Market Haul-Memorial Weekend

Not wanting to fight the crowds on the first day of strawberry picking we decided against heading out to our usual Farmers Market in Leesburg and instead made a round-about loop past the Smart Market Inc.'s Oakton location off of Hunter Mill Rd on our way to lunch al la picnic in Ellanor C. Lawrence historical park. The Oakton market is smaller, meaning less vendor competition, but it's also easier to get the good stuff and it starts and ends an hour later which is nice for those of us who are too unorganized to get an early start out the door on a Saturday Morning. My purchases were also affected said un-organization as I realized as we were pulling in that I had removed all of my insulated bags (the cooler-like bags that you can add ice to keep food cold) to make room for boxes in my trunk earlier in the week and had failed to return them. I was also only carrying one small ice pack to keep our lunch box cold and this would not be enough to support any meat, dairy or delicate greens. Darn.

I ended up with a loaf of some hearty bread and a cheddar beer bread round, 5 large stalks of rhubarb (never cooked it before), a few green and yellow zucchini, 2 large bundles of asparagus (get it while its good), and a basket of large but clearly early strawberries. I have ambitions of cooking up strawberry-rhubarb cobbler, rhubarb muffins, asparagus fritatas and a breakfast of local eggs/bacon/mushrooms/bread from past markets finds tomorrow morning but we'll just have to see. I did manage to saute the zucchinis with some local garlic and a dash of sea salt for my favorite no-brains required fresh side dish. It goes with most anything but in this case it was non-local hamburgers doctored with some diced local shallots and a healthy dose of Worcestershire all smothered in BBQ sauce. K, of course, smelled the squash and turned up her nose but did agree that the hamburger was good before deciding that she didn't actually want to eat any of it.