Saratoga Farmers' Market

Gomez Veggie Ville

Sweets, Meats, and Other Easter Treats at Saratoga Farmers’ Market

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By Emily Meagher

Easter evokes images of eggs hunts and other community events. We invite you to make next Saturday at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market a part of these events. On Saturday, April 20, arrive early and fill your shopping bags and baskets with our fresh, locally grown, raised and produced foods.

Kokinda Farm Eggs, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett

Near the market entrance, look for the eggs. Not the edible ones – those come next – but rather the reusable gift containers, available while supplies last. Inside each will be a coupon offering a discount from one of the market vendors.

 

Now, for real eggs. Elihu, Kokinda, and Squashville farms are offering them in abundance. Check out their hues and try them for their fresh, farm-raised flavor. Keep an eye out, too, for rich duck and giant goose eggs.

Saratoga Chocolate Co. Easter Basket, photo courtesy of Saratoga Chocolate Co.

This weekend, the market also will be featuring chocolate eggs. Further in the market are such treats filled with maple cream and maple marshmallow at Slate Valley Farms. Other sweet treats include homemade marshmallows from The Chocolate Spoon, chocolates formed into nest and bunny shapes from the Saratoga Chocolate Co., hot cross buns from Mrs. London’s, and cheesecakes in a range of sizes and flavors from Grandma Apple’s Cheesecakes.

That’s dessert. Now, let’s look for vegetables and main course meats.

Many vendors are offering Easter specials on their farm-raised meats: At Lewis Waite Farm, fresh and smoked ham roasts and steaks are five percent off. Longlesson Farm is offering 10 pounds of ground beef for $60 (instead of $80), and Mariaville Mushroom Men is taking 20 percent off its pork. If poultry is your preference, try Ramble Creek Farm’s turkey or Squashville’s chicken.

And there are the early spring vegetables to consider: Pea shoots from Saratoga Urban and Pleasant Valley farms, along with Pleasant Valley’s super-sweet spring parsnips. Storage vegetables remain abundant at Gomez Veggie Ville and Pleasant Valley, and mushrooms at Mariaville and Ramble Creek.

Looking for libations? Try Saratoga Apple’s farm-brewed hard and sweet ciders, spirits from Yankee Distillery, cyser from Ballston Lake Apiaries, Battenkill Valley Creamery milk and Something’s Brewing’s home-roasted coffees.

And, there’s more: apples, pickles, cheeses, and cured meats.

 

Butternut and Sweet Potato Pie

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From Lizbeth Gomez, Gomez Veggie Ville

Ingredients 

*Ingredients currently available at the farmer’s market

For crust:
2 cups graham crackers, ground (option: ginger snaps)
¼ cup sugar
1 cup butter, melted

For filling:
1 small butternut squash*
1 small sweet potato*
2 eggs*
1 can sweetened condensed milk (optional alternative: combination of cream* and honey*)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
pinches of nutmeg, ground ginger, and all spice

For topping
1/2 cup heavy cream*
1 teaspoon vanilla
3-4 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
½ teaspoon orange zest

Instructions
1. Combine crust ingredients in large bowl to make a smooth dough, pinching crumbs with fingers.
2. Press dough into a pie plate and refrigerate.
3. While crust is chilling, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4. Peel and cut butternut squash into chunks, and peel and dice sweet potato.
5. Steam squash and sweet potato chunks until tender, approximately 15 minutes.
6. After vegetables have cooled, place in blender or food processor with eggs, milk and spices. Blend until smooth.
7. Pour mixture into crust, and place pie plate in a slightly larger pan with ½ inch of water at bottom. (This water bath helps to prevent cracks.)
8. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
9. For topping, beat together heavy cream, vanilla, confectioners’ sugar and orange zest until peaks form.
10. Cut pie into pieces, place on individual plates, and add topping with spoon.  

Giving Thanks With Pie

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Tomorrow is one of the year’s best days to shop at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market. The Saturday before Thanksgiving offers an opportunity to fill your baskets and holiday menus with locally grown and raised foods from our region’s farms. We’ve talked up vegetables, turkeys and ducks. This week, we turn our attention to the sweet finale: pies.

Thanksgiving pie traditionally has been pumpkin, made by roasting or steaming chunks of fresh pumpkin or a similar winter squash, and then creating a puree of the pumpkin with eggs, milk, honey or maple syrup. From there, one can add cinnamon, nutmeg and/or allspice and then bake in a pie crust for 45 to 60 minutes. Such pies fill the belly with sweetness and warmth while making use of the foods that farmers bring to market.

local apples, photo by Pattie Garrett

But pie goes well beyond pumpkin. For pie fillings, think seasonal and think abundance. Local options include apple, sweet potato, and butternut squash. On the savory side, there’s quiche, chicken pot pies, and even shepherd’s pie, a simple dish of browned ground meat (beef, pork, or goat) topped with mashed potatoes and then baked.

A basic pie crust is made by blending flour, water, butter and a little salt into a dough. As food blogger Pattie Garrett learned in a recent workshop at the King Arthur Flour baking school, keeping the ingredients cold and allowing the dough to chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling out eases the process and helps ensure a smooth, uncracked crust.

There is plenty of room to get creative with pie. For instance, Gomez Veggie Ville’s Lizbeth Gomez artfully blends sweet potatoes with butternut squash in a graham cracker crust. This combination makes a pie that is creamy and packed with a phenomenal flavor. As the accompanying recipe shows, it also is quite easy to make.

If you are in a rush to get the other holiday tasks done but want to serve a homemade pie, you can even find that at the Saturday market. Local bakers have ready-to-serve apple, pumpkin, cherry and pecan for holiday meals, and also frozen pot-pies to pull out of your freezer for a delicious meal any time.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays in the Lincoln Baths Building, Saratoga Spa State Park. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the FreshFoodNY app.