Wednesday, October 24, 2007

A successful trip to the farmer's market

Today I shopped the Santa Monica farmer's market. There had to have been at least 100 vendors lining numerous streets. With so many options I found it quite challenging to shop. The reason being that I pretty much have to find the best deals on the best produce. Here's how I did it.

Upon arrival I briskly walked the entire market to see who had what and how much they were charging. Once I had a mental image of the best deals I began accruing the produce I needed for the rest of the week's juicing. For instance, I found an organic apple farmer selling most of his apples at $3 per pound. Yikes! I need a lot of apples, and they're quite heavy. No good. But wait, next to his stand there was a little box with a sign that said, "Visually distressed, $1". Score. I found some delicious organic apples for a third of the price! My juicer sure doesn't care whether they have a few scars. So I emptied his little box but wasn't quite feeling like I had enough. I simply asked Mr. farmer if he had any more and sure enough he began unloading the apples from the $3 box right into my $1 box. Score again!

I was then scouring the market for some melons, which can weigh quite a lot due to their juiciness. I was finding melons priced around $2+ per pound, which is just too high for my gallon a day juice habit. After looking around I found some little egg shaped melons that were different from what everyone else was selling. So I asked the farmer lady how much for her little melons and she said, "Oh those not sweet, you take for free". Score again! I don't care if they aren't sweet, so I took home 3. But low and behold, when I got home and cut one open they were sweet by my definition of the word and brightly colored too, as you can see in the picture.

Cucumbers are yet another type of heavy fruit and most people were charging by the pound. The last time I did this my half empty bag cost me upwards of $14. While this is better than the organic cukes at Whole Foods Market, I felt like I could cut a better deal. Fortunately for me I found a family selling the biggest, juiciest cukes in the market AND they were 2 for a $1. I bought so many that I had to go unload my first round of goodies in the car.

During my second round I found gigantic bunches of cilantro and parsley for a dollar each, multicolored heirloom tomatoes for half the price of the competitors, 3 types of kale, heads of romaine, potent limes and leafy celery. I saved money and now have really delicious produce to juice. I better go get started.

Juice Recipes:

cantaloupe type melon/beet/orange

celery/pineapple/cranberry

cucumber/celery/parsley/kale/lime/green apple

5 comments:

About Me said...

Thank you for the recipes!! :)

holiday at sea said...

i love good deals! last night i got a huge bunch of spinach, a bag of mixed greens, a banana, an avocado, and 3 honeycrisp apples (those are usually the most expensive!) for $1.83! score! i always head straight for the "discount" bins where the produce doesn't look as pretty but is still just as good if you cut out a bad spot or two. :)

Lovingraw said...

Wow, you are the king of good deal... keep attracting that to you! : )

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Sam Woods said...

Wow! It's an awesome recipe found here.... really I like it.... thanks for the share....

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