So last week I got to go to a farmers market for the first time in forever! I just realized our town had one on Wednesdays which rocks — because I usually work on Saturdays and most farmers markets are on Saturdays!
I had such an awesome time walking around and talking to / meeting the different vendors and of course buying stuff that I had to dedicate a blog post to it!
I bought 2 lbs of pasture raised chicken, 1 lb pasture-raised pork sausages {they were spicy, and had no sugar}, 1 lb grass fed beef, a pint of cherry tomatoes and cucumber and only spent $32.00, which in my book is stellar deal! I ended up talking to and making friends with the woman who sold the pork sausages and she offered me a great deal on them {normally they’re $9.00 and I got them for $6.00} and the farm who sells the grass fed beef talked to me about their own CSA program that I’m looking into doing!
A quick note on buying meat: If you’re going to be shelling out the money to buy high quality meats you want to talk to the people there and make sure it’s 100% grass fed, and not grain finished. I went to one stand and they advertised grass fed beef but it took me a few questions to get them to admit that it was in fact grain finished — some people aren’t as up front about that some are. Just make sure you ask questions if it’s not clearly labeled or you’re not sure!
So on that note — when you go to the next farmers market, be super nice and talk to them and let them know what you’re looking for, how you eat and why you eat how you do because sometimes you might get a really good deal or make a really cool friend! Not to mention if you want to buy only local, organic products it’s super awesome to be friends with your vendors /farmers!
When I was there I challenged myself to pick up a few things to make a dinner that wouldn’t break the bank, and let me tell you, it was wicked good. So good that I’m blogging about it! I only used half a pound of sausages and then used the other half the next night in a stir fry. So that $6.00 of sausages ended up averaging $1.50/serving {2 meals for 2 people}. Which is amazing! I served this with rice for the Mr. and we were both really happy campers!
Here’s how the pricing broke down: $3.00 for Sausages, $3.00 for cherry tomatoes and $0.25 for half a cucumber plus another $2.00 in stuff I had at home which would be $8.25 for two people {which breaks down to about $4.12/serving} for a really yummy, quick dinner that was pretty much all local! The only extra thing I had to add in there was the rice for the Mr., now if you’re going to be making this for yourself / family, I’d highly suggest having a side dish of some kind — either Cauliflower rice, White Rice {if you eat it} or something like the Summer Salad or Mashed Sweet Potatoes would be pretty boss with this! Unless you’re not really hungry that — in which case as is might be perfect 🙂
Now as a quick disclaimer, I’ve never had this much luck at a farmers market. But I also didn’t go into it looking for specific foods for the first time, I went in looking at what was cheaper, filling and had a lot of flavor. Which is why I was able to get a meal for two at such a good price!
Ok, enough of my rambling! Here’s the recipe 🙂
- Your fat of choice {Butter, Ghee, coconut oil, etc}
- 1 medium onion, medium dice
- ½ lb pork sausage {spicy}
- Almost a full pint of cherry tomatoes
- {yes, I totally snacked on a few while I was cooking which is why it's almost a full pint 😉 }
- ½ a cucumber, peeled and diced
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- Salt + Pepper
- Get a large skillet heating with your fat of choice and chop up your onions
- Once it's all melted you can add in the onions and let everyone become best friends for a few minutes.
- While your onions are happily cooking away, remove the casing from your sausages and proceed to crumble them into the pan and give it all a good mix {because you want the sausages and onions to now become best friends}.
- While those are cooking, wash and cut your cherry tomatoes in half and set them aside. Then peel and cut your cucumber in half. Take one half cut it into bite sized pieces {I cut it in half length wise and then just did a rough dice}. Set that aside as well {and store remaining cucumber}.
- Now add in your cherry tomatoes and let everyone get to know each other. Once your sausage is cooked through and your cherry tomatoes are soft and almost bursting add in a few cracks of pepper, small sprinkling of salt and maybe a teaspoon or so of apple cider vinegar.
- Plate up and top each plate with half the cucumber.
Enjoy!
Farmer’s markets are one of my favorite ways to get some cheap veggies. From my experience, I’m able to get more for my money when it’s towards the closing of the farmer’s market as some of the vendors are more likely to move more product for less money.