Spring has sprung at the farmers market and I just can’t get enough of the Spring greens, herbs and the early Spring carrots. As an effort to work through my cookbook stack I have been picking a few recipes each week to try. This week I cracked open Near & Far by Heidi Swanson and when I saw her Spring forward recipe for Carrot, Dill & White Bean Salad I knew I had to make it. Unfortunately dill wasn’t anywhere to be found at my market but beautiful chives were so I subbed out the dill for chives and made an amazing salad that had both Neil and I wanting more.
Lucky for you all Heidi has this recipe up on her blog 101 Cookbooks so you too can make it! Enjoy!
Saturday morning started out bright and early with our Natural Baby Care Class taught by our doula Sarah. In this class we discussed a variety of topics including attachment theory parenting, breastfeeding basics (we’ll learn more about this in our breastfeeding class in a few weeks), newborn hygiene, baby cues, newborn sleep, cloth diapering, car seat safety and babywearing. We learned so much and I can’t wait to share this on our new family blog Naturally Family launching in 2 weeks.
It was such a beautiful day that we decided to head downtown to the Burlington Farmer’s Market after our Natural Baby Care Class We walked around and decided to share a raspberry lime popsicle at the Adam’s Berry Farm stand while we decided what we wanted for lunch. We checked out a few food stands but in the end left disappointed that our favorite Tibetan stand was all out of the veggie options, that’s what we get for arriving too late in the day!
We ended up heading over to the new Himalayan restaurant to give it a try and because it had similar options to our favorite Tibetan stand. We ordered off the lunch menu which came with a drink, an appetizer and an entree. I ordered a housemade lemonade, pakora and chana masala, Neil decided to go with the spiced ice tea, dal and vegetable momos. The lemonade was good, not too sweet and not too tart but the real star was Neil’s spiced iced tea, it was amazing. Once our food came we decided to share everything and both the dal and the parkoras were really tasty. We waited awhile for our entrees to finally come out but when they did we really enjoyed both the momos and the chana. Overall we enjoyed the food although it took a bit longer than we would have liked for us to get our food (we were there over an hour, most of it waiting) and we both would have liked a little more spice (but we just love spicier food).
After lunch we decided to really take advantage of the beautiful weather and spent a few hours wandering around downtown enjoying the day. It had been weeks since we really had a Saturday to spend together and so we decided to treat our Saturday afternoon/evening like a mini-staycation. We did a little window shopping and then decided to pop into El Cortijo for an afternoon snack since we our lunch was fairly light and we had plans for a late dinner with friends.
At El Cortijo we enjoyed a ginger beer and a basket of chips, salsa and guacamole- a perfect hot afternoon snack.
After our snack we headed home for an afternoon nap and then we were off to dinner with friends. I decided not to take any photos but there was good food, good conversation and lots of laughs.
This weekend was a fairly lively one that started out with a nice early morning run on Saturday- indoors due to the pouring rain and then a trip to the market. The farmers market has been disappointing due to the lack of veggies (we live in the North so it’s not really prime veggie growing season) but I did leave with a bunch of beautiful leeks, broccoli rabe, Russian kale, cilantro, parsley, dill, fingerling potatoes, parsnips, chives and green onions. After our trip to the market we headed to Healthy Living to pick up the remainder of our groceries and I snagged this as a new exciting dinner treat: (Source)
Following our shopping adventures we came home to the refrigerator repair guy outside our door- apparently he figured out the problem and wanted to rush right over (no calling first). So he fixed the refrigerator and now my fridge is no longer freezing all my produce! Finally he left and Neil and I could eat lunch and get ready for my cousins wedding.
We attended the wedding and watch a lovely small outdoor ceremony and then headed into the tent (next door) to enjoy the reception. It was nice to be able to share a special day with my cousin and her new husband as well as other friends and family.
We spent three hours at the wedding and then decided that it was time to make the hour drive back home and get ourselves some dinner since there was nothing vegan at the country BBQ wedding. We came home to a fancy dinner of toast and coconut milk yogurt.
Sunday we spent the morning lounging around the house until Neil and I decided that it was time to do something productive. I got to work on our disorganized closets and moved in the summer close and moved out the winter. While I cleaned the house the Hubz went shopping for more plants and headed to the garden to weed and plant- what a great guy eh’? Since he was out doing all of the manual labor I decided to cook him a yummy dinner with a few ingredients from our little balcony garden (see below).
For dinner I used most of the mustard greens and some cilantro to make these yummy Cauliflower-Mustard Green Spring Rolls (this week’s recipe of the week)
Neil and I were woken up this morning by the howling of our cat outside our door (don’t worry she was fine she just wanted us to wake up and give her attention). We started off with some yummy tofu scramble (which I forgot to photograph) as part of my 7 day 6 day Breakfast Challenge for a warm up class for my Health Coach program. Each morning we will eat something different and evaluate how we felt immediately after eating it and two hours later. It is supposed to be 7 days but the first day was scrambled eggs so we skipped to the second day which was to our delight tofu scramble. If you want more info you can check out hubbys blog. After breakfast we decided to get out and take advantage of the beautiful day so we headed out to the playground because even big kids like to swing.
After we goofed around on the swings we took a nice 2.35 mile walk around Montpelier and up to the Saturday Farmers Market. We have missed every other Saturday Farmers Market because it seems to only be on the Saturdays that we aren’t in town. I’ll be glad when it’s May and the market is every Saturday not every other. When we arrived we stopped at and tried the sugar on snow because well it’s getting to be sugaring time in Vermont!
Then we went inside to see what produce/items that we could pick up this week. We found Jerusalem Artichokes and Sunflower Shoots.
Since we were feeling kind of hungry we decided to pick up a snack of Butterfly Bakery Raspberry Almond Cookies and a cup of Lavender Rose Kombucha. This Kombucha was really tasty, some of the best I have ever had!
Now I’m off to shower, make some lunch and then I think it’s time to get back out in this glorious sun! I also need to figure out a recipe for these Jerusalem Artichokes. Do you have a favorite Jerusalem Artichoke recipe?
Also don’t forget to enter to win the Namaste Foods giveaway! They are generously giving away a bag full of gluten free goodies.
