Get Yourself to a Farmer's Market & Help a Farmer Out

During the summer, Saturdays are my favorite day of the week.  Why, you may ask, besides the fact its Saturday and its the summer?  Because Saturday is farmer's market day!  Every Saturday starting in June, I arise at the crack of dawn, grab an iced coffee and I'm out the door, off to the market.  I leave the husband and the kid sleeping and I'm off, solo, to find whatever beautiful bounty the farmer's market may yield this week.

Here's a little known factoid about me.  I am frugal.  Incredibly frugal.  Ok, I'm downright cheap.  I'm a bargain hunter to the very depths of my soul.  I hate over paying for anything, including food.  The downside to that is I love the exotic and expensive.  Recently, my husband and I have committed to trying to eat healthier and going organic when feasible.  But let's face it, eating organic is ridiculously expensive.  You would think the absence of chemicals and pesticides would make products cheaper and less labor intensive to harvest.  Yet organic produce and meats are nearly double the price of their non-organic counterparts in your grocery store.  I'm sure there's a good reason, I know certified organic growers have to meet very stringent practices and re-certify for their Certified Organic credentials, yada, yada, yada.  But it sucks for us.  Why should the wealthy be the only class privy to organic foods?  It's just doesn't seem fair.  But I digress.  I'll step down from my soap box because I've found an alternative for us commoners. Every Saturday, local Long Island farmers harvest beautiful fresh produce in the morning and bring it directly from the fields to my neighborhood, all for my convenience.  Most are local mom & pop farms who take exceptional pride in their wares. They are usually organic and offer a plethora of produce.

I look forward to the newest crop of veggies and fruits that were harvested that morning and I let that inspire my menu for the week.  These are the things that excite me.  It is the highlight of my week.  Kinda pathetic, I know.  But I'm a proud food geek, and I stand by my geek-ness.

Besides fresh produce, many pop up farmer's markets offer  a number of different vendors.  My favorite market has several vendors including local artisan bakers, an amazing goat cheese guy, a small privately owned spice company, hand-made flavored olive oils and balsamic vinegars, homemade baked dog treats, a pickle guy and another local farm offering vegetable plants, flowers, ornamental grasses and the like.  And everything is affordable and delicious.  I get to meet the people that baked the bread, harvested the vegetables and pressed the olive oil.  It's an amazing experience, getting inspiration for recipes from someone who is passionate about their craft.  The vendors often rotate so it's always a surprise as to who will be there this week.  I've always had an infinity for the underdog and I secretly cheer for the success of these small business.

This weeks farmer's market run yielded quite an array - fresh bread, 3 different kinds of goat cheese, dog treats, ground flax seed, garam masala, smoked salt, Harissa, sour dill pickles, blood orange olive oil, white peach balsamic vinegar, cucumbers, fresh corn, peaches, apples, lettuce, shallots and zucchini.  And I spent just about $30.  Really, $30!  Now those are some bargains I can get down with.  (Stay tuned for my Zucchini Cake recipe!)

 

So get out there and support your local farms and small businesses.  Eat healthy, save some money and help a farmer out.

You can find farmer's markets in your area here : www.farmersmarket.com

Happy shopping!

xoxo Kristen

Grilled Rosemary Garlic Potato Pouches

Cooking has always been kind of my thing.  It is undoubtedly one of my very first loves and my very first hobby. Ever since I was old enough to stand on a chair in front of the stove, alongside my mom, I have adored cooking.  For me, food symbolizes family, togetherness, holidays and good times.  Some of my best memories as a child were centered around family meals and the memories continue to be made at the kitchen table every day to with my own family.  

Experimenting with different ingredients, spices and proteins has always appealed to my secret inner chef.  When a meal comes together and somehow turns into something deliciously delectable, it's a magical thing.  Watching someone's eyes roll back in their head ever so slightly, and hearing them make that yummy growling sound deep in their throat when they take the first bite of something I created, well that is just about the best feeling in the world.

So let's kick off this party with a recipe!  It's summertime and my absolute favorite way to cook during these hot, sticky days is on the grill.  I live for my grill.  The very last thing I want to do is slave over a hot stove in my stuffy kitchen while the rest of my family is outside enjoying the long, warm summer nights.  So pretty much every summer night, I attempt to nourish my family with a meal made entirely on the grill.

I'm a meat and potato kind of girl and this one of my favorite accompaniments to a good old fashioned steak.

Grilled Rosemary Garlic Potato Pouches

Serves 4. Prep 8 minutes, Cook Time 20 minutes

Here's what you'll need:

1 lb. Small Fingerling Potatoes

2-3 Sprigs of Fresh Rosemary, removed from stem and roughly chopped

2 tsp. Garlic Powder

1/8 c. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

4 tbsp. Salted Butter

Fresh Ground Black Pepper, to taste

Kosher Salt, to taste

Aluminum Foil

1.  Preheat grill to high heat and close the cover.  Wash potatoes thoroughly and remove any eyes.  Set aside to dry.  It's ok if they're a little damp, the moisture will turn to steam and help the potatoes cook all the way through.

 

2.  Combine all the ingredients except for butter and foil (duh...) in a large mixing bowl.  Mix together to combine and coat the potatoes. Go ahead a have a taste of the dressing.  Feel free to over salt and pepper the dressing because the taste won't be as potent once its served with the mild potatoes.  If it tastes too salty or peppery, that's good!  It mean you've seasoned well.

 

5.  Tear off 4 separate- 1 sq. ft. pieces of aluminum foil for the pouches.  Add potatoes and dressing to the center, in 4 equal parts, to each piece of foil.  If there is dressing left in the bottom of the bowl, drizzle it equally over potatoes. Salt and pepper again, if desired.  Place 1 tbsp. of butter on top of potatoes and fold aluminum foil to form a sealed pouch.

 

6.  Place pouches on upper rack of grill, turning them occasionally.  If you don't have an upper rack on your grill, you can place them directly on a medium/high grill. Use tongs to turn the pouches, being careful not to pierce the foil and let all the garlicky, rosemary-ish goodness escape from your pouches.

 

7.  The potatoes need approximately 20 minutes to cook through, depending on their size.  In the meantime, while they're hanging out on your upper rack, go ahead and grill whatever else you're planning for dinner that evening.

8. After about 15 minutes move the pouches to the lower portion of your grill directly over the flames. Turn at least once during the remaining 5 minutes.

9.  They're ready!!  Open the pouches (carefully! they will be super hot and steamy!).  You can get fancy and pour them into a bowl, or you can eat them like we do - like savages, right out of the foil.  

Serve immediately, because these are ahh-mazing steamin' right off the grill.

 

Variations:  If fingerling/mini potatoes aren't available in your local grocery store, don't despair!  You can use Yukon Gold or Idaho potatoes successfully in this dish.  Dice them in approximately 3/4 in. cubes with skins on and prepare them as directed.  To go a little lighter on this recipe, skip the butter and add a splash more olive oil to the mix.

Get creative!  You can use any combination of herbs and spices, add a little heat with some diced jalapeños, add cheese and chopped bacon, the possibilities are endless.  Try something different and let me know how your variation turned out!  

xoxo Kristen

 

Welcome to Stumbling Through Suburbia!

Welcome to my new little blog! My name is Kristen and I happily reside in the suburban haven of Massapequa Park, NY.  Formerly a career girl from the (not so) mean streets of Queens, NY, I have long aspired to have a perfectly blissful suburban lifestyle, complete with white picket fence and two dogs in the yard.  Well here I am, livin' the dream...kinda.

If you've found yourself here in the first few days of my blog going 'live' you're most likely a friend, family member or friend of a friend.  In whatever capacity you've come here, thanks for your support on my new endeavor.  Most of you probably know me personally, but with a little luck, hopefully someday, complete strangers [gasp!] might actually find their way to my humble little blog and want to know a thing or two about the girl dishing out tips and advice.

I am currently a stay-at-home mom, married to my soul-mate, and devoted mom to my six year old daughter who I will be referring to as "Moo" going forward.  Moo Shu is her nickname, and has been since birth.  I'm not sure how or why it came about but it has stuck with her for the last six years and appears it will follow her through life.  More on that later.

My husband is my best friend.  Seriously.  I know people say that in mixed company to make their relationship seem better, normal, sane...(go ahead and insert your own adjective here), but he truly is.  We haven't been married very long, we actually didn't date very long before getting engaged.  But we both knew after our first date, unbeknownst to the other, that we would be married, and sooner rather than later.  It was all whirlwind and romance from the day we met.  He loves my daughter as much as he loves me and that my friends, was the proverbial cherry on top of our already picture-perfect romance.  I jumped all over that, and quick.

So you might be asking yourself, "what makes this particular chick qualified to be doling out unsolicited advice?"  Well the answer to that is nothing and everything.  I'm a regular person just like you.  I'm no one special and I'm no expert, but I know a thing or two about a few things and over the years, I've found that family and friends would come to me about advice about cleaning, recipes, entertaining, relationships, parenting advice, products I use, etc.  I was often called the Suzie Homemaker of the crew, and one of my BFFs affectionately refers to me as 'Martha' - as in Stewart.  I figured out at some point, my opinion might actually be worth something.  After some coaxing from my besties and at the urging of my husband, I decided to give the ol' blogging thing a whirl.  Worst case scenario, no one reads my blog and I disappear back into obscurity from whence I came, best case is someone likes something I have to say, shares it with a friend and we all wind up stumbling though suburbia together!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you decide to stay awhile :)

XOXO Kristen