Market Fresh

The Market Inspired Meal!

After all of the work I did with the Wesleyan Farmer's Market this year and all of the great foodie books I have read (Food Matters by Mark Bittman, Real Food by Nina Planck, and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, among others) I decided that it was time to bring my consumption in line with my beliefs. I have gotten my family to agree to a summer full of whole, traditional foods at the dinner table! We are no longer supporting the industrial food industry whenever we have a viable alternative. As an added bonus, we are all having a lot of fun on this journey and it has allowed for a lot of family bonding time between trips to the market, dinner prep and of course, eating.

Focaccia from Omega Artisan Baking

This mission is what brought my mother and I to the Farmer's Market at North Market on Saturday morning. It was really great to connect with the individuals that grow our food and it was a nice opportunity to mingle with other Columbus residents. Sunday dinner was inspired by our trip to the market. We bought a chicken that had been spatchcocked (a method of flattening it for grill-friendly cooking) and sealed in a vacuum bag with fresh lemons and rosemary. We also bought fresh shelled peas and a freshly baked loaf of garlic focaccia bread!
While the spatchcock method allows the chicken to grill evenly, it doesn't make it easy to grill chicken. This is a job that requires full attention and/or indirect heat. When the chicken sits atop active flames, it is bound to catch on fire. As I learned the semi-hard way, this is not a dish you can prepare while watching TV. Luckily I saw the grill smoking before the meal was ruined!

Freshly picked peas! You can't beat the flavor!

simply delicious

There were a lot of influences pushing me towards a simple homemade breakfast this morning. I had spent the day yesterday - which was incidentally earth day - hanging out at a farmers market. I also attended a discussion session with one of our vendors, a Wesleyan professor who teaches a class on the American Pastoral, and a senior who wrote her thesis on farmland preservation. Adding to all of that wholesomeness, I am also reading a book called "Real Food: What to Eat and Why" by Nina Planck. If that wasn't enough, Olivia gave me Alice Waters's "The Art of Simple Food" which I spent much of my morning perusing. Basically, it was like the world was convening to tell me to put time into making a delicious and wholesome breakfast. Luckily my Thursday mornings aren't that busy so I was able to follow the impulse....

Last night Avi and I prepared some olive oil bread dough. At Christmas I was given a book called "How to make Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day" and for awhile we were happily munching on fresh bread. When life got busy, we had fallen behind in our efforts so it was nice to get back to it. The first thing I did when I woke up was preheat the oven and shape a small roll out of the dough.
Next, I ventured outside to dead head my pansies and harvest some fresh parsley. I was so excited to use some of our herbs. I have been chomping at the bit to start using the herbs since I planted them, but all of the information I have read says to wait a week. I made it about 5 days before needing to do the harvest.

When I got back in, I put my roll into the oven and started on the eggs. I checked "The Art of Simple Food" to see what Alice had to say. Her most useful piece of advice was that you should barely mix the eggs because stirring them too much causes the eggs to lose body. I put two eggs, chopped parsley, salt, pepper and a bit of chevre into the bowl and mixed with restraint. When my pan was properly heated, I added a bit of butter and then the eggs. Since I didn't over mix, instead of homogenous yellow blobs, my eggs were very pretty. Some pieces were shiny and white, some were a vibrant yellow, and all shades in between were represented. The tang of the goat cheese and the brightness of the parsley made it an excellent dish.

By the time the eggs were done my bread had a crispy crust and was smelling delicious. You can't beat the smell of baking bread in the kitchen.

I cut the bread in half when it was still steaming and topped it with Farmer's market goodies. On one half I put blood orange marmalade and the other half was topped with maple butter.

Pita bread

Emily and I were back a little early during break, which gave us some time to make pita bread. That's right... we came back early from spring break just to make pita. Ok just kidding. Almost.

Anyway, last semester (our pre-blogging days) Emily and Avi made pita but the dough didn't pouf the way it was supposed to, and it wasn't very flavorful. It wasn't until this post on Smitten Kitchen that we decided we gave up too early.

We made the dough and let it sit in the fridge for two days before baking it, which gave the dough some depth, but I think next time I will reduce the fridge time to 1 day, instead of two. It was just a little too yeasty for my taste. More importantly, the technique of wetting the dough a few minutes before popping it into the oven worked-- the pitas puffed and made nice pockets.

Then Emily made her fabulous hummus recipe, and the world was at peace.