I Heart My Urban Produce Market

If I can manage it, I usually make a weekend trip to Iovine Brothers, an urban produce market in Reading Terminal. Not only do they carry a ton of marked, local produce, but their prices are fantastic!

Typically, Brad and I go on a Saturday morning, conveniently just before lunchtime. We trek over to the Terminal with canvas bags in hand, have a little lunch, and then hit up a few stands to scrounge up food for the week.

I've long been saying that I would like to post my loot from Iovine because I'm always so damn excited about how affordable their produce is. I think I might even have a reputation, in fact, for reciting all that I've bought and what I paid for everything.

Cherry Pancakes for Hurricane Irene

This week the east coast has had a few fun surprises from nature — an earthquake on Tuesday and now Hurricane Irene graces us this weekend. And you can't have Irene knocking on your door with nothing delicious to offer her. So for Pete's sake, be a polite host and have something wonderful to make for breakfast in her honor.

In addition to the usual bad weather must-haves like milk, eggs, bread, and batteries, I've also made sure to stock up on butter, flour, and cherries. Cherries, cherries, cherries. You know, just the necessities.

If you can find fresh, local cherries, this is the time to buy them! I found them for $0.99/pound last weekend and bought...ahem...7 pounds of them. Yeah, I know. But come on people. It's one time a year that I can get these tasty gems so fresh and inexpensively!

Pickled Cucumber Salad

During the work week, there's little that's more enjoyable than having dinner on the roof deck as the sun sets for the evening. For nights like these, we love to make something simple on the grill with a refreshing salad on the side. Easy, and it all fits on a tray that I can carry upstairs to the deck.

This pickled cucumber salad is a great summer alternative to a traditional green salad. And it's so easy that you can throw it together in minutes while the grill heats up.

And lately our favorite way to enjoy this salad is on the side of a delicious delmonico steak from Martin's in Reading Terminal. We share the steak and get our salad on — a super-easy meal in a snap!

We recently had a furry houseguest for a couple of weeks — Rosie agreed that this meal was fab!

Lime Curd Tart

Every now and then I crave a good curd. A homemade curd. A lime curd to be exact.

Alright, I'm lying. I've never really craved a good curd; however I think I will now that I've made my own.

I remembered seeing Ina making lime curd one episode — I believe for dipping long-stemmed strawberries into for a brunch. As it turns out, she also turned the curd into a tart filling and got another episode out of it. Genius!

I threw together said tart for my parents' annual party for the Festival of Ballooning, a big event that has been going on in their little town since they moved there in 1985.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the lime curd tart before 1) the sun went down, and 2) people ate half of it. Just keep that in mind for the photo above, mm'kay?

So back to the recipe. It takes delicious lime curd and fills a sweet shortbread crust to the brim with it. And if you're willing to do some patient stirring, you're going to see how easily the lime curd comes together.