Westside Farmers Market: Year in Review

Inchworm Bakery Peach Cobbler with cinnamon buttermilk biscuit topping (yummy)

It was another good year at the Westside Farmers Market. I know everyone talks up their market, but the Westside is the best.

This year the market had some great new additions.

Corridor Sausage Co
Featuring a variety of pork, chicken, beef and lamb sausages

Hand Sown Farm 
Offering a great variety of fresh veggies

I hope they are back next season.

Inchworm Microgreens and Bakery Recap:

Baked Good:

All Made with Organic Flour, Organic Butter, Organic sugar, Organic eggs, Organic spices and fresh local fruits and berries

Rhubarb Pie
Rhubarb Scones
Short cakes
Cinnamon Cakes
Blueberry Pie
Raspberry pie
Sweet and Sour Cherry Pie
(Finally bought a cherry pitter, was hand pitting for hours)
Peach Pie
Peach Cobbler
Slider Buns
Olive Oil Bread
Smoked Sea Salt Chocolate Cookies
Fresh Ginger Oatmeal Cookies

Veggies:
Sunflower Sprouts
Pea Shoots
Potatoes
(Yukon Gold, Kennebeck, Pontiac red, California White, Yellow Finn)
Oyster Mushroom Kits

I was hoping for a Winecap mushroom harvest and better potato yield.

Next Years Plan

Potatoes (5-10 varieties)
Oyster Mushroom and Mushroom Kits
Sprouts and tray grown baby greens
Fruit Pies
Cookies
And…. Savory pies (Meat and greens and cheese)

I have been hooked on these meat and greens and cheese filled pies that they sell at the Middle Eastern grocery near me. They are affordable and ready to eat for a quick lunch. And they keep in a frig for a few days.

I want to make and sell them next year for the Farmers Market

This will require the use of a commercial kitchen, which will take some work arrange, but I love the idea of offering meat filled pies like using Corridor sausages and making greens and cheese with the seasonal fresh greens like spinach, arugula, broccoli, kale, chard, collard, beet greens or what is in season.

See You Next Season!!!!

Ann Arbor Bagels

I have been looking for a great bagel ever since I moved from New Jersey. It has been a kind of obsession for me, which peaked when I moved in Portland Oregon and I could not find a good bagel.

For a few years, I  wondered in a bagel dessert that was Portland until Kettlemans opened up. They bagels were good, and boiled they way they should.

During my wonderings, I attempted to make bagels at home. I am still working on recreating the bagels of my homeland.

Now living in Ann Arbor there are a few bagels to choose from.

There is Barry’s bagels. They are right near my house and next to the library, so they are my go to. I like their vanilla cinnamon. I am not a raisin fan but like cinnamon on a bagel.

I give Barry props for cinnamon vanilla.

No Ann Arbor Bagel conversation is complete without talking about Zingermans. People love their bagels and they have their own appeal as “traditional” style bagels, but for myself who grew up on the New Jersey (and NYC for that matter) super puffy bagels Zings are not my thing.

The best bagel in town, the one closest to my favorite, Hot Bagels of Fairfield, in Fairfield NJ is Elaine’s out of Detroit.

The are sold at Kerrytown, Produce Station and Morgan and York.

With that said, I am still working towards making bagels myself.

Here is my latest attempt.

I used the bagel recipe from Best Recipes. They were good, but I still think they need some work. I might add a little sour dough starter for a little kick and use sugar in the boiling water.

Best Recipes technique (and other sources) requires rolling out the bagel and placing them on a sprayed baking sheet covered with plastic for 13-18 hours in the frig to create a slow, flavor creating rise.

The problem is that my frig is only so big and if I wanted to make more than 6 bagels (one sheet pan) I would kind of be out of luck.

So I took the dough and put it in a plastic tub to rise over night then I rolled them out the next day to rise.

This solved for the space issue, but the dough was cold and hard to form and it would take hours to poof up again, but I went with it anyway.

I let the dough poof up at room temp for two hours and boiled and baked them. I think they could have benefited from a little more proofing. Maybe next time I will proof them in the oven with a pilot light on, or let them rise longer.

The idea here is to make bagels to offer for sale at the Westside Farmers Market and for special orders in town.

Rolled Bagel Dough

Proofing after 2 hours

boiling bagels 30 seconds

draining bagels

baked bagels

Inchworm Micrgreens and Pie

Today’s offerings at the Westside Farmers Market today from 3:00-7:00PM are:

Cinnamon Cake: A coffee cake with a cinnamon and sugar swirled inside

Rhubarb Pie: Local rhubarb, all butter crust

Both made with organic sugar, org flour, org eggs, rbgh free butter (tilimook)

Pea Shoots and Sunflower Shoots

Grown in organic soil

Sunflower seeds are organic pea are natural from Johnny Seeds

Wine Cap Mushrooms: At The Westside Farmers Market 2011

As most know, this was my first year at the farmers market. We offered micogreens, and baked goods (pocket pies, focaccia bread, cinnamon cake, and more). With my first year under my belt, the thought is about next year. And those thoughts are on Mushrooms.

Easygrow sells a number of mushroom kits at the AA Farmers Market. The picture above shows a kit for Winecap Mushrooms, which are a large mushroom like portabella, but boost a better flavor.

Also in the works are some mushrooms grown on logs. The plan is to grow shittake. I want to offer a third, but I have not decided on the variety.

Some mushrooms like mitake can take two years to fruit. The idea is to have the mushrooms ready for sale next summer.

Easygrow also sells morrel kits, which can be hit or miss and take up top two years to fruit too, but I just have to get a few and see.

Winecap growing procedure:

1) Find fresh oak wood chips (call around to area tree services)
2) Find a shady spot, about 4 x 8 feet
3) Spread a thick layer of newspaper, and lightly wet down
4) Layer a 2-3 inch layer of wood chips on the paper
5) tare off some balls from the starter kit, and place on the wood chips every 8-12 inches apart in rows, using a diamond pattern off centering them from row to row
6) wet down, and add another layer of chips and wet down some more
7) If using two bag (kits), seed another layer
8) top again with another 2-4 inches of chips
9) spray the whole pile down
10) cover with some straw (helps with moisture)
11) Place a short fence around it to keep out critters like skunks that like to dig up the pile (optional)
12) let sit over winter or start in the early spring for a fall harvest

Enjoy the Harvest

Here are pictures of the process for growing winecaps

First Layer: Thick layer of Wet Newspaper and fresh oak wood chips

Pile of fresh oak wood chips, about 2-4 yards

First layer of chips

More pictures coming!!!

I got so busy hauling wheelbarrows of wood chips that I forget to take the pics of the finished bed.

Update: Here is a picture of the finished mushroom bed minus the straw.