Backyard Grilling Guide | May 15, 2023

Fresh & Local:

Backyard Grilling Guide

As May settles on the Gulf South, it brings higher temps and humidity with afternoon showers to plan your errands around. We’re lucky to be able to cook and eat outdoors nearly year-round in New Orleans. For National BBQ month, we pulled together some tips to keep your cookouts tasty and safe. You can find all sorts of inspiring ingredients for your backyard meals at any of our three weekly rain or shine Crescent City Farmers Markets.

Meat vendors T&R Dairy, Sunset Oaks Farm, Black Creek Farm and our newest vendor addition White Sands Homestead have ground beef, steaks, ribs, bacon, chicken and more pasture-raised and sustainably farmed options. Find out Who’s at the Market here. Marinated veggie skewers are fast and simple to prepare, find your favorites at market: onions and zucchini, mushrooms and bell peppers; the combinations are as endless as your creativity. Have you ever tried adding a slice of strawberry to a s’more?

Even if you minimize standing water at your house, mosquitos will still likely find their way to your backyard picnic. Lavender, peppermint, marigolds, catnip, and basil plants produce scents that can mask yours and confuse mosquitoes. Pick up some plant starts from Mizell farms for a natural (and beautiful) mosquito deterrent.

Picks of the Week:

Free Community Cooking Class

Want to improve your skills in the kitchen? The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine has partnered with Market Umbrella to offer a series of hands-on cooking classes! The classes will showcase seasonal produce that can be bought at market using the Market Match program, where shoppers who use EBT at market receive a dollar-for-dollar match to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. To sign up for the Free Community Cooking Class Series, fill out this interest form.

Realcycle at the Sunday City Park Market

We love to see our Realcycle partners every Sunday at the City Park Market and we love to see all the waste you folks divert from landfills! Realcycle is a local waste solution company that provides free compost and recycling drop-offs every Sunday at market. It doesn’t matter if you come for the produce or the recycling, we’re just happy to see you. We have carts on-site to bring over your recyclables and compost. Please check that your waste meets the guidelines below to help things run smoothly, we appreciate your help to minimize our landfill use!

Acceptable recyclables: Cardboard (broken down), aluminum, and glass.
NO plastic or trash.

Acceptable compost materials: Food waste (see exceptions below), leaves, woodchips, clippings, and coffee grounds.
NO oily foods, meat, or dairy.

Parking Reminders

At Crescent City Farmers Market, we are excited to welcome visitors to our markets! We want to create a safe and seamless experience for market participants and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods! When parking at market, please pay attention to nearby street signs for parking restrictions at each market. At our Thursday Mid-City Market, this includes no parking on the uptown part of Lafitte Avenue. For our Sunday City Park Market, no parking on Marconi Drive in areas with diagonal white parking lines or on the neutral ground. Finally, at our Tuesday Uptown Market, customers may enter the Tulane parking lot from Broadway or Leake Ave. When parking at any market, please pay attention to any nearby street signs so that we all may continue to enjoy all market locations.

Vendor of the Week:

Powers Beekeepers

Meet the Powers! Terry and Dani Powers have been bringing their honey to our markets for over three years now, and have been producing honey for over seven years. Between their locations in Algiers and Belle Chasse, Louisiana, the Powers take care of a total of 150 hives from which they produce pure, raw, and unfiltered honey. Alongside their 100% natural honey, Powers Beekeepers produces comb honey, beeswax, pollen, propolis tinctures, and beeswax candles made in a variety of beautiful and unique molds. Interested in beekeeping yourself? The Powers also teach a beginners beekeeping class at Sugar Roots Farm and sell nucleus hives - a small but established colony that's perfect for kick-starting a new beehive.

A relatively new addition to Power’s product line-up, the Dani bar can now be found alongside their weekly array of honey products. Affectionately named after its inventor, the Dani bar is composed of jujubes, goji berries, raw honey as well as pecans, peanuts, and black sesame seeds. Stop by the Power’s table at any of our markets and grab yourself a delicious Dani bar.

Recipe of the Week:

Strawberry Ricotta Honey Toast

Inspired by Ms. Mary of T&R Dairy’s recipe with an added touch of bee pollen, this strawberry toast is sure to become your new favorite snack. Okay, seriously, I eat this toast every morning and most nights. It’s easy, nutritious, comes together ever-so-quickly and satiates even the most aggressive sweet-tooth (speaking from experience). Not to mention, every ingredient can be found at market!

What’s your favorite dish to make after visiting the Crescent City Farmers Market? Share your recipes with us on Instagram or Facebook and it might be featured in our weekly newsletter!