Sunday, July 4, 2010

Score!

Flagstaff has a Farmer's Market (FFM) every Sunday morning. We have been thinking about going for awhile but when Sunday morning rolls around we always forget about before getting ready for church. The catalyst for this weekend was the fact that our new neighbor, Shark, makes his own juices and sells them at the FFM.

Now as of late, the tomato selection has been crappy in the grocery stores. Honestly, I have not seen such terrible produce in my life! Rotting tomatoes sitting in the stack with other split and shriveled vegetables that are supposed to be tomatoes.

Growing up I always had a few tomatoes plants right near the house. The grocery stores would always be bursting with ripe and juicy firm orbs. Not just red either. Yellow, orange and green were readily available. Every now and then you get the weird varieties, but you could always count on great tomatoes in the summer. So let's just chalk another one up to California.

Today, my disdain for Arizona produce was lessened. My faith has been restored. We woke bright an early and hit the FFM. Some of this has to do with Shark's urging to check it out. We got there right at 8 and it was already bustling. The main tomato vendor was packed! We got in line and I squeezed through and grabbed up two containers of different varieties of Cherry tomatoes. I was like a little girl in a candy store I was so excited. I think my eyes just lit up when I saw everything. I wanted to just eat one of everything. And I am sure of gotten away with trying a baby one of each variety. Another item on our list was cucumbers. I was looking everywhere and I saw these weird looking squash type things. It turned out to be Armenian cucumbers. We bought two.

Our total ticket was $11.75 and could have easily been a lot more. We got two containers with black cherry, golden cherry, Zebra and regular cherry tomatoes. And then there was the two large cucumbers that were $2 a pound. We also tried some of Shark's juices. He had a cucumber lime and watermelon, both sweetened with Agave juice. They were so good and cheap too!

I only wish BK liked squash. He has had some not so great squash dishes and it wrecked him. On the bright side he is reluctantly allowing me to cook some for him. If it were up to me, I would have some plain squash sliced and grilled with purple onion every night! I would be a happy girl but the only one eating. Maybe next weekend I will expand my budget and buy some squash and goat cheese! This time we had general plans for the tomatoes and cucumbers. I will post more about it later. right now I am going to embrace my inner child and watch Toy Story 3!

2 comments:

Libby Krueger said...

It is not my fault that BK doesn't like squash. I do steam squash from time to time. After steaming it I will sprinkle the squash with feta or assiago cheese; depends on what we're having for dinner as to whether or not any cheese is put on top of the squash. Sometimes a sprinkle of salt, pepper and garlic is all it gets. Squash is great with fish!!! When I was a kid my Mom cooked big squash and sprinkled brown sugar on it. It was pretty good -- a different texture than I was used to but the brown sugar made it alright.

Your tomato and cucumber salad looks wonderfully delicious. Did you have any left from the potluck to take home?

Ashley Armstrong Krueger said...

I am not specifically blaming anyone, he just said there were some squash he ate that never really sat right.

There was a small portion of the salad left. We are going to douse it with more balsamic and eat it with a crusty baguette!

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