Farmers Market Tour
Thursday, June 7, 2012 at 4:01AM 
Last month we wrote about Dirt to Dish and the importance of teaching our boys how their food gets from the farm to their plate. Ben and Nick are urban kids, but they’re old enough to understand the basic principles of sustainable food, planting seeds, harvesting fruits and vegetables, and the idea of cooking and eating without wasting.
So we’ve decided this will be a summer of farmers’ market tours. We plan on hitting all the local markets from the west side to the east side. The first stop of our tour is the Santa Monica Farmers Market on Main Street.
Here are a few guidelines we use when at the market:
- We like to walk around the whole market before buying anything. This way we see what all the farmers have to offer, and who has the freshest looking produce.
- The best produce isn’t always the prettiest. In fact heirloom tomatoes with their knotty shapes and funny colors taste better than a perfectly round and smooth tomato any day.
- Everything in the market taste better when it’s fresh-picked, than sitting in the grocery store over a period of time. Like the freshly squeezed orange juice with seeds and pulp we drank together. Ben said, when he saw the seeds, “that’s how it proves it’s fresh.”
To get the recipe and shopping list on your smartphone (iPhone, BlackBerry, Android device) or PC, click here.
Farmers Market Salad with Sweet Corn Vinaigrette
Makes 8 servings
4 cups raw corn cut off the cob (from 4 cobs), divided
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon chili powder
4 tablespoons minced fresh Italian parsley
Sea salt, sugar and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 English cucumber, coarsely chopped
1 red onion, sliced (optional)
1 red pepper, coarsely chopped
1 yellow pepper, coarsely chopped
1 pound sugar snap peas, blanched
- Make the vinaigrette: Place 1 cup of the corn in the container of a blender (Set the remainder aside in a large bowl). Add the vinegar, chili powder and parsley; run the blender on high speed for 60 seconds, or until the vinaigrette is creamy. Season with salt, sugar and pepper; set aside
- Make the salad: In the large bowl, combine the cucumber, onion, red and yellow peppers and sugar snap peas with the corn. Toss with the vinaigrette. Season to taste and keep cold until ready to serve.
Note: to blanch sugar snap peas, drop them into a pot of simmering water just until color turns darker (do not overcook); drain immediately and put peas in ice water to stop cooking; drain and pat dry with paper towels.
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Andrew Hunter | 2 Comments | Share Article tagged Farmers’ Market Salad with Sweet Corn Vinaigrette, Santa Monica Farmers Market, Special Fork, corn, corn cut off the cob, dirt to dish, farmers’ markets, food blogs, food from farm to plate, guidelines for shopping the farmers’ market, mobile recipe website, sugar snap peas in The Family Table
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