First Farmer's Market Results

I meant to mention something sooner about my first farmer's market of the season last Saturday, but I've been quite busy (my comprehensive exams start in 13 days). The market was very hot and muggy. I'm not sure if that was the cause of the lack of customers, but market traffic seemed very sparse. 

Here are some photos to recap the day:

Multi-directional onion...not sure what's going on here. I took four bunches of green onions and came home with four bunches of green onions. At least my parents were happy when they received a giant bag of green onions the next day.

Salad mix with lettuce, arugula and mizuna. I sold all three bags I took. 

I was surprised that I was the only vendor selling salad mix so far. I guess I must have gotten my lettuce planted earlier than everyone else.

Bouquet of cilantro. I sold most of the bunches of cilantro too.

Here are all the crates of perennials and vegetable seedlings waiting to be loaded into the car. I was disappointed by how few of them I sold, yet I still made slightly more than my average market day last year. I'm planning on donating everything that's left after this coming Saturday's market to a local community garden 

Show Yourselves!

My lettuce, arugula, radish, and mizuna seeds have finally poked out of the soil. I think the delay must have been due to a combination of unusually cool temps and crusted-over soil.

Luckily these volunteer cilantro seedlings had no trouble germinating.

These lettuce seedlings, on the other hand, were very slow to get going. If you can believe it, I planted these almost a month ago! It took almost two weeks before I saw any sign of germination.

This self-sown arugula will also help add to my early spring salads (assuming it isn't technically summer by the time these things grow big enough)

Starting Squashy Crops

I put my first seedlings in the ground this weekend (mizuna and cilantro)! I also direct sowed snow peas, daikon radish, lettuce, spinach, and onion sets.

On top of that, I also started all my squashy-crops (pumpkin, watermelon, melon, zucchini, scallopini, cucumber, and ornamental gourd) and some fava beans and cat grass.

Mizuna

Cilantro

A variety of cucumbers, and squashes sown into peat pellets for easy transplanting.

Pad Thai

A couple years ago I learned how to make pad thai. It's really really easy, so you should give it a go. Pad thai generally includes rice noodles, peanut sauce, scrambled egg, chicken, and bean sprouts. You can add pretty much anything you like on top of this such as cilantro, lime, broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, chili, etc. Go ahead and experiment, because you're going to love it!

Ingredients:

• I'm not giving any measurements, because I never measure, and this dish really doesn't require any measuring. It's going to be good no matter what ratio of ingredients you end up with. Use your best judgment.
• Rice noodles: get the kind that are about the same width as fettucini noodles. These can be purchased at any ethnic food store and possibly at your local grocery store. 
• Eggs: pad thai is usually made with the eggs scrambled right into the rest of the ingredients, but I prefer them to be scrambled separately.
• Oil
• Chicken breast, diced
• Carrot, diced
• Bean Sprouts
• Cilantro, chopped
• Fresh lime, cut into wedges
• Bottled peanut sauce: can be found at most grocery stores in the asian food section near the teriyaki and soy sauces.
• Optional: broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, mushroom, etc.

Directions:

1. Soak your rice noodles in hot water for at least 15 minutes, until soft and flexible. Drain and set aside. 
2. Get the remaining ingredients prepped (diced, portioned out, etc) before you go on to the next step. This dish cooks very quickly, so you don't want to be stuck dicing vegetables at the last minute.
3. In a large skillet, cook the chicken in some oil. Set aside (this prevents the chicken from getting overcooked while you're cooking the rest of the dish).
4. Scramble the eggs. Set aside.
5. Stir fry the carrots and any other "harder" vegetables in your empty chicken skillet.
6. Once the carrot is nearly done, add any "softer" vegetables such as the bean sprouts, zucchini, and mushrooms.
7. Add the drained rice noodles
8. Add peanut sauce
9. Recombine the chicken and scrambled egg
10. Toss the noodles and other ingredients until everything is coated with sauce
11. Garnish with cilantro and a wedge of lime
12. Eat piping hot!