More Farmer's Market

At the MCA Farmer's Market, there's always a variety of produce. But you'll find other products as well, such as baked goods, canned soup, nuts and fresh cheese.

A new booth this year is CHOICES. These all-natural bath and spa products are made by the women at The Enterprising Kitchen.

The Enterprising Kitchen is a local non-profit that provides workforce development and services to low- and no-income women. By giving these women jobs with a living wage, and teaching them valuable life skills and providing services, The Enterprising Kitchen is helping these women become self-sufficient and economically independent.

Trust me, their products look and smell terrific. You can order their products online--check them out.

And now, I'll leave you with some more baked goods:

If you need to find me during lunchtime on Tuesdays now through October, I'll be at the MCA Farmer's Market. And I'll probably be eating a smiley face cookie.

MCA Farmer's Market

Each Tuesday in the summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art hosts a Farmer's Market on their plaza. Yesterday was the first farmer's market of the season, and I was thrilled.

During our lunch break, my coworkers and I headed out to see what was in store for us this season. We were undeterred by the gloomy March-like weather.

One of my favorite vendors is Lane's End Farm. These folks are committed to organic and sustainable farming. And, they are located in Lowell, Indiana, which is very close to my hometown. Shout out to my Hoosier readers! (Read: Hi My Big Martha and Dad!)

Along with the early spring produce, Lane's End Farm was offering many potted herbs.

Chuck Noffke Farm, from Coloma, Michigan, always has interesting and unique offerings. Check out the sign on their eggs.

They also had this huge pot filled with several kinds of basil--gorgeous!

Many vendors offer a variety of flowers cut in bouquets, pots and hanging baskets.

This yarrow is so pretty.

I could bury my face in this peony bouquet.

Fresh flowers are offered all summer long.

Tomorrow, more pictures from the farmer's market. To find out if there's a farmer's market near you in the city of Chicago, click here.

Cranberry shortbread

Martha has a recipe for Dried Cranberry Shortbread Hearts in her Cookies book. I've never made shortbread before, and since I was in a cranberry mood, this seemed to be the perfect recipe to try for a first-time shortbread excursion.

Martha's cookies look like this:

The observant TMI reader will notice that my Dried Cranberry Shortbread Hearts are actually squares:

Hearts are nice, but since the shortbread is made in a small 8x8 baking dish, there wouldn't have been many hearts emerging from the batch. Since I made these for a friend's birthday bash, I wanted to have enough to go around. Plus, if I had made the hearts, the scraps would have gone right in my mouth. Right. In. My. Mouth.

And then who knows what would have happened? I might not have stopped with the scraps, I might have started "accidentally" breaking hearts, just so I could eat them up. And then I would go really nuts and just eat the unbroken hearts. And before you know it, I would've eaten the entire 8x8 pan of shortbread!

See how my sweet tooth quickly spirals out of control? My kitchen is a dangerous place for my willpower. It just doesn't stand a chance.

This recipe, like the Magic Blondies recipe from yesterday, is incredibly easy to make. The hardest part was chopping up all of the cranberries.

I served these with the Magic Blondies. Between the two cookies, I definitely filled by cranberry craving.

If you have any dried cranberries in your pantry, I can guarantee you that they are crying out to be used in this recipe. Go on, try it. Hearts or no hearts, this is one delicious shortbread.

Martha Monday!

This weekend, I made Martha's Magic Blondies for a good friend's 50th birthday party.

Here's what Martha's Magic Blondies look like:

And here are mine:

These were very easy to make, and since they are made in a muffin tin with liners, the clean-up is quite easy.

The recipe calls for 2/3 cup each of coconut, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts and chocolate chips. Part of this mixture goes in the dough, and the rest is sprinkled on the top before baking.

I think this made way too much "magic," so the official TMI recommendation is to scale back each of those things to only 1/2 cup. Otherwise you'll have approximately 3/4 cup of the mixture tucked back in your fridge just waiting to be incorporated into some other recipe--trust me on this.

The Magic Blondies were a big hit. I served them with Martha's Dried Cranberry Shortbread Hearts. I guess I was in a cranberry kind of mood--always tart, a little sweet and a lot good for you.

I'll share the Dried Cranberry Shortbread Hearts with you tomorrow. Until then, stay tarty!

May spending and saving totals

Frugal shopping has been a side project of mine for a while now. I've gotten pretty good at it, and I'll be teaching a community education course at Waubonsee Community College next month all about how to get the deals. However, I had not been tracking my spending/saving totals, so my super awesome shopping feats could not be verified.

For the month of May, I tracked every penny spent at Walgreens, CVS, Jewel, Dominicks and Target/Super Target. Tax is included with the amount spent. Here it is:

Walgreens

Spent $87.70 on merchandise worth $1482.18 for a savings of 94%.

Note: this was a heavy month for me at Walgreens, at least double the business I normally do there each month.

CVS

Spent $10.83 on merchandise worth $186.28 for a savings of 94%.

Jewel

Spent $137.81 on merchandise worth $305.34 for a savings of 54%.

Note: I am not happy with this 'savings' and I blame it squarely on Jewel's new "no expired coupon" policy. Boo to Jewel.

Dominick's

Spent $86.60 on merchandise worth $334.91 for a savings of 74%.

Note: Dominick's still takes expired coupons--see the difference in savings?!

Target (this is food purchases only)

Spent $79.48 on merchandise worth $216.42 for a savings of 64%.

I am averaging $75.89 for groceries each week, which is not bad for a family of three living in the Chicago suburbs. However, it is a little more than I'd like to be spending right now, so my focus for June will be to use our stockpile of food and get only fresh stuff at the store and farmer's markets.

The pictures of the Little Guy are to liven up an otherwise picture-less post. Happy Sunday!