After a long summer break from the farmer’s market, we started back on our Sunday morning routine.  We stopped by the Farmer’s Market this past Sunday and what a bounty we came home with.

We picked up a bunch of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes in beautiful colors.  This will make a stunning presentation on the plate.  I will post my recipe for the best way to serve heirloom tomatoes.

Picked up a huge bag of regular tomatoes for $5.00.  Five dollars! Can you believe it? For a giant bag of tomatoes?  Unreal.  The reason they were five dollars is because they were slightly over-ripe.  I grabbed the bag to make tomato soup and to add them to multiple Indian curries and daals that require nice juicy tomatoes.  What a deal – $5.00 for over 25 tomatoes.

We picked up a bag of broccolini.  Our family loves broccolini. One of my followers and friend Aaron asked me what broccolini is after he read this post. Boccolini is a cross between broccoli and kale with small florets on slim stalks.  We like this better than broccoli mainly because it is more firm and crunchy than broccoli and the flavor is more robust too.

The way we like to have broccolini is roasted with a little garlic and salt and pepper.  That’s it.  Just wash and drain the broccolini. Toss them with olive oil and some crushed garlic and roast in a 400-degree oven for 5 minutes, toss around and roast for 5 more minutes until charred.  Sprinkle some salt and just eat.

We got some long peppers that we love for their mild, not spicy flavor.  All I do is chop them up into chunks and sauté them on the pan with oil until slightly crisp. Or broil the peppers for 2 minutes on one side and 2 minutes on the other. Sprinkle salt and serve.  You can have it as a condiment with any main dish.

Here are some interesting veggies I bought at the market just because they were so beautiful and unusual.  Got a bag of mixed micro greens such as turnip greens, pea shoots, buckwheat greens, and mache. I made a salad with honey vinaigrette.

A fun stall that I enjoyed was a mushroom stall.  The mushrooms here were artistic and looked gorgeous.  I picked up some shitake mushrooms and made an omelet with these mushrooms, chives, and Gouda cheese.  Nothing like making an omelet with fresh bought farmer’s vegetables, it was delicious.

I picked up oyster mushrooms from this stall as well, they look so beautiful that I feel bad having to cut it up to cook with. There was a customer here who took over 10 minutes admiring all the gorgeous mushrooms before making her selection. I am going to use these oyster mushrooms in miso soup with tofu, chives and wontons.  Will post this recipe soon.

The most unusual purchase I made at the market is little white and black baby eggplants.  I bought them because they looked so intriguing.  The lady at the farm stand said they would be very tender and not grainy and seedy like the large eggplants.  She recommended I just bake them and that they cook very tender.  I will be making an eggplant bake soon. I’ll post the recipe when I have experimented with these eggplants and if the recipe turns out good 🙂

We also picked up fruits.  Bought some white nectarines and peaches, and mango plums.  Yes, mango plums.  We had never heard of these nor tasted them so we tried one of their sample slices. Guess what? These plums taste like a cross between mango and plum.  They have a mango flavor, are golden yellow inside just like mangoes, but in plum format.  Pretty cool 🙂

And lastly, how can I forget flowers?  Despite that I have a huge garden with lots of flowers, I love picking up flowers from the Farmer’s Market.  The newspaper wrap that all Farmer’s Market flower vendors wrap their flowers in always brings a smile to my face.

We also bought fresh ginger, Chinese greens, cabbage and long ridge gourd.  Plenty of veggies to keep me busy for a bunch of dinners.  Here is our Sunday Night Farmer’s Market Dinner of Heirloom Tomato Salad, Roasted Broccolini, Roasted Long Peppers, & Microgreens  Salad.

This was one invigorating Farmer’s Market Bounty 🙂 🙂 🙂