born and raised: What Looks Good

In Santa Rosa we are blessed to have two Farmers Markets a week, year round, rain or shine. During the summer we have three a week. We try to go for produce and/or meat at least once a week. There is something immensely satisfying about buying from the Farmers Market rather than the supermarket. I love to walk through, look at what everyone has, then walk through again shopping, talking to farmers, asking them about each of the dozens of different kinds of tomatoes they have or how to cook the cactus they have.
My favorite thing about the Farmers Market, and my favorite way to shop there, is to go with no list and no idea of what's for dinner and to get inspired by what looks good. Yesterday there was a pile of beautiful Italian sweet peppers that immediately caught our eye and it was settled, stuffed peppers for dinner.

I mixed some fresh ricotta with spinach, differend kinds of basil from the garden, onion, garlic, and a little bit of grated cheddar we had in the icebox.
We have been waiting all winter for good tomatoes so we always have to buy them when they trickle into the Farmers Market as our tomato plants only have flowers on them.

I cut these little guys in half and drizzled them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few sprigs of thyme.

I popped it all in the oven for 45 minutes or so, I made a simple polenta on the stove top, and voila!