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Health & Fitness

This Week at the Smart Markets Reston Farmers' Market

The market is open this week, and read our tips about cooking in a storm.

This Week at Our Reston Market
Wednesday 3–6 p.m.
12001 Sunrise Valley Dr.
Reston, VA 20191
Map

We're open this week!

From the Market Master

As the storm was on its way to our area, I was in the kitchen cooking up things in my refrigerator and freezer, assuming that it would be easier to heat soup on our butane cook stove than to make anything from scratch. I also made tomato sauce to have on hand for a variety of uses. I was lucky to have local, grass-fed, meaty soup bones for stock and canned tomatoes (Cento and Muir Glen are my favorite brands) to add flavor and body to the soup.

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Once I determined that I had the basics, I started going through the refrigerator for ingredients. Everything I needed for a great soup was right there, and it was all local, from our farmers’ markets. I had onions, carrots, sweet peppers, squash, green beans, turnips, potatoes, lovely fresh shell beans, and even the last of the corn from Saturday’s market. It was some soup, hearty and healthy.

If you have a gas stovetop and oven, you can weather a storm much more easily than those of us with only electric appliances. And anyone who loses power has inexpensive alternatives for cooking. Once you are able to get out of the house, you can run to your nearest Asian grocery store and buy a butane cook stove and four butane canisters for less than $20. It may be a challenge to make soup on a cooktop, but you can always turn it into an indoor family camping adventure. You can make an entire recipe in smaller batches or cook the various ingredients two or three at a time, combine them all and add broth to the veggies as needed to complete the soup for two or ten.

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Using your raw ingredients and cooking something that can be kept in a cooler packed in ice will also help to preserve veggies that you might lose otherwise.

If this reaches you too late to help you out this time around, make sure you get one of those cook stoves for the next snowstorm. Our demo chef, Annie Sidley, uses one all the time for her demos, and it’s pretty amazing what she can do with such a small appliance. If she can make stir-fries, soups, and sauces in the middle of a market, you can make them in your kitchen.

Here are some good recipes for cooking in a storm:

See you at the market!

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