food foto flow: Farmer's Market Edition

I am not a big fan of grocery shopping, even though I have a great neighborhood farmer's market on saturdays (grand lake) and the Berkeley Bowl, the best grocery store EVER, within 5 miles from me. I put grocery shopping off for as long as I can every week. I have a Whole ~~Paycheck~~ Foods across the street that beckons me, but I do my best not to succumb to those high produce prices, although I must admit, I too often find my self getting "one thing" just to tie me over until I go to 'the bowl'.

This last weekend was beautiful and I needed to get out of my house (and head), so I went to the Grand Lake Farmer's Market. It was lovely as always. I stopped at Anfilo, an Ethiopian coffee house in the market--featured in this video. The coffee is strong, but smooth and tasty and it is served in a communal atmosphere outside. They are opening a cafe on grand in a couple months, so be sure to check it out.

So, I spent about $20 and bought a bag of arugula, a pound of English peas, a bunch of red curly kale, carrots and leeks and this made about 5 - 6 meals for me, check it out:

The kale, pictured here with my favorite portrait models, clay birds from Nicaragua.

I sauteed it with carrots and red onions and added walnuts and raisins (its actually better with toasted sliced almonds, but I ran out).

Fresh English peas

Sauteed in butter with pancetta and carrots, with a poached egg.

Leek and pancetta tart. I had leftover tart dough in the freezer, so not much work at all. This is a sweet pate brisee, which has always been hard for me to make for some reason. But this time, it worked out really well. Very flaky and easy to roll out. Ive never understood the instructions for tart dough--that its supposed to look like cornmeal when you mix it, but with pea sized butter. So rather than doing it with the food processor, I made it by hand, cutting the butter with two knives and a fork. This made all the difference. The butter stays chunky, which gives the dough its flakiness. Yum!