What I absolutely love about summer is the ability to make a completely different salad every day of the week. It's so easy to just pull things out of the fridge and throw together a meal. This week, a paltry side salad would simply not do. Since I've been to a farm or farmers' market almost every day for the last week, I had plenty of fresh ingredients to use up. This antipasto salad included green-leaf lettuce and sauteed portabella mushrooms from PA, edible flowers, cucumbers, and roasted corn from Larriland Farm, and shaved goat cheese from Firefly Farms in Garrett County. I also added some sunflower seeds and artichoke hearts that were still in my pantry, but not local.
I'm also learning to appreciate heirloom tomatoes. They aren't just hype, they are fantastic! I don't usually really like to eat tomatoes by themselves, but I would make an exception for these. This week I've tried Cherokee Purples from Heyser's Farm in Colesville, and today I bought some Black Russians from the "Our House" farm at the Olney Farmers' Market (Our House is a program for at-risk young men, who work on a farm in Brookeville, and then sell the produce at the farmers' market and to local restaurants).
One other cool place that I went to this week was right in Ashton, called Blueberry Gardens. In addition to acupuncture, yoga, and massage, this place has Pick Your Own organic blueberries. Neat idea and the berries were perfect. At $8 a quart, it is more expensive than Larriland Farms and some of the other PYO places I've looked at, but it was worth it for the convenience.
