" thick chops for 10 mins a side at 400 degrees, seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper -- plus, those aforementioned tarragon sprigs. The grocery store had figs on sale this week, so we grilled those as well for a few minutes. Served with a side salad, it was delicious!

A Packed Lunch

Real Simple continues to have a mix of hits and misses for the recipes it publishes. The pictures always look amazing, but the results are not guaranteed. Recently, I tried two recipes from Real Simple's latest edition. The chicken was pretty good (especially the dark meat), but the pasta salad was only OK. Still, it was good enough to pack up for a lunch bento (with the bonus of a leftover lemon bar!).

In some regards, I almost enjoyed my lunch more than dinner before. The chicken did well sitting at room temperature and even if the peas lost their color, they still tasted good!