I just love the Farmer’s Market in Nashville. There is always so much go on there. There is a slight difference this year with the drought but it still makes for a fun morning. There are so many booths, a food court and lots of different vegetables.

Look at this watermelon, it weighted 96 lbs. You can see on the picture where he wrote the weight on the watermelon. Now talking with the owner of the booth he said this was a small one, didn’t I know that the drought had affected the size? Last year he had one that weighted 156 lbs. I wonder how many it would feed…

There were so many kinds of tomatoes at every booth. I just love the heritage tomatoes, they taste so good! Look at all of them.

I have seen so many different tools since moving south. Here is a bean cutter, the beans are cut into perfect lenghts. All you have to do is take them home, wash them and they are ready to go. I like snapping beans so I think I will pass on this one, but thought I’d show you. They also have pea shellers and bean shellers going all of the time.

One of the funniest moments to me was finding these peaches. I wanted to buy some peaches to take to Michigan where I was going the next day. The south got hit with a terrible freeze so there aren’t a lot of peaches and apples this year.

Look at all of these pretty tomatoes! We had a great day.

We left on Saturday morning heading out for Lawrenceburg County in TN., Ethridge to be specific, armed with our map of where the homes were that sold vegetables, jams, peanut brittle and so much more. It was easy to tell what they had for sale because out by their mailboxes on the road were signs showing what they had to sell that day. Our first stop was at a house where we bought 5 dozen ears of corn for $2.00 a dozen! It was the best corn I have had in years. While we were there the farmer hooked up his belgian horse to a big box with skids on the bottom and went off to pick more corn with his little girl on the back of the horse.

We stopped at the next farm where I was able to get some canning tomatoes that were just gorgeous from which I made some of my grandmothers Chili Sauce yesterday. I got a half bushel of the prettiest red tomatoes. All of the Amish families basically set their front porch up as a store, there are rows of vegetables, cupboards full of jams and jellies and candies. We even saw lye soap at one. I just loved all of the neatly cared for vegetable gardens in front of their homes.

Moving on down the road we pulled into another farm where a barefoot boy of about 10 was standing at the vegetable table with a golden watermelon and a knife, eating it as fast as he could cut that juicy melon. Needless to say we bought one of those also for $1.50! He could of been a commercial for the watermelon board.

We spent about 3 hours going to different farms, and also brought home new baby potatoes, 10 lbs. of green beans for the freezer, some pole beans and a couple of heritage tomatoes. One of the last homes we drove by had the tallest corn I have ever seen. It was at least 8 ft. tall. It had started to cloud up a little as rain was on the way when I took the picture so it is a little dark.

Next we came to a little restaurant that had the best southern cooking. Lunch was served buffet style and there was fried chicken, green fried tomatoes, beans and cornbread, salads, and lusicious raspberry cobbler with ice cream. It was $15.00 for the both of us. The restaurant is behind a craft market on Hwy. 64.

All and all a very pleasant way to spend the day!

Chili Sauce

1 peck tomatoes
2 C. vinegar
2 C. ground onions
2 C. ground green peppers
2 C. sugar
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. cloves
1 t. cayenne
2 T. salt

Put all ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil, turn heat down to medium. Cook until it thickens. This will take about 4 hours, stir often to keep from sticking. You can either can or freeze the chili sauce.

Makes about 7 pints.

A peck of tomatoes is about 10 - 12 lbs. of tomatoes or 1/4 of a bushel.

Note: Right after I wrote this I got an email from Dove of the Clean Food Network letting me know that most Amish farmers spray heavily. Like some people, I assumed that they did not spray and did things organically. She said it is good to ask each farmer you are going to buy from what his practices are if this is of concern to you.

This year I’m going to use more spices. My favorite so far is made by Penzey’s called Mural of Flavor - a salt free mixture of spices, shallots, onion, lemon and orange peels and chives. I have to keep putting it back in the spice drawer or I would be using it on everything! Another I have tried recently is called Borsari which has sea salt, fresh garlic, fresh pepper, basil, parsley, rosemary and lemon peel. Before you ask, Borsari is available from igourmet.com.

Better nutrition and trying to lighten up our favorite foods (at least some of the time). I’m going to try more olive oils this year. I’ve found an new one from Australia that we like right now from Cobram Estates.

Who says a chocolate machine is only for chocolate? A quick look at the Sephra website has me thinking of nacho cheese, vegetable dips or raspberry syrup for a breakfast brunch. To do the dips your machine has to have the ability to shut the heater off.

Mini Desserts - Smaller, petite, rich and luscious! Sea Salt covered caramels! Homemade of coarse… I’m also going to make more fresh fruit sorbets and sherbets for desserts.

After what seems like eons in the kitchen I was getting bored, so my biggest thing to do this year is to make cooking fun again!