Recipes Part of Farmers’ Market Fun

On this Mother’s Day, I did my usual indulgence, which is to walk downtown to the Farmer’s Market and buy some fresh baked pastries, fresh asaragus, bison, and the first strawberries of the season. Oh are they sweet!
Part of the fun of buying from the farmers is getting their recipes. Linda Wilson (Butter Pot Farm), who sets up at the Sunday Annapolis FreshFarm Market was sharing her recipe for cooking lettuce. Linda writes in her instructions that while she tried it with iceberg, she recommends romaine. In a small bowl combine 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp rice wine or dry sherry, 3/4 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper. Heat approximately 1 1/2 tbsp .of peanut oil or whatever oil you have availale saute two diagonally cut one inch pieces of scallion together with three thinly sliced garlic cloves until the garlic is golden. Add half a head of lettuce (leaves torn into 4 inch wide strips) and cook about one minute, until lettuce softens. Pour the items previously combined in the small bowl and cook one more minute. Season with salt and garnish with more chopped scallions. Try substituting for or adding in some sliced carrot with the scallions. If you have no peanut oil, add a tsp of peanut butter to the sauce to add a little peanut flavor. The original recipe comes from The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen by Grace Young.
As you arrived to the entrance of the market, set up at Fawcett’s parking lot, there were samples of Caprese Brushetta to taste, courtesy of Melissa Owens from Deliciously Nutricious. Made with diced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh garlic, fresh basil leaves, balsamic vinegar, exra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and fresh black pepper; toasted Pugliese Italian bread is first topped with a slice of cheese and then the remaining mixture of ingredients are spooned on top. Both nutricious and healthy; Deliciously Nutricious offers cooking camps for children to teach healthy eating habits. It was a busy day for the restaurants, but if you avoided the Sunday crowds and are taking Mom or anyone else for that matter to dinner this week, check out all the dining options by picking up the latest What’s Up? Annapolis or What’s Up? Eastern Shore magazine.