Farmer's Bounty

It's been an ugly, rainy weekend here in Charlotte.  Not exactly the cool and sunny weekend I had hoped for, but after working a lot over the past couple weeks, I was just thankful for a lazy couple of days.

The highlight of my Saturday was a trip to the farmer's market.  Perhaps one of my favorite things about Charlotte is the abundance of fresh and local produce.  Surprisingly, the fruit and vegetable prices are MUCH cheaper at the market than they are at Harris Teeter.  This weekend I brought home apples (Honeycrisp apples for just 99 cents/lb!!), cucumbers, tomato, bean sprouts, pea pods, baby sweet potatoes, and bell peppers.

All of that for just $7.50

With a refrigerator full of delicious produce, dinner became very easy.  

Local organic chicken breast + stir-fry snap peas and sprouts + roasted sweet potatoes

This was the first time in about a month that I ate meat.  I'm not completely vegetarian, but I really enjoy all of the delicious possibilities with produce and grains.  I eat fish 2-3 times a week and dairy on a daily basis, but otherwise it's all fruits, veggies, grains, and beans.  Surprisingly, since eliminating my daily meat consumption, I never really have a craving for it.  This week, however, all I could think about at each meal was grilled chicken.  I'm pretty confident that the chicken in the cafeteria doesn't exactly meet my local + humanely raised standards, so I held out for the weekend.  8 minutes on the George Foreman, and I had juicy grilled chicken.  It hit the spot!

Stay tuned later in the week, when I'll be creating vegetarian stuffed bell peppers!