I love going to the Farmers’ Market.  I love filling up on the delicious samples, eyeing the bright flowers, squeezing the assorted dirt caked produce, and I love using my Beatles tote bag.

Ready for some veggies!

The bag is probably enough to get me out of the house.

This is what I came home with in the end:

Daisies!

It’s always hard for me to pass up all the flowers at the market.  I generally think my money is better spent on something I can eat… but they were practically giving these away as a “rainy day special.”  I couldn’t pass them up.  They’re so sweet and innocent looking, don’t you think?

Ah, to be a bumblebee!

The full spread:

Yum yum!

I only had $12, so I couldn’t go too wild at the market.   Apples, oranges, strawberries, rainbow carrots, lettuce, and daisies!  I’m thinking of making lettuce wraps.

I did get these as a treat, though:

Bolani!

Sooooo good!   Bolani is a traditional Afghani flatbread, stuffed and baked with deliciousness.  It comes in a whole variety of flavors, such as pumpkin, potato, spinach, and lentil.    It’s all delicious eaten on its own, hot or cold. But, to push it into a whole different realm of awesome, they also carry a whole assortment of chutneys and hummuses and spreads… and it’s all vegan and low-fat!  Mmm.  Bolani.   And their guy at market will feed you every possible flavor combination imaginable… just one sample after another until you’re completely bolani’d out.  I love it.   Yesterday, he also threw in a piece of free baklava.

Baklava!

It’s clearly not vegan, but I didn’t want to turn down free baklava… so I gave it to my sister.  :)

It’s officially strawberry season here in Northern California.   Have I mentioned how much I love California?  Have I mentioned how much I love strawberries?  Can you guess how much I love my local farmers’ market?

*Happy sigh*

ZOMG! Strawberries!

I had no intention of getting strawberries the last time I went to the market.  But the farmer beckoned me over, offered me a sample, and I couldn’t pass.  These were the sweetest, juiciest, most amazing strawberries I’d had in years.   I scraped together my remaining dollar bills and quarters, and handed them over for a basket of bright, beautiful berries.

Now, I don’t know if you’re like me, but if I find myself in possession of an incredible ingredient like strawberries, I immediately start to think about what I should bake.  Strawberry shortcakes? Strawberry pie? Strawberry preserves? Strawberry crepes?  Strawberry crisp? SO MANY OPTIONS!

But as I munched and slurped away at the berries, fresh out of the basket, I realized that maybe I didn’t need to bake them into some over-the-top confection.  They were treat enough as they were.  Raw.  Fresh.  That’s how I wanted them. They tasted like spring time and summer in my mouth.

I ate the entire basket within a day.

Breakfast:

So Perfect

Sliced strawberries and steel cut oats.  Nothing else.  No syrup or cinnamon or anything.  Just strawberries and oats.  And wow it was good.

And then, I had strawberries for dinner, too!

Strawberry Salad

Talk about a colorful salad!   Spinach, mustard greens, edible flowers, strawberries, fresh tomatoes, avocados, and rainbow carrots… all from the farmer’s market!   Topped with crumbled tofu, nutritional yeast, pepper, and oil & vinegar.

Rainbow Carrot!

The rainbow carrots were so pretty!  And the strawberries were delicious… and I love my life.

I can’t wait until the next farmers’ market!  Maybe next time, I’ll buy two baskets so I can bake some of them.