The October 2008 Eat Local Challenge is coming to an end and I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t have a slew of gourmet local meals to share here. I’m disappointed that I actually ate more “away” meals this month than the month before simply because that’s the way the calendar played out with social events and food prep and storage activities. I found it rather ironic that with the business of storing up for the winter, I ate cheese and apples for dinner quite a bit this month! It was a great month for apples, though.

I am still happy to be a locavore and am not imagining all the exotic foods I can return to on Saturday. In fact, I’ll be going to CT NOFA’s 2008 Organic Harvest Celebration & Annual Meeting.

Some dinner highlights since the last post included a beef short rib ragout (beef from Stuarts) with homemade fettuccine (Wild Hive whole wheat flour from local wheat. Really!)

Another dinner included a sampling of squashes I have never tried before. Here’s my current squash collection:

I cooked the Cinderella squash and a Turban squash. Since I’d never tasted either of these before, I left them plain to experience their natural flavors. I did half of each in the microwave and roasted the other halves in the oven.

The Cinderella squash had a mild chestnut like flavor. We had this with a ham steak from Ox Hollow Farm and I found that the flavor of the ham overpowered the squash. Eaten by itself, the squash had plenty of flavor of its own.

The Turban squash didn’t have much flavor at all–in fact it tasted like the outdoors (leaves, acorns, that sort of thing). I ended up stir-frying roasted cubes in the ham steak pan, deglazing the pan with apple cider (from Park Lane Cider Mill,  in New Milford, CT) and sprinkling a bit of cinnamon. Quite tasty after that.

As you can tell, we’ve quite a bit more squash to consume and I suspect we’ll get more!

Thanks to Jen for organizing this challenge!