It’s melon season! The foodie tots and I can’t get enough of melons in every size and color — we’ve enjoyed cantaloupe, honeydew, sun melon, a melon that looked like cantaloupe on the outside but was green like honeydew on the inside, and of course, watermelon. Now, I consider myself something of a watermelon expert, having been quoted on the subject in the Washington Post (cough), but I was still shocked to spot orange watermelon at the Reston Farmers Market this past weekend.

After tweeting a picture, a friend suggested sprinkling fennel pollen on the melon. I couldn’t find fennel pollen at Whole Foods (uh, where else would it be?), but remembered that Cypress Grove‘s Purple Haze chèvre is made with lavender and fennel pollen. And so this quick summer appetizer was born: extremely thin slivers of watermelon, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, a heavy pinch of sea salt, and topped with crumbled Purple Haze chèvre. It’s not really a recipe as a suggestion: you could mix it up with flavored vinegars, use plain chèvre to keep it local, and/or top with fresh mint or basil or any other herbs from the garden.

The kids were intrigued — the boy asked for a helping of “my” watermelon alongside his straight-up slices, and the bebe nibbled a few crumbs of chèvre before turning her attention back to the melon. What’s your favorite watermelon recipe? (And you do buy seeded melons, right? Remember, Seedless is Soulless. )

If you’ve been to a DC-area farmers market lately, I don’t have to tell you peaches are here. After a couple week hiatus, we stopped by the Crystal City Farmers Market last week to stock up on fruit at Kuhn Orchard — but I passed up the peaches and went for apricots, plums, blue and blackberries. I’ll definitely get the peaches this week, but I figured apricots were easier for one-handed eating while holding the baby.

If you’ve already stocked up on peaches and need inspiration, here are a few of my favorite recipes from past years:

• Tomato Peach Panzanella
• Peach Tomatillo Salsa
• Grilled Nectarine & Tomato Salad
• Chesapeake Corn & Peach Crepes
• Peach, Pork & Quinoa Salad
• Amaretto Peach Pound Cake
• Peach Gelato
• Peach Berry Sherbet

If you’ve got a favorite peach recipe, please share it below — or anything else you’ve cooked up lately from the farmers market, CSA or your garden!

Local Potluck Tuesday — a few guidelines:
1. Share a relevant post — a recipe, menu or pictures of a meal featuring local foods, from the farmers market, CSA, farm stand or your own garden — using the MckLinky widget below. In the link title field, enter both your post title and your name &/or blog name, e.g., “Lemon Cucumber Salad — Colleen @ FoodieTots.”

2. Bonus points if you included your kids in picking, growing, purchasing or cooking the ingredients for the meal! (And by bonus points, I mean increased likelihood of seeing your post featured in a future post.)

3. In your post, please link back to this post here at FoodieTots, so your readers can find the potluck and be encouraged to join in as well.  Of course if you don’t have a blog, you’re welcome to share in the comments.

That’s it! I hope you’ll join in and share what you’re cooking up that’s fresh & local to you!

{Editor’s Note: I’m on “maternity leave” for the next couple weeks. Posts are scheduled to keep you satiated (including a whole month of cherry recipes!), but please forgive me if I don’t respond to comments promptly.}

It’s not unusual for “spring” in the DC area to go from frosty cool to hot and steamy within days. But this year’s extremely hot temperatures started early and haven’t let up, resulting in summer produce flying through the markets. It’s not yet July and I’m hearing this may be the last week for cherries. We’ve already gotten blackberries and apricots, and I hear peaches, corn and tomatoes are here this week. It makes me wonder if we’ll have anything left to eat in August?!

What are the highlights at your local markets this week? Are you doing anything to preserve summer’s fleeting fruits? I’m freezing berries as fast as I can. I made a yummy whole grain cherry crumb cake that I’ll share with you later this week. And I still have a (last?) pint of gooseberries awaiting its fate.

What local eats are you cooking up?

Please join in and share what local foods you’ve enjoyed this past week!

Local Potluck Tuesday — a few guidelines:
1. Share a relevant post — a recipe, menu or pictures of a meal featuring local foods, from the farmers market, CSA, farm stand or your own garden — using the MckLinky widget below. In the link title field, enter both your post title and your name &/or blog name, e.g., “Lemon Cucumber Salad — Colleen @ FoodieTots.”
2. Bonus points if you included your kids in picking, growing, purchasing or cooking the ingredients for the meal! (And by bonus points, I mean increased likelihood of seeing your post featured in a future post.)
3. In your post, please link back to this post here at FoodieTots, so your readers can find the potluck and be encouraged to join in as well.

Of course if you don’t have a blog, you’re welcome to share in the comments.

That’s it! I hope you’ll join in and share what you’re cooking up that’s fresh & local to you!

Swiss chard is pretty much a weekly constant in our summer CSA share. I enjoy it just fine sauteed on its own — but the boy doesn’t (yet) eat leafy greens and the husband has merely grown to tolerate it over the years. Attempts to boost flavor with dried cranberries and/or bacon didn’t impress, but a recent variation with garlic and cherry tomatoes actually had the husband voluntarily eating a second helping. (No, this was still no help with my tomato-averse son, but that just leaves more for us.)

Recipe: Swiss Chard and Cherry Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch Swiss chard, rinsed well
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• sea salt & pepper

Instructions: Trim the ends of the Swiss chard stems. Cut the stems into 1-inch pieces, and cut or tear chard leaves into 1-inch strips. Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Cook garlic for 1 minute, then add the chard stems and cook for 2-3 minutes, until they start soften. Add cherry tomatoes, cut side down, and cook another minute. Add chard leaves to the pan, add vinegar, cover and cook until leaves wilt, about 5-6 minutes. Remove from heat, drain any excess liquid and season with salt and pepper. Makes 2-4 servings. Enjoy!

Your turn: Please join in and share what local foods you’ve enjoyed this past week!

Local Potluck Tuesday — a few guidelines:
1. Share a relevant post — a recipe, menu or pictures of a meal featuring local foods, from the farmers market, CSA, farm stand or your own garden — using the MckLinky widget below. In the link title field, enter both your post title and your name &/or blog name, e.g., “Lemon Cucumber Salad — Colleen @ FoodieTots.”
2. Bonus points if you included your kids in picking, growing, purchasing or cooking the ingredients for the meal! (And by bonus points, I mean increased likelihood of seeing your post featured in a future post.)
3. In your post, please link back to this post here at FoodieTots, so your readers can find the potluck and be encouraged to join in as well.

That’s it! I hope you’ll join in and share what you’re cooking up that’s fresh & local to you!

Welcome to the first Local Potluck Tuesday! With farmers market season officially underway across the U.S., I hope you’ll stop in each week to share what you’re cooking from your local food sources — the farmers market, a CSA, or your own backyard.

This week at the FoodieTots household, we had a spring pea and asparagus soup, pork chops and grassfed burgers on the grill, sugar snap peas atop green salads, and this fun farmers market discovery: lemon cucumbers.

These little yellow cukes somewhat resemble a lemon on the outside, and have a slightly sweet, mild flavor. When shopping the Mt. Olympus Farm booth at the McLean Farmers Market last Friday, a mom was feeding samples of these cucumbers to her toddler, who was first skeptical and then quickly requested more. For kids who resist green vegetables on principle, this is a great way to introduce cucumbers. While the boy enjoyed these last summer, he decided this weekend he was “allergic” to cucumbers. Oh well. Hopefully this is a more temporary situation than his “allergy” to tomatoes. Or maybe we’ll just have to add lemon cucumbers to our garden next year!

Recipe: Lemon Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:

• 6 lemon cucumbers, diced
• 4 leaves fresh mint, chopped
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Instructions: Sprinkle cucumbers with salt and mint. Toss with the vinegar and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes before serving. Makes 4 servings. Enjoy!

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Your turn! Please share links to a local dish you’ve enjoyed recently, or share in the comments.

Local Potluck Tuesday — a few guidelines:
1. Share a relevant post — a recipe, menu or pictures of a meal featuring local foods, from the farmers market, CSA, farm stand or your own garden — using the MckLinky widget below. In the link title field, enter both your post title and your name &/or blog name, e.g., “Lemon Cucumber Salad — Colleen @ FoodieTots.”
2. Bonus points if you included your kids in picking, growing, purchasing or cooking the ingredients for the meal! (And by bonus points, I mean increased likelihood of seeing your post featured in the following week’s post.)
3. In your post, please link back to this post here at FoodieTots, so your readers can find the potluck and be encouraged to join in as well.

That’s it! I hope you’ll join in and share what you’re cooking up to celebrate our local farms and the wonderful food they provide to nourish our families.