Market Fresh!

In addition to working with me on What’s in Your Pantry? for PCTV, Jane Valentine (Director of Dietetics Programs at Parkland) has also been producing a show called Look Who’s Cooking. This features chefs from local restaurants and outstanding home cooks from the C-U area. This past week, I got to cook for an episode featuring Market at the Square in Urbana. First we toured the market, where I got to interview some of the growers about their farms and the super-fresh produce they were selling. Blue Moon Farms even had real vine-ripened, heirloom tomatoes from their greenhouse, and there were peaches from southern Illinois. I didn’t even know that you could grow peaches here!

We took a nice basket-full of produce back to the kitchen at Parkland on Mattis to demonstrate some simple and tasty ways to make good use of the abundance of summer produce. I cooked up lots of yummy peach desserts, a roasted beet salad, zucchini chili, and lots of other great zucchini and summer squash dishes. You should be able to see them on PCTV within the next couple of weeks while some of that great produce is still available.



(I confess that these veggies are from a friend's garden and not the Farmer's Market, but fresh local produce is fresh local produce! For some great photos from Market at the Square, check out their blog.)