City Park Fresh Market

On my way to DIA to pick up some visiting relatives, I stopped by the City Park Fresh Market. Although it was early, the market had a number of visitors.

There were several stands selling produce, including organic produce. The spiced nuts, tamales, bread and pasta (including some gluten free pasta) found at other local markets were also present.

Edited to Add: Great tips for shopping at farmer's markets, including questions to ask when buying produce, here.

City Park Fresh Market
Colfax & City Park Esplanade (in front of East High school, across from Tattered Cover)
9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sundays, through October 26

Thai Red(-flecked) Curry Paste

I've been trying recipes from The 30 Minute Vegetarian Thai Cookbook, by Sarah Beattie.

I decided to start by making a homemade red curry paste. The recipe begins with the instruction to soak "large dried red chilies," but the book did not provide much detail about the types of chilies to use. A website that I found on-line stated that it would be fine to substitute dried Mexican red chilies, but in retrospect, I'm not sure that was right. My chilies stubbornly floated, instead of soaking as contemplated by the recipe.

The recipe then directs that the chilies be blended in the food processor until a paste forms. However, no matter how long I pulsed the food processor, there was no paste - just stubborn red chunks, and a whole lot of seeds.

Garlic, ginger and shallots are then added to the food processor, followed by lemongrass, "15 peppercorns, ground," coriander seed, salt and lime zest.

Chopping the lemongrass was my favorite part of the preparation. Not only does lemongrass smell wonderful, but it has lovely purple streaks inside.

Because I could not figure out what "15 peppercorns, ground" would look like, I decided to throw 15 peppercorns into the food processor.

Mistake. Rather than pureeing the peppercorns, the blades of the food processor just bounced them around the inside of the machine. (You might be able to make out two blurry whole peppercorns towards the back of the photo up top.)

The nice thing about this recipe is that the paste can be assembled in advance, and refrigerated, in order to expedite the cooking process. While the appearance may be off, when combined with coconut milk, the paste creates a curry sauce that tastes like one served in a Thai restaurant.

As for the cookbook, the basic information is there, and there are some good recipes, but as someone who is not familiar with Thai cooking techniques, I could have used some more detailed explanations. I will use the red curry paste recipe again, but I'll substitute fresh red Thai chilies for the dried chilies that gave me so much difficulty.

Crepes in the Park

Wednesdays, you can find crepes in Civic Center Park, as a part of the Civic Center Café and Outdoor Market. Other stands sell pasta, fresh tortillas, baked goods, smoothies, and seasoned nuts and other snacks. There was also a produce stand this week.

The veggie crepe ($8) comes with melted mozzarella, tomatoes, sliced red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, onions, spinach and pesto. Strict vegetarians should know that the vegetables are cooked on the same side grill, and with the same utensils, as meat. However, the dessert crepes ($5) do not appear to have any contact with meat.

My crepe was tasty, with a good blend of cheese, vegetables and pesto. However, in the future, I might try a veg tamale from another stand, along with a crepe for dessert, since I'm not wild about having my veggies cooked alongside meat.

Civic Center Café and Outdoor Market
11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Wednesday through September 24 (except August 27)
Civic Center Park

Chard and Polenta

More lovely rainbow chard from a generous co-worker with a green thumb and a home garden.

Once I finished admiring the chard leaves, I washed and trimmed the greens, sautéed them with garlic and some red pepper flakes, and served them over homemade polenta. Although I did not cook the greens in the same pot as the polenta this time, I still added olive oil to the polenta while it was cooking, because I love the rich flavor it creates. (Apart from that small variation, I used the basic polenta recipe from Jack Bishop's Italian Vegetarian Cookbook.)

Blueberry Lemon Muffins

My mom and I got a ton of blueberries on sale in Fort Collins last weekend. I washed and froze mine as soon as I got home, but I knew that they would not be staying in my freezer for long.

This weekend, I decided to make blueberry lemon muffins, using a recipe from Elise's Simply Recipes website. Blueberry-lemon is one of my favorite flavor combinations, and I had never seen a muffin recipe which called for yogurt before.

These were easy to put together. I don't usually keep plain yogurt on hand, but it turns out that two six ounce tubs of plain yogurt will give you the amount needed for the recipe. The one problem I encountered was that I had enough dough for 13 muffins, but room for only 12 muffins in my muffin tin.

I solved the problem by making 12 blueberry lemon muffins and one blueberry lemon "scone." The "scone" baked up very nicely on a buttered cookie sheet. In the future, I might skip the muffin tin and use a baking sheet instead, since its always a struggle for me to get the muffins out of the tin in one piece (as you can see from the tasty but tragic Frankin-Muffin below).

Mom's Smoothies

My favorite smoothie is homemade, but not by me. My mom makes them on the weekends, which is conveniently when I am most likely to visit.


Orange juice, banana, vanilla yogurt and lovely ruby colored raspberries... (The flavor is predominately raspberry.)

Ingredients

1 banana, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup crushed ice
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
3/4 cup frozen raspberries

Combine ingredients in blender and whirl until smooth.

Makes three 1 cup servings (or one 3 cup serving!)

D Bar Desserts

D Bar Desserts is a new addition to Restaurant Row, and the creation of celebrity chef Keegan Gerhard. Offerings at D Bar range from cookies and chocolate candy-studded rice krispy treats, to prepared desserts like tiramisu, to the (somewhat pricey) desserts assembled, sushi-bar style, at the dessert bar.

A friend and I tried the tiramisu ($4.50) on a recent visit to D Bar. Tiramisu is one of my favorite desserts; I love the ladyfingers soaked in espresso and liqueur. The tiramisu at D Bar looked beautiful, but was somewhat unbalanced in terms of flavors. In particular, there was a disappointingly small amount of my beloved ladyfingers, and a disproportionate amount of mascarpone. However, the coffee which we ordered to accompany the tiramisu was excellent, and provided a much needed contrast to the excessive amounts of mascarpone in the tiramisu.

While I will be getting my tiramisu elsewhere, I will likely be back at D Bar to try one of the dessert bar creations. These include helado domingo (flan, plantains 2 ways, ice cream, rum cream and caramel sauce - $9), "tasting of strawberry" (almond lavender cream, sable breton shortbread and strawberries 6 ways - $10), and liquid center chocolate cake with cherries and ice cream ($10).

Dessert may be taken on the patio out front, at one of the few tables inside, or sitting at the dessert bar itself.

D Bar is open from 11 a.m. to midnight.

D Bar Desserts
1475 E. 17th Ave (near 17th & Humboldt)
Denver, CO 80218
303-861-4710