Believe it or not, the leaves of your root vegetables are indeed edible. Pretty food makes me happy, so whenever I go to the farmer’s market, I’m like a kid in a candy store. I’m gonna buy one or maybe two of everything.
Wait.
To be completely honest. I buy more like a dozen of everything.
Who am I fooling? Y’all have seen my prepped meals and my kitchen counter a gazillion times on this website and on my Facebook page. I’m also very curious with new foods. If it’s my first time with a fruit or vegetable, I’ll ask the farmer about the taste, texture and how it’s best used in meals. Some farmer’s actually allow you to sample their produce. I so love the sampling part because I not only do I discover something new, but I get to eat and shop at the same time. Yay for greedy me!
A really awesome tip for shopping when you are unfamiliar with a food, is to ask someone who picks it up and puts it in their cart. It’s a great conversation piece and you may gain a new friend too (someone who’s like minded). Usually that person is already living a healthier lifestyle or may be trying to incorporate healthy foods into their diet. For some people, it can be extremely challenging when you’re the only healthy person in your household, so having a healthy friend helps. Either way, it’s a win win situation. Unless it’s a highly intelligent man with motives, who wants to ask you out on a date, so he pretends he’s interested in eating healthier. Trust me, a lot of them are out there too but I have no problem converting and educating their highly intelligent ass about REAL FOOD. So that could potentially turn out to be a win win too.
I’m never bothered when people who are curious about food, stop me at the supermarket or farmer’s market to ask questions. For one, I love to talk. Yes, I’m such a chatterbox. You didn’t know that? Health and wellness is right up my alley. Please be forewarned: unless you are really interested, don’t ask any questions about food and health. Honey I will go on and on. So many people have looked in my cart and said, “I wanna go home with her!”
Anyway I do not buy food for show. I really do eat them. It’s always super exciting to find new ways to create a meal. I’m a visual. I need to see my food, out in the open. That’s one of the secrets to the flowing of my creative juices, which transforms into awesome recipes. If I can see it, I can visualize. My brain kicks into high drive. Unless its a green vegetable or fruit that needs to be stored in the refrigerator, most of my produce are stored at room temperature.
The farmer’s market was good to me! All the root vegetables had the greens attached, so I purchased purple and golden beet, turnips, kohlrabi, watermelon radishes, red radishes, strawberries and tomatoes. Once I removed them from my bag and placed them on the kitchen table, the light bulb came on for this root vegetable salad with strawberry vinaigrette recipe. The greens were young and tender. All I had to do was chop the greens off, add tomatoes, strawberries and hemp seed to create a simple yet satiating salad. The root vegetables I saved for a later dish. And because I do not buy store bought salad dressings, I created my own vinaigrette with the strawberries which was creamy, tangy and complimented the entire salad gorgeously. How delightful!
What motivates you to create your meals?