Everyone cooks differently - some people never use a recipe, some people always use a recipe.  I tend to follow recipes.  I pick dishes I want to cook, make a list of ingredients, and then go shopping.  But this summer I'm trying a different approach: get the ingredients first, based on what's fresh and available at my local farmers market, and THEN decide what to cook.  I must admit I'm a bit uncertain of how well I'll do in this new approach but I'm trying...

Why the change?  My neighborhood has a small (well miniscule might be a better word) Farmer’s Market.  Walking to this market to get the best seasonal fruits and vegetables, from local farmers, is more fun and  makes more sense than driving to the store to buy things that were grown who knows where.  We've been doing this since the market opened 3 years ago.  But in the past I've always had a list ready before going.  Looking back this seems backwards.  Before I go to the market I don't know what will be available or what will be the freshest.  Thus, the change - this year when I go to the Farmer’s Market I will purchase the best vegetables and plan my week's meals from them, even if I haven't cooked with those vegetables before.

Saturday was the opening of my Farmer's Market and the beginning of this new approach.  This week's market bounty consisted of beets, baby Bok Choy, green beans, Swiss chard, yellow summer squash and some oranges.  Once home I had to figure out what to make with all of these wonderful vegetables.  The Swiss chard was the easiest.  As soon as I saw it I thought of a pasta dish with Swiss chard and kielbasa.  On the other extreme were the beets.  I've eaten beets in restaurants before but have never cooked with them.  After searching for recipes, I have decided on a beet salad to serve with the Swiss chard pasta.  The remaining vegetables I just decided to grill and serve with a whole chicken we were planning on grilling.   Overall, the dishes are pretty simple and quite different from the type of one-dish multi-ingredient meals I tend to make.  But, my first attempt at Cooking by what's available at the market seems to have been a success.  So far, the fun part is knowing that next week we could be eating almost anything, of course that's the scary part too!