The farmers markets are brimming over with fresh produce that is really vine-ripened, tree-sweetened and just-picked. Ask for a sample or let your nose guide you to the sweetest cantaloupe or peaches. Green chile season has started and roasted green chile will be available at both markets. Backyard gardeners are bringing lovingly tended extra fruits and vegetables so there are new recipes and varieties to try.
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Can't make it to the farmers markets? This is the last chance to sign up for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program and pick up a weekly box of locally and organically grown fresh fruits and vegetables delivered to convenient locations in Sierra Vista and Bisbee on Monday evenings. The ten week program starts on August 6 and ends October 8. Gray's Garden of Eat'n, a U-pick farm in Palominas, will fill the boxes each week with produce picked that morning as well as farm eggs, local honey and bread. For more information please visit www.CochiseCSA.blogspot.com or e-mail Barbara Manfrediz at CochiseCSA@gmail.com.
Sierra Vista Farmers Market
New Vendor: Worm Woman Judy Goodenough with tree-ripened, large, juicy peaches grown with rain water collected by her husband, "Farmer Dale's" rain water harvesting systems. Her secret is to tent the trees with row cover to protect from the birds. These are Freestone type peaches and freeze beautifully. With each purchase, Judy will include freezing instructions and a recipe for jam using all-natural pectin that allows for the use of honey, a reduced amount of sugar or sugar substitutes with good results. Ruby red prickly pear fruits or "tunas" for making prickly pear nectar or jelly will also be available.
Claudia and John Mobley still have lots of the huge elephant garlic that they grow as well as a few ceramic Columbian garlic roasters. They also have purple as well as green (Thompson Seedless) grapes and in shell pecans.
Green chiles are here! Frank Vega will bring green chiles he grows and a roaster.
For the best cantaloupes in Southern Arizona stop by for a sample from Leo Dunaetz, our eighty- year-old small grower from Cochise who raises "Ambrosia" melons as well as Armenian, lemon and pickling cucumbers, watermelons, tomatoes, onions and sweet corn.
Large blackberries are still at the market offered by Jenny Kolar. Great to garnish fruit salads if there are any left when you get them home.
Mama Llama's will bring "take and bake" beef, pork, chicken and salmon empanadas to as well as appetizer sized dessert empanadas (Peach, Cranberry and Walnut, Pineapple, Blueberry & Coconut and Pumpkin, Date & Raisin. Get wild ocean fish from Max McCarty.
New Product: Esperanza Arrevalo will add Cactus Tortillas made with nopales to her tortilla repertoire which includes regular and mesquite flour tortillas. She also makes three kinds of tamales, fresh salsa and naturally sweet mesquite almond cookies and fruit sweetened mesquite, apple nut bread.
Next Door Kitchen offers home-style meat and vegetarian entrees, salads and breads (cornbread with green chiles) that complement the veggies bought at the market for a complete dinner. They also have comfort food deserts such as bread pudding and oatmeal raisin cookies.
In Your Garden Nursery will bring "society garlic" which can be used like chives, assorted herbs, houseplants (jade plant and house bamboo) and a sale on window sill gardens.
Little River Nursery will be at the market again with a truckload of trees and shrubs that do well here to include Mexican Palo Verde, Yellowbird of Paradise and an assortment of native wildflowers not found at nurseries as well as outdoor cactus (prickly pear and cereus.)
Bisbee Farmers Market
Want to create a home that is very quiet and can be heated with a crock pot or cooled with a fan? Find out all about Straw bale Building and Earth Plastering as well as how to Fire wise your home this Saturday. Four experienced straw bale owner builders will be on hand to showcase this alternative building material which minimizes home heating and cooling. An earth plastering demo will start at 9 a.m. Participants who don't mind getting muddy can try their hands at plastering. Enjoy folk and world music by Bisbee's Jenny & Mitch Druckman on acoustic guitar and harmonium.
Fiore di Capra, Flower of the Goat, Grade A Dairy & Creamery will return to both markets this week with raw goat's milk and an enticing selection of goat cheese logs, spreads, marinated cheeses and dessert and savory tortes, queso blanco and raw milk feta. Their delicious raw goat's milk is produced by a herd of award winning LaMancha Dairy Goats who are fed premium alfalfa hay along with the natural browse available in the San Pedro River Valley. Produced without hormones and pesticides.
Stout's Cider Mill will bring enormous apple pies, apple bread, pecan pies, fruit jams and apple cider from their orchard in Willcox.
Quench your thirst with fresh lemon, orange and lime "ades"squeezed just for you by Mule Mountain Mama Alli Bodkin who also makes great fruit popsicles (strawberry, coconut, lime.)
The Montoya Family will bring Emma's "nopalitos" or prepared cactus pads as well as her nopalito salad and roasted green chiles in hot, medium and mild in addition to lots of produce from their small Palominas farm. Try early winter squash including orange Kabocha which are great baked with butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. Green beans, okra, black eyed peas, carrots, cucumbers, garlic, tomatoes and melons. (At both markets.)
Gray's Garden of Eat'n will bring tomatoes(slicing, Roma, cherrys), summer squashes(zucchini, yellows, patty pans, and Zephyr), cucumbers (pickling and slicing), sweet onions(red, yellow, white), Seedless Watermelons, Ripe Cantaloupes, Honey Dew Melons, Okra, Soft neck and Elephant Garlic, Green Bell Peppers, and Jalapeno Peppers.
Breads will include 9 Grain, Whole Wheat, Soft French, Seeded French, Rosemary Olive oil, Roasted Garlic and thyme, Sourdough, Italian, Cranberry Walnut, and Raisin Cinnamon Walnut.
Sweet breads we will bring are: Zucchini, Banana Nut, Pumpkin, Lemon, Cranberry Orange, Chocolate, and Blue Berry. (Both markets.)
Brighten your home with brilliant zinnia bouquets and long lasting artichoke flowers as well as basil plants to flavor summer's abundance from small grower/beekeeper Bob Berry who brings a charming load of produce (green onions, tomatoes, green chile), jars of honey and flowers each week to both markets from his home in Elfrida.
Pick up some fair-trade, organic, locally roasted Just Coffee along with like home-made fruit and cream pies by Charlie the Pieman by the slice or whole at both markets.
Pick up some oaks of the Wild West and other drought tolerant trees that do well here grown by master plantsman, Gary Foss.
Recipes
Moussaka - Greek Lasagna using eggplants
3 medium to large eggplants
2 tblsp olive oil
A large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic
? lb ground lamb or venison
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup parsley, chopped
1 tblsp thyme, oregano, herbes of province
1 tblsp chopped mint (optional)
3 eggs, beaten
15 ounce ricotta cheese
1 tsp nutmeg
? red wine (optional)
? cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste (1 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper)
Trim end of eggplant and cut into ? thick slices, easiest from cut end with a sharp knife. Brush with olive oil and brown under broiler, turning to cook each side. Meanwhile brown onion in olive oil until transparent, add garlic. Add lamb to brown. Add cinnamon, mint, thyme, parsley tomato sauce and wine. In a medium bowl beat eggs, add ricotta and nutmeg and beat until smooth. Butter the inside of a 9 by 12 inch baking pan. Put down a single layer of eggplant slices. Cover with half of meat mixture. Then another layer of eggplant followed by rest of meat sauce. Top with eggplant. Pour cheese mixture over top and spread Parmesan over it. Bake 30 minutes at 350. Let sit at 10 to 20 minutes before serving. Serve with Greek-style salad of cucumber, tomatoes, olives and crumbled Feta cheese dressed with olive oil and fresh lemon juice.
Blackberry Popsicles
? cup fresh blackberries
1 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
1 tblsp agave nectar
? tsp vanilla if using plain yogurt
Combine in blender. Pour into popsicle molds. Freeze. Makes 4 popsicles with a little left over.
Chicken Cacciatore
(Try a whole pastured chicken and your pick of tomatoes, sweet onions, garlic and zucchini from the markets)
1 chicken, cut into pieces
1 large onion, chopped
4 to 6 cloves garlic, chopped
Olive oil
3 or 4 cups fresh tomatoes
1 cup white wine (optional)
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1 to 2 tblsp herbes of provence or Italian seasoning
1 large bay leaf
3 medium zucchini
Brown onions in olive oil. Remove and add more olive oil to pan with garlic and chicken pieces either dusted in mesquite or regular flour and spices. After browning chicken on both sides add back onions, quartered tomatoes, wine and spices and simmer covered until chicken is tender. Slice zucchini and cook until still green but tender. Garnish with chopped parsley.
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