August 2010: Farmer's Market

Saturday brought yet another brilliant Cooking Club hosted by Michele. This time we were all challenged with making dishes from ingredients found at a Farmer's Market.

We all met up at the Farmer's Market located at the College of San Mateo.

(Michele, Ashley, Elizabeth, Bonnie)

Michele assigned us a partner and a course and we went to town. Most of us already had in mind what we were going to do for our course, but Michele and Bonnie flew by the seat of their pants.

The market was delightful and had a great selection of produce as well as a plethora of samples.

Michele and Bonnie devising their plan.After we gathered all our ingredients we headed to Michele's home - which of course always looks fabulous.
We all started prepping our dishes, but not before enjoying a nice glass of wine outside.

Bonnie got to work prepping what apparently is the best corn ever made. When Bonnie and I first arrived at the market we were looking to get some coffee and saw a line of people. We thought for sure that it must be for coffee. But oh no - it was for corn. Bonnie kindly asked someone in line what was so great about the corn and they said once you have this corn you'd be more than happy to wait in line every weekend for this corn. Therefore, Bonnie knew she must incorporate this corn into her dish.

More prep.

Bonnie is very fond of the corn. And all veggies in general.
For our first course Ashely and Liz paired up and made heirloom tomato bruschetta......
and these grilled peaches with basil and pancetta. Both of which were incredible.
Tina and Christina paired up and made a delightful watermelon gazpacho. It had just the right amount of spice with an added jalapeno pepper.
We then reminisced about past Cooking Clubs. It's been SEVEN years! And I was presented with a lovely William-Sonoma going away gift basket, but not before I was given a trivia quiz on past Cooking Club events. It turned out to be a great discussion and I learned of my disappointing Bloody Marys our first year. I used Mr. T&T's mix versus making the mix from scratch. It's hardcore I tell ya, and people (cough-Bonnie-cough) don't forget.
Michele and Bonnie got to work on the main dish.
The corn of course!And ta-da! The finished product. A heirloom tomato stuffed with corn, blueberries and garnished with dill, set on a bed of fresh herbed pasta with tomato sauce (made from the heirloom tomatoes insides) with added basil and kale. Fantastic!
Not pictured was a batch of moijitos Michele managed make.

Lastly, Janet and I ended the day and I literally mean ended the day (as we started at 10:00 am and went 'til about 5:00 pm) with Fresh Fruit Tarts. We had to bring some of our ingredients from home, but got the fruit, jam and even the honey (that I'm enjoying at home) at the market.
If only all our days were spent like this. We of course ended the evening with more lively discussion and said things that are better left unsaid on blogs.

It was a great meeting to go out on before my Cooking Club hiatus.

I'll miss you girls! Visit anytime.