The East:
Cheryl of At the Farmers Market is slowed down in the kitchen by her injured ankle, so Mark has been helping her out. For their first meal of the new year, they cooked a Spanish tortilla, made with Carolla potatoes (waxy work better for this), onions and eggs. Cheryl writes, “I am discovering how sweet it can be to create a meal with someone you love……as opposed to for someone you love.” I couldn’t agree more.
This week, Daftly Smitten‘s JLGB had two meals to share. The first was a beef stew made with pretty multi-colored carrots, purple potatoes and Nebraska beef from the half-steer her in-laws purchased and hand-delivered to Baltimore. (Now that’s love!) Next up was butternut squash and sage lasagna, a brave undertaking for someone who had never before made pasta from scratch. The lasagna, served with roasted brussels sprouts, was really delicious and worth the effort.
Zucchini quiche and garlic roasted green beans were the Dark Days dinner for Stacey and S of Fessenden Farmstead this week. All of the veggies (squash, beans, shallot and garlic) came from Stacey’s garden, and the milk, eggs and cheese were from a local dairy. The crust wasn’t made with their local butter, as S (a.k.a. the crust master) mixed up the crust before Stacey could give it to him.
Following a New Year’s Eve party held to drink up some of the leftover wedding champagne, Marisa of Food in Jars used the carcass of the evening’s roasted chicken, along with some chicken feet, to make chicken soup for New Year’s Day. She used up local veggies and herbs that had been in the fridge since before the holidays. Of course there was also something from a jar: homemade dilly beans to add a bit of pucker.
For Sophie at Late Bloomers Farm, New Year’s dinner was ‘recycled’ from other bloggers’ recipes. Pizza with whole wheat crust, chili enriched with cocoa powder (I always put cocoa powder in mine, too!), cornbread muffins and ice cream floats were a delicious way to bring in the New Year.
Sharing of recipe ideas with other Dark Days participants resulted in a delicious dinner for Mangochild at Living in a Local Zone. She used Annette’s recipes for roasted sweet potato and kale salad, followed by a stew of turnips, carrots, honey, lemon and spices.
When Kaela at Local Kitchen finally decided to write out a recipe for the buttermilk pancakes she and Tai have been making, the results were a pancake FAIL. While she knows that freshly-milled, whole-grain, local flours don’t behave consistently, and is accustomed to being flexible, Kaela just couldn’t get this particular batch of pancakes to cook through. The saving grace? Outrageously good blackberry maple syrup. (Yum.)
Jeanell at My Local Food Obsession combined inspiration from a Hawaiian vegan cookbook with the reality of being a New England locavore in winter to create her own roasted sweet potato squash soup recipe. And though she doesn’t often cook meat, she roasted chicken with vegetables, and made a buckwheat-thickened gravy to up the flavor.
After missing a week of the challenge, Annika from Northeast Kingdom Localvores was back with a meal of meat loaf and maple-glazed root vegetables. While Annika wasn’t happy to be repeating a main course, she was very pleased that she was able to get almost all of the ingredients for her local meal at the weekly winter farmers market.
Colleen of Penny-wise People also missed writing up a meal for the challenge last week, though there were many local foods on the dinner table on Christmas Eve. This week, they dug their grill out of the snow to make a meal of grilled local kielbasa, served with mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli.
This week, Erin of Sustainable in the City made her first meal of the year for the challenge. Cooking dinner for herself the day before her CSA basket arrived, she used what was in the fridge, and had an egg fried in bacon fat over roasted potatoes and sauteed kale and onions. Erin was pleased that, except for the salt, every bit of her dinner was local… and delicious.
Happy to be home after holiday traveling, The Connectivore’s Dilemma‘s Melissa pulled out her new pasta machine for the first time, and rolled out an entire pound of homemade spaghetti! For New Year’s Day, she tossed the spaghetti with her homegrown carrots, brussels sprouts and onions, as well as shallots and sourdough breadcrumbs from local farms.
Before leaving town for New Year’s weekend, Peg of The Palmyra Sliver and Scott made a What’s in the Kitchen Casserole. Sliced potatoes, sweet potatoes and leeks, covered in a custard of milk and eggs and topped with cheese, baked until bubbly… yum. Next time Peg might add spinach and nutmeg for a Florentine take on the dish.
Margo of Thrift at Home had a local ham that was bigger than they needed for Christmas dinner , so she made cornbread and garlicky kale to go with the leftover ham. The kale was cooked Southern style, with red pepper flakes and a pinch of sugar, and was a nice change after all the rich Christmas food.
It may be snowy outside, but Amber from Unstuffedand her awesome dude enjoyed the fruits of their summer labor: hearty vegetarian chili made with black beans and tomatoes from their garden allotment. As they enjoyed the chili by beeswax candlelight, they were dreaming of spring, and planning for next summer’s garden.
When cooking dinner last Saturday, Amy of What Did She Do Today? had to look no farther than her own yard. The main dish was one of her Creme D’Argent rabbits, which she cooked with onions and her home-pressed apple cider. Fried potatoes and cinnamon-scented squash from the garden rounded out this local meal.
The West:
Eating lots of leftovers made for a relaxing week for Ellen at 2010 CSA Challenge. Sunday night’s dinner was NOT leftovers, but Obama’s chili made with local ingredients (including summer tomatoes found hiding in the freezer), roasted CSA root veggies and her family recipe for crustless pumpkin pie.
At Arugulove, Kristen was inspired by Dark Days participant Anita’s recent post, and made the same recipe for potato leek soup. Though she didn’t follow the recipe’s instructions for using leek trimmings to wrap up a bouquet garni, but just tossed the herbs right into the pot, the soup was delicious.
Craving vegetables after all the rich holiday food, Julianne of From Dirt to Dinner went to her garden to see what she could find. Rutabagas, romanesco cauliflower, broccoli shoots, turnips and carrots all made their way into a very local stir fry with smoked jerk pork chops left over from New Year’s Day.
Sara at Prepping 4 28 writes that she had a hard week, as she didn’t make it to the farmers market for a couple of weeks, and thus used up all her local food. Still, she managed to put together a delicious challenge meal with what she had on hand: some of the same bean and squash soup that she’d made last week, served over rice with local sun-dried tomatoes. Sara plans to have a container garden again this year, and to start preserving, and she’s looking for advice as she takes the next steps to eating more locally.
After holidays filled with travel the southern California and Portland, Jen of Eat Local Challenge arrived home just in time to rush to the farmers market before it closed. The things we do for local food! She filled her market bags with local food, including the ingredients for a decadent Sunday breakfast: sausage flavored with olive, pimenton and orange, potatoes cooked in duck fat, and a grapefruit she brought home from her vacation.
*****
Possibly Related posts (newest to oldest):
