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Tag: farmers market

Instagazpacho

Posted on July 23 by Priscilla

1. overbought great tomatoes—not unusual this time of year. 2. saw David Lebovitz’ gazpacho Insty story! 3. had great little cucumbers and beefsteak tomatoes from Corona Farms and a clutch of colorful heirlooms from Amy’s Farm, (IE, represent. Riverside and Ontario, respectively), plus a beautiful red onion, and, 4. My Paris Kitchen, the book with the recipe. (I hasten to add 5., it’s near 100° today.) Done and done.

Posted in cookbooks cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg provisioning The Scruburban Kitchen | Tagged cookbooks cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg provisioning The Scruburban Kitchen

Rice Redux… Koda Farms Coda

Posted on July 16 by Priscilla
Koda Farms rice being sold at farmers market.

Orange County foodists of some tenure might remember a time, oh, maybe almost exactly 5 years ago, when I wrote about Koda Farms California-grown, Japanese-style rice coming to be sold at O.C. farmers markets.

Well, then is now, now is then. Koda Farms is back in black in O.C., having returned to the Saturday Irvine FM the other week. The market hadn’t yet moved to its current, luxuriously commodious Mariners Church site when Koda participated the first time around, so now it’s doubly accessible. (The Irvine market continues to be open 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.)

If the Koda name is niggling at the back of your mind, it could be because it’s gotten a tremendously large amount of name-checking press as the rice of choice at Sqirl LA, the Silver Lake restaurant phenomenon. Rice obsessives might do well to give it a spin in their old Zojirushis and judge for themselves.

Posted in cooking farmers market foodism Irvine provisioning restaurants | Tagged cooking farmers market foodism Irvine provisioning restaurants

Insta-Salad is Where It’s At

Posted on June 25 by Priscilla

Insta-salad is what I call already-prepped and ready-to-go lettuce, and it’s one of those things that just makes everything go along a little better.

(Parenthetical screed: I’m not talking about any of the many and various bag o’ leafy greens. However, since I’ve invoked them, let’s just get one important thing out of the way right quick here: No matter WHAT is evinced on the label—organic, “triple-washed,” WHATEVER—you NEED TO WASH them.)

Do you have a favorite way to prep and store lettuce? If so, do that.

As for me: Whether it’s lovely tender redleaf from the farmers market, or small, sturdy-crisp Little Gem from a supermarket pack, I scrub and rinse my sink, install the stopper, and separate the leaves into this cool bath. Swish, often a drain-refill-additional swish before a trip through the plastic centrifuge of my thrift-store French salad spinner and out onto a cloth to further drip for a moment before being gently loaded into a Ziploc® bag with a piece of paper towel lining the bottom. (In these days of one-use plastic consciousness, I hasten to say that I wash and reuse my lettuce bags.) Tuck into the crisper drawer, and sleep the sleep of one untroubled by the worry of where her next salade is coming from.

Posted in cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg The Scruburban Kitchen | Tagged cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg The Scruburban Kitchen

Trader Joe’s Laguna Hills 2.0

Posted on June 14 by Priscilla

The Trader Joe’s in Laguna Hills, on Avenida Carlota near the moribund Laguna Hills Mall, has always had a parking lot that wasn’t quite as bad as other stores, which is saying something, as you know from the cliché-with-a-molten-center-of-truth about Trader Joe’s parking lots in general.

This location has long been a convenient stop after the Friday farmer’s market at the far end of the aforementioned mall. But there’s news, and it’s big: as of 8 a.m. today, things are even a whole lot better. A new, kind of huge, purpose-built Trader Joe’s has opened across the parking lot, looming—if not lording—over the old, kind of sad strip housing the original store. There’s parking aplenty! Or, seems like it. Once parked, howevah, you still take your life in your hands crossing the two lanes passing in front of the store. Some things continue to never change, I guess.

Posted in cooking farmers market Laguna Hills provisioning | Tagged cooking farmers market Laguna Hills provisioning | Leave a comment

UNCANNY

Posted on February 14, 2017 by Priscilla

For years I’ve made preserves and pickles, originally to get in touch with how my grandmother might have run her kitchen and later just for pleasure, always canning them in a boiling-water bath so they’ll be shelf-stable. (Have not yet made the leap to pressure canning; perhaps someday.) But with my first 2017 strawberry jam, made from a three-pack I bought at my new favorite Chino farm stand and Meyer lemon from our little tree, I merely refrigerated, part of a newly hatched plan to streamline the process of keeping my family in homemade preserves for breakfast toast. You might not imagine that daily breakfast toast, which accompanies daily breakfast omelets, could account for all that much preserve use—but every-day-ness adds up. With a few discards, the three-pack nicely filled two 500-milliliter French jelly jars—which I’ve always considered the Platonic Ideal of jelly jars. Even though I’ve owned them for 30-plus years, my jars and their orange lids have never actually been used for jelly. Jam’ll have to be close enough. (This is 2017’s second batch.)

Posted in cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg preserve me provisioning The Scruburban Kitchen | Tagged cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg preserve me provisioning The Scruburban Kitchen

Farmers Marketing—Laguna Hills Friday

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Priscilla

It’s long been my favorite of our many good Orange County farmers markets, something that remained true today when I stopped in: the Friday Laguna Hills market, at Laguna Hills Mall. It was the first day of a new, construction-accommodating configuration near JCP, nicely visible from Carlota and the 5, that displays the superb vendor selection and ingress/egress ease to fine effect. I love it because it’s a real cook’s market—which is SO not to say you shouldn’t avail yourself of the fab prepared food. Just be sure to take home a couple big bags of raw ingredients, to fuel a weekend of great cooking.

 

Posted in cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg Laguna Hills provisioning The Scruburban Kitchen | Tagged cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg Laguna Hills provisioning The Scruburban Kitchen

CAULIFLOWERLICIOUS

Posted on December 18, 2016 by Priscilla

Cauli is where it’s at, at the moment. These were at Laguna Niguel/Aliso Viejo on a recent Sunday, but you’ll find ‘em at all O.C. farmers markets. I nabbed that big yellow one in the center there. Rinse, slice, onto a baking sheet, generous salt & pepper, drizzle with oil. 400̊ for 15-20 for retaining slight crispness, or longer at 375̊ to utter tenderness and deep caramelization—my favorite result.

Posted in cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg provisioning recipe The Scruburban Kitchen | Tagged Aliso Viejo cooking farmers market foodism fruit & veg Laguna Niguel provisioning recipe The Scruburban Kitchen

EZ FIND

Aliso Viejo animals Central Coast cookbooks cooking Costco ex-OC FMs farmer farmers market fish/seafood foodism fruit & veg Irvine Laguna Hills Laguna Niguel preserve me provisioning recipe restaurants SLO The Scruburban Kitchen travel

Recent OCFN

  • Instagazpacho
  • Rice Redux… Koda Farms Coda
  • Insta-Salad is Where It’s At
  • Dogs in Cars at Farmers Markets: A Desultory Series
  • Trader Joe’s Laguna Hills 2.0
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