Farmer's Market Challenge: Green Beans

We had trouble deciding on this week's Farmer's Market Challenge food. We scored AMAZING items at the Baltimore's Farmer's Market this past Sunday and were excited cook all of them. A fav find? We picked up Dimitri Extra Virgin Olive Oil and had a chance to chat with founder Dimitri Giannakos. A real sweetheart! And he was great with Lila. She just loved his garlic olive oil (or dipping the bread in it, couldn't tell). Dimitri's oil products originate from their family olive farm in Greece, but Dimitri himself lives in Northeast Baltimore.

Although the oil is really quite amazing, we just couldn't imagine what an olive oil cooking challenge would look like...

The rest of our produce loot? We nabbed some fresh sugar melon (looks like watermelon, but is sweeter and yellow), just-picked corn, phenomenal tomatoes, white potatoes and green beans.

While we were debating which food item we should tackle, my sister-in-law sent me this fantastic recipe for Cooking Light's Green and Yellow Bean Salad with Chunky Tomato Dressing and Feta Cheese. Yeah. That solved it. Green Beans it is!

Of course, we didn't have Yellow Wax Beans or Feta Cheese. So I improvised, and came up with my own Mediterranean Style Green Bean Salad with Chunky Tomato Salsa.Used the Dimitri EVOO, too!

The verdict? Delicious. Bug-approved. Although she skirted around the tomato salsa a bit, she loved eating the green beans like french fries.

Pat ate his green veggies, too.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs. fresh green beans, washed and trimmed
• 2 cups chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp. Balsamic Vinegar
• 2 tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Sliver of sliced butter
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
  
• 1/2 tsp. celery salt
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder (or minced garlic)
• Fresh ground pepper, to taste
  
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced basil
• 1/2 cup of crumbled Chevre
  

Directions:

• Fill a large pot with water. Add slab of butter and sea salt. Bring to boil.
  
  
• While you're waiting for the water to boil, combine tomatoes, celery salt, garlic powder, olive oil, basil and vinegar in a bowl.
  
  
• When water is rapidly boiling, add green beans. Cook about 5 minutes - - so that they are tender, but still firm.
  
  
• Divide green beans among plates. Add salsa. Top with Chevre.

Enjoy! And link up your fabulous green bean recipe here! (Remember, sharing is caring!)

(cool) tip: If you purchase Dimitri Olive Oil at the Baltimore's Farmer's Market ($10), you can bring the bottle back for an $8 refill! If you can't make it to the Baltimore Market, catch Dimitri at the 32nd Street Market, Museum of Industry's Market, or Bel Air Markets! Be sure to become their Facebook fan and check out this recent Dining@Large blog post about his EVOO!



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Farmer's Market Challenge: Peaches

Everyone loves juicy, ripe peaches. I'm sure you probably don't have any trouble getting your little one to scarf down a peach - - they're just too darn sweet. So, in the true celebration of summer, this week's farmer's market challenge food item is: the fresh picked peach. (Locally grown, of course!)

There are countless recipes for incorporating peaches into desserts (cobblers, pies, ice cream, etc). But did you ever think of putting them into a savory quesadilla? Simply delicious. Toddler-friendly, too.

Try out our BBQ Chicken Peach Quesadilla recipe! Fruit, veggies, protein, dairy and grain all wrapped up into one dish the entire family (including your picky two year old) will love!

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked shredded chicken (we used leftover grilled barbecued chicken)
• 1 peach, sliced
• 1/2 cup of fresh spinach leaves
• 4 tablespoons of jarred mild salsa
• Fresh basil leaves
• Shredded Monterrey Jack cheese (as much or as little as you'd like)
• 8 whole wheat tortillas
• Olive or Canola Oil
  

Directions

• Put 1 tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan. Warm over medium heat.
• Assemble the quesadillas: on top of four tortillas, sprinkle chicken, peach slices, spinach leaves, basil, 1 tablespoon of salsa and shredded cheese. Top each with a second tortilla.
• Place one quesadilla in the frying pan. Use a smaller frying pan as weight on top of the quesadilla. After about four minutes, flip the quesadilla over. Fry until golden brown on both sides.
• It's helpful to add a little touch of oil to the pan between cooking quesadillas.
• Enjoy!

Up for this week's Farmer's Market Challenge? Post your favorite peachy recipe on your blog/website/facebook page and link to it with Mr. Linky. Can't wait to give your recipes a spin in our kitchen!

Be sure to check out last week's Farmer's Market Challenge for a tasty Okra Nuggets recipe!


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Farmer's Market Challenge: Okra (We're baking not frying!)

A few weeks ago we confessed that we had never bought a Gerber Graduate Meal (or any other pre-packaged toddler meal for that matter). It seems that our fresh food philosophy resonated with a lot of you - - and many even tried our recipe for Lila's favorite quick and easy edamame! The easy side dish packs three of parenting.com's ten best power food for kids in one punch!

We promised to share more toddler friendly fast and fresh recipes with you, but decided to have a little fun in the process. Hence the Farmer's Market Challenge.

What is the Farmer's Market Challenge? From now until the end of market season (beginning of November), we'll be selecting one fruit, veggie, cheese, or other market product to take into our test kitchen (which just happens to also double as our only kitchen!) and produce something our beta group will eat (a.k.a. our 13-month-old). The idea is to make something easy (we're definitely not contenders for Top Chef no matter how we enjoy it) and toddler-friendly.

Because sharing is caring, we're inviting all of you into the fun, too! Just blog about or post on facebook your favorite kid-friendly recipe that includes the market item of the week and add your URL to our linky!

I was psyched to start this new series on our trip to the 32nd Street Market this past weekend. Toward the end of the market, there was a stand selling only cantaloupe and okra. The farmer behind the table was very friendly, but when I asked him what his favorite thing to make with okra was, he responded: "I don't cook it. I just grow it."

Well, you know I love a challenge. So this week's veggie is okra.

I've never cooked okra. I had never even seen okra without fried breading on the outside. I might have had it in some gumbo once - - but 110 degree heat really isn't gumbo weather. Besides, wasn't really feeling confident that spicy gumbo would pass our Lila Bug beta test.

So I scoured the internet for healthy fried okra (since that's what I was familiar with!), and came across this toddler friendly Okra Nuggets recipe from weelicious. (I'm now subscribing to their daily recipe email, too. Fabulous find!).

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups Okra, cut into 1 inch rounds
• 
1 Tsp Salt

• 1/4 Cup Flour

• 1 Egg
• 
1/2 Cup Cornmeal
• 
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
  

(I nixed the salt and added the following seasonings: fresh basil, celery salt and pepper. I didn't have straight parmesan cheese on hand, so I used shredded Parmigiana-Regiano)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grab a cookie sheet and put in the oven while it's heating up.*
• Get three small to medium bowls from your cabinet. Combine flour, celery salt and pepper in the first bowl. In a second bowl, whisk the egg.
 Combine cornmeal, cheese and basil in the third bowl.
• Roll the okra in the flour and pat to remove excess flour.
 Dip the flour coated okra in egg and then roll in the cornmeal/parmesan mixture to coat.
• Retrieve your cookie sheet from the oven. Carefully spray cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray and place the okra on the sheet.
  
• Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.

  
• Serve.

(*a step I added based on LOTS of positive experience doing this with homemade baked sweet potato fries. Gives them a little extra crisp!)

The verdict?
Everyone in our house ate them! I did serve them with a bit of ranch dressing to dip (added excitement). The Bug seemed to prefer the non-dipped version. Personally, I liked the crunchy texture of the cornmeal. There was just enough of a spicy bite at the end of the nugget to keep things more flavorful than your run-of-the-mill simulated fried veggie. The okra was still moist, but not all mush. Perfect.

Since okra nuggets aren't really a main course, we served ours with honey terayaki grilled pork tenderloin, tomato/fresh apricot salad tossed in homemade balsamic vinaigrette, and blueberries. The whole dinner went from cutting board to table in under 30 minutes.

So what's your favorite kid-friendly okra recipe? Post about it and add it to our linky! Can't wait to read them!

And let us know what you think next week's market item should be by leaving a comment!



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