To Market, To Market

Over the weekend we went to the small farmer's market in our town. It is held at a local creamery. In addition to the vendors the creamery has samples of their cheese. So. Good. We tried some Gouda, Gruyere, and feta. PE like the Gouda that had been aged the longest and had the strongest flavor. I liked the Gruyere. PE discovered he did like feta, just not the feta I usually purchase. Now I know.

We purchased asparagus from one vendor and garlic chives from another. I have never eaten garlic chives before. I now need to plant some in my garden. While purchasing the garlic chives the kind vendor had me taste some of the petals from the purple blossom of a regular chive. Delicious. They had a very pleasant, light onion flavor. I was excited to learn this as the chives I purchased for my herb garden have a couple blossoms so now I fully intend to sprinkle the little petals on our salads this week.

PE had plans to cook a pork roast in the slow cooker and he thought the garlic chives would work well with that. I had plans to make crash potatoes and the garlic chives would work great on that too. For the roast, PE browned it in a frying pan then put it in the slow cooker, sprinkled it with salt and pepper then put the bulbs and leaves from the garlic chives in with it. Toward the end he sprinkled it with Spade L Ranch beef seasoning. Yummy, yummy in my tummy. It paired perfectly with the crash potatoes and steamed asparagus.

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Crash Hot Potatoes
adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks
Print Recipe

12 whole new potatoes (or other small round potatoes)
3 Tbsp olive oil
kosher salt to taste
black pepper to taste
garlic chives (or other herbs of choice) to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add in as many potatoes as you wish to make and cook them until they are fork-tender. On a sheet pan, generously drizzle olive oil. Place tender potatoes on the cookie sheet leaving plenty of room between each potato. With a potato masher, gently press down each potato until it slightly mashes, rotate the potato masher 90 degrees and mash again. Brush the tops of each crushed potato generously with more olive oil. Sprinkle potatoes with kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper and fresh chopped garlic chives (or rosemary or thyme or whatever herb you have available). Bake in a 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

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Sparky's Adventures in Agriculture - Container Herb Gardening

I have been wanting to have an herb (or a herb if you say it like my mom's friend Martha**) garden for years. I tried a few years ago with a kit but the seeds didn't sprout. Last year I purchased some herbs and planted them in my garden but some did not do very well and the ones that did survive the season were not cold weather tolerant. So this year I decided to make a container herb garden with the hope of having fresh herbs year round.

For the containers I found some square containers at the dollar store. Here is what they looked like when they arrived at my house.



I didn't love the color so I spray painted them and they now look like this.



The color really does look better in real life. I used this Rust-Oleum Autumn Brown Textured spray paint I had left over from another project. (The paint is not gray as the above photo might indicate.)


Rust-Oleum 241255 Textured Spray, Dark Brown, 12-Ounce

I only did one coat of paint and I am fine with that. The red undertones from the pot work well with the textured paint. This was my second foray into spray painting. The first was for a birthday gift for Jabba. Now that I am sharing Crappy Photos I could probably round those up for a little "before and after".

Now we will move onto what is going in the pots.
Thai Basil (I want a sweet basil too)
Sage
Rosemary
Oregano
Coriander (Cilantro)
Thyme
Chives
Spearamint

Here is a super crappy picture of some of them planted.



I will try to give updates as to if anything dies (the oregano might) or if I find one item easier to grow than another. (I say "try" because sometimes I forget and other times I lose interest and yet other times I am just plain lazy.)

**That would be Martha Stewart. My mom is on a first name basis with her. "Martha says this," and "Martha says that." She isn't Oprah for heaven's sake. Oprah never went to prison. Martha Stewart does have some excellent ideas or at least good ideas come with her name attached to them--you know she isn't the one writing EVERYTHING for her magazines, websites, tv shows, etc. Oprah does great things. They are each fabulous women in their own right. All I am saying is when I had a brief love for Rachel Ray she was still ALWAYS Rachel Ray when I referred to her.