This week’s Dark Days Eat Local Challenge meal was a tribute to the unseasonably warm weather: grilled ribeye steak with sauteéd spinach, pan-fried butternut squash, and a salad with crumbled bacon and hard-cooked eggs.

Here are my sources:

• ribeye steak from Greyledge Farm
• butternut squash from Riverbank Farm
• spinach from Fort Hill Farm via New Morning Natural Foods
• red leaf lettuce from Holbrook Farm
• egg from Greyledge Farm
• bacon from Eagle Wood Farms
• oil and vinegar from the big bad world
• dried basil and thyme from my garden

What a gorgeous several days in a row! It’s been 70+ degrees and sunny. I love firing up the grill—I’ve only been grilling a short time, so I still get excited when the meals work out. I love the smell of sizzling steak in the air. It smells like summer. (I do have one neighbor that continues to light fires in her fireplace well into the 90s!).

It was so nice, I wanted to start planting, but I’m afraid the year might have at least one more freezing night in her.

And then the weather remembered what it usually is this time of year and promptly made tracks back. Today was in the 50s and raining and we’ll be back into the 40s before the week is out. Ahh, but it was nice while it lasted.

This week’s Dark Days Eat Local Challenge meal was provided nearly entirely by Wild Hive Bakery & Café: Ravioli with a Creme Fraiche sauce.

The ravioli were homemade by Wild Hive using:

• their own spelt flour
• eggs from their own chickens
• cheese from Ronny Brook
• apple from Fishkill Farms
• parsnips from Four Winds Farm
• salt and pepper from away

I tossed the cooked ravioli in some melted Ronny Brook Creme Fraiche and sprinkled on some dried parsley (from Newtown Cedar Hill Farm, dried).

This was the easiest challenge meal ever! I like slow food and I don’t mind if someone else does the slow part.

By the way, the challenge is still going strong until the end of March, with the last recap being posted in early April.

The months following the DDELC are interesting up here in the northeast. Ramps, fiddleheads, and asparagus will soon be coming up and then finally, the bounty of summer! If anyone’s interested in doing a few months of a clear-out-the-freezer-and-pantry-to-make-room-for the-new-stuff challenge, let me know.