Opening day at Orenco

Sunday the long-awaited opening of the Orenco farmers market finally arrived. It was chilly, but we enjoyed breakfast burritos from Ochoa's. Due to the chilly spring weather, there were just a few kinds of veggies, and lots of garden starts. We bought asparagus, mustard greens and pears, as well as a few plants for mothers' day and one more tomato start for the garden.



I'd been excited for awhile to make a spring minestrone soup with aparagus, peas, and brown rice from Heidi Swanson's Supernatural Cooking. Turns out that those little asparagi can hold a lot of sand. Note to self: swish them around more. Despite the grit, the soup was awesome. The veggies had some crunch to them and we drizzled some sesame oil on top to make it extra tasty.

I'd been reading Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food, and it seemed like a meal that he would have approved of: lots of whole grains and veggies. I really recommend the book, I love his critique of "nutritionism". He talks all about how looking at food as only a collection of nutrients has led to all kinds of bad ideas about what to and not to eat.



With the leftover asparagus and some of the mustard greens we made a great improvised pasta dish. I stole some ideas from a few different recipes and made a shallot and asparagus puree and sauteed up some greens and chili flakes. We sprinkled some pecorino cheese on top and called it good.

By the way, the countdown to CSA is 7 days!!