Monday Market Haul - 1/19/2015

honey crisp apples, yukon gold potatoes, yellow onions, granny smith apples, spinach, lacinato kale, curly green kale, curly purple kale, and red cabbage

It’s a mid-winter miracle!!

I somehow was able to pick up pretty much every color of the rainbow this past market visit! So much more inspiring than my last visit where I got maybe the ugliest carrots and some squash.

My excitement translated into my cooking and I was able to pump out some super fun things that I can’t wait to share.

The rest of my long weekend included --- Michael C. Hall in fishnets, naughty pizza eating in a cathedral, and visits from a best friend. Not too shabby for a January weekend.

Monday Market Haul - 1/5/2015

Shhh...I totally know it’s Tuesday.

Bah! New, New Year’s Resolution! Be more consistent here.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to get going, especially when it’s not a recipe post, but rather showing you all the amazing things I dragged home from the market. I might’ve hit that winter slump I had been worried about since I started this seasonal eating mission.

It was bitter cold at the market on Saturday. And everything was just sorta gray and sad and many vegetables looked downright frostbitten. I came home with a few apples, some very scraggly carrots, and not much else inspiring.

I miss summer.

The weekend itself was super cold and dreary and also not so inspiring. My new year’s kick in the ass slowly seemed to wither away.

But then, yesterday, my lovely boyfriend and I started our morning by watching the first montage sequence from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (his idea.) The one where he runs off to his first adventure after a life of not really doing anything else. That is inspiring. That got my day started off on the right foot. That sequence is how I want to start all my days. Anything is possible.

That ricotta went into something pretty inspiring. Are you ready?

I am.

Monday Market Haul - 12/29/2014 + Brown Butter Blondies

Full disclosure: This is LAST Monday’s market haul.

After that whirlwind of a Christmas I barely know what month it is. So last Monday Market Haul it is!

Panic shopping quickly turned into panic wrapping and then panic delivering. Between that, the baking, and the making of lasagna -- Christmas day is always a stressful event. And somewhere in there, I turn another year older. Covered in powdered sugar, red sauce, and brown butter, I'm now 27.

I’m a notoriously grumpy Christmas baby, but throughout the years, I’ve cobbled together a fairly amazing group of friends, so now this time of year I am spoiled rotten to the core. Between New York friends, work, home, and then home again, I received no less than 4 cakes. I’m pretty freakin’ lucky. Being a Christmas baby wasn’t so bad this time around.

In an effort to spoil myself, I took to daydreaming about my dream cake, which consequently would not be a cake at all. Don’t get me wrong, put cake in front of me, I will NOT refuse. Never. Not ever. But in a perfect world, cookies would probably top my list with ice cream or really good donuts just trailing behind. 

So to christen my first birthday with my blog running, I decided to make some dreamy brown butter blondies for my special day. Which I had big plans to photograph, but as mentioned, my Christmas day was cray, so all you get is a shitty instagram below. Many thanks to Dash and Bella for the "hella" good recipe. This is of course in addition to the classic pudding bundt cake my mother makes me every year. (See above: spoiled rotten.)

I’m now confident that I know what heaven smells like. And it’s brown butter and brown sugar mixed together. Make these blondies just.for.that.

These are filed directly under the “treat yo’ self” category. There is a dumb amount of butter, sugar, and evil gluten in these and I’m not sorry. They’re essentially half baked cookie dough. They are irrationally good.

Hope everyone had some amazing holidays! And since the season is not quite over, I think it’s more than okay to make these blondies for no good reason. You can find the recipe here. When the resolutions begin on January 1st these might seem gluttonous and extravagant. But right now, they are life affirming in the best way.

I atone my blondie sins with lots of brussels sprouts, squash, and tart honey crisp apples as shown! I finally got around to using all those b.sprouts I’d been bringing home, there will be evidence of that eventually. As soon as I’m done licking brown butter sugar from my fingertips.

Monday Market Haul - 12/15/2014

Lacinato kale, spinach, sweet italian sausage, sage, brussels sprouts, butternut squash (not pictured...oops)

Oh man. I had so many plans. So.many.plans. I left real life on Friday legit pumped to be awesome and productive and the best blogger around.

Aaaaannnnnnd then unlike last Saturday where I was the earliest of birds, I got off to the latest of starts. Nearly nothing got done, other than a speedy greenmarket run.

Me looking at brussels sprouts photo cred: Sean Gallagher

I had to rush home to make a cake for a holiday party and I can’t even tell you that my Winter Fruit Salad test was a success because, like a big failure, I didn't bring it! I cracked open the pomegranate on Saturday afternoon and it was rotten inside. And because I am not a good adult, I had not left myself any time at all to get another pomegranate. What would have been great is if I had followed my own suggestion and made it ahead of time and found out then! Responsibility at it’s finest ladies and gents.

I did get ONE thing off my weekend bucket list and that was to get some bone broth at brodo in the lower east side. I tried all three offerings -- the chicken, the hearth, and the beef and they were all inexplicably delicious. I ended up going with the grass-fed beef which was bolstered with the hefty taste of ginger. For a chilly December day it was really warming and the savoriness of it made it stick to your ribs in that comforting way. Seriously, you should get some now.

Sunday was better...maybe? Depends on your definition of better.

Last Wednesday, I started “oil pulling.” Have you heard of it? Google away my friends. You can get these wicked detox headaches when you first start and I think it’s safe to say I had one Sunday morning. I was the slowest of snails doing anything no matter how much coffee I consumed. After dropping an entire sheet pan of butternut squash on the floor I only got one recipe completed and one tested. Calm down. I washed it. But seriously I could not get it together. Both things were AH-MAZE though, and one just needs a smidgen more work before it can get to your lovely screens.

Here’s to hoping I can get my act together next weekend as I am up to my eyeballs in brussels sprouts and plans for them!

Monday Market Haul - 12/8/2014

Remember Friday? All that big talk of being super cuddly and lazy and comfy all weekend?

I had full intentions of doing exactly what I said I was going to do --- weather those rainy days in full on sloth status. But then, I popped out of bed Saturday morning at 8:15 like it was nobody’s business. (This never happens on say, the weekdays, when it actually needs to happen.) I peered out the window and saw that --- yes, indeed, it was the shit day predicted. Gloomy, cloudy, threatening to pour --- basically begging me to stay in my sweats with a cup of coffee and a few episodes of Gilmore Girls.

Instead, I found myself pulling on pants and rain boots and heading out the door before it had even struck nine. I got to the farmer’s market so early my normal coffee joint hadn’t even opened yet! Uncaffeinated but determined, I made my rounds and only caught some raindrops the last couple blocks back to my apartment.

I was ridiculously productive the entire rest of the weekend. Did blog things, cleaned, went out for late lunch on Saturday with girlfriends. Where, btw, I had a life affirming burrata app --- there was a brown butter sage sauce that I must.figure.out. Remember when I said burrata should be a way of life? Still rings true. And what do you know? Sunday was damn gorgeous. Met my old roommates for some brunch at the best place in town and had the best eggs benedict I’ve ever had. Can we talk about maple pecan crusted bacon for one second? I mean. I can’t even. I’m plotting the ways to recreate it.

It was nice to be surprised at how exactly opposite my weekend was than what I had thought it was going to be. Somewhere in there the boy and I did manage to finish season 3 and move onto season 4 of The Wire whilst canoodling with the cat. So I didn’t completely turn back on my word.

So the market haul -- obvs, brussels sprouts are a big thing right now. Shaved raw, char roasted, pan fried with bacon --- give me all the sprouts. Shout out also to Rick’s Picks. While I did not have room in my market budget or my market tote this past weekend, I plan to splurge on some spicy pickles and maybe some “smokra” from Rick one of these days. The samples were ah-maze.

pumpkin pie by request of boyfriend, honeycrisp apples, lacinato kale, brussels sprouts, shallots, delicata squash, sweet onions

Monday Market Haul - 11/24/2014

Can we just pretend that I haven’t been away from here for a month?

Can we just?

Grownup life has taken quite the toll. There’s so much going on that while usually I would be all about obsessing over butternut squash and it's magical properties, right now I’m a little like:

“Squash? Who cares about squash. Squash is just squash and I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT SQUASH!!!!!”

But really though, I love squash, and my true self loves talking about squash and! and! and! I even made something with squash. A fall Mama Lunetta classic, redux. Someday soon I hope to share it with you.

Anyways, after a brief hiatus from visiting the market on weekends, here is a market haul for you all.

I'm in the mood to caramelize some onions, how about you?

gala and pink lady apples, white and orange sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, and sweet onions

Monday Market Haul - 10/20/2014

This can’t last forever right? Still finding peppers and tomatoes and all sorts of lovely summer fare all the way into October? The tomatoes are a little ugly yes, but that’s nothing a little roasting can’t fix. Real talk, every weekend since August I’ve made of batch of this.

I put it on and in everything. I implore you to try it. This past weekend a meatloaf benefited from the addition with great success. I also eat it with my fingers straight from the pan, because I have no manners, obviously.

I’m feeling a  bit more like myself after what I can only say was one of those FOR SURE can’t mistake it for anything else grownup life turning points. Oh, right, this is the real world and nobody cares about you. Silly me.

ANYWAYS. A bit more like myself means that I had a bunch of fun in the kitchen this past weekend. Ideally, the proof of that will show up on this here space all week.

Besides what is shown in the market haul, can I tell you that I am drowning in cranberries? Drowning. I worked a super cool gig for Ocean Spray and came home with approximately 10 pounds of them. As if I had room for them. Here’s to making lots of sauce, and cakes, and hmmm, what else….HALP!

Monday Market Haul - 10/13/2014

You guys! I can’t believe I went and made all sorts of grand promises the week before last!

And then I gave you nothing.

Ugh. Seriously. Ugh.

But really though, life kinda just walked up to me last week and slapped me right in the damn face. And hard.

So here I give you last week's market haul as well as this week's. Foregoing any sort of crazy happenings we will ACTUALLY be back to regularly scheduled programming this week.

Will try not to let you down.

Check back tomorrow. (Do even trust me?)

I think something sweet will make an appearance. Plums were a big thing.