The End of the Month's Review

I came back from Connecticut and Massachusetts and didn't eat at home very much. I flew in on a Tuesday and waited until Thursday to go to my farmer's market. I didn't make yogurt until Sunday. But, I have lots of yummy stuff that I've been eating that I want to share with y'all. Right now, I have chunky peanut butter and Nutella on a spoon and it's bliss. 

I had yummy roasted vegetables (fairy tale eggplants, green pepper, garlic gloves, and sweet potato) with olive oil, salt and pepper. Delicious! 

This is a carrot and raisin salad that I made in imitation of my grandmother's. I had so many carrots that needed to be eaten and I had Raisin Bran. I picked out all the raisins, put the carrots in a blender (for a very short amount of time) and whisked together equal parts of mayonnaise and apple cider vinegar. Delicious!

Joy the Baker provided the recipe for this brown sugar, but I remember reading somewhere that if you're in a pinch, molasses and white sugar can combine to make brown sugar. I was amazed by how easy it was to make it and how delicious it tastes - no preservatives or anything chemical. Now I won't ever buy it again, so long as molasses is in my pantry. Two things I can forever take off my shopping list: yogurt and brown sugar. 

At the farmer's market this week, I bought apples. I thought I'd be getting maybe 8-10 apples; instead, after telling the farmer that I like smaller apples to bring as snacks, I brought home 17 small Golden Delicious apples for $7. This photo (in which the Nutella sort of looks like a litter of puppies, and is taken on my Spongebob plate) shows my latest obsession of putting Nutella on apples. I'm thinking of renaming these apples Chocolate Delicious. 

Another thing I bought at the farmer's market this week was Asian string beans, a weird, long, purple bean. I figured they'd be good in a stir fry so I bought them. I realized I don't know how to stir fry, but I was able to put the beans in a yummy vegetable omelet. I had some fun plating too. 

I went looking online for recipes for these weird beans and found one for braising. I'd never braised green beans, so thought I'd give it a try. If you don't like something, what do you do? Why, smother it in butter and garlic of course. The result was a little chewy but quite delicious. It's somewhat like eating snakes- very buttery snakes with chunks of onion and garlic. 

The aesthetic is nice, though.