I had a great childhood. We lived on the outskirts of a small Wisconsin town on twenty acres of land, which bordered hundreds of acres of land owned by friends and neighbors. The closest neighbor was half a mile away and we kids would freely ride our bikes anywhere we liked. We’d build forts in the woods, climb giant boulders and sneak into the abandoned barn and swing from the rope into a giant bale of hay. I hate to sound cliche, but it really was a much simpler, carefree time.

My parents had a huge vegetable garden, too. They grew everything – broccoli, peas, corn, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers – you name it, they grew it. They even grew pickling cucumbers that my sisters and I were forced to pick {can you believe my rough childhood?!}. Then we’d take bushels full of them into town and sell them to a local store, who in turn would sell them to the other locals. The best part was that my parents would let us split the cash – not such a bad tradeoff after all!

I suppose this was as close as our little town ever got to a Farmers Market in those days. There really wasn’t a demand for it since, for the most part, everyone grew their own. I went back for a visit last month and was surprised to see a small yet bustling Farmers Market on Main Street. For a moment, I was sad, missing the days of our vegetable garden, riding bikes, climbing trees. But times have changed and Farmers Markets are a great way to get great produce – some more obscure that we’d likely never grow ourselves anyway – all the while supporting the local farmers while we go about our busy, fast-paced lives.

I take my girls to Farmers Markets every Saturday morning and Wednesday afternoon in the summertime. There is nothing like cooking with just-picked vegetables and fruits! I often go and buy whatever is looking especially good that day, then create a meal around that. I like that my kids know where their food comes from, the names of vegetables and fruits and, in some cases, the names of the farmers that grow them. We make it a learning experience every time we go – we even have games that we’ve made up. One of their favorites is this: I’ll name a fruit or vegetable and see who can find it first, and the winner gets to pick what we buy that day and we come up with a dish together. It’s a really fun way to teach them that cooking is fun and it also gets them to try things they might not otherwise.

Last week we bought some poblano peppers, fresh corn, tomatoes, zucchini, white onion and cilantro. I was still unsure what we were going to do with it all when I remembered I had a package of Simply Potatoes mashed potatoes in the fridge and some large shrimp in our freezer. I love those aha! moments when a recipe comes together in an instant! I halved the peppers, took the corn off the cob, diced the zucchini, tomato and onion then let the kids put it all together. It’s really a great recipe – easy to throw together and by roasting the shrimp alongside the stuffed peppers it saves a lot of time. Adding a high-quality convenience food (like the Simply Potatoes, in this case, and you could also use a good jarred salsa) is also a great way to speed things up while keeping the quality of the dish high. We made them a second time on the grill but switched out the peppers with portobello mushrooms – so good!!

I made this recipe a third time and used some of the stuffing to make bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers & stuffed mushrooms. Delish!!