My farmer's market is cooler than yours is...

Ok, I don't know if that is entirely true.  I haven't been to yours, so I can't actually say.  But I have been to mine and it is pretty darn awesome.

I don't actually go all that often.  Actually, pretty much never.  We are usually busy during Farmer's Market time, so although I would like to go, I cannot.  But this weekend I could.  I didn't go all crazy, just get some stuff I need/want.  There was so much I wanted, but had no use for at this moment as I already went grocery shopping for the week, but I did find some pretty sweet items. 

          1  //  lemon-basil
          2  //  green-onions
          3  //  home-made potato and onion perogies
          4  //  1/2 pound of mixed greens and edible flowers

Except for the perogies, everything was cheaper than I can find in the grocery store.  I am willing to pay more for fresh perogies instead of frozen ones from the supermarket.  You could taste the difference.  And you should smell that lemon-basil!  I didn't even know the stuff existed, but now I am hooked.

We had planned to get Togo's for lunch (Mmm... avocado and turkey sandwiches) but since I had this stuff I figured I better use it. 

Move over, Togos!  There is some new competition in town!

There you have it, my farmer's market meal.  Fresh perogies cooked in olive oil with sliced onion and topped with chopped lemon-basil, along with a mixed-green salad with blue cheese and some walnut-raspberry-Gorgonzola dressing from Trader Joe's.  So good -- both in taste and in health.

You too can enjoy this meal.  Although the fresh perogies were better, the ones you get at the grocery store are pretty yum, too.  Just slice some onion and cook with the perogies (while frozen) in 2 T of olive oil, over medium heat.  Flip occasionally.  Cook until they are golden.  Not pictured here, but tastes AMAZING when you dip in sour cream... oh man, just talking about it makes me think I need to go back and get some more!

Pear & Arugula un-Flatbread (The Quest for the Perfect Flatbread, Part 1)

There's a little something that I do when I find something I really like at a restaurant:  I try to figure out what they did to make it taste so darn good.  See, I have this idea that if some cook in a restaurant can do it, so can I.  The problem is that other than the Olive Garden, most restaurants aren't willing to tell you how they do it.  (The Olive Garden, however, posts many of their recipes online, which if you ask me is quite wonderful.)  This means that if I try something that I really really REALLY want to have at home I am then on the quest to make it happen.  Which would be how I learned to make some great avgolemono soup... but that is for another post, another time.  This particular quest that I am on right now is how to make the pear and arugula flatbread from this place:

Have you tried this stuff???  This flatbread is so incredibly delicious that I cannot even explain it to you.  It is, wow... top notch.  Top notch.  But alas, there is no recipe out there for it so it is up to me to find out how to do it.

First, I played around with my toppings.  We tried pears with arugula and blue cheese broiled on toast.  It was nice, but I was missing something.  So I went back to The Cheesecake Factory, ordered myself some of that flatbread, and realized I needed caramelized onions.

That was easy.  So easy.  I had never caramelized onions before, but now I feel a whole new world is opened up to me.  I want to put caramelized onions on burgers, on fish, on everything.

My husband told me it made the house smell like In-n-Out.  That means it was a success ;)

Then I needed to find out how to make flatbread.  According some website I found via a Google search, I could make flatbread with pizza dough. 

Well. 

Maybe it worked for them, but not for me.  My flatbread, as yummy as it was, was not FLAT bread, but Puffy bread.  But that's OK... I am on the right start and I am not done yet.  I will make the perfect pear and arugula flatbread sometime soon, I promise you that.

In the meantime, I don't mind enjoying Pear and Arugula Puffy-bread and I thought you might enjoy it, too ;)

 
THIS TIME --

INGREDIENTS:
1 pack fresh pizza dough
1 pear, chopped
1 cup arugula
1/2 cup soft cheese
3T olive oil
1/2 white onion
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

1. Follow directions for pizza dough or flat bread dough for prep. 
2. To caramelize onions, chop the onion into slices.  Cook with 1T of olive oil over medium-low heat, stirring often.  Let cook for about 30 minutes.
3. When pizza dough is ready, spread out in shape you want and spread 2T of olive oil on top.  Put all toppings on the dough and cook for 8-10 minutes on 400F.

COST:  $5.20          COST PER SERVING --
                                       As the main dish (2): $2.60
                                       As a side (4): $1.30

Pears with Bleu Cheese and Arugula

My oh my. 

You will DEFINITELY want to make these little bad boys for your next get together.

These are quite possibly the tastiest and easiest h'orderves I have ever tried.  They take no special technique, which makes someone like myself (AKA someone who abhors anything requiring fine motor skills) able to do these.

Shoot, if you can finger paint you can make these -- they are that simple.

First, you need four ingredients:

Three pears, creamy bleu cheese, prosciutto, and arugula.  Turkey bacon works, too, if you don't like prosciutto.  You just need to cook it first, but the rest of the instructions are the same.

Cut the pears into eight wedges.  Smear cheese on top.  Layer two to three pieces of arugula.  Wrap in your meat. 

Ta-da! 

I told you it was simple ;)

**If you are making them in advance, toss the sliced pears in fresh lemon juice before hand so they don't brown.

I found another great thing about Christmas break: the fact that I can take pictures when their is sunshine outside!  Finally I can do real pictures.  Sure, I may have looked like a fool walking to the park carrying a plate of h'orderves, a bowl of arugula, a pear, and a camera slung over my shoulder... not to mention my beautiful outfit of sweaty gym clothes and a post-Zumba hair-do.  Whatever.  I walked with my head held high knowing I would get some good pictures that my little apartment could not provide -- and I offered an h'orderve to anybody staring at me.  That shut it down real quick ;)

Recipe from Real Simple, January 2008

COST: $9.70                 COST per piece (24): 41 cents