Market day

It was pretty hard getting up today because I didn't sleep well. But I had promised Heritage Farms I would stop by, and I knew that Josh wanted to go. So I managed to pull myself out of bed at 8:30.

Although we make a point of stopping at Heritage last so that our frozen goodies stay as cold as possible (which is where reserving things in advance really comes in handy), they are the first things that I process when we get home.

Among the long list of things that I gave to Greg for things I'd like to stock the chest freeze were chicken wings and pork belly. Here we have four packages of whole chicken wings and two nice-sized pork bellies. The pork bellies are rather large, at least if I'm cooking for two, but I'll reportion them at some point. I'm thinking about trying to make bacon. But maybe I will just braise them after all.

Among the other things I asked Greg for are pig's feet. Here are two bags of two feet each. So far, I've been looking for recipes without much luck. I would really like to braise the trotters so that they can be eaten chickie feet style -- nom nom nom. But most of the recipes that I've found call for braising and then taking all the meat off the bones, and piling the meat and stuff into another vessel, adding more ingredients, and then baking. So far, the only recipe that keeps them whole is a Chinese recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. A Chinese recipe by a British guy... I just don't know.

Anyway, we also have two center cut pork chops which will let us taste their pork. Yay.

We stopped off at Pine Street -- who had a rather long wait for such a short line -- to get bacon (yum) and restock on chorizo for a weekend at the lake. I do kind of miss going to the store to say hi to Rusty and Travis, but it's good to save us another trip.

The olive oil people were back and we are probably down to a half bottle of oil. Since the new press won't be ready until January, we bought two bottles. I also picked up some Sequatchie Cove Reblochon (I think that is the name) which is pretty similar to brie, with a light funk on the end. We're getting better about eating our cheese, though I have to admit that if they didn't keep for so long, we would still waste a lot.

I was looking for something to pair with the lamb so I wanted some beans, but I saw these dried field peas at Farmer Greg's. They will keep for a long time, so I bought a bag.

Ah, greens. We stopped off at Hennessey first and got some okra and filet beans. We also picked up some lettuces. When we got to McMullan, we also bought some of their filet beans. It's a pretty big bean of filet beans we have now!

We picked up mushrooms from both Hennessey and Indian Ridge. From Hennessey, we got those gorgeous large shitakes on the left. From Indian Ridge, we got the oyster mushrooms and other shitakes.

At the Indian Ridge stall, I was collecting my mushrooms and there was a woman there who didn't want to touch the mushrooms until Michael answered about cost, so I snagged the best ones out from under her nose! Well, I did ask her and she said it was okay...

It seemed like we hadn't really bought a lot of vegetables when we got to Burge, so we picked up these squash and eggplants, but looking at what we have, I think it would have been enough without. We addition, we picked up two more McMullan corn and these pretty tomatoes.

We also got this beautiful pile of rosegold potatoes. Just looking at it makes me happy.

Sorry, I had to stop to look at it again.

Did you ever have that hamburger helper cheeseburger macaroni? I didn't. But I kind of wanted it. I think that means that it had really good marketing. Anyway, I've had the desire to eat it before. But faced without not knowing what to make anyway and two leftover burgers in the fridge, I decided to make it. Well, I admit I googled some recipes, but in the end, I just winged it.

So I started off by cooking the pasta. We don't keep macaroni in the house, so I went with something that could hold my sauce -- shells! I sauteed up some chopped onions and garlic. It was at this point that they called to Josh as usual and he came downstairs to the kitchen. I also chopped up the last of the Riverview sweet peppers that had already started to go bad. Surprising how fast that happened in the fridge! But they don't call them rotting drawers for nothing.

Then I crumbled in the beef and added in the tomato chunks. I added some of the pasta water and some salt and let it all simmer together. When I tasted it, it tasted mostly of pepper so I chopped another tomato and added it in. Then I added some more pasta water and let that meld.

After a few minutes, I added the shells and a bunch of grated Cabot two-year-aged cheddar. Mixed it all together and let it meld for a while.

It turns out pretty well. Good flavor, and savory. Creamy. And after a big bowl like that... a nap is definitely in order. :)