sweet miscellany

It was a really exciting day at the market on Saturday. Both peaches and sweet corn had their first appearance of the season! I’ve been dreaming about making a peach and corn caprese salad of sorts so I’m pretty excited. As if peaches and corn weren’t enough excitement, I picked a good amount of dewberries this weekend. Since I’ve got a 25lb box of peaches and several pounds of dewberries, I’ll be jamming all this week. If you stop by the market this Saturday, I’ll have some new jams for you!

I’ve been thinking about starting a series of posts about how I use what I get at the farmer’s market each week since I know it can be a little daunting. For example, I’m going to make some refrigerator pickles with the cucumbers and dill. The romaine will get used in salads and topped with fresh corn, peaches, and basil. The rest of the corn and the leeks will get a quick saute and then get tossed with a fresh basil pesto and some gluten free brown rice pasta. As for the glut of peaches, the majority will be made into jam for the market while the others will be eaten with my morning granola and yogurt. For this series, I want to try to photograph a few of the ways I use the produce throughout the week and provide recipes when applicable. Let me know what you think!

Oh, and to top the weekend off, the preview of the summer issue of Chickpea Magazine came out! I did an article as well as a few recipes and photos for a spread entitled “Love Thy Farmer”. It addresses the importance of farmers markets and why you should support them. I included recipes at the end of the article that take advantage of fresh, summer produce. My brother provided the awesome illustrations seen in the article. I’m on pages 66-75 🙂

I wanted to do this post about 3 weeks ago when I discovered some locally grown rhubarb all the way down here in Texas. This is the first year I have seen any as it tends to favor cooler weather than we have down here. It’s possible I made some sort of squealing sound in addition to a happy leap when I saw it. I think I bought the rest of what they had that week, which was around 6 or so pounds. The first bunch of it went towards jammy experiments for the shop and market, so I made sure to set some aside the next time for baking. I was hoping to get more yesterday, but the season ended and I was left with only 2 cups of rhubarb. I knew I didn’t have enough for a pie, and I really did not want to combine it with strawberries. I ended up deciding on a bit of a cross between a pie and a crumble bar, making the bars in a smaller pan to accommodate the amount of rhubarb I had.

I’ve been thinking about combining a bit of orange blossom water with the rhubarb as it almost has a citrus-y taste to me. So, I included a splash in these bars along with a bit of freshly grated orange zest. I decided to go with a hearty buckwheat crust as rhubarb and buckwheat are actually in the same family. I figured they would go well together and create a nice contrast in flavor and texture. As I am writing this I realize that rhubarb is on its way out for the year, but perhaps you might still be able to get your hands on some. If not, no worries. You can always save the recipe for next year 🙂
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Farmers Market Loot & A Bit of News

Orange Blossom Rhubarb Bars with a Buckwheat Crust