This guest post is coming to you from Melinda, at Elements In Time in Geyserville, California… who has never used WordPress before, and hopes that she can create a post even half as good as Laura’s wonderful recaps!

Well, it’s raining out here in the West, so it has been a pleasure to stay inside and check out all the lovely goodies cooked up in our bright kitchens! The featured ingredients these past two weeks: carrots, squash, beets, beans, greens, eggs (of course, considering our hostess), and a variety of meats.

In preparation for my guest post, I’ve been cooking up a storm (so to speak). Matt and I decided our meals were getting a bit boring - both to eat and to post about - so I have been perusing our cookbooks for recipes that called for fruits and vegetables we have in the garden.

Life gave me a whole lot of lemons and winter squash over the last couple of weeks. So I’ve made: Meyer Lemon Soup, Meyer Lemon Sponge Custard, Meyer Lemon Marmalade (on top of homemade biscuits), Winter Squash Souffle, Winter Squash Casserole, and Stuffed Winter Squash. I also made Roasted Garden Vegetables, Red Lentil Stew with carrots from the garden, Homemade Pizza, and lots of yummy garden salads and sauteed greens. I’ve had a lot of requests for recipes, so I posted most of those as well (you’ll find them by following the links above - the marmalade recipe is coming soon).

[Begin Shameless Plug.]

I’ve just kicked off The Growing Challenge, and I’m happy to see several of you all have joined! If you’re interested in growing your own local meals, come check it out.

[End Shameless Plug.]

Our lovely Laura at Urban Hennery has had a busy couple of weeks riding the roller coaster of house hunting. Needing to constantly keep the kitchen clean to show the house, her meals have been fairly simple. However, with just one pan and a few dishes she has still managed to cook many local meals: pasta with pesto, grilled sandwiches, salads, scrambled eggs, and meals on the grill.

Laura makes an excellent point in her post: local doesn’t have to be gourmet. Because Matt and I eat locally 7 days/week, we don’t usually have time to make gourmet meals for every meal. Often our meals are pasta with a simple sauce, salads, or even grilled cheese sandwiches! But local is local. Don’t feel guilty, Laura!

My fingers are crossed for her that she and Mike can finally settle into a new home soon!

Anita at Married …with dinner has been taking a good look at her egg sources lately. Such digging seems increasingly common in the locavore blogosphere as we want to know where our food really comes from. Well Anita does dig deep, to find she has been duped by some major package betrayals and “greenwashing.” I identify with her frustrations as I’ve done similar searches myself. Of course I hear Laura’s voice now, saying “why not raise your own hens?!” Anita, when I have my own hens, I promise to share my eggs with you!

Anita made seven local meals over the last two weeks, including Duck Burgers, Country-fried Steak, Cornish Pasties (check out the lovely photo above), One-day Cassouelet. Also, due to her fabulous forethought of summer preserving, she made Chile verde Tacos, Gravlax, Linguine Bolognese, and Fusilli Marinara. YUM.

On the menu at The Daily Grind, was Ellen’s Spinach Kabocha Squash Soup. It looks incredible. She has a quick and easy recipe for it - check it out. She also made Beet Salad, Apple Glazed Turnips, and Butternut Squash Spread. Ellen is running out of her stash of fresh veggies, but she has also done a lot of preserving in preparation for these darker days of winter. With the local produce still available and the freezer stash, she plans to have enough in her freezer to eat locally until the CSA opens up in April. Awesome.

Donna at Chocolate Crayons & More made bagels! I’m so impressed! Apparently it had its repercussions, as there were tears shed by her son when he didn’t get the last bagel. So funny. Donna also highlighted an important aspect of learning to cook local seasonal meals: failure. Many kitchens I visited today had this issue in one of their meals. Her bread apparently looked like a seal… but mistakes are often the best way to learn, aren’t they?

After a terrible time collecting her local ingredients, Donna cooked up some quick and very successful homemade pasta. Wow - only 30 minutes to make. Next she plans to experiment making pasta with different types of flour from her CSA.

I love reading Katrina’s beautiful stories about seeking local foods at Kale for Sale. And yes, sometimes even haikus. Katrina has also been looking for recipes for citrus here in Northern California. She found an amazing variety at the San Francisco Farmer’s Market, which is open year round! Calamondins, anyone?

With the house under construction, Katrina hid in the kitchen and made the best local meal ever: a mono-bowl of mashed potatoes, steamed kale (of course), sauteed delicata squash, chicken, tortillas, and winter salsa made from roasted peppers and tomatoes she’d frozen from the summer. She also made an amazing salad and local cheese plate that made my mouth water reading about it. And yummy soup, with layers of flavors and stories…. “‘It’s local,’ I said at one point. ‘Duh,’ they responded in unison.”

Cafe Mama is new to Dark Days, and though she began the challenge in the darkest days, she’s still starting out in fine form. And what an ode to the artisan Ham Sandwich she has written this week! Casting away the recent history of chemical-infused bread and artificially-injected pigs, she has happily rescued this American staple. Her first ham sandwich is made with meat from a local family farm, homemade bread, and local ginger rhubarb jam. The second is made with aged local cheese and garlic-braised greens. Ah, the importance of homemade bread and local ingredients!

Green Bean is Dreaming of comfort food for her initiation into the challenge. Using many ingredients from her garden, she had carrots with Indian cilantro chutney, homemade gluten free cornbread smothered in local honey and butter, and dinosaur kale and potatoes simmered in homemade broth. And, equally important, leftovers of said local ingredients the following day. Like Katrina, it sounds like Green Bean is quite at home at her local farmers market.

Joan at Old Dog… New Tricks has found her book of tricks: she’s been missing her Alice Waters cookbook for the last few weeks. Now she’s ready to keep on rolling with the Dark Days Challenge. She made Boeuf Bourguignon served with boiled new potatoes and 7 grain bread, and a dessert of Chocolate Pave drizzled with raspberry sauce (sounds divine!). And she saw pink and orange with her meal of salmon, sweet potatoes and squash.

Remembering a menu she’d learned at a cooking class, Joan made a lovely meal for guests that included Kale- and Chevre-stuffed Chicken, Risotto with Shitakes, leeks, and chard, Slow Roasted Beet Salad, and Peppery Gingerbread with Brandied Whipped Cream. Maybe we can all come over sometime, Joan??!

Idaho Locavore was busy (to say the least!) these past couple of weeks. Goodness, where to start?! She made a lovely Chicken Udon Soup complete with fresh homemade noodles. A great meal for her ailing sweetie. There’s a recipe full of lovely pictures!

And she made Idaho Onion Soup with elk, served with homemade bread and homemade beer. And despite the little booboo of getting distracted while reading blogs and forgetting to turn on the crockpot, it turned out very well! Again, she has a recipe full of lovely pictures!

Idaho Locavore also home brewed her own fruit wines… wow. Concord grape, plum, mead, and raspberry… wow. She’s growing her own salad (ahem, for The Growing Challenge!). And she also made Cambozola cheese (a mix between Gorgonzola and Camembert). I can’t wait to see how that looks. I guess those are future Dark Days meals, but I couldn’t resist mentioning them as they all sound so fabulous!!

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This was fun visiting all your lovely blogs. I just want to mention in conclusion how great it is that Laura has been doing this every week. I appreciate the incredible time and effort so much more, now that I have written this recap and begun to write recaps for my own challenge. It’s a lot of work. Thank you so much, Laura, for doing all that you do!