Spring has arrived! Flowers are blooming and the air feels fresh. Time to celebrate by visiting your local farmers market for their fresh produce offerings. There are many fantastic markets to check out in Portland including the King Farmer’s Market (Sundays 10am-2pm starting May 5th), Woodlawn Farmers Market (Saturdays 10am-2pm starting May 20th), Hollywood Farmers Market (Saturdays 8 -1 April to November and 1st and 3rd Saturdays in the winter) and the PSU Farmers Market which is open year-round on Saturdays.
Making multiple dishes with the overlapping ingredients is a good strategy for ensuring nothing goes to waste and for furthering our food dollars. Here, we use veggies to create an energizing breakfast, ready on-the-go, that you can make while dinner is cooking, and desert too! These recipes are meant to be flexible so that you can include the vegetables, pasta or cheese you have on hand and help reduce your food waste.
Simple and quick preparation! Pictured, the pasta dish. Don’t forget cheese and a green garnish!
Pasta Bowl: (4 servings)
Ingredients:
- ½ container cherry tomatoes
- ½ box of bucatini noodles
- 1 medium zucchini
- 1 medium carrot
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- lemon
- olive oil
- basil
- Pecorino Romano
- 1/2 lemon
- Chop garlic, carrots and zucchini. Add to hot pan with olive oil.
- Once carrots are tender, move to cool side of pan and add halved cherry tomatoes.
- Boil noodles. Once cooked, drain and add to pan with vegetables.
- Top with chopped basil, Romano and lemon juice/zest to taste!
Zucchini + Carrot Muffins: (6 muffins)
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2 ¼ cups sugar
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup grated zucchini
- 1 cup grated carrot
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Grease muffin tin (and extra pan for zucchini cake)
- Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl.
- Whisk eggs, vanilla and oil together. Then add dry ingredient mix. Once batter is combined add walnuts.
- Use batter to fill each muffin tin ¾ full.
- Bake for about 1 hour. Poke muffins with toothpick or fork to ensure muffins are cooked. Muffins are ready when toothpick can be pulled out without batter sticking.
Zucchini Cake: (1 cake, 10-12 small slices)
- Add 1-2 cups of applesauce to zucchini muffin batter. This will change your morning energy muffins into a rich and soft cake! Any cake pan can be used (8×2 inch circular pan used for cake pictured).
- For convenience, bake both the muffins and the cake at the same time. The cake will take longer (5-10 min) to completely cook in the center.
- Cake can be topped with fresh fruit, jam, yogurt, or your favorite frosting recipe to jazz it up!
Add applesauce to the remaining batter to keep cake moist
