SF Bay Area Farmers' market good finds

Nice! I got mostly the same stuff! What are you going to make with the beets? What will you do with the citrus? I have sooo many tangerines.

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Twinsie!
The beet greens and kale will be garlicky greens as a pasta side dish later this week. The beets will be roasted with olive oil & salt and kept for snacks and a hummus bowl lunch.
Mister is going to eat most of the mandarins but if I am lucky I will be able to steal a few to make a Nigella clementine cake. You can use any mandarins for it but I prefer when the skins are tight.
What are your plans?

Shrugs :thinking:

I’m sure the beets will get roasted, but not sure what will happen after that. Maybe a salad.
I’ll probably juice and drink most of the oranges, but I’d love to try jam or “jamalade”. I made jamalade last year and we’ve really enjoyed it.

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I might do that as a chicken breast side.

Like this

Can the beet greens and kale be cooked together, the same way? I think of beet greens like chard, and they seem to cook faster than kale.
Why does it say serve immediately? I hate when recipes say that!

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Yet another reason recipes irritate me too. Assumptive.
This is not the abbreviation of Joy of Cooking. It would nice if you explain “Serve immediately so that the kale retains some crunch.”
Let’s one choose for one’s self.

Yeah! It worked out.

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Has anyone else noticed that tomatoes seem to be less abundant so far this year in the markets? Wondering if all the rain we got this winter affected the size and timing of the crop.

I also feel like pluots should be showing up around now, but I still haven’t seen any (though the plums I’ve gotten so far have been better-than-expected).

Yes. Monterey Market and Berkeley Bowl in Berkeley had very few local tomatoes until just last week. Corn was also late, coming in about two weeks ago. I haven’t been to a farmers’ market recently, though.

Stone fruits are late by about 2 weeks to a month because of the cold weather and rain, according to Frog Hollow

Well it is hella hot up this way, and tomatoes are ripe! At least in my yard. Pluots ripe just within the last day or so.

That certainly tracks, based on the color of the plums on my backyard tree. They’re usually ready the first week of August, give or take, but no way are they going to be fully ripe in two weeks.

As far as the farmers markets go, I’ve just been enjoying lots of apricots. Strawberries have finally hit their peak. Blueberries are pretty much over, at least per the Berkeley vendors. Waiting for the dry-farmed tomatoes…

Stonestown farmers market, Dirty Girl Produce, said they wouldn’t have dry farmed tomatoes until August.

Rainbow vendor expects those excellent blackberries then.

Yeah. Dirty Girl is at the Tuesday Berkeley market, and their prices are always a little higher, but they usually have the best dry-farmed tomatoes.

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Yeah, it’s the rain and unusual cold. (63 in Oakland the other day.) I’ve noticed fewer or general lack of decent tomatoes at farmers markets, Old Oakland, Oakland DMV, Half Moon Bay. Seems to be improving as it gets warmer. Got some decent early girls and grape tomatoes today at Old Oakland but on the sparse side.

Side note: strawberries have been lacking as well…figure it’s the same, too much rain and cold and Watsonville got hammered by rain this past year. Got some very good ones from Ventura a few weeks back, but sort of spotty from NorCal. Celery has been weird as well…most coming from the Monterey area.

re: dry farmed tomatoes, if I recall, don’t usually see those at Berkeley Bowl or Monterey Market until August.

Lots of pluots, plums, etc. at my local farmer’s markets last weekend. They should be coming into their own now.

Not exactly farmers market but they just have a booth on the side of the road. Lao Farms in Sebastopol, Albion strawberries were quite excellent. I forget the other kind but good as well. $40 for a big ass flat. Cukes were great too.


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Any thoughts on this weeks stone fruit / tomato selection at farmers markets?

Funny you ask, we got some more strawberries at Lao Farms last weekend and also picked up nectarines that were pretty spectacular. Their cukes weren’t as good, but their garlic was also great. I haven’t gotten tomatoes.

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I got my first dry-farmed Early Girls this week (from Dirty Girl, which are $$ at $5.50/lb!), and while they’re not quite peak, they’re quite good. DG’s are often the best, but always more expensive, so I’ll try others from my local market vendors as the season progresses.

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I got 3 baskets of strawberries from Rodriguez Farms at the Old Oakland FM. So far so good, very sweet. Also picked up some nice Early Girl tomatoes from the Asian farmers who are at the NE corner of 9th and Washington, $2/lb. Seems too inexpensive given EGs at Berkeley Bowl were $4/lb, not dry farmed. They also had 3 colors of grape tomatoes that looked very nice but I didn’t have a use.

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