Sauteed Mushrooms with Sea Green Beans PLUS Farmer's Market Finds

My daughter goes back to Chicago this week after a beautiful six days of lunching, shopping and restyling my hair which was desperately needed.

Two little known facts about me - I hate shopping and I hate letting anyone cut my hair. Too many traumatic 'doos' in the past, I guess. Shopping is also torture, with two exceptions.

1. The Downtown Farmers Market and
2. Shopping with Lauren

Combine the two and I spend WAY too much money. Lauren is the Queen of Glam. She's REALLY good at the 'girlie' stuff (I'm not). So our Farmer's Market trip sort of ended up in a load of girlie purchases as she kept pointing out all these great bargains that I've overlooked in the past.

This is Lauren's idea of a great trip to the Farmer's Market.

This is mine! Onions, chard, pesto, honey.

I have to admit, this was a really cute bracelet at a bargain price of $10 - made by a really cute couple from Hawaii.

Aren't these great! Love the red and bone together. Fred has nicknamed them the 'poker chip' earrings. Also a $10 steal.

This beautiful bouquet came from a flower vendor. Also $10. Fabulous.

There was a little old man at the market selling his honeycomb. I didn't really need this but I kind of felt sorry for him. Any ideas of what I can do with this?

The pestos available at the market are wonderful! I am working on recipes to recreate these so you can make them at home.

We bought some crusty bread and topped with all three of these beautiful pestos for our lunch when we arrived home.

I also bought 1/2 pound of Shitake mushrooms and some NY strip for dinner. The mushroom man threw in some of these Sea Green Beans which add great flavor to salad or other veggie dishes.

I sauteed the mushrooms in a small amount of butter, about 2 Tbls, adding the sea beans. No salt needed. The sea beans do the trick. I served this with some grass fed NY strip and potatoes au gratin.

And finally, thanks to Lauren for my new 'doo'. She's finishing cosmetology school this fall and she showed enormous patience while I worried myself silly with each snip snip of the shears. I'm gonna miss my fashion coordinator and hair stylist something awful.