Weekend Wrap-Up

We had a great day today. If you’ve been visiting for awhile, you know I’ve mentioned a Farmer’s Market that we like … we went this morning, and this time I remembered to bring my camera. There are about a dozen different vendors, offering up everything from fresh baked bread, pickles and olives to the traditional (and majority) fare of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers. Everything is very reasonably priced, and I really like supporting local farmers.

I got a great rosemary plant from the below stand, and another pot filled with assorted herbs. Next week, she’s bringing me some lavender plants, a favorite of my Mom and The Husband.

Assorted Herbs and Plants

I love, love, love Farmer’s Market flowers. There’s just something about them that you can’t get at a store. Look how gorgeous they are!

Farmer’s Market Flowers – only $5 a bunch!

Today I learned something new. I never knew what garlic looked like when it was grown. Never really gave it much thought, to tell you the truth. One of the vendors had fresh garlic (80 cents each) and I bought a few from her. They trim off the green stalks as they sell them. These were planted last Winter — can you believe it takes nearly a year to get to this selling stage?

The Husband and Nicholas devour bread, plain, with butter, hot, cold, any way you serve it. Usually if I need a loaf of bread for a recipe, I buy two loaves, one for the car ride home (and it seriously is gone by the time when get home) and the second for the recipe. This vendor had great pizza breads, which I bought for an easy weeknight dinner. I’ll stuff them with some ham, mozzarella and tomato sauce and bake them for a bit – yum. I also bought a round loaf of pumpernickle for my Mom, one of her favorites.

OK, the rest of the day … I had planned to make a cake I found over on Epicurious’ site. It looks really delicious, and coming from someone without a real sweet tooth, that’s quite a compliment. A chocolate cake with white truffle layers and buttercream frosting – yum. Anyways, after reading the directions this morning (which I should have done earlier), I knew I’d never have enough time to make it, given various steps for chilling this, and cooling that. My birthday is coming up, so I think I’ll make it then. Instead, we visited a dairy that we all like and got an ice cream cake. They make great ones that are non-fat ice cream (and I swear you can’t tell!) with fudge and those little crunchies that Carvel is known for. Delicious stuff. I didn’t just want to bring something store-bought, so I made a quick batch of Mocha Truffle Cookies. A tried-and-true for us, eaten warm out of the oven, they are truly a “WOW” recipe (I’ll post it tomorrow).

Mom chose dinner at Lone Star. They have pretty good steaks and their Sweet Potatoes sides are to-die-for. Smothered with just a little bit of butter and a whole lotta brown sugar, they usually get eaten first. I ordered a steak and shrimp combo. Can’t remember what the steak was called, but it was deemed “their most tender steak on the menu” – and it was. The Husband ate my shrimp, so I can’t vouch for them. Is it me, or do you hate that little piece of requisite flimsy lettuce they put on the plate? Just seems and looks silly to me.

My brother-in-law ordered a beer, and in a slick marketing move, they deliver this:

As the waiter set it down, he said it’s called their “Texas Two Step,” and you only pay for the second bottle if you drink it. Pretty smart, because I bet most people drink it. He did.

Anyways, all for tonight. Supper Club is this week (came fast, huh?) and I have NO IDEA what I’m making. Tune in to see how the rest of the week develops. Until then…

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