Portland Farmer's Market and a Delicious Dinner

Today, my last day in Portland, we visited the Portland farmer's market, got a gourmet sandwich from a food cart downtown called PBJ's, and then came home and made a wonderful dinner (see the following pictures) consisting of homemade bruschetta, pesto, pasta, and more. I was so lazy after all of this that I didn't even want to blog but S bribed with me a bowl of chocolate ice cream topped with a delicious mixture of Farmer's market berries, peaches, and mango. I know, I know. I've been gluttonous all week. But I love experiencing the unique flavors of new places. The last three days have been full of delicious surprises.

It was interesting to see how the Portland farmer's market differs from the ones I'm used to back in the Midwest. I've never been able to buy a fresh, locally grown artichoke, nor have I seen such abundant peaches, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. Our peaches come from Michigan and Georgia!

Farmer's market fruit bento

Grilled artichokes

Grilled tomato bruschetta

Oregonian sandwich from PBJ's food cart downtown Portland:
Challah bread, Marion berry jam, Rogue Creamery blue cheese, Oregon hazelnut butter

More pictures are in the following album:

Portland 2010 Final Day

Thanks to S and L for a wonderful visit! I will see you both again soon. Thanks for always making me feel so welcome and allowing me to experience your world so completely. S is making a big decision about something and I will be thinking of her often. S, sometimes you can't reach decisions through facts or logic or what looks good on paper. Sometimes you just have to do what FEELS right and natural and normal and good. I'm there for you.

My hosts, S and L

Hobbes, the bengal (one of their three
beautiful kitties)

Harvest!

My harvest season has begun! I'm trying to get as much done as possible before I leave for vacation next week...

This weekend, I canned about seven pints of corn relish (on the left in the picture below) and about 19 half-pints of tomatillo salsa (on the right). For some reason, my tomatillo salsa is more brown than green this year. I wonder if it's because I used purple onions? These recipes are from the PDF SALSA RECIPES FOR CANNING by Val Hillers and Richard Dougherty. I used all locally grown produce that I got at our farmer's markets. The tomatillos came from my own garden...

I bought a meal kit from a farmer's market vendor that included the following purple heirloom tomatoes (sorry, I cannot remember the entire name), swiss chard (left), and several types of summer squash (not pictured). I sauteed these vegetables into a delicious sauce that we put on a pizza crust with other pizza fixings and then put it on the grill. It was delicious.

In the background you can see tomatoes, which came from my garden. I'm gearing up this week to can a tomato-peach relish. This tomato-peach relish is from the Preserving Peaches document located at the Clemson University Home & Garden Information Center.

Before the season is done, I hope to can more salsa (tomatillo and regular tomato), plus some seasoned tomato sauce.

We have had an extremely humid and wet summer...and I'm looking forward to fall...wearing sweatshirts and jeans, watching football, making delicious soups from my frozen/canned tomatoes, and enjoying my jellies and salsas.

Just Peachy

One of the things I look forward to in July is buying peaches off the TreeRipe Citrus truck, straight from Georgia. These peaches are so delicious--so utterly unlike anything we can buy in the Midwest--that this year I bought 60 pounds. Now I am a little conflicted about this, since I try to buy local and a lot of fuel was used in transporting these peaches a long distance, but at least I know where this food comes from. I figure it's better than buying from large grocery store chains, where I don't know where the food is from and often it's not even from this country.

Every June I anticipate the newspaper ad announcing that the TreeRipe Citrus truck is coming. This year I arrived about 15 minutes early and I stood in line for about 20 minutes. You must understand the whole experience of buying peaches. The sun was out, the weather beautifully warm. Everyone around me in line chattered endlessly about the quality of the peaches and what they did with their peaches last year and what they'll do with their peaches this year. By the time I bought my peaches, there were probably three times as many people in line behind me than there had ever been in front of me. As the line grew, traffic in and out of the small parking lot became chaotic and congested--people of all ages congregated to get their hands on those wonderful peaches.

Last year I bought 30 pounds of peaches and mostly froze them, but this year I did some research beforehand and got a bit more courageous. I stumbled on to a MAC DADDY food preservation site: http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/food/food_safety/preservation/
I like that their recipes are also available in printable PDF format. This site helped me be courageous enough this year to try canning and dehydrating, in addition to freezing my peaches.






As with all food preservation projects, it takes alot of time and effort. But I think one of the ladies in the peach line summed it up perfectly when she said, "You just feel so proud when you're done canning those peaches." I couldn't agree more.