Regretfully, we will not be attending the Riverdale Park Farmers Market any longer. The good news is that our small group of regulars at RPFM can still get our crusts and kits through Home Delivery. Thank you for your support!
Beginning in November, we will attend the Olney Farmers and Artists Market on the 1st and 3rd Sundays throughout the winter and early spring. You won’t want to miss OFAM’s awesome Holiday Market on Sunday, December 2, 2018 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Hope to see you then and regularly all winter long. But, if you miss us, perhaps Home Delivery might interest you, also! We’ll travel as far north as Gaithersburg.
Since Kensington is very close to our home turf, you can find us there every Saturday, year round. We are happy to extend Home Delivery to this area as well, including Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Rockville.
Did I mention we are starting Home Delivery? 😉
Head over to our new page and order crusts and kits anytime for delivery on Wednesdays and Thursdays!
Anytime I put food on the table that was made from ingredients I got solely from the farmers market, I call it Farmers Market Food. Only from a local orchard can you get really ripe peaches, or blueberries that taste like they are supposed to taste, and apple butter like no other.
You can get pizza crusts there, too. 🙂
I got the idea for this pizza from a nutritionist who visits one of our markets and gives out samples of Farmers Market Food she makes on the spot. She used our whole wheat crust as the base with some of McCleaf Orchard’s apple butter, peaches and blueberries. That’s, basically, all there is to it. After sampling, I had to make it at home.
I had breakfast ready in about 15 minutes. That’s a snap for a weekend, and not too much time on a weekday, if you consider this would feed a few kids before they head off to school.
I washed and sliced a ripe, yet firm peach, leaving the skin on. When the oven was fully preheated to 400 degrees, I spread the apple butter on a large whole wheat crust, arranged the peaches, sprinkled on the blueberries, and placed the pizza directly on the oven rack for 10 minutes. Any longer and the blueberries would have burst open. I drizzled the pizza with honey and cinnamon before slicing, but you could skip that step if your apple butter is spiced and you don’t want to add any more sweetness.
This pizza was made in July when blueberries were still available at the farmers markets. But, I can imagine many different fruit combinations for whatever is in season. Thinly sliced apple comes to mind… maybe fresh figs, or other stone fruits. I can’t wait to try it again! In the mean time, enjoy another pic…
This past weekend marked the beginning of this venture two years ago. Nearly 5000 crusts later… ok, let’s take a moment for that to sink in… my son and I produced and sold almost 5000 crusts in two years.
So, 5000 crusts have made some great dinners that our customers like to tell us about as they stop by our farmers market stall to pick up some more. And we are happy to help make dinner happen!
We continue to grow, too. Last March, we hired a new employee who is also on the autism spectrum. This marks a major milestone and goal in many ways. As a business owner, I would like to be able to tell other business owners that they can benefit from investing time, energy, and patience in hiring and training employees with disabilities. There’s an untapped resource of capable individuals out there that are often overlooked, who would make excellent and loyal employees, if you are willing to explore the possibilities. But, first I needed to make the commitment to do it beyond working with my son.
It’s one thing to say that everyone deserves a chance to work, and it’s another thing entirely to put that into practice. We have our good and bad moments, all of us. But, my team and I come back into the kitchen each day to try again, make mistakes, say “sorry,” and say “that’s ok” to each other. We keep at it until we get it right… if not perfect, then close enough. So far, so good. I will revisit our progress in additional posts in the future.
Somehow, the never-ending winter passed and we are back to our weekly schedule at all three markets. Watch for more frequent updates here at this site about Tag Team Kitchen goings-on, as well as all things pizza.
Thanks for your support!
This pizza inspiration comes direct from a customer, who mentioned a pizza they had at a restaurant with a white bean sauce on it. Being a big fan of cannellini beans, I had to give this a try. This is not a recipe as much as a concept, the main point being to puree the beans with whatever flavors you like. With that in mind, here’s what I did:
In a skillet, I sauteed a clove of garlic for about 30 seconds in a tablespoon of olive oil. I added about a third of a cup of vegetable stock to that, and then added a can of drained and rinsed cannellini beans. I added salt, pepper, a sprinkle dried thyme, and cooked the beans for 5-10 minutes. Then I pureed this mixture in a food processor. It was a pretty thick puree, but very spreadable. Still, I added another couple of tablespoons of stock to the food processor to smooth it out a bit.
I used almost the entire amount of sauce for one 12-inch pizza and loaded it up with my favorite toppings of sauteed onions, peppers, and mushrooms.
The pizza was rich and filling, and really satisfying.
Next time – and there will be a next time – I may leave out the olive oil and just cook the garlic in the stock. I might try some greens, like kale. Beans and greens go great together… on a whole wheat crust, perhaps.
I will definitely leave off the tiny amount of cheese I felt obliged to put on out of some loyalty to cheese on a pizza. The flavor got lost in the creamy-garlicky white bean sauce.
What jumps out at me in this photo is the expression on my son Ben’s face. This is a young man who, for all other photo ops, avoids looking at the camera or the person taking the picture. But, he is clearly in his element at this moment. Taking pride in all the work that he does to get to the markets. It’s the look of a person who feels a sense of purpose, focused, and content in his accomplishments. We work in a hot kitchen during the week and then spend muggy summer weekends outdoors, and I rarely if ever hear a complaint from him.
A regular customer of ours said to me, “your business has been a great addition to the market and the community.” I can take pride in that tremendous compliment. But I am most proud of Ben for his precision and hustle in the kitchen, as well as the maturity he is developing. And, on top of that, he is always full of ideas, which I hope to add to the menu in the future. He would prefer that I not say this directly to him, so I will say it here: well done, Ben!
