After two months of travel, we were excited to be home for the first weekend in a long while. To celebrate, we headed over to the farmer’s market on a crisp morning to restock our empty refrigerator and peruse the autumn harvest.

Here’s what we picked up:

• Early Girls Tomatoes - these are the sweetest tomatoes, which rival San Marzanos!

• Fresh herbs (dill, thyme, basil)

• Fresh jujubes - these are often used in Asian soups or teas, but the fresh ones can be eaten like fruit

• Beets - we picked up two larges ones to try and make vegetarian sashimi this week

• Pomegranates - these are my husband’s favorite fruit, finally in season

• Mini trumpet mushrooms

• French carrots - great for roasting with caraway seeds, coriander, honey, & pepper

• Asian pears - we bought one of each type of the market, love the Shinkos

• Chinese eggplant - the first time I’ve seen these so skinny and without wrinkles!

• Si-Gua (luffa) - one of my husband’s favorite vegetables

• Squash Blossoms

highlight: early girls tomatoes

I love roasting these tomatoes in the oven with either a bit of thyme or basil, olive oil, and pepper for about 20 minutes at 400F. Since they’re naturally so sweet already, I tend to avoid adding too much seasoning.

highlight: squash blossoms

Since our trip to Provence some years ago, we’ve always kept a look out for squash blossoms. We were stoked to find several dozen large blossoms, which are incredibly rare. They’re great roasted in the oven at 400F for 10-15min with some olive oil and pepper. Alternatively, we also love stuffing the larger blossoms with cheese before baking.

These French carrots were so beautiful, we picked up two batches for $2 each:

Onwards to some cooking! Happy shopping at your local farmer’s market!