Farm Fresh

I was on my own this week at the market. Chef Jim had plans for golf and R and R with some friends at a lake. I didn't really keep that in mind when choosing how much food to buy! So it was a long, heavy walk home!  But, I had a nice visit with my farmer friends and a yummy omelet to inspire me.

 It was a little bright in the kitchen for the photo shoot.

 I bought these great potatoes at 1.50/ pound

 How about these really cute yellow squash? I bought them for the cuteness alone. They fit in the palm of your hand

 These are a summer squash, the name of which I forgot, but they are not like zucchini but a buttery summer squash, Nick said.

 I had fun with Ann today and helped her sell some cheese and was rewarded with a surprise cumin seed gouda slipped into my bag when I wasn't looking! Thanks, Ann!  I bought some smoked gouda which in now tied with cumin seed for favorite Kenny's Cheese.

 Petite oriental eggplant

 onion, no surprises here!

 Had a sample of this bread with Ann's cheese- had to buy a loaf- it was so good. I'll have some toasted tomorrow.

 These were #2 tomatoes that I will have pretty quickly. But, they looked pretty good to me- half price at 1.20/lb

And, forgot to get a close up of the dozen ears of corn!

 Sweet William was a sweet deal today at 3/$1.00, add a little basil and voila-bouquet!

 My other flower purchase instead of sunflowers this week.

A little blackboard art for ya

 

 Here's my sweet William and Miss O

And Master E, another sweet William,

enjoying a little pool time at their next door neighbor's house.

Looks inviting, huh?
I'll leave you with a photo of my last daylily,
 

And the edge of last night's storm,
And a remembrance of my sweet sister, Cindy, who died too soon four years ago. Her daughter posted this young photo of her on Facebook.

Life goes on... Cindy's sweet grandchild, Addy, who was born this year at 24 weeks gestation weighing 1 lb 8 oz, came home this week from the hospital.

Believe it or not!

I actually made something for dinner!  Inspired by my neighbor's generous gift of tomatoes, I decided to try a new salad. Now, you know that Chef Jim does the cooking around here, but I had some time one day that he had to work :)
I printed out a few recipes and in the end, made it my own.

Tomato and Peach Salad

OK, Jim did cook everything else :)

But doesn't the tomato and peach salad look yummy?

Super easy to make.

Peeled and seeded 4 tomatoes and 4 peaches,

chopped about 1 TBS mint and basil from the yard,

added about 1 TBS chopped garlic (from the jar)

In a jar, mixed about 1/8 cup each of lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil

added fresh ground pepper, a pinch of sea salt, and a pinch of brown sugar (that I would omit next time because the vinegar is sweet)
** Oh, I forgot- a 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, too!

Tossed and served. Next time I'd toss about an hour ahead.

Refreshing!

Metal Bracelet Class and a garden visitor

My copper cuff

 I took my final class in Berea today.  I had to leave a good church day to do it- hate not getting to chat with my friends after church.
I was back at Gastineau Studio for more metal work.  Today was bracelets. We got to chose the shape, size and metal for our bracelets. I opted for copper again, though brass and nickel silver were also options. I sort of was drawn to an asymmetrical shape, wider at one end that the other as a cuff bracelet but I opted for a 1.75 inch cuff instead.
The design I had swimming in my head was not the design that ended up in my bracelet.  Maybe it was the one in the back of my head that made it to the front instead!
I seem to always have a more symmetric tendency rather than free-style but I guess that's just MY style.
I hammered away at the flat copper until it looked like this

 Yep, got to use those super cool tools again!

 I decided that dividing this long strip into sections would be easier for design for me.

 My instructor has machinist tools that made it easy to score light lines where I wanted to make the sections. Then I filled in the space. I knew I wanted something in the center.

 Next was the gentle shaping, I opted for just a gentle bow not the big bubble convex some chose.

 Next the application of oxidizer and let it do its magic.

 Then the polishing. Three different layers, two on the lathe

 I'm super happy with it!

Here are our finished bracelets. All different, of course. I'm at the bottom :)

Tonight my plants were desperate for a drink of water and as I hosed them down I saw a praying mantis. I've only seen a few in my life. While I'm mentioning oddities, there are a slew of dragonflies this year. We never have them in the yard. They are everywhere I go.

Here are a couple of closeups of yesterday's flowers that are opening up :)

Farmers Market Day!

It was blessedly a bit cooler today for the markets. We headed out to do some serious shopping.
We really want chicken and were so sad to hear that Matt, our chicken guy, will not be back at the market.  He and his wife are, sadly, divorcing. He did the farm out of love for her and is not farming anymore. I miss him.

 Here's haul #1- yes, we went to two markets today!

 Peaches have been so good! I'm going to make a peach and tomato salad

with these and another gift of tomatoes from my sweet neighbor, Judy.  We had tomato bread salad for dinner last night with the earlier ones. So delicious for a summer supper.

Now for some close-ups!

 I love, love this granola from Beth

 Garlic for some pickles I may make?

I've never made refrigerator pickles- you? Favorite recipe?

 In the meantime I'll enjoy these which are so yummy on a brat. This is our 2nd jar this summer.

 Future pickles?

 To go with the pickles 

 Blackberries for Chef Jim's Shredded Wheat

 The making of an omelet at the market- we are missing Brent this summer. He is in Vermont working on his Masters Degree.

On to market #2 in search of chicken-which we found!

 Along with corn, baby cabbage and okra

 Hope the corn is good- I might try a corn blueberry salad recommended by Sue.

love this tiny cabbages- just right for each of us to have one

Jim has a great recipe for Limping Susan 

Hope this chicken will be as good as Matt's and wishing him well along with Abe his precious son adopted from Ethiopia about 3 years ago. I didn't know his wife.

We had some crazy weather and even crazier skies around here Friday. I'll leave you with some photos which don't do the weirdness justice. It was just a strange shade of yellow around here.

Tomorrow-Metal Bracelet class!!

 IT started like this

 With the opposite direction like this

 by the time we got home from dinner it was like this

Crazy, huh?