april's shine - day 17/30 - a Farmer's market day, ingredients for the smoothies

a farmer's market day

As it was wednesday today, we went to the farmer's (organic ) market in The Hague, a nearby town. 

When I go to the market I buy organic food for a week, as this market is a weekly happening and it allows me to buy the basic fresh things we need at a lower price than a organic supermarket would provide. Or actually, over the last two years I go to this market I realized that what I buy at the market, organic, fresh and from the producers (thus helping out the organic agriculture) is less expensive than even a usual supermarket would have it. And extremely more healthy at that.

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So I decided to write a list of what I bought today so you can, too, adapt it to your region and produce and, if you are committed to the green smoothies, make it every day without having to go to buy it more than one a week:

• 1 big green buttery lettuce;
• 300g purslane;
• 300g. spinach;
• 4 middle sized cucumbers;
• 1 fennel head;
• 1 bunch of parsley (curled this time);
• 1 kg carrots;
• 1 kg tomatoes (may or not go into the smoothies, I also love tomato salad with a bit of olive oil)
• 2 kg apples;
• 2 kg lemons;
• 2 kg oranges;
• 500 g cherry tomatoes;  (probably they would be eaten as such as they are very sweet)
• big ginger piece (that I use with peel and all)
• 2 mangoes; (around this time there are mostly the best mangoes)
• 2 mint bunches (the coriander was in very small, expensive and sad bunches so I did not buy any, but you might)

I may not use all of them in my smoothies as I usually also make some fresh juices for V. (like carrot and apple and a tiny bit of ginger is one of his - and mine - favorites), and I also make soups and cooked vegetables at times. The leafy greens more than certain will go into the smoothies. Also, when I make the smoothie I do not measure how much leafy greens I put in it but I usually know how much I have bough and eye measure it if it's a half of that quantity. And sometimes but not usual I have to supplement as we may have friends that also want to have green smoothie..:-) 

And we also buy other stuff at the farmer's market but for the purpose of this blog post I listed only the fresh produce that could end up in the smoothie - and that is usually between 25 and 40 Euro in total.