Farmer's Market

Today Brent and I ventured to the Mount Pleasant Farmer's Market.

Actually, Mount Pleasant has two Farmer's Markets... a big one on Thursday mornings and a smaller one on Saturday mornings, but since he works almost every Thursday morning we never get a chance to go to that one. Well, we woke up today and decided to go to the Saturday one.

I'm really glad we did! :)

Our goodies included:
-fresh honey crisp apples
-peaches
-4 ears of corn
-3 sweet potatoes
-a zucchini
-a cucumber
-lots of green beans
-an oatmeal cherry cookie :)

As soon as we got home, Brent got ready for work and left. I started thinking of fun ways to use our produce.

First idea: homemade peach tea.
I cut up three of the peaches while brewing regular black tea. Put the peach slices in the jug and filled it with the tea. Extremely simple. Extremely delicious! The peaches gave the tea the perfect sweetness and flavor. Even Brent, who hates sweet tea, loved it! :)

Second idea: green bean mac&cheese.
I have been craving some Velveeta shells and cheese all day, and we just happened to have a box in the pantry. So, I put the noodles in bowling water and chopped up several of our fresh green beans (my attempt at making it healthy) and added them in. The end result was WAY better than I actually expected. The beans stayed crunchy and added the perfect touch to the rich cheese and soft shells. I will definitely be trying this again. :)

Business Venture
I was quite inspired a few weeks ago when it was suggested to me that I try and sell my baked goods at the farmers market. Everytime I go there are at least two or three booths set up with people selling their bread, cookies, cupcakes, etc. AND since I have been so obsessed with baking lately I thought it would be a great idea. Unfortunately, my pessimistic side got the better of me and I decided I would probably never be able to do it. It would probably be super expensive to reserve a spot, I would probably need some sort of business license, or something that would be unattainable for me.

Well, when I saw the baked goods stand today I wondered over and checked out their goods and asked about what they had to do to set up there. She said I just had to go speak with the Parks & Rec department, and that for a Thursday spot it was $20 and a Saturday spot was only $10, obviously this is per week that I set up there. OR I could pay for the whole season in advance and get a discounted price. WHAT? That is seriously ALL I have to do? I am definitely considering doing this next summer... what a great way to make money!

Bake at home. Take Beannette to the park twice a week to sell my baked goods. Make money.

Yes, please.

Brent is all about me getting on this band wagon, and it is definitely under consideration at the moment. :)

Sunny Days

Today was absolutely gorgeous!

I was feeling adventurous so I made french toast for breakfast! (no pic, sorry!) Brent thought it was delicious, but I thought it was a bit too sweet - I added powdered sugar and syrup to my pieces, so I only had about half of one piece.

After breakfast we ventured to Island Park to check out the Farmer's Market. We were both extremely impressed! LOTS of fresh, locally grown fruits and veggies to choose from and one farmer even offered beef from his own farm!!! YAY! We will definitely be going back next week (they are only open on Thursdays in Mount Pleasant) to pick up some delicious goodies!

Then we decided to take a nice long walk (I would guess about 1.5 miles) around Island Park.


We finished our walk around noon and decided we were both kind of hungry. Out of laziness and the want to not spend money on groceries right now (we FINALLY got approved for our bridge card [food stamps, for the non-Michigan readers] and we should get the card in the mail tomorrow!) So we decided to treat ourselves to a lunch out (again... normally we don't eat out often, I promise). We settled on the Grand Traverse Pie Company, a restaurant similar to Panera Bread. Plus, we got discounts for being students (good thing a student ID doesn't have an expiration date ;))

I settled on the GT Club - turkey, swiss, romaine lettuce, tomato, and pesto with a side of pickle and chips.


I only ate about 1/2 the bag of chips. And, of course, dessert. Oatmeal cherry cookie!

DELICIOUS. I will make these homemade one of these days. :)

Shortly after returning home, Brent had to go to work. I took a nap :-).

For dinner I had huge craving for rice. Luckily, after digging in the pantry I found a package of Rice Sides - Broccoli Cheddar sitting in the back. While they aren't the greatest nutrition wise, I am very excited to eat them right now!


I will be leaving in the morning for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit some of Brent's family and to join the celebrations at his step-sisters graduation party on Sunday! Brent will be left here to fend for himself (work is unfortunately more important than traveling) and I am excited to see how well I can stick to healthy eating when I'm not in my own environment! :-)