Monday, May 18, 2009

Weekly Menu 5/17 - 5/22 and Mill City Farmers Market

When we lived in San Francisco we went to the farmers market quite often, especially since our neighborhoods had markets that were within walking distance. In Minneapolis we haven't gone as often, mainly because our CSA box is fulfilling most of our vegetable needs. This year though was are going to try to go more often on the weeks we don't get a box. The downtown Minneapolis Farmers Market is one of the biggest in the Midwest & open 7 days a week but we find it a little crazy on the weekends & prefer to go to the smaller Mill City Farmers Market.
Cold market morning
Its pretty early in the season here in Minneapolis (& cold! Check out the scarves & parkas in that picture. Yes, this is May!) but the ramps, asparagus & morels are looking great. Plus its a great time to get vegetables, herbs & plants for the garden. We picked up some beautiful perennials for our new shade garden that we'd never seen. We also splurged & went for some fresh morels even though they cost $40 a pound!
Fresh Morels
One of the great things about the Mill City Market is the Chef Shack. This is not your ordinary fast food trailer.
Chef Shack
Matt had their famous Beef Tongue Taco.
Beef Tongue Tacos
This was the first time having beef tongue for either of us & we were really surprised by how tender it was. I ordered the special which was a softshell crab sandwich with ramp tartar sauce & grilled fiddlehead ferns.
Soft Shell Crab Sandwich
We also tasted some Momos which are steamed Tibetian dumplings which is something else new for us. They were super tasty with a curry-like filling & a sesame tomato chutney for dipping.
Momos - Tibetian Steamed Dumplings
Then of course you need a sweet & we couldn't resist the Rhubarb Æbelskiver with raspberry pepper jam.
Making Rhubarb Aebleskiver
Rhubarb Aebleskiver
Despite the cold it was a great al fresco meal with an amazing Mississippi view.
Lunch with a view
The market also features musical entertainment, local meat vendors (yak anyone?), fresh cheese & some wonderful crafts people (we bought a gorgeous bowl made of reclaimed wood). All & all a fine day out & I'm looking forward to visiting the market all summer.

On to Menu Planning Monday...

Trout with Rosemary & Cherry Tomato Sauce - From Bon Appetit June '09

Grilled Duck Breast with Bacon Wild Rice Cakes & a Grilled Tomato Sauce - My Royal Foodie Joust entry

Polenta with Spinach & Morels

Recipes to Rival May Challenge - shh its a secret

Grilled Sausage with Burdock Chips

Grilled Asparagus Paninis with Tagellio & Prosciutto

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2009 Kathy Lewinski

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome!..thanks for writing about us!!! and glad you liked the food!!!

from the Chefs @the Chef Shack!

Tricia said...

Ah duck breast... a serious favorite of mine. When you post about that, please share where you get your duck as I can't seem to find a good place in the Twin Cities that doesn't charge a ridiculous amount for duck. Thanks!

kat said...

Tricia - We actually had a hard time finding a duck breast that wasn't precooked. According to the butcher at Lund's they have all been held up at the border in Canada for a coupe of weeks. We ended up getting the last one Kowolski's had. I didn't notice the price as I was just buying one.

Stephen Gross said...

On an unrelated note: have you ever cured your own pork? If so, could you post details. I've had success with curing salmon and pickling vegetables; now I want to find out if it's possible the cure pork at home.

--Steve

kat said...

Steve - We haven't cured any pork but we do plan to try making our own bacon this year.

Thistlemoon said...

Awesome! I love markets like this! Our market has a few food vendors, but they don't serve anything special, really! Looks like you had a great meal!

Funny you mentioned Yak, as I was wondering if that was what was in your Tibetan dumplings. I had yak dumplings once and they were actually really tasty!

kat said...

Jenn - The dumpling was actually vegetarian. The other choice was turkey, so no yak...

Maris said...

What a gorgeous day out!

Kathy, you should be receiving the See's chocolates from my giveaway this week. I had a mail snafu and sent them out via UPS on Friday!

Momstart said...

oh yummy some of those pictures look so good.

Sam Hoffer / My Carolina Kitchen said...

What a terrific market. I would love to go there. I would have splurged on the morels also - what a find.
Sam

bookworks said...

We live in Madison and don't have farmers markets available everyday, but there is a small one by our place that's open on Sunday. We went yesterday morning. One of the vendors was selling morels for $20/pound. Quite a bargain it turns out.

Dragon said...

What a feast and all of it standing up! I love markets. :)

Online Printing said...

Wow, those look wonderful! It's making me hungry just reading about them. The rhubarb looks absolutely scrumptious! Thanks!

Amy P. said...

Great market pictures, Kat! I stopped in at Mill City Market on Saturday too and I was intrigued by the Chef Shack special but it was 9 am so it was a little too early for me to face eating fried whole crab. I settled for the Indian spiced mini-doughnuts instead. Yum!

I linked up to your post in my blog post about the market visit - http://greenyourplate.blogspot.com/2009/05/surgical-strike-at-mill-city-farmers.html

Jen said...

I think this market definitley deserves a visit next time we're in the twin cities. I haven't had aebleskiver since I was in Denmark and your post really makes me want some...

Lori said...

That all looks good. I have never had Beef tongue, interesting. I love that crab with the big fiddle head eyes.

I would love to try it all!

We are thinking baout going to MN this summer. Not sure yet.

Susan Berkson said...

Hello. Susan from the Minneapolis Farmers Market here. It's true we get crowds, which makes us happy.:) If its a Saturday, come early. You can have coffee and breakfast here and chat with the growers before the crowds arrive. Sunday is a good day to shop, too! We're @MplsFarmMarket on twitter so talk to us. Send us your questions.

Aunt Else's Æbleskiver said...

Thanks for writing about us! I remember you guys and the extra powdered sugar! I'm so glad it didn't all blow away and you were able to snap a great shot!
BTW - we also love the Chef Shack! The chai mini-donuts are excellent! Try the Dim Sum stand (behind MoMo's) next time you are down too. Their dumplings (and our stoves) kept us warm last weekend!

Alicia Foodycat said...

I can't believe that you got that awesome food out of one of those crummy fast food vans! They are amazing!

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