the veggies are really here!
Have you been wondering about whether the zucchinis were ever going to arrive? Or if we would see cabbages, cauliflower, and broccoli before September?  Well this week the farmers’ stands were overflowing with all our favorite things!! 

Last Saturday, A.D. Farms had bundles of beautiful beets! And if you got there early, he still had eggs! He’s got a blue cooler full of Alaskan cheese, and so many colors of beautiful tomatoes, too.  Stockwell Farms had a brand-new product: fennel! And new potatoes, too! Collards, napa cabbages, and turnips. Rempel Family Farms had cabbages, piles of carrots, collard greens, and I think I might have seen bags of sugar snap peas that were snapped up by the first customers of the morning!

The broccoli showed up in cases at A&M Farms’ stand, along with huge, gorgeous zucchinis! I’ll be buying a couple of cases of broccoli soon to freeze for this winter--check out the directions for processing vegetables here on our website!!

Here’s a list of the vegetables I’ve seen at the market—but there are new things arriving all the time! 

arugula | basil | beet greens | beets, red | broccoli | cabbage, green | cabbage, napa | carrots | cauliflower | chard | cilantro | collards | cress | cucumbers, pickles | cucumbers, slicers | daikon | dill | fennel | kale, lacinato | kale | kale, red russian | kohlrabi | lettuce, buttercrunch | lettuce, red | lettuce, romaine | mustard, mizuna | mustard, red | mustard, tatsoi | onions, green | parsley, italian | potatoes, butterball | radishes | rhubarb | salad green mixture | shingiku | sorrel | spinach | squash, blossoms | strawberries | sugar snap peas | tomatoes, cherry | tomatoes, red | tomatoes, yellow | turnip greens | turnips (white, snow apple) | zucchini blossoms | zucchini, green | zucchini, yellow

antique tractor show
For the third year in a row, the antique tractors will be at the farmers’ market on Saturday! Come check them out—you and your kids will love it. Market stalls will be a little bit rearranged this Saturday because of the tractors, so make sure you look around carefully for the vendors you’re used to finding. Step out of your usual routine and really look around at what’s there this week! You’ll find new things at ‘most every stand, I bet! 

website
Want to see my photos of all this beautiful produce? Check out recipes for how to use this delicious bounty? Now that you’re here, surf around on our website!  And starting very soon, the recipes are going to become a sort of a ‘blog! That’s to say, go to recipes, and if you’d like to say something about a particular recipe, you can add your comment right there! If you liked it, or if you didn’t—if you had an interesting twist on the recipe that you wanted to share… Please check it out! I’d love to hear from you!

And… are there any aspiring documentarians or news reporters out there? If you’d like to make a video of the farmers’ market, we’d love to show it through the website on YouTube! Let me know if you’re interested!

Speaking of website-driven media, I’ve just been asked to use some of my farmers’ market photos in a story about the health benefits of broccoli on NowPublic! What a hoot! If you want to check out the story (and my comment—it’s first on the list), here’s the link.  http://www.nowpublic.com/health/broccoli-new-wonder-cure-cancer
My photos are way down on the queue, though… you can see my farmers’ market photos better on http://www.flickr.com, under “akfarmersmarket.” I’ll explain more about Flickr in an upcoming newsletter, if you’re interested.

I’m having such a good time learning about all these internet networking things… And I’m having fun sharing them with you, too!

recipes
You know what is just knocking my socks off these days? The lettuce and salad greens… salad mix, romaine, arugula, red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce… I can come home with 6 heads of it, wash it all in my sink, dry it in the salad spinner, pack it in big plastic bags, and then I’m all set for the week!  I can feed the masses at the drop of a hat with this many greens stored in my ‘fridge. So, I’ve given you two versions of a Caesar salad! See the “related recipes” section at the bottom of this newsletter for the links.

Then I’ve added a recipe for chard-- sautéed rainbow chard recipe, that includes the stems. I love chard. It’s so sweet and yummy—none of the bitterness of collards or turnip greens (which, by the way, I also love), but unlike spinach, it doesn’t wilt down to a fraction of its former self when you cook it. Plus you can eat the stems. What could be better!?!  The recipe is a very easy, and VERY DELICIOUS. I like to serve this chard with a bean salad of some kind, so I’m including one of my favorites—a chickpea salad with kalamata olives. It’s very simple, and very yummy! See the “related recipes” section at the bottom of this newsletter for the links.

bread
It’s Rise & Shine Bakery’s one year anniversary! The end of last July was our first day selling bread at the farmers’ market. To celebrate this auspicious event, we’re making the fruited almond bread, packed with golden raisins, dried apricots, and cranberries. (You know we always like to associate a festive occasion with the fruited almond bread.)

And another reason to celebrate (for me, anyway); this week Rise & Shine Bakery is back to our 100% whole wheat alaskan potato bread! These big pan loaves are similar to our 100% whole wheat sourdough levain (which we’re also baking), but have an extra moistness and keeping quality because of the addition of the Valley-grown potatoes. I love this bread the best of all our breads (I’ll be freezing 10 loaves for myself for the next 3 weeks). If you love the levain, but haven’t tried the potato yet, give it a try!

Our specialty loaves this week will include the alaskan cheese & roasted garlic bread, made with cheese from Cranberry Ridge Farms in Wasilla. If you toast slices of this bread, it’s like a cross between a toasted cheese sandwich and garlic bread! It’s a fun treat alongside pasta or soups or salad. We’re also baking the toasted seed bread, packed with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, and a little polenta. It’s 100% whole grain, and just the heartiest, tastiest bread you can find.

Don’t forget that after this week, Rise & Shine Bakery is taking a week off.  We WILL be at the market this Saturday (July 26), but not on August 2. So make sure and buy any extra that you’ll need to freeze while we’re gone!

farmers’ market cookbook
Have you been wondering if this cookbook is really up your alley? Would you like to see photos of some of these supposedly delicious AND healthy recipes before you take the plunge and spend your hard-earned $15 for the book and the really cool wire book holder?  You can check out lots of the recipes on the website, complete with photos!  Here are some examples:

peach-almond salad
avocado toast
breakfast toast with peaches and almond butter
broccoli with golden raisins
spicy roasted cauliflower with red peppers and cumin
carrot-mint salad with currants

You can also read more information about the cookbook.

The South Anchorage Farmers’ Market Cookbook is filled with 100 pages of delicious, healthy recipes that showcase our flavorful, fresh local Alaskan produce. Recipes provide inspiration for ways to use Alaskan vegetables, fish, fruits, bread, and other products that can be found at our farmers’ markets. The cookbook focuses on vegetable recipes that have fantastic flavor and top-notch nutritional value. And if you’re wondering about how to process our Alaskan produce to freeze for the winter, the book has instructions!

seafood
Arctic Choice Seafoods will have all kinds of fresh, delicious, Alaskan fish! Here’s a list of what they are likely to have.

fresh king salmon | fresh sablefish | fresh rockfish | fresh halibut | fresh clams | fresh oysters | halibut cheeks | king crab | snow crab | spot shrimp | side stripe | shrimp | Dungeness crab | scallops | smoked salmon bellies

Saturday South Anchorage Farmers’ Market
Dates: May 10-October 4
Hours: 9am-2pm
Location: Subway/Cellular One Sports Centre at the corner of Old Seward and O’Malley

Wednesday South Anchorage Farmers’ Market
Dates: July 2- October 1
Hours: 10am-4pm
Location: behind the Dimond Center, in front of the Dimond Center Hotel

Please share this newsletter with anyone you think might be interested in receiving the weekly market news. They can sign up on the website to receive the email newsletter, or they can email me, Alison Arians, at to be added to our newsletter list.

For more information about the market, contact Arthur Keyes, South Anchorage Farmers’ Market Manager, at 907-354-5833, or at .

Cheers! And see you at the market!
Alison Arians
Farmers’ Market Reporter
 

Rise & Shine Bakery
Long Term Baking Schedule, July 2008

26 July
• pan loaves—100% whole wheat sourdough levain, Alaskan baked potato
• hearth loaves: toasted seed, Alaskan cheese & garlic, fruited almond
2 August: OFF
9 August
• pan loaves: 100% whole wheat sourdough levain, Alaskan barley, raisin & pecan
• hearth loaves: fresh rosemary, Alaskan onion rye
16 August
• pan loaves: 100% whole wheat sourdough levain, Alaskan baked potato
• hearth loaves: toasted walnut, Alaskan cheese & roasted garlic, Alaskan carrot & raisin
23 August
• pan loaves: 100% whole wheat sourdough levain, golden maize
• hearth loaves: kalamata olive, Alaskan onion rye, dark chocolate & cherry

related recipes

caesar salad with whole-wheat garlicky croutons
caesar salad nouveau (egg- and dairy-free version)
rainbow chard sautéed with chard stems and onions
chickpea salad with kalamata olives