Farmers’ Market

When we lived in Nevada, MO, we were about an hour from Webb City and the Webb City Farmers’ Market was known through the area for being an amazing market. We always said we were going to go to the market but we never did so when we decided to move back to the area and found a house in Webb City, I was very happy to be less than 10 minutes from the market.

This time of year, there are less fresh veggies and more breads, jams, pies, frozen farm raised beef, pork and chicken. There are always candles, spice mixes, things like that but mostly I go for the fresh veggies. We don’t go every week but we try to go every other week. In the late spring and early summer, it’s a zoo . . we have to park a long ways away and it is so crowded. It’s an open air type pavillion but in the winter, they actually have it all enclosed to keep rain, snow and wind out. Here we are in December and it wasn’t terribly cold in there today and, it’s WAY less crowded this time of year.

Is that an interesting and yummy looking spread? There difference is hard to believe between grocery store veggies and what we can get at the market.

They had other veggies we didn’t buy – turnips, carrots, lots of leafy greens, sweet potatoes. Someone was even selling loofah. They had a green one and a dried one out for display but they were cutting the peeled ones into about 5″ long pieces and selling those.

I’m guessing someone will either not know what some of these things are, or they can’t tell from the picture so here’s a closer view. Left to right:

1. The white things are lion’s mane mushrooms.
2. The things that look a bit like vanilla wafers are blue oyster mushrooms.
3. Jalapeno beef sticks.
4. Radishes
5. Pecans. These are the best! I had storebought pecans but for making candy . . no, I needed these locally grown yummy pecans.
6. The round green thing is kohlrabi.
7. The one next to it with stems sticking up is a fennel bulb.

1. Front left – beef brats
2. In front of the tomatoes – fresh turmeric. I actually have that growing in pots in the greenhouse but Vince didn’t know that.
3. In front of the honey – fresh ginger, which I also have growing in the greenhouse.
4. Two pints of honey
5. Napa cabbage
6. Broccoli. I have never seen such dark green broccoli.
7. Tomatoes. These are grown in the Braker Berry greenhouse. They aren’t too far from us and sometimes we will drive out there and buy directly from them.

Now . . what am I going to make with all this great food?

1. The mushrooms – Probably not all of those but most of them will go into pasta sauce. I will often make a creamy pasta sauce with mushrooms and I’ll eat that when Vince has marinara. Since next week begins the diet and I can’t have cream, I’ll probably make a sauce with olive oil, mushrooms, garlic and wine.
2. Beef Sticks – snacks til the diet begins.
3. Radishes – I’ll cook the greens and probably add them to other greens. The radishes we’ll either eat with hummus or eat plain or add to salads.
4. Kohlrabi – I’ll peel it and saute it and we’ll add seasonings and eat it like that.
5. Fennel bulb – I love roasted fennel and it doesn’t get much easier than that. I could also add it to pasta sauce. I’ll probably roast it for dinner one night and whatever is left over will go into the pasta sauce.
6. The beef brats are for dinner tonight. I’ll write more about that later.
7. Napa cabbage – I’ll use at least part of that to get some kimchi going. I love that stuff.

I think everything else is fairly common with lots of uses.