The Farmer's Market

This week I tried something different. Food. Maybe I can't afford a restaurant of my own, but by gum I can still sell food!

Cute little jalapeno-bacon cheeseballs for $2.50. Not only tasty, but also pretty photogenic.

Jalapeno, cilantro, bacon, pecans, cheese and spices. Yum. Best cheeseball EVER.

I had four to sell and one to cut into samples. Sold two and traded one. Everyone who tried it raved about it.

Selling 3/4 of my wares wasn't bad... but I need to up my game. My table seemed all but invisible at times and it's because I didn't have baskets and eye catching knick knacks.

I will remedy that next week. Even though I think this cheeseball is rather eye catching on its own... 

Problem is, the ones I brought to sell were in the fridge so they weren't there in people's faces to be enticing. Just the sample.

So I'll be hitting Goodwill up for baskets, I'll bring the stuff the Queen's Mum brought as well as some sort of tablecloth... maybe photos of my goods with a description and pricing to place on an easel so people can salivate over the pretty pictures... Yeah - it's ON.

Mini Dijon Bacon Pot Pies. I even made the crust myself.

The King was hoping no one wanted these but I sold two and the sample tastes I gave received rave review. The King took one home for lunch and I brought one home so he sort of got his wish.

They were an oversized individual serving for $5/each. Not a huge pot pie fan myself, but these were good. I'd eat them.

I took a parsley leaf and tried to get an imprint on the little extra piece of dough on top. Not sure it really worked but hey, they're still cute.

And inside they are scrumptious... bacon, chicken, bell pepper, cabbage... sounds a little weird but tastes really good and the sauce thickened up nicely.

I posted pictures to the Farmer's Market's Facebook page in the hopes that people see them and get hungry and it worked for at least one person. She bought the pot pies and five baggies of cookies because she saw them online.

If we can just get the word out, I think people will come. And once they taste our food I hope they'll come back. I have food. My friend has food. We offer tastes, it's like a free mini meal.

Double chocolate shortbread cookies. I love them. I only sold one baggie. Probably because they taste better than they look but I didn't have cookie samples so no one really knows.

Lemon crinkle cookies are the bestest. They spread out into squares so I took a wine glass and fixed that. After that they were practically perfect in every way. And they look rustic. Rustic sells nicely.

The cookies were in baggies for $1. Three of the chocolate per bag, and two of the lemon per bag.

All in all I brought $20 with me to make change, came home with $39.50, a bag of jalapenos, two white eggplants, two Japanese eggplants, three large potatoes and a jar of homemade marinara. I'm happy with that. It was cool but sunny and I'm sure that helped, we got a lot more traffic this week... can't believe temps will be freezing tonight, it happens quick!

And the King has a pot pie and a cheeseball for work on Monday. Plus we have some cookies. I figure if I cook stuff that we can eat later in the week, we can't lose.

I will try again next week with manicotti, mac-n-cheese or Zuppa Toscana or a chicken and broccoli casserole (decisions, decisions), and a feta dip. And the week after that, perhaps a Tex-Mex meal complete with salsa so people in my little hamlet will know what they're missing when they eat the swill that is passed off as salsa out here. Yeah... I'm thinking chicken enchiladas, mexican rice, beans, salsa AND green salsa.

It should be like that commercial where the tops of people's heads burst into purple smoke... a revelation... Mexican food doesn't suck! It is - in fact - addictively good and I want MORE!

Still waiting on everything else to fall into place, so until something happens, I will make my own luck. Who knows, maybe that's the path I'm ultimately meant to take... but really my fingers are still crossed for the easier path.