Co-op vs. the farmers' market

Moving to a new city meant giving up my co-op in Virginia. I did some searching for CSAs here, but it was too late in the season to start one. I decided to make the best use of the farmers' market instead.

While the market is significantly smaller than the one I went to in Virginia, there's still everything I want and enough variety. I usually make it about every other week. I go in with a certain amount of cash to spend, and my goal is to spend all of it and get several small portions of things. It's amazing what all I can get for $8 to $10. And while I have less stuff going bad, I also finish stuff before I get tired of it.

In a lot of ways this is more practical and cost-efficient than the co-op. The downside is that I know what I like and tend to gravitate to the same things every week. The co-op forced me to try new things, and I often had an abundance of something so I ended up using it several different ways.

This week I created a rule for myself that I had to get one new thing every time I went to the market. I decided on spaghetti squash on Saturday.

I had heard about spaghetti squash before, and I'm sure plenty of people had told me about it, but I had never tried it. Last fall I kept expecting it to show up in my share, but it never did. I was so enamored with the other winter squashes I had never tried before that I didn't think I was missing anything.

I decided to go ahead and cook the squash on Saturday since I was at home and had some time. I quickly realized I had been missing out on something wonderful. All I did was cook it in the oven for an hour or so and then pull the strands out and heat them with butter on the stove. It was great just like that, but my mind started to churn with possibilities that I'll be experimenting with this week.

And I think spaghetti squash will be on my always get list at the market. What else have I missed that I should try next? I'm considering being brave and trying eggplant.

A weekend away

I think I'm slowly recovering from the time change, but I've been dragging all week. I'm glad to see the sun today and feel like spring is really here. The 80-degree temperatures I expect to enjoy this weekend will help too.

I spent the weekend in D.C. visiting a few friends. It was a great weekend away; there was shopping, lots of walking and good food.

My best friend from high school took me to a Mediterranean tapas restaurant because, as she said, I'm not picky anymore. She further expanded my adventures in food with our meal. Of course, the one thing that was totally new to me, I forgot to take a picture of. But I ate lamb sliders, probably the first time I've had lamb since I went to Switzerland at 13, and this was in a form I was much happier with. Of course, I did scrape off the spicy sauce they had on it. Here are photos of the other things we had, all taken with my iPhone in a dark restaurant:

I don't remember what this cheese was called, but they set it on fire before serving it to us. I wasn't fast enough with my phone to catch it on camera.

Asparagus with goat cheese, two of my favorite foods.

Calamari, this is something I love to order in restaurants, and these were really good.

On the way home Sunday, it was absolutely gorgeous and I took a small detour and shot some photos of the beautiful mountains and countryside. I love visiting our nation's capital, and I did pretty well navigating my way around, but it's always nice to come home to my town in the mountains.

Did you know...

That this what a beet looks like?

I did not. I have not tried them yet, but it might happen this evening. I am skeptical, but I'm committed to trying them. I did cut them down to this, per instructions in one of my cookbooks.

But I did try some new things this weekend. I attended a vegetarian festival that was just a few blocks from my house. There was everything from vegetarian food samples to pet adoption booths, animal activists and henna tattoos. It was an interesting scene.

There was also a food court with vendors serving all vegetarian food. And I was brave enough to try a veggie dog. I'm not going to say it's the best thing I've ever eaten, but it's probably as good as any other hot dog, just a slightly different texture.

After the vegetarian festival, we headed out to an apple festival. I've got great pictures and plenty to share about that soon but not in this post. The point is that I came home with a pie pumpkin.

I've never cooked with pumpkin — fresh or canned. I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie, but I do like pumpkin bread, though so far I've been content buying it from a bakery. But I felt like the pumpkin was a challenge to make pumpkin muffins from scratch. So I turned to Pioneer Woman for directions on how to puree the pumpkin.

I cut the pumpkin in half, gutted it and roasted it in the oven.

I peeled it, though I'm not sure it was ripe because the skin didn't come off as easily as it should have. But I it pureed in the food processor just fine. I did add a couple of tablespoons of water because it was pretty dry.

And I was able to turn it into pumpkin muffins.

Here's the recipe I used from AllRecipes, though I've discovered I'm completely incapable of following an entire recipe correctly. I left out the cloves because I didn't have any, and then I doubled the nutmeg by accident. I also forgot the chocolate chips (yeah, very unusual for me), so I just sprinkled some on while the muffins were baking.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
    •    3/4 cup white sugar
    •    1/4 cup vegetable oil
    •    2 eggs
    •    3/4 cup canned pumpkin
    •    1/4 cup water
    •    1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
    •    3/4 teaspoon baking powder
    •    1/2 teaspoon baking soda
    •    1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
    •    1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    •    1/4 teaspoon salt
    •    1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
    •    1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease and flour muffin pan or use paper liners.
Mix sugar, oil, eggs. Add pumpkin and water. In separate bowl mix together the baking flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt.. Add wet mixture and stir in chocolate chips.
Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

Outside the box

This blog thing has been more fun than I expected. I've enjoyed the chance to write about something besides the financial world, and it has kept me motivated as far as cooking. But I've also enjoyed the interaction with my friends and readers through comments, conversations or emails.

But sometimes in this world of instant online communication, I forget how great snail mail is. I recently got an unexpected card from my dad, encouraging me in everything I'm doing, including this blog/cooking thing.

It reminded me that a few months back, I also got a card from my aunt commenting on my blog but also reminding me of a great vacation I took with her and my uncle. She included a photo that reminded me I did occasionally try new things as a kid.

Yes, this is when I discovered I liked lobster (apparently I wasn't fazed by putting the live ones in to cook and then eating them).

We were spending the week in Maine, staying in a cabin on a lake in a small town. I was about 9, and my aunt and uncle who lived in Connecticut at the time also came up with their kids.

Most of the time I was floating in an inner tube in the lake, fishing or canoeing. In the evenings we'd go for ice cream and then sit on the dock and practice our loon calls. (I'm thinking this is a vacation I need to repeat as an adult.)

I distinctly remember being hesitant to try the lobster, but by the end of the week, I couldn't get it cracked to reach the meat fast enough.

My uncle was always telling me, "Just try it once." This applied to both food and waterslides. And most of the time, I was willing to try it again, it's just finding the nerve to step outside my comfort zone.

In his card, my dad told me he was proud of me for stepping outside my box (i.e. comfort zone) over the last year, both food-wise and in life.

I think in some ways I needed a physical move and a chance to start fresh in order to do that, and I was intentional about changes I wanted to make in my life when I moved here a little over a year ago.

In the midst of these changes, I've found a more relaxed attitude. I seem to have loosened my grip on life (or at least some parts of it). I used to be such a control freak, I wouldn't even ride places with people, and if I was going to be in a situation where I didn't have some control over what was happening, I wouldn't even participate. But I'm having more fun and more of those unexpected, amazing experiences now that I'm willing to let go of this need for control and live without always having a plan.

And that's a lot of what God has been trying to show me over the last year. My plans are not His, and I should actually be grateful for that. Instead of grieving over my failed plan, I should be celebrating the road I'm on and relaxing in the passenger seat.

Not sure how I managed to go from lobster to God's plan for me or if it even makes sense, but that's what I've got today!

Picky eater

I say that I’m a picky eater, but when people ask me what I don’t like, it’s hard to explain it exactly but here’s my attempt.


I don’t like spicy foods and could be just fine without ethnic foods. But I can find something on a menu at a Mexican or Chinese restaurant. The perfect sandwich for me is bread, deli meat and cheese (much to the dismay of employees at sandwich shops). I like sauces and dressings “on the side” like in “When Harry Met Sally.” And I avoid gravy all together.


I eat carrots and broccoli but only raw, not steamed. I love peas from a can but despise frozen ones. I won’t go anywhere near mushrooms and avoid peppers of any color. Tomatoes are fine for salad and in soup but leave them off my sandwich.


I like fresh fruit, but I don’t really liked fruit pies, although cooked apples and apple pies are growing on me. I like yogurt but don’t eat any chunks of fruit in it. I like bananas but never buy them because there is too much pressure to eat them quickly.


I like shrimp, lobster and crab but would rather not eat fish, scallops or oysters. But I do like fried calamari.


I don’t like my food to get mixed together and casseroles and lasagna make me nervous unless I’ve made them myself. I think I'm afraid of biting into a mushroom or some other unidentified vegetable.


Typically, I don’t like chili, but I had some recently that I actually liked. I don’t eat black beans or black-eyed peas. I eat salsa but only dipping a chip and bringing it out without any chunks.


I love breakfast foods, but I only eat my eggs scrambled, never fried, boiled or deviled.


Does that explain it? I know I probably sound crazy, and some of it doesn’t even make sense. I realize that part of my problem is that I’m not willing to try many new things. That's why I think the challenge of the co-op will force me to try new things and maybe discover that things like turnips aren't so bad after all.


What are you picky about?