Results tagged “produce”

        

Summer's bounty is finally upon us! This was the first week where we could do ALL of our grocery shopping at the Farmer's Market, rather than using it to enhance our regular meals. The first root vegetables of the year have come in, and the market was stuffed with carrots, onions and the first small potatoes. Lettuces, Chard and other greens continue to come on strong, but the real stars of the show were berries. Cherries, Raspberries, Blackberries - even currants were for sale at this Saturday's Green City Market.

  

Our Saturday visit to Green City Market resulted in a pirate's booty of fresh produce, planters, milk and meats. The highlight of our visit was the purchase of French breakfast radishes and white carrots from Green Acres Farm in North Judson, IN. June is when radishes just begin to make their way to farmers markets and Green Acres's French breakfast radishes have a crispness when you bite into them and taste best raw with a little bit of butter and salt. Wanting to use all of the purchase, we made a pesto from the radish greens. (Incidentally, radishes will be the subject of a future "Ingredient in Focus" post.) The white carrots were a revelation, with a taste to their greens similar to cilantro. We dehydrated some and used them on tacos last night.

After spending Winter in the confines of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Green City Market spread its elbows today with its first day outdoor. To some, this is the first day of summer in Chicago.

There are a thousand reasons why summer dining in Chicago is so fantastic. One of the best being fresh, locally grown ingredients and it doesn't get any fresher than when chefs grow their own ingredients in restaurant or home gardens. An increasing number of chefs are doing so including some of our faves: Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill, Paul Kahan of Blackbird, George Djurovic of August Grocery, (just to name a few.)

A couple of localvore items of note to start: