Farmers' Market - Havre, MT

Beginning today, farmers, crafters and bakers will gather each Saturday at the Town Square in Havre for the Farmers' Market. It's small, but it's fun and there certainly are a variety of items to buy.

The Hutterites are the main providers of vegetables, although there are a few home gardeners who bring a few boxes of produce to sell. I was taking pictures by one of the Hutterite stands and the gentleman, who must have seen me taking pictures, laughed and said if I took his picture he would have to charge me $20. Thinking that they frowned upon having their picture taken, I didn't take any pictures of their bounty, which included small red potatoes, fresh peas, kholrabi, rhubarb, carrots, turnips, romaine, spinach, pickles, and sauerkraut. I bought some red potatoes and peas and a package of freshly made dinner rolls.

Let's take a look at what was available today!

This is a couple who I remember from last year. They charge $1.50 for two freshly made donuts. The man fries the donuts up and the woman sells them. What a team!

All these towels were embroidered... some with Montana scenes, frogs, dogs, and horses. Somebody has a fancy embroidery machine at home!

Some big zucchini from a home gardener.

Saddle Butte Custom Smoking shows up every Saturday and they sell 'Pig on a Pole'. You see everybody walking around eating one of these! They bring a refrigerated truck and also smoked meat; jerky, ham, bacon, polish, summer sausage, breakfast sausage, smoked turkey, beef bacon, plus 20 varieties of wild game sausage using the customer's meat.

This table was full of purses made from cut-off jeans.

This woman was selling apple pies ready to bake in your own oven, loaves of bread and some of the biggest cinnamon rolls I've ever seen!

Turnips, green onions and beets from another home gardener.
Soy candles.
There was a table with some gorgeous Indian beadwork.

Most of them were traditional designs, but he even did Dora in beads!!

This is a new table this year. Very colorful crocheted rugs. The blue and red one you see hanging there was $22.

Here are some sawn decorative lawn pieces. There's a bear holding a sign that says "Howdy".

This table is new this year, too. These people had beautiful painted and decorated gourds...
... all shapes and sizes.
Boxes of white bread, wheat bread (really tall loaves!) and dinner rolls from the Hutterites.

And finally, this woman was selling homemade, sturdy cloth grocery bags. There were other stands, but I thought I'd save some for another day. Hope you enjoyed touring our Farmers' Market today!

How Does Your Garden Grow? - Week 10

I love spinach and my little garden has lots of it! We've been putting it in sandwiches and have been eating spinach salad almost every night with dinner. One of my favorites has been a wilted spinach salad with a warm dressing. Watch out, Popeye!

And from the looks of this garden, I'm going to love tomatoes, too!

And zucchini! I want to stuff some blossoms with homemade ricotta!

Lillies started to bloom this week...

and the potted plants are filling out.

The radishes are woody... anybody know why? Too much water?

Not enough water? Let them grow too long? Please tell me!

We've had company and even though I've been cooking more I haven't had the time to take pictures... here are a few things we've been eating the last few weeks. This is baked spinach and feta stuffed chicken thighs.

I put some chicken thighs in the smoker and had to finish them on the grill because they were taking so long. (Note to self: start the smoker earlier in the day!) They still had a delicious smokey flavor.

We smoked some trout - one of my favorites.

I took all the meat off the bones and froze it in small packages.

I made a delicious smoke trout spread with cream cheese, chives and

seasonings... great with crackers!

More trout... this time stuffed with lemon slices and wrapped in butcher paper.

Put them on the grill and when the paper turns brown, the trout are done! Perfect!

I made some herb butter for our grilled corn. Yum!

How Does Your Garden Grow? - Week 8

The peonies bloomed this week! I love these things. They're so delicate and fragrant. The flowers are about 5 inches across!

We had rain the day they bloomed and all those petals collected the water. Under the weight, the stems fell to the ground.

When it stopped raining, I went out to rescue them...
... and now I'm enjoying them inside.
This is the peony plant with more buds. When they bloom I'll bring them inside too.

Here's my jalapeno plant with a flower!

I was worried about the spinach at first. I didn't think it was going to come up, but look at all these leaves! I've been picking spinach every day to add to lunch sandwiches.This is one of the zucchini plants. These things grow so fast you can almost see them grow!
And here's the entire garden. The tomatoes have plenty of flowers. Onions, radishes and bell peppers are doing great.

I hope you enjoyed the garden tour today!

Ricotta Pound Cake

I came across this recipe at bleeding espresso which is a fun and interesting blog. Here's the "About" for you of bleeding espresso:

Michelle Fabio, an American writer and attorney leaves the Anthracite Coal Region of Pennsylvania for her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy, falls in love, adopts two dogs and two kids (baby goats), tends to chicken, rabbits, ducks, and a growing garden, writes to her heart's content, and begins bleeding espresso. No, really.

This pound cake took forever to bake. It rose up in the pan and somebody (I'm claiming the 5th) opened the oven door and the cake went pffffffft! I was able to cut two very nice slices from each end of the cake but the middle sunk and ended up being only a couple inches high, very dense and not pretty at all.

I hate it when that happens.

This cake tasted absolutely wonderful, but I wasn't pleased with the texture. I'm thinking I might take what is left and try making a bread pudding (pound cake pudding?) with it. When I make it again, I won't open the oven door until it's almost done and I'll use a ricotta that is a little more wet. This batch was rather dry, which might have had something to do with it.

Whether you make your own ricotta or use store-bought, I'd love to hear if you try this recipe and how it turned out!

FIND RECIPE HERE

Soft Scrambled Eggs with Fresh Ricotta and Chives

After making my fresh ricotta I searched for recipes and found this on epicurious. Using chives from my garden, I whipped this dish up in no time and had a delicious breakfast.

Eggs are scrambled with chives until just set then fresh ricotta is added. Serve the eggs on toasted baugette slices and garnish with more chives and ricotta. The eggs were rich and creamy and oh, so delicious.

Have you made your ricotta yet? When you do, please try this recipe!

PRINT RECIPE HERE

How Does Your Garden Grow? Week 7

I can't believe it's been seven weeks since we started thinking about our garden and planting seeds to later be transferred to the ground!

I'm lovin' this jalapeno plant!

The spinach I thought wasn't doing so well really took off and I harvested several leaves today that went into my sandwich at lunch!

We'll take a look at some of the flowers...

Here's the peony plant with great big buds on it. Won't be long now!


There are a couple of lily plants that have buds...

And here's the vegetable garden. We put cages around the tomatoes this week. We originally planted four zucchini plants and only two made it -- which may be a good thing since one of our neighbors told us last night that they're not big on "green things". I hope the other neighbors like green things because I'm sure we'll have plenty to give away!

Here's a few other gardens: Mary's Mississippi Garden and Debbie's Nevada Garden

Asparagus-Cheese Tart

I hope you've all taken a minute to visit Linda aka goodshoeday at With Knife and Fork. Linda and I are related... well, sort of. I adopted her into our food blogger community through Kristen's Adopt A Blogger program!

Linda and I have been having a good time getting to know one another through emails and by reading each other's blog. Linda lives in London, so it's interesting for me to see some of the ingredients she uses that might not be available to me here in the middle of Montana.

Linda suggested that we choose a recipe from the other's blog, make it, then do a post about it. I chose to recreate her Asparagus Tart. Linda made a beautiful asparagus tart using filo dough , goat cheese and seasoned eggs... and her new Tarte Maison!

I wasn't able to find filo here, so went with Pillsbury (R) Crescent Recipe Creations dough. After shaping the dough into the size I wanted I spread a small amount of Dijon on it and baked it for about 15 minutes. I then covered it with grated cheese, red pepper flakes and crisp-cooked asparagus. Back into the oven it went until the cheese was melted and the crust had browned.

I cut this tart into squares and enjoyed them for breakfast and snacks. Thanks, Linda for doing a recipe showdown with me and for the great idea using fresh asparagus!

Take a look at Linda's blog to see which of my recipes she chose to make!

Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

I scream... you scream... we all scream for ice cream! Yay!

I'd been searching for recipes to use some of the mint I have growing and decided that I'd start with ice cream!

First I made the ice cream base, then I located my 30-year-old ice cream maker... yes, it's electric, and it was one of the first ice cream makers out that you could use table salt and ice cubes. I probably haven't used it a half-dozen times in the last 30 years.

I put the custard in the can, added salt and ice cubes and one cup of water to the well, as directed. Immediately water started pouring out of the bottom of the well. After I took it apart, I discovered the ice cream maker had a three inch crack along the bottom. I didn't want to go buy another ice cream maker, so I called my gardener, who never throws anything out. "I could have fixed that!" he's said to me many, many times! Okay, I lived too long on my own... if something broke and I couldn't fix it, I'd get rid of it and buy a new one. I'm finally learning that when something breaks I should just hand it over to my gardener.

When I told him I just needed a temporary fix, given the number of times I make ice cream, he suggested the trusty hot glue gun! Yes! A line of hot glue along the crack and I was good to go!

Put some mint leaves in milk, bring to a simmer, cover and let sit for a while.
I wanted an appealing green color to the ice cream, so added a drop of green food coloring. After you've made your custard, the milk is strained and added to it.
Process according to your ice cream maker's instructions and freeze for at least four hours.

After the custard was frozen, I folded in some mini-chocolate chips. The ice cream is cool, creamy and delicious with just a hint of mint. Perfect for a summer's day treat!

PRINT RECIPE HERE

Homemade Fresh Ricotta

I'm happy to be a part of Kristen's Adopt a Blogger #3. When I introduced my 'adoptee' I appreciated all the people who took a minute to visit Linda aka goodshoeday at With Knife and Fork and leave a comment.

So, when I saw Bunny's introduction of her Adopt a Blogger daughter, Melissa at Baking for the Boys, I clicked to check out Melissa's blog and welcome her as a newbie blogger.

Holy cow! I found out that Melissa had made fresh ricotta! I left a comment and told her I was going to make some this week. Here's how it went!

This couldn't be easier. Take 8 cups of whole milk, add 1 teaspoon of salt and bring to a simmer in a large pan. When it simmers, add 3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, and give it a stir.

Let is sit for a few minutes while the curds form, then scoop them out into a cheesecloth lined colander. Depending on how wet or dry you want the end result, let drain as little as a few minutes or 15 minutes, like I did to end up with a drier product.

I gathered the cheese into a ball and this is what it looked like right after draining. I put it in a covered plastic container and refrigerated it overnight.

This is some good stuff! I won't ever buy ricotta again and I bet if you make this you'll be passing it up at the store, too!

You can find the recipe on Melissa's blog or at bon appetit where Melissa got the recipe and where they give tips on making your own ricotta.

Shrimp Fried Rice

When I read Donna's blog and Susan's blog this morning, I knew what I'd be having for dinner tonight!

Donna made her Special Fried Rice with carrots, peas, garlic, ginger, red bell pepper and scrambled eggs. BTW, did you know that Donna cheats? Yes, it's true.

Oh, no! Donna doesn't cheat on her FFH... that's not what I meant at all! Donna cheats and buys the rice for her dish from the Chinese restaurant down the street!

Susan made Thai Pineapple Fried Rice with garlic, ginger, bell pepper, fresh pineapple and cashews!

Both of these dishes looked so great and I have to confess... I've never made fried rice before! Why?? It's so easy! It happens so fast! With a little prep work, by the time you start cooking, dinner will be on the table in a matter of minutes!

Shrimp is one of my gardener's favorites, so I decided on Shrimp Fried Rice. It was delicious and this recipe makes plenty for two for a main dish. Go ahead and make it tonight!

PRINT RECIPE HERE