We were very disappointed to lose the mushroom vendor from our neighborhood (Del Ray) market this past year, especially as I had made such great progress the prior year in convincing my previously mushroom-adverse husband that they really weren’t so bad. So now to get our local ’shroom fix I have to head to one of the FreshFarm markets, which means Dupont Circle in the winter months.

The preferred choice of both the husband and my son are these cute, sweet little honey mushrooms. They require little effort to prepare, and for a really easy meal, I whipped up some instant polenta, with a generous touch of cheese, then topped it with leftover tomato sauce and sauteed mushrooms.

Quick and scrumptious, what could be better for a (meatless) Monday night?

Recipe: Polenta al Funghi (Mushroom Polenta)

Ingredients:

• 1 pint honey mushrooms
• 1 box instant polenta
• 4 cups water
• salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 cup pasta sauce

Instructions:

1. Bring water to a boil.

2. Rinse mushrooms and pat dry. Heat a dry skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring only once or twice, until they begin to darken. Add 1 tablespoon butter to pan and remove from heat. Season mushrooms with sea salt and pepper.

3. Prepare polenta as instructed on package. When thickened, stir in 1 tablespoon butter and the cheese. Remove from heat.

4. Warm pasta sauce.

5. Spoon polenta onto plates, shaping a small well in the center. Top with a few spoonfuls of pasta sauce and scatter mushrooms over the top. Enjoy! Makes 4 servings.

It’s been a rainy spring thus far in the Washington area, and I keep reminding myself that April showers bring May strawberries, June blueberries, and so on. Cherry blossoms have bloomed, and bringing even more reason for cheer, April marks the first re-openings of our area’s seasonal farmers markets.

Last week saw the opening of DC Fresh Farm’s Foggy Bottom (Wednesday) and Penn Quarter (Thursday) markets, and this coming Saturday is the official re-opening of my neighborhood market, the Del Ray Farmers Market in Alexandria. Judging from the lines at Smith Meadows’ stand lately at our “secret” winter market, Saturday is sure to be busy so get there early for the best selection. Mr. Biggs has already been back with greenhouse-grown tomatoes that will help tide you over till summer. And for other markets in the area, Fairfax County markets open the first week in May and the Alexandria Upper King Street market doesn’t open until June. See the end of this post for a complete list of opening dates.

Opening Day Find – Morels! Last Thursday at Penn Quarter’s grand opening, I snagged some of the first morels of the season from the Mushroom Lady; they will be available in greater quantities in the next few weeks. There were plenty of fresh greens to be had, but no signs of asparagus quite yet. Last year’s apples and pears are on their last legs, but fresh strawberries are still a few weeks away.

As the market season kicks into gear, watch for new features here at FoodieTots, particularly for those of you in the Northern VA/DC area. In an effort to make room for new resources on the sidebar, I’ve moved and expanded my “Eat Local, Elsewhere” blog list to the “Locavore Links” tab up above. Check it out and let me know of other locavore bloggers I should be following. Thanks as always for reading, and stay dry out there!

Read on for the complete Northern Virginia Farmers Market 2009 Schedule…

(more…)

In my previous wrap-up of our vacation, I mentioned the fabulous North Portland coffee shop Random Order where we had locally-roasted espresso and pies featuring locally-grown ingredients. I have a few more food highlights to share from our trip to the Pacific Northwest, where everything is big and bold, from the mountains to the coffee, the produce and the rain!

We spent a rainy morning at the midweek Portland Farmers Market downtown. Located just a few blocks from my old alma mater, this relatively small market was still a total sensory overload. So much variety and unique items, such as the Picklopolis stand, fresh Columbia River salmon and one of my favorites, Rogue River Creamery cheeses. We only bought a few things for dinner that evening as we were headed to the Coast the next day, so settled on some glorious baby artichokes, padron peppers and morels.

We were also blown away by Hot Lips’ local berry sodas. The label even specifies the farm where the berries were grown. How’s that for knowing where your food comes from?! Hot Lips is a local pizza joint where my classmates and I, after turning in all the soda cans we could round up (Oregon’s refundable cans, the husband couldn’t understand why we had to save all our cans), would fork over our change for delicious pizza. Now they make this awesome soda and in addition to the flavors at market – blackberry, blueberry, marionberry, strawberry, each with just a touch of real cane sugar and carbonated water – they serve a black raspberry from the tap. Sadly, we didn’t make it into the store to try that one.

We also bought some fresh tamales, mine was artichoke and peppers, and devoured them right there in the rain, while the toddler made his way through a pint of blackberries.

That night, we simply steamed the artichokes, sauteed the morels in butter, and fried up the peppers according to the instructions provided by the vendor. Each was remarkably fresh and flavorful and a great compliment to my Dad’s spaghetti.

I’ll post a weekly Pacific NW feature for the rest of the month, so check back every Monday! And on tap for the remainder of this week, a special series on Preserving the Tastes of Summer.

This week’s OLS dinner was spring herb and yogurt marinated chicken, served with a swiss chard and maitake mushroom saute and a little non-local brown rice (leftover from another meal). Mushrooms, chicken and yogurt came from Pa. (slightly past the 100 mi. border), while the herbs (savory and chives) and chard came from our CSA, Potomac Vegetable Farms in Va. (23 mi.).

For dessert, Virginia ricotta and honey and sweet Pennsylvania cherries. Yum.

Ricotta from Blue Ridge Dairy, Va. (45 mi.)

I got thrown off my food blogging game by our two-day power outage followed by a weekend trip to NY. But we are back and slowly refilling the fridge, so it’s time to catch up!

I wrote previously about our June 1 Del Ray (VA) Farmers Market dinner for Week One of One Local Summer. The star of that dinner was the fresh WV morels. We were a little late to market that week, and as I got in line behind a couple at the Mushroom Lady’s stand, I noticed one last box of morels labeled “Sale! $15.” I waited anxiously as the couple in front of me debated which to pick, and remarked “$15??” when looking at the morels, clearly unaware that those same morels had been $20 the week before. After what seemed like an eternity, they settled on something else and I snatched up the box. Mushroom Lady kindly topped off my pint with a few last stray morels from the box. Per her instructions, I simply cleaned them and sauteed them in butter. They were without a doubt the most intensely flavored mushrooms I have ever eaten. The deep, earthy flavor is hard to describe … suffice it to say that I will not hold off until the end of morel season next spring to pick them up again!

The following weekend we checked out the Port Washington Farmers Market, on Long Island, NY. According to the Local Harvest listing, it is the only all organic market in NY. It was not, however, all local. There was a booth selling Croatian olive oil, and a failure to read the label carefully led to us later opening our “all local” lunch spread and discovering the goat cheese was in fact from Massachusetts. I believe the market was just getting going for the season though, as most of the NY seasonal markets don’t open till June. There was a great Nordic organic bread booth, where we got wonderful cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and the one true farmer had a basket full of beautiful garlic scapes. Here she’s trying to convince a hesitant customer to give them a try.