First Shopping Trip

Hello! First I want to talk about my visit to the market, yesterday I said that I was going to check out the Highland Park Winter Market and I did.  There was about 12 vendors who were selling a variety of items from soaps and candles, greens, dairy products and bake goods.  I felt a little uncomfortable when I first walked in because I was very dressed up for my meeting that never took place yesterday afternoon and I felt out of place but that passed quickly.  As soon as I entered a very nice lady approached me to talk about CSA's - Community Supported Agriculture, she gave me a card that had information on the CSA Fair that will be taking place on March 26th here in Rochester.  She explained a little bit about a CSA and I knew kind of what the idea was and I will be attending the fair on March 26 to see if it's something I would be interested in.  I looked on NOFA-NY's website https://www.nofany.org/csafair and I saw that they are holding a fair in Troy, NY and Syracuse, NY on the 12th and 19th of March respectively.

I walked around the market and bought 4 little "cukes" for $2 and two bags of greens for $5.  I'll be honest, I was a little skeptical of the greens they had the roots attached and all but last night I made a salad out of them and the cucumbers and it was delicious!  See picture below!

After my visit to the winter market I had to go to Wegman's and shop for the rest of this week and all of next week.  This was my first shopping trip since I decided not to buy anything new so I was nervous because I love all of the little decoration items that Wegman's sells and I always seem to find something to buy.  Also, I have decided not to purchase any beer or wine during this month of buying nothing new and I always pick up beer on my trip so my first thought was, "Do not go down the beer aisle."  Well, of course I did not realize when I made this pledge that I would not be buying any beer during the month that has the only holiday celebrated by massive amounts of alcohol consumption, St. Patty's Day! So, as I walk into Wegman's the first thing I see is the huge, and I mean large display of alcoholic beverages and St. Patty's Day decorations, my two weaknesses in one place! Typical right?  Good news is I was able to bypass the display and not look at anything.

I always buy my turkey and produce first and then head through the rest of the store.  While buying my produce I decided to see where everything was from and most of it all comes from Mexico.  My tomatoes, asparagus, and bananas are all from Mexico! That's so far and I had no idea, I suspected Florida so it was a big surprise to find that out.  My other concern with produce is every thing is put into little plastic bags and you weigh it and then stick a label on the outside of the bag.  I do not put the bananas in a bag so I thought why am I putting everything else in a bag?  One obvious reason is that sometimes I buy items like apples or peppers that are not connected like bananas and it's easier to put into a bag.  My solution is this, to reuse those bags!  Yesterday I had put my tomatoes in a bag, even though they are connected by a vine, sometimes they fall off, anyways instead of using the sticky label to hold the end of the bag closed I put a loose knot in it and put the label in a spot that will allow me to open the bag without ripping it and save it for my next trip! I will put the new label over the old label and I believe I'll be able to get a lot of use out of it.  As far my asparagus I put the label right on the bundle instead of using a bag. 

I know that my great friend, Gil, has brought this to my attention before, but that was a few years ago and I hadn't thought about it sense then.  But those little bags can in fact be recycled in a plastic bag receptacle and every week I always just throw them away without even realizing it!  Another thing I should mention while we're on the topic of bags is that I have 4 reusable Wegman's shopping bags that I bring with me every Sunday when I go shopping.  However, yesterday was a bit of a change because I had gone after work and even though I remembered to bring the shopping list I forgot to bring my bags! I was so sad when I realized this but it happens, so I did have to get plastic bags at the register but it's ok because Lauren and I save our plastic bags and we do have various uses for them.  I think I will need to take some of them and bring them to Wegman's to recycle because we have our whole dishwasher packed with them!

Side note - We don't use our dishwasher, there's only two of us and we never have enough dishes for a full load and it would be a waste to run the dishwasher when it's only half or a quarter full.  So we use it to store our plastic bags.  Anyways, my trip to Wegman's was very successful I bought exactly what I had on my shopping list for the meals I've planned over the next week.  Nothing extra was purchased which is great!

Below I have a picture of what I made for dinner last night - it's a complete vegetarian dish and it's delicious!

 

Above is a picture of my salad made with greens and cukes from the Winter Market and tomatoes I got from Wegmans with crumbled goat cheese!  The dish is Rigatoni with Bell Peppers and Goat Cheese.  It's very easy to make and I've included the recipe below!

 

Rigatoni with Bell Peppers and Goat Cheese

2tbsp Olive Oil

1 tbsp Butter

8 oz rigatoni pasta (I use wheat)

2 bell peppers - red and yellow, chopped in squares

3 Garlic Cloves, thinkly sliced

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 oz Goat cheese

5 black olives sliced

basil leaves

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large skillet, add onions and cook until soft.  Add garlic and bell peppers and cook for 12 to 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package, drain and place in large bowl.  Crumble goat cheese over the pasta and toss.  Pour the onion and peppers over the pasta and mix.  Top with black olives and basil leaves. Enjoy!!