Summer Salad Di(sh)patch

After being out of town for a week, I really anticipated Wednesday's Foggy Bottom market. My fridge was empty and I knew that July would bring a wider variety of produce selections.

D & S Farms had ripe peaches, delicious nectarines, raspberries, and enormous blackberries.

Freshly dug red, white, and blue potatoes from Quaker Valley Orchards. They also had delicious ripe bing cherries.

A new favorite vendor is Long Meadow Farms. One of the major appeals is that the produce is organic (non-certified, but they will happily talk to you about their practices). The farmer, Marvin, is usually at the booth with his sister. He's very friendly, helpful with recipe ideas, and seems to enjoy joking around with customers. For example:

Customer: What's the best way to take care of this basil?

Marvin: Use it all up and come back next week to buy some more.

He, of course, answered the question properly after his joke. I've found that their booth has interesting  variety, including heirloom varieties of tomatoes, various types of squash, and yellow pole beans (which have a more buttery flavor than green beans).

As usual, I was drawn to the Sunnyside Farms and Orchards stand. The folks there always have a good selection, meaning that my arms are overflowing with produce by the time I check out. I found two varieties of green beans: regular old green beans and their expensive sister haricots verts (which were about 5 times the price!). I bought the same cost value of both beans, meaning my bag of regular folks style green beans was much fuller. In addition they had tomatoes, onions, broccoli, cabbage, and much more. They also placed a very helpful warning by their blueberries: "Last Week for Blueberries!" Although my bag was too heavy for any more purchases at this point, their warning has inspired me to buy large quantities of blueberries for freezing this weekend.

After a quick stop for the necessary meat component at Smith Family Farms, and the corresponding bread from Atwaters, I headed home.

Here's (some of) what I brought home with me:

I wanted to do something simple after a long workday, so I put John to work recreating our sliders from a few weeks ago. With the intention of making something healthy to counterbalance the meat and cheese, I put together a summer salad.  You could do this with any variety of vegetables. Peppers or roasted eggplant would be a delicious addition/ replacement later in the summer. Here's what I did:

Summer Salad with an Herb Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup mixed pole beans (I used haricots verts and yellow pole beans), washed and steamed for 1-2 minutes
• 1 cup diced potatoes, boiled until just tender and immediately chilled (I used my multicolored variety)
• 1 cup tomato, cut into large sections (I used red and yellow tomatoes)
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 TB fresh basil, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fresh oregano
• 2 TB olive oil
• 1 TB red wine vinegar
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

In a large bowl, whisk olive oil, vinegar, shallots, garlic, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Add vegetables to the bowl and stir to mix. If desired, you can refrigerate the salad for 15-30 minutes prior to eating. It will help the flavors to marinate. Otherwise, serve immediately.

This made for a fairly healthy and light compliment to the less healthy sliders. However, when comparing the two side by side, my husband felt that the sliders had an unfair advantage of meat, cheese, and bread. I had to agree, but still enjoyed this colorful and tasty salad very much.

Mileage for this meal:

• Potatoes- Quaker Valley Orchards, 91.2 miles  
• Red tomato, scallion, and haricots verts- Sunnyside Farm and Orchard, 71 miles
• Yellow tomatoes and yellow pole beans- Long Meadow Farms, 90 miles
• Garlic- Sunnyside Farm and Orchard, 71 miles
• Basil and Oregano- my garden, 0 miles
• Not Local: oil, salt, pepper, vinegar