I thought dieting in the summer would be so much easier! Just think.....fruits
and veggies are fresh and plentiful and the weather is beautiful and conducive to outdoor activity. Well, that was the plan anyway! It is time to take advantage of summertime at its finest.....and find the nearest Farmer's Market (or roadside stand or green grocer) and load up on summer's bounty! Those fruits and veggies are less expensive now and at
their peak in flavor.....better get some extra to put in the freezer!

Nearly every healthy eating plan emphasizes fruits and vegetables......
5 servings a day......3 to 4 cups per day.....even unlimited servings! And
for good reason: fruits and veggies play a big part in a healthy eating plan!
They are hign in fiber, low in calories and not a one of them contains cholesterol! :

Eaten even in moderate amounts, they help reduce the risk for diabetes, certain cancers, stroke, cardiovascular disease, kidney stones and some even decrease bone loss!

Let's make August our Farmer's Market Challenge.....get out in the fresh air and re-connect with some good food! Healthy eating is the foundation to a healthy lifestyle!

So, what are you finding in the stalls at
your Farmer's Market.....and how are you preparing it?

Well, its not a market, exactly, its a Consumer Supported Agriculture farm. Same idea, though. I get a box weekly with whatever is in season, delivered from a farm only 7 miles away. So while I don't get the "get outside" part, I'm reconnecting in a BIG way with new, good, nutritious foods.

My box this week:
Corn - I'll just grill it up and eat it plain. I love corn so much.

Tomatillos - Need some help with this one. I'm thinking salsa, but have never worked with tomatillos.

Heirloom Melon - Again, chopped up and enjoyed raw. Our farm is doing a test run with ALL kinds of melons this year, so we get a different kind practically every week (you don't know what kind it is, in fact, until you go online and match it with a set of pictures provided)

Tomatoes - Slice and eat as salad. I also make a pasta with the cherry tomatoes I've been getting - just cook some chiffonade basil, chopped summer squash, and whole cherry tomatoes until the tomatoes pop and release their juices into the pan. Toss with whole wheat pasta and mini turkey meatballs.

Fresh Basil - Tomato and basil salads (yum), or my favorite low-cal pesto - just whirl in food processor 1/4 c. pine nuts, a bunch of basil, 2-3 cloves of garlic, a teaspoon or less of olive oil, a few tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese, and enough chicken stock to get the consistency you want, plus salt and pepper. True it has some higher-cal ingredients, but it gets cut with the chicken stock quite a bit, and a little goes a long way. Serve on pasta, on chicken, and anywhere else you'd use pesto.

Huckleberry Potatoes - These are the creamiest little pink potatoes I have ever eaten. I make potato wedges, or just bake whole, or throw into soups/stews/etc.

Summer Squash - Squash bake! Cube up some of the squashes, along with a few tomatoes. Chop some basil and mince some garlic - toss all together with 4 tbsp shredded parmesan and salt/pepper to taste. Sprinkle top with lowfat mozzarella cheese and bake at 375 until bubbly. I also have been stuffing zucchini with a mixture of the zucchini innards, chopped tomato, basil, a little parmesan cheese, and some cooked whole wheat couscous. Bake at 375 until zucchini is tender. With a chicken breast and some salad, this is heavenly.

Yellow Carrots - I throw carrots into just about everything. Salads especially benefit from the sweet yellow variety. I also grate them and put them into my meatloaf to bulk up the servings without dramatically increasing calories. This week, I think they're going into a soup.

Cucumber - Lemon cucumbers! Peel, slice, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, and eat. Once I start, i can't stop.

Sage, Rosemary and Thyme - These go great with poultry. Mince up some garlic and the herbs, then sprinkle on salt and mash together into a paste...spread onto chicken breasts and grill. Mmm.

mandalinn, I've seen you on several threads and I notice your avatar because it looks like some English Nanny looking down at me..HAHAHAHA! Like in the show Super Nanny (or whichever with the English nanny with her hair pulled back in a bun and glasses on the tip of her nose).

mandalinn.. those all sound so wonderful!

we have been eating...

cherry tomatoes.. in salads, oven dried and used in marinades, sauces, and rubs, eaten like cherries!

green beans.. steamed crisp and used in pasta dishes, salads and just eaten with a sprinkle of salt

peppers.. we use these raw in everything from wraps and omlettes, to salads and sprinkled on top of rice. We have been grilling, peeling and freezing for the winter months. We canned a ton of roasted red peppers. I love them roasted and hot on a salad!

DeafinlySmart - its my "stern librarian" pose.

Thanks for the cherry tomatoes ideas! I have a pint right now in the fridge - how do you oven-dry them?

cut them in half and place them cut side up on a baking pan, plae in 150-200 degree oven for a few hours and then let cool and dry overnight. Make sure to watch them because as the juice comes out it can burn

Hello All!

Another incredibly hot day! I am fortunate to have AC at home and at the office....but outdoor activity is out of the question! Of course, that means I should be doing some exercise inside....but how to get motivated?

Mandalinn......A box of veggies delivered every week? What a concept! And it sounds like you make good use of them too!

Nymmy.....I love to steam veggies too.....sometimes I slice up carrots and green beans and then celery or water chestnuts for a little more crunch. When you dry cherry tomatoes in the oven, do you drizzle them with olive oil or fresh herbs?

I got some zucchini and yellow summer squash last weekend.......drizzled some extra virgin olive oil in a frying pan, sliced up the zucchini and squash and a medium red onion and a little minced garlic....cooked it thru and the kids just gobbled it up!

It has started to rain here.....so hopefully that will bring the temps down to a more livable degree!

What is neat about the program (and other programs like it around the country - go to www.localharvest.org and search for "CSA" programs) - the produce I get is all organic, all hand-harvested, and all literally picked within 2-5 days of arriving at my door. I also get a newsletter telling me what is going on at the farm and what they are working on, and they sponsor events throughout the year (can you say "tomato tasting in the field"), so I am really connected to the place my food is being produced. I know the name of the farmer who picked my tomatoes this week - you can't get much closer than that if you're an apartment dweller without room for a garden.

My farm grows over 20 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and nearly as many heirloom melons. I got some gorgeous heirlooms as my tomatoes this week, so its sliced tomatoes with basil, balsalmic, and a touch of garlic oil tonight. Mmmmmmm.

If you have one nearby, I encourage you to try it out. For the box I described up above, it costs me $23 a week - and I hardly have to buy any other produce for my 2-person household.

That website ROCKS!

MsRD- you can I dont because I dont like the added fat at the moment, but I have in the past!

MsRD- I love this challenge. It goes along with my recent thoughts on "food miles" and buying local to reduce dependance on oil. I just worked a farmer's market 2 weeks ago doing a presentation and loved it. I used to go all the time and had just gotton out of the habit. Thanks for the spurs!

My husband and I went to the local farmers market today. We really should have only bought for three days, because the market is held on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but we end up going only once every 7 to 10 days.

Today we bought some of our old standbys and a few new finds.

delicata squash
(an heirloom squash, also called sweet potato squash. It's cream colored, about the shape of a hoagie roll, with green stripes).

ground cherries
(related to tomatillos and cape gooseberries they have a papery husk, and the berry is about the size of a tiny grape tomato). I looked it up online when I got home, and the taste is described as tomato-pineapple, but these tasted (you're going to think I'm nuts, hubby did, but he agreed when he tasted them) like a fruit version of white cake. Sort of vanilla-ish.

baby bok choy (so cute!)

crab apples
(surprisingly sweet, reminded me of a slightly sweeter granny smith, but about four would equal the size of a medium apple).

1 qt tiny thai peppers.
I probably shouldn't have bought these, or asked the Hmong lady selling them to break them into a pint or half pint. I asked to taste one (a Hmong man next to me was shocked to see me bite into the pepper and not think it was too hot - I love hot food.) It was very hot (about as hot as jalapeno, not nearly as hot as habanero which are too hot for me). It had a really sweet taste before and with the burn. But although I love spicy food - what am I going to do with a quart of them (especially since husband doesn't care for food nearly as spicy as I do). Maybe I'll put some in a bottle of vinegar to make a hot sauce.

Chinese long beans
A chinese variety of green beans, but about a foot long each.

japanese eggplant
long like a zuchini, bright pink rather than purple in color, and much less bitter than italian eggplant.

broccoli, onions, sweet corn, cilantro, yellow squash, tomatoes, and radishes.


And at the grocery store for the week: 4 white nectarines (we would have gotten them at the farmers market too, but our "regular fruit guy" wasn't at the market today.

Ooh, and dark purple bell peppers (sweet like red bell peppers, and so pretty).

Today I walked down to our local farmers market. There were so many things to choose from. I decided to buy 1 green & purple lettuce $2 a bag, 2 jars of fresh / homeade jam 1 pineapple & 1 pineapple coconut 2 for $10, 1 bunch bannanas $1.85 (these were huge), then I bought 2 containers of fresh pineapple one white one yellow $1.50 ea and a container of sweet papaya. $2.50ea but I got a discount and got it for $4. I love fruit so thats mostly what I bought. My whole family was a little shocked when I called them up to tell them what good deals I got at farmers market. I think they were just surprised I went to farmers market period. hehe. I like this challenege I think I'll be going every Saturday from now on