Farmers Markets Galore!

This past week I have been able to hit up another farmers' market and, even though I hadn't planned it, got a good start on my preservation efforts for this summer's harvest season. As I've said before, I am trying to make/grow/buy locally as much as I can this year. It is my goal to do enough preservation and buying of meat and grain/flour straight from the farm that all I will need to buy this winter are milk, eggs, sugar, and a few other things along these lines.

I hit up a local Lansing market on Wednesday - the Allen Street Market - held in one of the neighborhoods right near where I work. I went there a few times last year and have always loved going there and look forward to making more visits there every week or two throughout the summer. I picked up a half-flat of strawberries, 2 quarts of snow peas, 2 huge bunches of spinach, and a large bunch of garlic scapes. We're getting a lot of our own snow peas from our garden, but we've been eating them raw (Carson loves them just like Kevin and I do!) and I want to freeze a good amount of them for stir fries, too. I rarely see them at farmers markets and have been told by my local farmers that its b/c they all eat them raw before they can leave the farm. So I was very excited to pick up 2 whole quarts of them! I blanched and froze the entire quantity. The spinach has received the same treatment - blanched and frozen - to supplement the spinach that I'd frozen from our garden. The strawberries have been made into strawberry syrup (post to come). And I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with the garlic scapes yet, but they keep for up to two months in the fridge, so I have time to deal with those. I'll probably add them to dishes as I would scallions mostly.

Tomorrow I'll be hitting up the Swartz Creek farmers' market before we head out to my cousins' church for their annual FIESTA festival. I'm excited to see what our market will have tomorrow!