Market & Kitchen, July 11

The star of last week was totally the smoked pork chops. I had one and it was wonderful, and I have another in the freezer for some future meal. Plus, I trimmed out the bone & most of the fat and tossed them in the black bean pot, which was a delicious addition but they turned the most frightful grey-black colour. It's like I was cooking some sort of monster meat (hmmmm, a thought for hallowe'en maybe...)

I bought a few things earlier this week: Canned tuna and organic coffee at the drugstore($2/3 and $5/300g), 4 oranges and a jalopeño at a local fruit market ($2 for the oranges and $0.08 for the jalopeño), and sunflower seeds, 2L of organic milk, wheat germ for bread baking and some powdered skim milk at the bulk food store. ($5.78, $0.55, $0.31 and $3.16 respectively)

(I'm going to try my hand at making yogurt today, which is what the extra milk & powdered milk is for. It's such a great hot-weather breakfast with granola or fruit (or both), but organic yogurt is crazy expensive. Plus I like to DIY. (when it comes to food anyway...not so good with a hammer) I'll let you know how it goes)

Then I visited not one but two farmer's markets. First up was St. Lawrence Market, a large food market in downtown Toronto that operates 7 days a week, but the farmer's market is only on Saturdays. I love SLM, you can get absolutely anything there and it's so much fun to walk around and look at all the food, but I have a hard time sticking to a list when I go so today I got in and out as quick as possible. I also went earlyish (8:15) to beat both the crowds and the rain. Here's what I bought:


Cherries for $3.95 and super fresh eggs for $3.40. The eggs got rained on a bit.

Then I went to my local market and bought some vegetables:


Broccoli, peas, 1lb spinach, and garlic scapes, $13 but I don't know how it breaks down.

But I wasn't able to get everything I wanted, so I stopped at a fruit&veg shop on the way home and grabbed a couple more things, and then at a bakery for some bread for lunch, since I really wanted eggs for lunch and eggs without bread is just wrong.



$0.51 for the zucchini, $0.79 for the lettuce and $2 for the asparagus. The bread was $0.50.

Phew. I finally made it home not quite before the rain started but thankfully before the real torrential downpour began. All told I spent $43.02 this week so I'm still under budget for the month ($99.24 for July so far), and the pantry is well stocked. I did forget to get an onion (since there were no green onions at the market) but I don't think that will push me over :P

On the menu for this week:

• black lentil, broccoli and orange salad (dressing: lime, balsamic, olive oil, s&p; with sunflower seeds) serve on chopped lettuce, with garlic bread
  
• soup with onion, garlic, tomato paste, chicken stock, black beans, rice(?), spinach, peas. With cornbread (leftovers to freeze)
  
• pasta &garlic scapes & asparagus, green salad
  
• potato & spinach frittata, green salad (will make a large one and freeze the leftovers)
  
• black beans on rice, sauteed zucchini, green salad
• aloo mattar (pea & potato curry, use up vegetables) with yogurt on the side, brown rice

One night I'm going out to dinner with a friend. Lunches will be leftovers of the above. Breakfasts will be yogurt & granola (or oatmeal if its cooler). I've got oranges, cherries, peas, asparagus, and broccoli for snacking, and if I have too much of something on the vegetable front (ie spinach, asparagus...) I can blanch and freeze it. Going for a no-waste week, because I like a challenge. Looks like it's also going to be a vegetarian week. That will be a first for me. Oh wait, the chicken stock. Ok, almost vegetarian. Whatever.

I am also very peeved, because my herb plants have bugs on them! The internet tells me they are whiteflies, and my Mom suggest spraying them daily with water with a bit of dish soap in it. So that's what I've been doing, and hopefully it works, but there's going to be little in the way of fresh herbs for the next couple weeks I think. Shoot.

Lots to do today: The yogurt is cooling down before I add the started and set it to ferment, and I also have plans to make granola and chicken/vegetable stock this weekend. And possibly a bread product of some sort (more on that later...) And the kitchen floor needs to be mopped and I have wet laundry to hang up so I'd better get cracking.