Hooray for Farmers' Markets

Whew, I finally have a spare moment to blog! My life has been very hectic lately. I thought I had 2 months to collect my masters thesis data, but due to some technical issues with things, I actually have only 3 weeks. That has been consuming my life lately, but it's nearing the end of the third week of it all, so I'm almost done! I can't wait to at least somewhat get back to having a real life again instead of working from 9am-10pm. I sort of do that normally, but at least part of that is usually spent working at home. Things are much better that way. It's been dreary lately since I haven't had time to cook since making dinner is fun and relaxing.

With that said, here is something from about 3 weeks ago right before all the craziness started...

I finally dragged myself out of bed early enough on a Saturday morning to make it out to the suburbs for the Worthington Farmers' Market! It was well worth it, although I'm sad I haven't gotten the chance to go back again (I've been working some Saturdays too!). The market was much larger than I was expecting with stands on both sides of the street lining several blocks. I found a lot of great stuff and spend less than $20! I bought bell peppers, a bunch of basil, heirloom tomatoes, apples, and corn. 

That day Adrian's brother and sister-in-law were visiting us because they had tickets to the OSU game, so we had quite a nice meal. Adrian grilled a pork tenderloin, which he is amazing at! In the past he has made Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Guava Glaze & Orange Habañero , but this time he tried Grilled Garlic Lime Pork Tenderloin. I can't decide which one I like better. They're both awesome, and Adrian is always so satisfied with himself when he grills something amazing :-)

We also grilled up the bicolor corn I had bought, and I made a salad of the heirloom tomatoes by slicing them, sprinkling with salt and black pepper, drizzling with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and throwing in some crumbled feta. It was delicious and colorful. Colorful food always makes me happy. 

Yay, tomatoes!

See how pretty they are?

The farmers market was also full of fall produce. I found some really nice Melrose apples, which happen to be the state apple of Ohio (thought you might like that fun fact of the day). I decided to try my hand at an apple pie since I had never made a pie from scratch before.

My 1/2 peck of apples

I decided to go with Apple Pie and Pastry Dough recipes from epicurious.com because they didn't seem too difficult.

Before baking

After baking (and eating a slice)

I thought the pie was very tasty. I enjoyed it all week :-) However, the dough was a little off. It was hard to work with mostly because it kept tearing when I tried to roll it out (hence the pie not looking as pretty as I'd like). It was as if there wasn't quite enough, and as soon as a fork touched it, it all crumbled. I think it needed some more water, but I wasn't completely sure what the texture of the dough should be. It tasted really good, though!

Ah, and here's my creative leftover solution for all that poblano cream sauce - Poblano Cream Macaroni! I basically just added more cream and lots of shredded cheese to the sauce I already had to make enough for the macaroni. I cooked the macaroni most of the way in a pot of boiling water, then I baked it for a few more minutes with all the sauce, chopped tomatoes, and a bit of ground beef I cooked up. It was yummy, although probably not very healthy. Ah, but cheese is so good! And I didn't waste any of my sauce :-)