The Altadena Farmers' Market Challenge

The challenge: to feed a family of four using only $25 at the Altadena Farmers' Market. Since we're a family of two, I thought, "no problem!" Not only was it not a problem, it was a pleasure to find good things to eat at the Market—enough to make us a meal with leftovers and then some.

A beautiful November day in Altadena.

We started with meat as the main dish. Novy Ranches had grass-fed beef fajita strips for $8.00 a pound. That's grass-fed, $8/pound. I can pay $6 for miscellaneous-fed hamburger at the grocery store.

The rest of the meal wasn't easy! There are too many temptations at the Altadena Farmers' Market. Here's something amazing I sampled at the Bread Lounge booth.

We also tasted several flavors of jam from Coldwater Canyon Provisions. I'm going back for more of this stuff.

There's honey, ice cream, vegetables, hummus, prepared foods (like prepared fresh right then and there) and much more. Yet the market is friendly, open, and doable. Not too big, and not mingy either. Just right.

I'd go back to the market for this booth alone.

We brought home a loaf of sesame/honey bread from the Bread Lounge, one green pepper for our fajitas, two organic avocados, three organic heirloom tomatoes, and a little over a pound of the Novy Ranch fajita strips.

We had some stuff on hand that needed to be used: one red pepper, fresh garlic, onions, some flour tortillas we hadn't eaten yet, and a container of pico de gallo. We thought we'd make fajitas and a tomato-avocado salad, and we'd toast the bread and have it with jam for dessert.

But avocados are one of my favorite foods, and I had that pico de gallo. I make lazy-butt guacamole by smashing my avocados and stirring in as much or as little pico de gallo as I want. You can add stuff like lime or garlic or salt or none, or all three.

I marinated the meat with spices, olive oil and Worcestershire Sauce. (There's a guy at the market who sells flavored olive oils, but we had already spent our $25 before we found him so he's another reason to go back.) By the way: not a hint of gristle in that meat.

The tomatoes lurked in the background. They don't belong in a fajita, and I didn't need them in my lazy-butt guac. I felt guilty about them, not sure what my "family of four" was going to do with them.

I sauteed the onion and fresh peppers in the same pan as the meat was cooked in, with some salt and pepper. I'm not giving you a recipe here, trust me, you're better off finding one on line and deciding how you want to use it.

The bread awaits its destiny.

Fajitas, lazy guacamole and random chips, plus a lime from our neighbor's tree. We ate our fill, it was delicious, and we didn't have room for bread for dessert. Hey, I never said I was some genius meal planner. But somehow, we always manage to get fed.

So the next day we had Bread Lounge bread for breakfast: toasted, buttered and jammed. Yum! For lunch we had left-over fajitas (they get jiggy in the fridge, in a good way), and we figured out what to do with our tomatoes. Duh! Sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper. You can't beat that.

Two and a half meals for us is more than a meal for four people, so the challenge to feed a family of four was no challenge at all. My math's not so good but I think we fed a family of four and a half.

Petrea's Kitchen Tips: Beer

When I posted my first kitchen tip (about blueberries) I didn't think there'd be another. I'm not what you'd call a kitchen maven. But behold, I have another tip for you: Don't leave your non-alcoholic beers in the freezer too long. They blow their tops.

I've come to this knowledge through years of error and error. The LA club scene intimidated me even when I was a young party animal--too much noise, too much money, too much craziness. I'm not comfortable in crowds, never was. That doesn't mean I didn't like to party in my single days. Just--with my friends. On familiar turf. As much as possible. I had more than my share of fun, though some Saturday nights were less fun than others.

Yesterday evening John, Boz and I took a walk in the neighborhood. We knew by the sounds coming from the houses that folks were home--TV, music, conversation--the neighborhood was downright noisy last night.

I think I know why. You get to a point where you've got what you want. You don't need to go out to clubs to find it. Sitting in my living room on a Saturday night with my husband, my dog and my (very cold) non-alcoholic beer is party enough for me.

Petrea's Kitchen Tips: Blueberries

Friends are coming for breakfast today. Isn't that grand, in the middle of the week? Each of us is grabbing an hour or so out of a busy schedule to indulge in coffee and talk. I'll lay off the caffeine so the laughing won't be too strident.

Because people will bring things to eat and the house was already clean, I used yesterday to prepare in irrelevant ways: I cleaned the oven (we won't be baking), trimmed the rosemary bush (it could have waited), returned a library book (talk about irrelevant) and went to the grocery store (we did need eggs).

And I washed some blueberries. A tip: wash them in very warm (not hot) water, then let them dry completely on a towel before you put them in their basket in the refrigerator. They'll last longer.

Petrea's Kitchen Tips is probably not going to become a series. This is the only one I can think of offhand.