Recipes « (y)our food choices™

I’ve had my eye on a certain little fruit that made its debut at our Sunday farmer’s market a couple of weeks ago. French plums are in season and they’re beautiful right now. I can’t get enough of their red purple skins and their firm, meaty flesh. We sampled a couple of them before splurging on the pint ($2). Jason indulged the choice because he knew I wanted them, that I wouldn’t let it go until I had them. And I’m sure he doubted that they’d get eaten before turning into compost on our kitchen counter. Fair enough.

The idea of the plum tart has been brewing for about a week. I’ve been reviewing recipes, scanning the blogs, trolling epicurious.com and flipping the pages of our dessert reference books. Here’s what I ended up with: an epicurious.com recipe for almond cream and the Martha Stewart recipe for pate sucree I found over on BigOven.com.

My plan was to bake the tart while at home alone. I wanted to prove something to myself and this tart was a sort of test of whether I’ve learned anything from all the recipes I read and all the cooking shows we see. Mind you, I’m not the baker in our family. Jason is the master of the pastry and the chemistry of the bakery is his province. I was taking some chances here.

I’m satisfied with the result and feel inspired to bake more. Get out to the market, buy the best in-season fruit you can find and make a tart.

Cheers,

Steve

French Plums

August piles the farm’s colorful bounty on tables that look as though they can barely contain the massive tangles of green beans, the heaps of fresh new potatoes and more stone fruit than you can imagine. I love these images and the promise they hold of bright, fresh flavors at the table.

At this point in the season, the tomatoes and squash are threatening to overtake the farm stalls. Prices are coming down and so the time has come for home canning and freezing in preparation for winter.

Market Wonder

As we scouted around the market this morning, we noticed that a few of our favorites are making their fall debut including firm white fennel bulbs and Gravenstein apples. The Brussels sprouts showed up this week, but they looked like medium sized cabbages. They just weren’t right.

So Much Color

So much of the pleasure we take in the farmer’s market is tied to the visuals of flower and fruit, veggie and pastry. In our little market you can buy brown, cage free eggs, a cactus, a loaf of fresh bread and a package of smoked tofu. We have access to fresh octopus, French plums and Chinese spinach. The corn is now in but we didn’t see much of it selling. People flocked to the melons and peaches.

Sunny Flowers, Cloudy Day

Our Buys

We grabbed fresh lobster ravioli and egg fettucini from our favorite pasta vendor. To supplement our weekly produce box, we bought potatoes, an egg plant, fresh herbs, a tomato and a big red onion. We wanted to buy a little of everything, but our fridge is full and we have a box coming from Capay Farms on Tuesday.

Images

The produce is perfect right now. This is THE time of year to visit a farmer’s market. Farm fresh fruits and veggies taste better than the grocery store stuff so why not enjoy them while they’re in season and so accessible? To inspire you, we’re posting the pictures from today’s foray. We hope they inspire you!