Farmers Market Meals

This post has been sitting my queue for a while.  I've just has so many other things to blog about so I never quite got it finished until now.  A few weeks back - or maybe more like a few months back - we decided to head to the farmers market in Downtown Golden.  I haven't been to a farmers market in years and given our new found love of veggies we decided it was time to check it out.  I guess I had visions of super cheap, delicious looking veggies at booth after booth.  

It was the first one of the season so it was more like two booths of veggies and a ton of other booths with various homemade items.  It wasn't a horrible experience but not quite what I envisioned.  I'm sure it's worth another trip now that we're into mid summer.  I'm hoping to do some farmers market hopping and check out all of the seven Denver area Farmer's Markets.

But back to my Golden Farmer's Market trip.  I had $15 to spend in my pocket.  Ok, I had $20 to spend but I cheaped out and only spent $15.  What did I get?

5 broccoli crowns
1 monster white onion
1 little basket of mini peppers in yellow, orange, and red
1 bunch of asparagus
2 small zucchini's

Not bad for our first trip.  I was quite pleased with the number of meals I got out of my little market trip.  I've posted two of the recipes below for your farmer's market appetite. 

Balsamic Chicken and Peppers with Rice

My inspiration for this dish came from THIS SITE.  I'm the kind of person that can't stick to recipes very well though.  I like to throw in my own flav-a.  

Here's what I used:

2 large chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces
6-8 mini sweet peppers
1 small onion
4 cloves minced garlic
a handful of fresh basil chopped
1/2 cup homemade balsamic salad dressing (I love THIS one)

Start with some fresh sweet peppers and an onion.  In a skillet, add a tbsp or so of olive oil.  Add in peppers, onion, and garlic.  Stir fry for a few minutes until the onions are translucent.

In a separate skillet, add some oil and cook the diced chicken until browned.  Combine both skillets into one and add your homemade salad dressing and herbs.  Simmer for a few minutes.  Serve over warm rice.  Voila! Very quick dinner and tasty.

Chicken and Asparagus Pasta

This was another one inspired by a pinner on Pinterest.  HERE is the original pin. 

Click on the link for the recipe.  The only changes I made was using my homemade pasta instead of Penne and adding in some fresh herbs.  We have rosemary, oregano, basil, parsley, and green onion on our porch so I basically add those into almost everything!

It turned out great!  What a fantastic way to use fresh asparagus.

The other things I made were:

• Cream of Broccoli soup

• Broccoli Quiche - there are lots of recipes out there.  I ended up adding a little of this and a little of that so I don't have a specific recipe to give you.

• Zuccini Fritters - Horrible!  Don't make them.  I'm not even posting the recipe!

Take advantage of the summertime and visit your local farmers market!