I really enjoy summer. One of my favorite things about summer is all the wonderful fruits and vegetables that are in season. Every Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning during the summer, downtown Indiana has a farmers market gathering in a big parking lot. All the markets from the area gather here with all their freshest goodies and sell away!
I took advantage of the farmers market on Wednesday. I showed up, slightly giddy, with cash in hand. I was ready spend all I had on fruits and veggies! The first stand I stopped by had more flowers than anything. I grabbed a few pink and purple stems of larkspur and gladly told the woman that since I can't grow flowers, I'll just buy from her. :) They also had tomatoes. The first of the season! They were small, but I bought some and was excited to use them.
I headed over to the next stand (there were only two on this day) and was excited to see that they had freshly-picked-that-morning strawberries. I got a quart of strawberries, a quart of sugar snap peas, two zucchini and four baby cucumbers. I was a happy camper and had money left over!
I drove home excited to use everything I just bought. To top off my wonderful day of farmers market excitement, my friend Liz gave me some fresh basil, dill and parsley she has been growing! JOY! I got home and made some strawberry jam. I had made some a few night before, but gave most of it away. I was happy to get a few more jars made. Then, I cleaned the snap peas, tomatoes, and two cucumbers.
When Patrick got home, I made him a tomato sandwich for dinner. We had the snap peas and cucumbers as a side dish. Everything was so tasty! I went on and on about how great our summer dinners will be with fresh veggies and herbs!
Well, last night I still had everything waiting for me in the kitchen. I wanted to use most of my fresh produce before it went bad. Not sure what to do, I pulled out a few dry ingredients and just started creating. I cooked some pasta and thawed two chicken breasts. I cut up the zucchini and the last few tomatoes.
My finished creation was this: Chicken with dill, garlic and butter sauce and on the side was pasta mixture with olive oil, steamed zucchini, tomatoes and fresh basil. It was so yummy! I get so excited about making new things and being creative (although I'm CERTAIN someone, somewhere cooks this meal daily...)! Anyone want to come over for dinner next week?!
1 comment:
Sounds yummy! I think you should write a cook book. And, next time I come up to see you, you can fix that for me to eat. :)
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