Have Yourself a Made in Michigan Christmas!

Made in West Michigan naturally dyed wool
Made in West Michigan naturally dyed wool

As Michigan’s only all local farmers market featuring foods produced according to organic standards, our main focus has always been on gaining customer acceptance of “healthy, humane & homegrown” foods. Beginning last year we decided to add locally made arts & crafts to the market during the Christmas season.

This year, with the economy in a funk and less dollars to spend on gifts, it’s even more important to “act locally”.  Going on every Saturday from now until Christmas, our Sweetwater Holiday Market will enchant you with tons of ideas for wonderful, affordable, locally made gifts. Whether it’s beautiful blown glass oil lamps, or Swarovsky crystal jewelry, or all organic Body Care products, the HandCrafters featured at Sweetwater need your support! Why not keep the Christmas spending and spirit in our local economy this year?

Groundswell Farm Fundraiser & Drum Circle at this Saturday’s Market

Barb Pitcher & Common Unity Drumming up a Fundraiser!
Barb Pitcher & Common Unity Drumming up a Fundraiser!

Our intrepid and inspired baker Gail Smythe of Earthly Kneads wrote this in her weekly email and I’m borrowing it to re-post here:

There’s a fund raiser for the gals at Groundswell Farm this weekend. Please come by the Sweetwater Market and show your support. Barb and Amy are going to be there with their awesome drum circle and all coffee cup sales and a portion of vendor fees will be donated. I know it’s not exactly a vegetable, but we’re donating 80 loaves of bread for their CSA members next week. If you have something you’d like to contribute, please let me know and I’ll see if we can get it in their delivery.

We joined the Bobier’s CSA this year and it’s been like Christmas opening our box every week to see what vegetables are inside. We had a full Sweetwater Market dinner the other night, and I wanted to share it with you. See the bottom of this email for recipes and ideas. Everything turned out so tasty that I ate most of the leftovers before Patrick could get his hands on them! Everything made enough food to feed 6-8 people.
OUR ASIAN INSPIRED SWEETWATER MARKET DINNER
We had some asparagus from Fruitful Acres, garlic scapes and shiitake mushrooms from Dave (our Mushroom guy), baby pak choi, green onions, red & white radishes, kohlrabi, and sirlion steak from Earthscape/Full Circle Farm, and eggs from Creswick Farms. This is what we did with all of it:
CRISPY SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS
Once they were cooked, we sliced the caps and tossed them with some grilled tofu and grilled sirlion steak. For a vegetarian version, omit the steak! To grill the tofu, cube it, toss it in the leftover marinade from the shiitake mushrooms, skewer it, and cook over high heat, turning every few minutes until there are nice grill marks on each side. Yum!
Ingredients:
1 pound fresh Shiitake mushrooms caps
1/2 cup water
3 garlic scapes, minced
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup soy sauce
Whisk together all the ingredients except the mushrooms. Toss the mushrooms in the marinade and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour, turning the caps frequently. Grill on high or broil for 3 minutes per side or until the edges are brown and crispy.
SIMPLE ASIAN SLAW
2 medium/small Kohlrabi, cut in thin julienne (or coarsely shredded)
Small handful of radishes, thinly sliced
2-3 green onions, sliced thinly on the diagonal
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
Toss all the vegetables in a bowl with a small splash of tamari sauce (or soy sauce), a splash of seasoned rice wine vinegar, and a dash of toasted sesame oil. Adjust seasonings to taste. Let sit while you prepare everything else. Top with some toasted sesame seeds if desired when serving.
BOK CHOY AND ASPARAGUS FRITTATA
Found this recipe online. We substituted the garlic with a few garlic scapes, but kept the rest of the recipe the same. I cooked it in a cast-iron skillet.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/asparagus-and-bok-choy-frittata

Bon Appetit!

Welcome to Good Food News!

In our market’s 3 + years of existence one of the things we treasure the most is the many exhilarating conversations we have every market day. The vendors and customers of Sweetwater are a wonderfully diverse group and we all like to talk – about food, politics, you name it! The problem is that so many conversations go unfinished because most importantly we are a marketplace and need to conduct business. So, this blog is an attempt to have those longer conversations about our local food system and all the things that go with it.

So let’s start this first conversation off with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the Sweetwater Local Foods Market has been asked by the ROTHBURY Festivalpromoters to bring the whole market to the Festival, and we have agreed! The bad news is that we can’t be in two places at once, and have decided to close our regular market on Saturday, July 5th.

The opportunities, both in terms of advancing the cause of organic agriculture and the chance for our vendors to have an extra financial windfall in the summer were just too great to pass up. We’ve posted the Press Release for the event below. We hope many of you might be attending the festival; if so be sure to look us up!

In the meantime, please let me know what you would like to talk about here – this blog is for you too!

For good food,

Diana Jancek

Market Manager

Sweetwater Local Foods Market

PRESS RELEASE

ROTHBURY Music Festival

July 3-6th – to Feature

Local Farmers Market to Promote Green Thinking Among Music Fans.

Billed as a New American Celebration, the ROTHBURY Music Festival, to be held at Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, MI over the 4th of July weekend, will offer attendees the opportunity to taste the “healthy, humane, homegrown” food of the farmers of the Sweetwater Local Foods Market. The Sweetwater Local Foods Market in Muskegon is Michigan’s first farmers market to exclusively sell local fruits and vegetables raised using organic farming practices and meat, eggs, and cheese from humanely raised animals.

“We were thrilled to learn back in March that festival promoters were seeking an ‘organic farmers market’ for their festival,” said Sweetwater Market Manager Diana Jancek. “After our initial call they immediately offered us the opportunity to bring our market and its farmers into the festival. Their invitation highlights the fact that organic farming is becoming more accepted and the food our farmers grow is becoming more appreciated and in demand.”

Sweetwater farmers will offer festival goers a range of fresh vegetables, meat and cheese packaged as snacks, baked goods, and other locally grown items in a farmers market that will operate from 11am to 6pm each day of the festival.

“Many of our vendors have prepared unique items especially for the Festival,” said Jancek. “I think people will experience both great food and great music this weekend – all the while supporting a green, sustainable food system.”

The ROTHBURY Festival is the first in Michigan to consciously promote an ecologically intelligent approach to large music events. All eating utensils, bags, and other wrapping will be made from compostable materials like corn-based plastic. The festival is also sponsoring an Eco-ThinkTank of presentations, each day, on how to solve some of the important ecological challenges before us.