Farmer's Market: Bale

As you all know I am a huge fan of the Mililani High School Sunday Farmer's Market.  I've been really bummed because the last two Sundays were Christmas then New Years so I had to buy my produce from Safeway, YIKES!  So I was excited to get to go again this morning and planned to hit the Bale tent so that I could make some of my favorite Vietnamese Dishes.

So we packed up the kids (who also love the market) as well as our reusable bags, grabbed some loose change and we were off!

Before.  These Fighting Eel shopper bags are the best for the market!!

The Bale tent sells a lot of different items from their bakery:  breads, pastries, pickled vegetables and sometimes even the macaroons you can get at La Tour Cafe.  Today my mission was to get their bread and vegetables for the Vietnamese sandwiches I was going to make.  The kids also got some of their favorite treats from there.

Cinnamon Balls for N and Cranberry Bread Crisps for D

I also picked up some other produce that I needed for this week.  Got lots of produce for the $20 dollars I had in my wallet.  :)  D also got her and Noah some free bananas from one of the stalls that we get our tomatoes, limes, and Japanese cucumbers from every week.  I am not a fan of apple bananas and I am not sure if they have ever eaten them but they gobbled them up right then and there!!

Aside from the produce I got at the Farmer's Market, also harvested some cilantro from our garden that my Pops grew from seeds!

So what did I make from all of this?

Here's the Vietnamese BBq Chicken.  I marinaded chicken thighs over night in equal parts of:  sugar, shoyu, and fish sauce as well as 7 cloves of garlic and some cracked pepper.  I then pan fried and once they were browned threw them in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  The chicken meat is then shredded and added to the crispy Bale Bread that I cut and toast in the oven ($2 for 3 loaves) along with the Bale pickled vegetables ($5 a container), Hoisin Sauce, Red Chili Garlic Sauce, Cilantro, Mung Bean Sprouts, and cucumbers.

We also had Shrimp Summer Rolls made with the wrapper below.  You float the wrapper in warm water to make it pliant then add your fixings.  The rice sticks below are the same noodles that you use in Pho.  I still need to figure out how to make the beef stock so I can add Pho to our list of dinners.  For the Summer rolls we make a dipping sauce made up of:  Fish Sauce, Garlic Chili Paste, Lime and Sugar that I also use as a dressing over the fixings to make a salad.  I wanted to use this sauce to do a Green Papaya salad but I couldn't find the shredded green papaya today.

Mike's Summer Roll.  He did a great job with this.  Mine never ever look like this.  I haven't perfected the wrapping.  So hard to make but sooooo good!!!!!!

This is one of our favorite meals and I make it about once a month.  It's relatively healthy and easy to make.  We always have left overs and I love to bring them for lunch at work on Mondays.  :)