We returned from our trip today and didn’t have time to make it to the farmer’s market before it closed. Or, to be more accurate, we’d already driven for over three hours, I was mildly carsick, and I was so not going to hop back in the car until I’d eaten food and hosed myself off.

I was a little worried about our local meal. Would it have to be another plate of backyard green beans and peas?

Then, looking through my photos for the week, I realized I’d already eaten one entirely local meal!

(Plus the kids had baked me some local scones. Oh, and does foraging for wild raspberries and wineberries count as local snacking?)

(Just so you know, I don’t photograph everything I eat. It just worked out that way. I was planning a post about different ways to prepare swiss chard, that don’t inspire your children to make obligatory gagging sounds.)

(Sorry about my ongoing love affair with parentheses. I like for us to feel that I am sharing secrets.)

Anyway. I cooked up an armful of rainbow chard like so:

1. Separate greens from stems. Cut stems into 1/2″ pieces and put into oven-safe dish. Drizzle some oil over top, mix well, and put into oven. (Ours was already set at 425 to bake scones. What, did you think I was going to let the kids bake scones and not cook something else at the same time? That’s good energy wasted!) Tweak your temperature and cooking times as needed to suit whatever else you’re cooking at the same time.
   
   
2. While stems are cooking, chop up leaves into smallish hunks. This will yield a ridiculously large pile of greens.



3. After 20 minutes, start checking those stems. At 425 degrees I was happy with their texture after about 23 minutes- browning and tender.
4. Heap your pile of chopped leaves on top of your cooked stems. ( They threatened to overflow my 8×8 dish, so if you are dealing with more than 9 good-sized stems, you’re going to need a bigger boat. )



5. Drizzle with a bit more oil, toss very carefully, return to oven for five minutes or so, until everything is nice and dark and wilted.
6. Add some local heavy cream and salt and pepper. Turn off heat, put dish back into oven until cream is bubbly (or until table is set and dinner is ready). Normally I would add some parmesan at this point, as it adds a nice salty edge. But, all I had was local smoked cheddar, so I went with that instead.

I put two-thirds of it in the fridge ( it re-emerged that evening tossed with chicken and served warm over rice).

Then I whipped up a quick omelet with local eggs and filled it with the remaining creamy cheesy chardy goodness.

I like cooking with chard!
What’s your favorite way to prepare it?

This week’s Farmer’s Market budget of $30 bought the following:

• blueberries
• white cherries
• red potatoes
• bag of mixed greens
• bunch of carrots (Cassie really liked carrying these around)
• bunch of rainbow chard
• dozen free-range eggs
• half dozen ears of corn
• one each: green pepper, tomato, cucumber, green-and-yellow squash whose name I always forget.
• Eve’s cheese: smoked cheddar
• one vendor threw in “dessert cucumbers” for the kids. Dessert? I don’t know, we forgot to taste test them. I’ll update later when they try them.

Last week, we scored a locally farmed, free range chicken which was frozen. We thawed that out for this week’s local meal, giving it a brief rubdown with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and garlic.

The potatoes also got a drizzle of oil and a liberal dose of garlic, and I shredded some of the smoked cheddar on top when they came out of the oven.

I turned the oven to 425 degrees, put the potatoes in. When the oven beeped, indicating preheating had been achieved, I put the chicken in and turned the oven down to 325.

(We are big on chicken skin and this has been my most successful method of wrangling a crispy skin without drying out the bird. This chicken was about 4.5 pounds and it cooked in about 1.5 hours, which leads me to think maybe those Perdue thermometers are set to go off at higher temperatures than necessary. They always take a lot longer before they “pop”.)

Salad composed of local greens, cucumber, carrot, and egg.

And of course the sweet corn.

All in all this meal took me about ten minutes to actually prepare, which is how I like it!

OK, so this week’s farmer’s market score: blueberries, spring onions, corn, red potatoes, tomato, cucumber, yellow squash, Colby cheese with jalapeno, Cheddar cheese with horseradish, and- finally!- some local meat (chicken, frozen, so will have to save for next week’s meal). The chicken put me over budget a bit, the total was somewhere around 35 dollars.

Also, ta-da!, had to showcase the very very pretty bag of salad greens.

I have no idea what that flower is or how I am to eat it, but it is lovely. It reminds me of the Dr Seuss brugmansia I left behind at our old house.

A cute little yellow squash was hidden in the middle. Double prizes!

I made a quiche! And corn and potato salad on the side (the potato salad from last week was such a hit it was re-enacted for tonight’s dinner by special request).

The crust followed this recipe; why is it so hard to find recipes for pie crusts that don’t involve shortening? I just don’t do shortening. The butter kept melting in the heat but the crust was fine; not wonderfully flaky, maybe, but still crunchy and good.

I riffed from the Quiche Lorraine recipe from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook . Basically, I followed the ratios for eggs, milk, and cream, and then guerilla gourmet’d the rest. All ingredients local except the flour.

I used both of the cheeses from today’s market as well as two of the spring onions. I was worried the quiche was going to be overpowering because the jalapeno colby is seriously hot ( I am a heat wimp, by the way, or as I like to call it, a supertaster).

But, everything mellowed in the bake and it was supremely tasty. As in, if I happen across a quiche competition in the next 24 hours, I will submit a slice of my delicious quiche. And I will win. And I will accept my quiche trophy with humble gratitude and quirky charm.

I am loving this cooking with fresh ingredients, it’s like I suddenly became a better cook! But truly, I owe it all to Eve’s Cheese.

I also like the Iron Chef aspect of the thing: what can I cook, with the ingredients available to me, that will please the judges? And not break the budget?

Hey, help a girl out! I would love to know some good pie crust recipes and tried-and-true tips and tricks for flaky goodness! (That don’t use shortening!)