Tag Archives: 4th Annual Dark Days Challenge

challenge, farmer's markets, farms, locavore

The dish with no name

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I don’t know what to call my Dark Days Challenge meal #4.

I had a bunch of disparate items in my refrigerator with no foraging trips to find something to tie them all together. Saturday was Christmas and the Farmers Market was closed. So I made this:

nameless_dish

My nameless dish was constituted and sourced as follows:

  • cabbage wedges (from Sport Hill Farm), roasted with pancetta (from Rowland Farm via Butcher’s Best) and a little olive oil based on this recipe. She was absolutely right—The high-heat roasting gets rid of any cabbage funk and makes the cabbage sweet and flavorful.
  • covered with roasted beets (from Riverbank Farm) following this distantly inspired method. I usually toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper and wrap them in foil to roast them, but I liked the oil-free idea (since I already had the oil and pancetta thing going on with the cabbage). Thanks Anita—it worked out really well.
  • covered with homemade ricotta (using Stone Wall dairy raw milk), following the Cheese Queens instructions. I let mine drain a little longer than usual so I could “crumble” it on my creation. (H/T to Kaela for reminding me how simple this exquisite pleasure is to make.)
  • topped off with that pancetta.

Any ideas about what I could call this?

challenge, farms, locavore

A little local at Christmas

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Merry Christmas everyone!

Although not local, Christmas is a big food day for my family. Our food traditions go back to the “old country,” and it’s my sister’s holiday, not mine.

We begin with an antipasto of Italian cold cuts and cheeses, fresh cut vegetables and dip, a variety of olives, roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, salad, and bread.

After a little break, we have the pasta course. In Italy, this course is called Prima. This is the course that I consider “the meal” because it is absolutely my favorite food. We have ravioli with gravy. Gravy is a red sauce made with pork braciole,  sweet sausage, and meatballs. And we had bread.

Then we open presents.

Although no one has had a hunger pang for hours, we have Segunda, the main course that no one wants but you have to eat. We typically have a roast pork with roasted vegetables. This year, I asked my sister if this course could be local if I brought the ingredients and she agreed.

She’s a fabulous cook and the meal was excellent. Here’s our local segunda:

For dessert, we had my mom’s Christmas cookies, my sister’s cheese cake, ice cream, an Edible Arrangements fruit bouquet, and coffee beverages.

We couldn’t possibly eat another bite. Not even a wafer thin mint.

(This is Dark Days Challenge meal #3.)

challenge, locavore

Pork Chops and Squash

Meal #2 for the Dark Days Challenge (hosted by Laura at (Not so) Urban Hennery) is roasted pork chops with pan fried delicata squash and pea tendrils.

I seared the chops in a cast iron skillet, then transferred them to  325-degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Sources:

Eat Local Challenge, locavore, recipes, Slow Food

Slightly less quick quiche

I can’t believe it’s already time for the Dark Days Challenge and I can’t believe it’s already the 4th! Thanks Laura at (Not so) Urban Hennery for hosting this again.

My first post of the challenge is an easy quiche, based on this recipe, designed for minimal kitchen prep time. I slowed the recipe down a bit for the challenge.

Food sources:

Not bad. (Good enough for seconds.)

http://urbanhennery.com/