farmer’s market | These Light Footsteps

Wow. My brain’s pleasure neurons are still lighting up after discovering this one. Ramp + Oregano pesto, you have won over my heart and my mouth.

Ramp + Oregano Pesto Goodness

This week at the Tremont farmers’ market, one of my favorite farmers (from Por-Bar Farms) had a deal on ramps and oregano with the suggestion of making a pesto. I hesitated for a moment as I’ve been collecting so many of my own ramps, but I haven’t gathered any for a few days so I went ahead and got the deal. I am happy that I did as this makes a fantastic pesto!!

I looked around at quite a few recipes today, but didn’t find anything quite perfect enough for me, so I took what I learned and developed my own.

To make something similar, you will need:

15 ramps
a bunch of oregano (mine was about 1 packed cup)
1/3 cup olive oil (and I added about a Tbs extra when blending)
1/4 cup toasted nuts (I thought I had some local nuts in the cupboard, but I ended up using pine nuts)
1/4 cup hard cheese (something like parmesan)

First, you’ll need to chop the ramps.

Chopped ramps

Then you’ll need to pull off the oregano leaves and tightly fill a cup.

Bunch of oregano.

1 Packed cup of Oregano.

Measure out a heaping 1/4 cup of nuts and toast them. Pine nuts need to be toasted for about 5 minutes.

Heaping 1/4 cup of pine nuts.

Toasting pine nuts.

Add these ingredients plus the olive oil and cheese in a blender or food processor, and mix it all together! But don’t go for too long because it’s best to still have some texture in the pesto.

Pesto!

And then you can use this anywhere you desire an intensely awesome pesto! I tossed some of mine in a bit of tri-color pasta. Mmm. Depending on how much pesto you use at a time, I’d say this makes about 5 or 6 servings. It’s about 1 cup of finished pesto product (I have a lot leftover and even was able to freeze some).

Pesto Pasta

My only warning is that it is a bit strong. You can’t really give me too much onion/garlic, but if you’re sensitive to that taste, you may want to skip this recipe, or leave out some of the white bulbs of the ramps and focus on the green parts.

Also, I have to share that my salads are becoming increasingly exciting as the Spring picks up! This 100% local side salad included lettuce, radish, mushroom, carrot, and cheese (not yet grated for this picture) all gathered from the farmers’ market. Perfection!

Spring salad.

I don’t know that I had ever even tried beets before getting serious about eating locally. The weird canned ones on some salad bars didn’t exactly cry out, “eat me!”.

But, alas, they are often at the farmer’s market when other produce is lacking, and I’m happy to have developed a relationship with beets because they are high in fiber, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant. I’ve come to enjoy them the more that I’ve played around with them, but I’ve never thought, “Wow, this is so delicious!” while eating them. I’m happy to announce that this is no longer the case and I have crafted a winning recipe.

Roasted beets in quinoa with feta cheese!

The farmer’s market that I frequent most has been held biweekly through the winter. This has been wonderful because it at least ensures that I am always buying eggs and cheese from people that I trust and who recognize me as a regular. (This is not true for eggs and cheese sold at the grocery store!) There has also been a fairly steady supply of root vegetables and some greens grown in hoop houses. This past Tuesday, one of my farmer’s had baby beets that I purchased.

I also picked up some feta cheese from a local creamery.

A lot of recipes for beets involve feta cheese so I decided to use this relationship. I also had made extra quinoa the night before and decided it should all be mixed together. It worked splendidly.

I cut the tops off of the beets but left some of the stems, washed them, placed them in an oven-safe pan, and then drizzled them with olive oil + a touch of salt.

I put them into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes and made sure they were done after the allotted time by poking them with a fork. They were ready!

Next, I peeled off the beet skins using a towel so that I didn’t burn my fingers.

I cut some of the beets in half, tossed them into a bowl holding the (warmed) quinoa, and also mixed in some bits of feta cheese. Yum! The combination made the beets taste very sweet and it contrasted well with the feta cheese. I’m sure the fact that these beets were fresh and recently harvested helped a lot, too!

Hooray for local, seasonal food!!