Farmers Markets Rule!

This evening I fixed supper that included potato salad and fresh green beans, both made from ingredients from our local farmers market. I few nights ago I froze some contents for peach pies, made with wonderful Calhoun County peaches bought at the farmers market. To one I added blueberries (which are plentiful and inexpensive at the supermarkets right now) and to the other I added some raspberries (these are store bought but ours are starting to bear—Norm picked 4 berries this morning, and two small tomatoes!

The pies are simple; for each pie, to 3 large sliced peaches and 1 cup of other fruit (blue berries, rasp- berries, etc.) you add 1Tb of lemon juice, ¼ cup of cornstarch, ¾ cup of sugar (or sucralose if you want it to be sugar free) plus ¼ tsp of cinnamon and ½ tsp of nutmeg. Mix it all together and pour it into a pie pan that you have lined with plastic wrap. Fold the plastic wrap over and freeze; then slide the “pie fillings” into zipper freezer bags. When it’s cool enough to light the oven to bake a pie, make a 2-crust recipe (or buy your favorite prepared kind), plop in the frozen filling, cut steam slits in the top crust and crimp the edges, and bake the pie at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, then at 375 F for an additional 30 to 35 minutes. Like all fruit pies, it is done when the juice starts to boil out of the slits, so make sure you have a cookie sheet on the rack below the pie to catch the drip. This recipe can be used for any fruit pie and its so handy, when company comes or the need for a carry-in dinner arises, to have the ingredients waiting in the freezer. I’ve kept frozen pie fixings for a year and they were delicious.

Tomorrow we will have corn on the cob, and tomato salad, both--you guessed it--from the farmers market. Most of the food is organic and all of it is grown within 100 miles and harvested within 24 hours of sale. It is delicious, and it is inexpensive. Right now there is a contest sponsored by the American Farmland Trust to choose a favorite farmers' market. I voted for ours, the Ferguson Farmers Market. You can vote too, for your favorite market (and if you don't have a favorite, you might vote for Ferguson....) by clicking on the button at the top of the rail to the right. For a while, it will be there, just above the quilt gallery. Meanwhile, bon apetit and all that.