Things To Do With Fresh Produce

[paquerette]

It's farmers' market season here! We went last Friday and I'll prolly go again today. Some of the yummy things I saw:

green tomatoes, zucchini and yellow squish, green beans, potatoes, corn, cabbages, peas

peaches, plums, cherries, apples, blueberries, melons

lots of other stuff I'm blanking on. There's also a meat stand with naturally-raised meats, nitrate-free cured meats, and brown eggs. And some folks have cider, preserves, and pies.

So, any new ideas besides salads, soups, and munching on plain fresh things? I'll prolly dig out my PA Dutch cookbook and get some inspiration there, too. I've just been in such a convenience food rut lately, hard to get creative again.

[TigerPurring]

Favorite thing to do with zucchini: take zucchini, yellow squash, saute, simmer with tomatoes or canned tomatoes and your fav spices for a yummy sauce that goes over pasta, or a little less soupy and serve as a side. You can take the excess water out with salt to get a crisper saute.

Or zucchini fritters with eggs and a little oil and flour as a base.

With zucchini you can do a variation of a dish my mother used to make with calabasita, a Mexican squash variety, and saute with pieces of porkchop or chicken, add canned whole tomatoes and corn (pieces of the cob or just the kernels) and simmer.

You can try dehydrating some fruit if it's cheap and plentiful and keep it in airtight jars or tupperware for several months or in the fridge/freezer for longer. If you have access to a screen, you can leave it in the sun (or the back window of your car in a sunny spot, heh heh) and it should be done in 1-2 days.

The market sounds so wonderful!