Cooking with the Farmer's Market Finds

I love catching a snooze watching Food Network during the summer.  Here's a great recipe from Guy Fieri using a bunch of things I can get at this week's Farmer's Market in Central Texas. It's an Asian meal with some of my favorites- small pork medalions, crunchy rice, an asian gravy and I'd probably add a few stir fried peppers or squashes you can get right now.  It uses a 2 lb pork tenderloin (which I can get from my vendors like 6J Ranch) a delicious combo of onions, garlic, ginger, and white wine to make a fantastic looking gravy and an interesting process to make crunchy rice using cooked Jasmine rice, and then drying it, and lightly frying it.  YUMMMMMM!!  We might try this this week for dinner.  I'm posting it here, so I don't have to go hunting for it later in the week when it's magically vanished from the website.  It's generally the way we cook and eat with 75% of our meal coming from local farms and farmers.  The rice and vinegars would be the other 25% in this case.

Speaking of the Food Network.  I saw a few minutes of Alton Brown making really yummy pickled everything!  It was so much easier than I had imagined and doesn't require all of that professional canning stuff.  Just two or three Mason Jars with lids and you're on your way to making the easiest and tastiest pickles you've had! 

(This is where I was going to insert a picture of my finished product, but my husband ate them all before I could. So you'll have to deal with the raw version)  We pretty much followed Alton's recipe, but would say to cut down on the sugar (for the Sweet pickles) by 1/3 and add an extra pinch or two of salt.

You can't find the dang recipe or video anywhere on FoodNetwork.com.  So here's the You Tube version for my reference (and anyone elses)

One extra note.  When pouring the mixture into the jars, I would pour it a little at a time into each of the jars.  On my first round, I poured half into the first jar, and half into my second jar.  The pickles in the second jar came out REALLY pickled.  And that pickling mixture (as Alton warns) will REALLY stain, so be careful with light countertops or clothing!!  Happy Cooking!