I less than three Farmer's Markets

I used to sleep till noon. That was probably because staying up till 4am was normal for me. But then I got a puppy and since we're still crate training, we have to wake up a lot earlier to let him out.

One pro that came out of all this early morning business? Farmer's Markets!

A couple of weekends ago, I was on the hunt for fresh beets. The fabulous @authoressanon tweeted about how delicious fresh beets were so I wanted to try it.

Other than staining everything it touches, beets are great and one of my favorite vegetables. Sugary sweet and so easy to cook, you can either:

(1) Per @authoressanon: peel, slice thinly, sauté them in real butter (which I hardly ever use ... we're an olive oil family) until done to your liking, and then sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Tip: to speed up the cooking, cover them, but watch them carefully so you don't overcook them! I served them with my go-to panko salmon recipe from one of my favorite cooking blogs: Simply Recipes.

(2) Another way to cook the beets came from my awesome chef friend from Google. Chef Russell is the Master of Meat. He makes the tastiest homemade bacon and is a magician with duck fat. To cook the beets, he told me to: trim the tops and bottom, but do not peel. Scrub until clean and place in foil pouches. 350 oven for about 1 hour 30 mins. I checked them at an hour. They're ready when you can easily pierce them with a knife. Using paper towels, carefully (because they're steaming hot!) rub the skin off. Cube and then serve with whatever sauce you have on hand (I had made honey mustard chicken so I just poured the extra chicken sauce over the beets - yum!). Or you can just toss with fresh herbs, salt, and pepper.

Here's today Farmer's Market bounty (courtesy of the Sunnyvale Farmer's Market):

Brown eggs, white eggs, speckled eggs, and one blue egg! 

I seriously can't stop buying heirloom tomatoes ... one of my all-time favorite ways to eat them is: poppy-seed bagel, cucumber+chive whipped cream cheese, and huge slices of tomatoes lightly sprinkled with pink salt. What's your favorite way to eat an heirloom tomato?

I'm going to whip up a Joe's scramble minus the scramble with the beautiful eggs tomorrow. Joe's scramble consists of ground beef, garlic, onions, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, your favorite spices/ herbs, and scrambled eggs - except I don't like scrambled eggs (unless Thomas Keller makes them because (A) I'd eat anything Thomas Keller makes and (B) his restaurant Ad Hoc makes them with crème fraîche). So I'm going to do it with sunny-side up eggs instead and probably add avocados, because I'm addicted to avocados. I got those at the Farmer's Market, too.