Another reason why I love summer is because we have a weekly farmers market! You can't even believe how much it brightens up my day, how happy it makes me to buy fresh produce from the farmers. So happy that I can't ever pass it by. Ever.
Of course, I'm a big fan of locally grown food but also farmers markets remind me of my childhood in Ukraine. When I was a kid I used to go to bazaar (that's how we called any market) with my grandmother all the time where we would buy fresh produce from farmers. Also we grew a lot of vegetables and fruits ourselves, which is another reason why I appreciate fresh local food so much. Hence, there I am on Tuesdays - completely overloaded with fresh vegetables, fruits, eggs, and bread.
I know that farmers markets can be a bit pricey but I think that eating high quality, fresh and local food is very important. And the taste is just so much better than any store sold groceries. Also, in my opinion it's important to manage correctly the food that you buy. By this I mean: try to use any perishable produce quickly so it's fresh, try to minimize any waste (it's terrible to discover those super expensive strawberries going bad somewhere in your fridge!), plan your meals in advance and buy only the necessary things (account for the nights that you eat out).
Sometimes it's problematic for me to use tons of vegetables that I buy at the greenmarket because it's hard to cook every day. But I found a great solution to utilize all my veggies in a healthy way by preparing a vegetable stew (we call it rahu in my family)! And I'd like to share this recipe with you! :)
This recipe is adopted from my mom. You can substitute any vegetables you have on hand.
Pictures are via my Instagram.
All photos are taken and edited by me
