One of many bright spots in Lancaster City, Pennsylvania, is Central Market, the oldest continually operating farmers market in the United States. In the more than 42 years that Merle and I have lived downtown, hardly a week has gone by when I haven’t shopped at market. It’s where I buy 90 percent of our fresh fruit and veggies.

I usually go with a list, but I always take twice as much basket space as the list calls for. That’s because I’ve gotta have room for my spontaneous purchases—those things I know I’ll need the moment I see them, for cooking and eating this week.

On Tuesday I picked up a box of white potatoes, grown on Mrs. Thomas’ farm just 10 miles north of her market stand. I’m thinking of quiche this week with a grated potato crust, and maybe a roaster full of ham, green beans and potatoes for another evening. At market, I also stocked up on apples, pears and fresh spinach that will turn into a salad go-along with the quiche.

I have a glorious head of red cabbage in the fridge. Two-thirds of it is committed to forming the base of a red cabbage salad for our Reading Group’s supper when we’re together next Saturday. So why not use the remaining red cabbage to make what’s-sure-to-be pink coleslaw to accompany that sturdy ham/green beans/potato meal?

My surprise buy this week? A delicata squash also grown on a farm just beyond the city limits. The 8-inch long, 3-inch around, sturdy little striped squash seemed like plenty for the two of us for dinner tonight, but when I flipped over the quarter-inch-thick slices after they’d roasted for 15 minutes, I wished I’d brought home two. The scalloped edges got all caramelized, while the centers of the slices were creamy. I mixed in sliced onions, a pinch of thyme, a half-pinch of red pepper flakes, a drizzle of maple syrup and a short glug of olive oil.

My meal-planning is kind of chain-like. There was a chill in the air and green cabbage at market, so I made a smoked sausage/cabbage/apple dish with whole-grain mustard over the weekend. And since I have a good-sized link of sausage left, I imagined it chunked fine in the potato-crust quiche. I’m always drawn to meat-fruit combinations, which, I guess, explains why the autumn fruit salad will be coming to the table with the smoked-sausage, custardy quiche.

And so one meal leans into the next, partly inspired by the season, and the recipes I’m reading, and what I spot at the Central Market stands I walk by.

I seldom make hot breakfasts. Merle and I have opposite body clocks and so we’re not usually hungry at the same time in the mornings. But this week I made Pumpkin Oatmeal. Again, the weather prompted this, as well as all the pumpkin farms we passed on a long drive last Saturday. I keep steel cut oats in the cupboard, and they and the pure pumpkin, along with some maple syrup, were a happy combination. One of us ate the oatmeal hot; the other ate it cold. We were both happy and neither of us was hungry at lunch!

Phyllis Good is a New York Times bestselling author whose cookbooks have sold more than 14 million copies. Her most recent is Stock the Crock: 100 Must-Have Slow-Cooker Recipes, with 200 Variations for Every Appetite (www.stockthecrock.com ).

Photo credit: Time Inc., Books.