After the long week we had, I was really feeling the need for some inspiration, so on Saturday morning Mike and I headed into the city to do a food safari. After brunch and a quick stop at Uva to pick up a good bottle of wine for our Valentine’s Day dinner, we went into the city to go to the Greenmarket at Union Square. With Mike working so close I don’t go there as often as I used to, so I was anxious to see what sort of treasures we could find at the winter market.

I was delighted to see Yuno’s Farm there on a one-off winter appearance. They weren’t selling a wide variety of things, but I was immediately drawn to these beautiful young mustard greens with their spiky green and violet leaves (which reminded me of a Disney villainess). I filled a bag and moved on, already beginning to change my plans for our meatless Monday dinner.

By the time we finished our shopping, we had a beautiful selection of root vegetables, grass-fed Angus fillets and pork sausages for later in the week, and those beautiful greens. We headed home with our bounty, ducking in to Essex Market to visit our favorite cheese goddess, and I revamped our meal plan for the week.

Since my recent experiments with roasting beets have been so well received, I decided to roast them again along with some multicolored potatoes and carrots and Silver Queen turnips from Windfall Farm. I tossed my roasted vegetables with a mustard vinaigrette and placed them on a bed of our mustard greens, then topped them off with a poached egg.

I was pleased enough with how these salads came out – they were certainly pretty to look at and the texture of the roasted vegetables and creamy egg worked well together – but I would have liked a little more flavor contrast, perhaps from a bit of sharp or tangy cheese or a punchier vinaigrette. This is definitely a dish we’ll have again.