With the pandemic still going on, and my recent angry bone spurs, I debating for a bit about going to the Downtown Farmers Market. I drove to get the cash for it, along with money for a haircut, but even after all that, wasn’t sure I wanted to go. My Saturday has turned into a sleep in, exercise, then do things. I ended up deciding to go late that night, but I think I won’t go every week. The vendor booths were about once every other normal booth space, no ready to eat food, no musicians (not always bad). The vast majority of people were masked (though I did smell someone smoking), and overall things seemed fine. It was nice to see my vendors again, and I completely understand the whole going or not.

I did notice the kick in the pants on the budget, for not going to the market every week last year ($80/week in cash, sometimes more). The leftover money from the haircut, and first market’s $100 went pretty quick. I scrambled with my last $9 (all 1’s) to pay to get that hunk of cheese, effectively on my way out.

It felt good, perhaps normal, to be there. Things were spaced out enough, and people were, for the most part, not crowding together. Attendance was quite down for a normal market, which is probably for the best, at least for the early risers. It feels like a start to return to normal. Also, ramps.

Next week I am on call between 6p and 1:30a (Friday into Saturday) for about 20 minutes worth of work, So I’ll clearly not be going.

Macaroni and Cheese with Ham and Peas

Sometimes you skim a recipe and think, clearly the person that wrote this didn’t have to do the dishes. This is not like that, trying to keep it to one pot. However, I upped the speed by using two pots, so I could make the béchamel sauce while the water came to a boil, reducing the time between combining the two. I had about 8 oz of bread that I had chopped up and stuck in the fridge. I had whole milk that I accidentally ordered instead of my normal 2%. I adjusted up the powdered muster (maybe 2t instead of 1.5t). I swiped out the cayenne pepper with chipotle chili morita and used probably 4 times as much. I also swapped out the Monterey jack with pepper jack. I used what I had left of the (free) ham I got with a gift certificate from work, and used a whole bag of peas, instead of just a cup. After all those adjustments, the bread crumbs got a bit to dark (not distasteful, but not pleasing looking) at 5 minutes of broiling time, but at 3 minutes it was way too little. So probably some part of that probably around 4 minutes would’ve been just right. Pretty good, after my adjustments.

Gochujang Chicken and Tortellini

So uh…this was easy and quite tasty. I am working my way though that tub of gochujang (I’ll probably buy another when I make i through). I may have aded the entire bag of the cheese tortellini (what am I going to do with 4 oz of tortellini). I should have probably adjusting things up because of that, but even so, had that fermented, savory cheese flavor coming out and dancing across my tastebuds.

Anda Bhurji

I will admit that I’ve had a bad experience with garlic and eggs in the past, so I had a light head with the garlic. I apparently missed the mart of 3 green chile peppers, so I added jalapeño powder instead. So i guess it really wasn’t that close to what it was supposed to be, but it was tasty.

Turkey Burger With Sriracha Mayo

Shannon wasn’t in the mood, so we ordered out instead. I will do these today.