Spring Time in Boise

is not as glamorous as springtime in Paris, but MUCH less snooty.  It brings wildly fluctuating temperatures, hoards of pissy geese, and the return of the Capital City Public Market, aka That Farmer's Market that fraks up traffic downtown every Saturday morning.
   I've mentioned before that Beastie is playing T-ball this year.  His games are in Boise (we live 20 miles away in Nampa) and half of them are Saturday afternoons.  At some point I realized that it's pretty silly to drive into Boise, just for a one hour t-ball game, so I started looking for things we could do while we were in town.  The top of my list was the farmer's market.  We've gone three weeks in a row now, and each week I come home with more.

This is just what made it home....

   This week's haul include: A bag of pink lady apples, a bunch of radishes, a bunch of red spring onions, a bottle of basil infused Kombucha, and some fiddle head ferns.  The things that didn't make it home were some vegetarian Sambusas eaten for breakfast, Parmesan bread sticks eaten for a snack, a glass of horchata, a glass of organic root beer, and a blueberry handheld pie.

See how pretty?

I was pretty excited when I saw the fiddle head ferns.  I've heard, seen, and read that they are a prized ingredient with a super short season.  How could I pass them up?  So I got a modest half pound, and my brain started into overdrive thinking about how I would use them.

The makings of a fine meal

  Right away I thought of stir fry, so I set about gathering up any other fresh vegetation that might be tasty.  What I found was radishes and spring onions.  Some people might look at me funny when I mention the radishes, but those people just don't know how mild and sweet radishes get when they are cooked.

  While some brown rice was cooking I blanched the ferns and marinated some tofu in soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and a little bit of red pepper.  I then stir fried the tofu and onions.  When the onions were nice and soft I added the ferns and the radishes.  Those cooked for another 5 minutes, then at the last minute I added the last bit of a jar of terriyaki sauce I had in the fridge.

A bowl of spring

 
The result was a fabulous meal, seasonal and fresh.  The fiddle head ferns were mild and slightly chewy.  The kids liked their curly-q shape and gobbled them right down.  It's a real shame that their season is so very short, I may have to get more next weekend, if it's not too late.