An Ode to the Farmers Market

It's been a bit quiet over here on the blog front, lately. I've been quiet here, but busy at home. I've spent most weekends canning my heart out trying to capture the freshness of summer. I'm pretty lucky that I live just a block or so from the farmers market. It's great because I can just roll out of bed and walk over there first thing as they're opening. It's not quite as busy at 9am, which is nice. There are also a few things that always sell out pretty much immediately so getting to the market early is in your best interest if you're looking for something like dill heads or green tomatoes or sometimes strawberries.

dill pickles, hot sauce, barbecue sauce, chinese plum sauce, vanilla peaches, cinnamon pears, whole canned heirloom tomatoes, tarragon mustard and bourbon brown sugar mustard

The jars in the cabinet in the background are just my rice and dried beans and grains and nuts and things. The stuff on the table (minus 3 jars that I gave to a friend the day before) was all canned in one weekend. There are actually 3 more large jars that you can't see. I have a huge stack of boxes of jars on the floor from all of the canning I've been doing this year. I've been giving stuff away and trading jars with friends, but it's still starting to take over the house. I need to get a cabinet to put all of this stuff in so it's not just stacked up on the floor.

I have plans to highlight a few individual things that I've made during October's Vegan MoFo. I'm quite looking forward to opening some of the jars and trying what's inside. A few things I've made have been things I've made before and some have been made for the first time.

This cucumber... well... I don't even really know what to say about it. I get a good giggle when vegetables and fruits have a strange shape or try to grow a second one of themselves, but this one... Hmmm. I think this cucumber was a bit too excited to become a pickle.

Garlic is one of my favorite things. I put it in everything. Usually if a recipe says to put 3 cloves of garlic in, I'm pretty sure they really mean 6-7 cloves so that's what I do. This giant garlic bulb made my day. I ended up roasting it and putting it in some roasted garlic and sage bread that I made. Delicious. I realized a couple of years ago that I'd never actually had fresh garlic before. When it's newly picked, it's so juicy and crisp, it's incredible. I think we're going to try and grow some of our own garlic for next year because I get so excited about it. I can't wait!

This huge box of strawberries was actually a spur of the moment purchase. I was thinking about making jam or something and then saw one stand that had this one huge box of strawberries left. When they told me that these berries had been picked the day before, how could I resist? I started out making jam with these, but it didn't quite set like I wanted so I decided it was strawberry sauce instead. Put a banana in a bowl with some vanilla coconut milk ice cream and then top it with that strawberry sauce and you have instant awesome. Sometimes when things don't turn out the way you expected, it's a blessing in disguise.

Okay, so the onions weren't from the farmers market, but the garlic and peppers are! (Do you see that crazy red pepper in the front middle?) I love the way sofrito flavors things so I decided to make a bunch and can it. I was clearly out of my mind. I ended up buying about twice as much of everything that I meant to. That happens when everything is so fresh and awesome, sometimes. Well, that just means I'll have sofrito for quite a while.

What is sofrito, you ask? I'll do a post on it soon. I discovered it from Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan!. I don't want to eat beans without it anymore.

Yes, that is two large pots full of chopped onions. 10 pounds of onions to be precise. I have no idea how I did that in one sitting. (Well, actually I was standing, but still.) It's definitely something to be proud of living through.

Oven Baked Onion Rings

I've never really cared much for onion rings. For some reason in the past year or so I've started to want them. I'm generally disappointed with how greasy they are. I have this vision in my mind of what I wish the onion ring was and it never really quite lives up to my expectations. It's like I have some weird romantic chick flick in my head starring an onion ring or something.

When I first got my copy of Appetite for Reduction, I was immediately intrigued by the OMG Oven Baked Onion Rings recipe. Today I put on some Joan Jett and finally made some and let me tell you, they did not disappoint. Even James liked them and he doesn't generally like onion rings or anything with onions at all for that matter. Eat this with ketchup, barbeque sauce, hot sauce (we liked ours this way) or whatever.

These babies are really easy to make. I discovered that while Vidalia onions still made me tear up a bit, they aren't nearly as noxious as regular onions. So yay for that! This was actually a really fun recipe to make, too. Now I've just finished the bowl of onion rings that were in front of me as I was writing this so I guess I should get on with giving some practical information and whatever.

Here are some SJ tips if you decide to make these:

• When you take the baking sheet out of the oven to flip the onion rings, give them another spray of oil. It'll keep them from being too dry. 
• Don't try and pick up that same baking sheet with your bare hands to put it back in the oven. (Trust me on this one. Ouch!)
• Don't worry too much about getting a huge amount of bread crumbs on each onion ring. If you put too thick of a crust of bread crumbs, the coating will be a tad too dry. Not inedible or anything, though, so don't stress.  Just if you're thinking everything is failed because there is just a thin layer, relax. They'll taste fine that way.
• These are best eaten while hot. Let them sit for a minute or so after they come out of the oven just to firm up and then start loading them into your mouth like a champ.

Since Isa is awesome and posted this recipe on her blog, I'm going to repost it here for you guys. My copy/paste skills are out of this world.

OMG Oven Baked Onion Rings

2 vidalia onions (about a pound), or other sweet onion like Walla Walla

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup cold almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons olive oil

Cooking spray

Slice onions into 3/4 inch thick rings. Separate the rings and place in a bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel or something, to keep the onioniness out of your eyes.

Preheat oven to 450 F. Line a rimmed 12×18 baking sheet with parchment paper, spray with cooking spray and set aside.

Now you’ll need two bowls for batter and breading. If you’ve got large, wide cereal bowls that’ll do the trick. In one bowl, dump in the flour and cornstarch. Add about half of the almond milk and stir vigorously with a fork to dissolve. Add the rest of the almond milk and the apple cider vinegar, and stir to incorporate. Set aside.

In the other bowl, mix together the bread crumbs and salt. Drizzle in the oil and use your fingertips to mix it up well.

Assemble the onion rings:

Get a conveyor belt going. From left to right, have the onions, the flour mixture, the breadcrumbs mixture and lastly the baking sheet. Dip each onion slice into the the flour, letting the excess drip off. Transfer to the breadcrumbs bowl and use the other hand to sprinkle a handful of breadcrumbs over the onion, to coat completely. This may take a bit of practice. Carefully transfer each onion to a single layer on the baking sheet. Make sure you use one hand for the wet batter and the other for the dry batter, or you’ll end up with club hand.

Spray rings lightly with cooking spray and bake for 8 minutes. Flip, and bake another 6 minutes. Rings should be varying shades of brown and crisp. Taste one to check for doneness. Serve as soon as possible. With ketchup if you must.

Chestnuts Are Your Friends

I tried persimmons and fennel recently for the first time. I decided to keep the trend of trying new things and trying my best to eat seasonally at the same time. Enter the chestnut! Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that jazz aside, I had no idea what you'd even do with one, much less what they looked like. Lucky for me, the market had some fresh chestnuts. There were also some canned ones, but they had some sugar added and I'm not so into that nonsense.

I made the Caramelized Onion-Butternut Squash Roast with Chestnuts from Veganomicon first. I had some chestnuts leftover after that so I put some into stuffing for Christmas dinner. One thing I found interesting about them is that they get a little hardish after you roast them. But - never fear! Put them in something (like stuffing or this casserole) and they get soft. Same goes for the ones I kept on the counter in a container. Weird, but useful.

This casserole from Veganomicon totally rocks. Anyone who has passed it by or just disregarded it needs to go right on back and make it. I ended up eating as a main course, but it would be awesome as a side-dish as well. The flavors blended together nicely creating a nice blend of awesome in your mouth.