By Kathleen Murphy, Market Manager

Thursday, December 4, 2014

There are ways we eat and tastes we know that have been with us since birth. Many of our ingrained ways of eating are not tied to the seasons as they could be. Eating more healthy involves making changes that connect us with more seasonal specialties in tasteful ways.

John Conway showed how to make ingredients that you don't usually think of together really dance: peppers and onions, butternut squash, and hearty kale. Flipping and tossing a wonderful medley of red and green peppers and strips of white onions, bright yellow cubed squash, with a bit of garlic and chopped red onion, finally mixed with kale until it softened, combined with poached salmon. Just delightful! The lesson: think of vegetables as an orchestra of flavors that can be mixed and matched to achieve a remarkable combination that is a pleasure to enjoy. At the same time our more traditional recipes can be adjusted: he brought a lamb stew with a broth of all the simmered vegetables we think of fondly - carrots, onions, potatoes, celery -as-back-drop to a gently stewed, pastured lamb that was exquisite in flavor and texture. It was clear - this was a lamb that grazed freely - no excessive fat to be had. the desserts that followed - yum - you had to be there.

Coming up: Great Falls Farmers Market Healthy Snack Contest. After the big day of indulging in 'Trick-or-Treat' candies on Friday night, we invite children between 8 and 12 years to enter our Healthy Snack Contest on Saturday. Sign up from 9-10 a.m. Judging is at 11 a.m. All ingredients must be unprocessed . All snacks must be made from scratch by the contestant. Bonus points if you use ingredients from the farmers market. Each contestant must bring a copy of their recipe and enough snacks for the judges to sample. Prizes are "Market Bucks." First prize is $25 Market Bucks. Some vendors will be offering mini-market baskets, so lots of prizes. See you Saturday