Truthfully, despite the complete lack of blogging, our family did pretty well last summer. When we were home. Which wasn't much. This eating local thing has just become the norm for us, rather than the special challenge we took on 2 years ago. We certainly don't eat 100% local all year round, but most of our meats, cheeses, flour, eggs, potatoes and preserves continue to be, as well as the veggies and fruits I manage to freeze when they are in season (I haven't bought a single container of berries in two years, yet yet the kids eat strawberries and blueberries almost daily!). I'd say we are probably about 50% "Locavore", and about 80-90% processed food free all year round.
And so, since yesterday was the first full day of Summer, we once again started our completely local dinners. As luck would have it, our first Dalew Farms CSA delivery was Wednesday, the strawberries are now ripe and I've heard rumour that the blueberries are starting too!
Our bin contained, garlic scapes, green onions, spinach, three bunches of lettuce, strawberries, storage carrots from last year, as well as a bag of frozen butternut squash. We also picked up 2 dozen eggs, and a bucket of Mapleton's Organics vanilla ice cream. I'm pretty sure we can come up with some pretty awesome meals with these goodies!
Case in Point: Eat Local Dinner #1
BBQ pastured pork chops from Dalew Farms, with spicy raspberry glaze (kids had rhubarb BBQ sauce on theirs) and "Spring" pesto potatoes and green beans!
The "Spring" Pesto Potatoes Recipe (it's technically summer, but the traditional ingredients of a pesto aren't ready yet, so I used spring garden finds as an alternative):
- as much fresh Dalew Farms and backyard garden spinach as will fit in a food processor
- 3 Dalew Farms garlic scapes, flower bud removed and chopped in to smallish pieces
- a good hunk of Thornloe Parmesano Cheese
- salt to taste
- stream of EVOO or if I had some, Pristine Gourmet Canola Oil
Blend until smooth. Makes about 1/2 a cup.
Scrub Don Poulin (they don't have a website) potatoes and cut in to bite sized pieces. Coat bottom of cast iron pan with a couple glugs of oil, throw in potatoes and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (or Herbes Salees if you have 'em!), cover with foil and cook on med-low heat on the BBQ until cooked to your liking. Meanwhile steam green beans until just tender (green beans were frozen from last year). Toss cooked potatoes, green beans and a couple big spoonfuls of pesto in the cast iron pan. Grate some more parmesano choose over the dish and pop back in the BBQ until the cheese is melted.
The raspberry glaze is a raspberry/chipotle freezer jam I made and forgot about until recently. I have at least 4 jars of this stuff to use up, so we've been putting it on everything....Keith discovered it's really good on vanilla ice cream. The chipotles weren't local, but I'll call them a spice, and spices are legal in my project! LOL I just scooped a big spoonful on to the pork chops just as they were finishing up on the Q. It was a bit spicy for the kids, so they chose the Rhubarb BBQ sauce I canned last summer instead.
Meal was delicious! Ice cream with the above noted jam for Keith, vanilla rhubarb jam for me, straight up plain vanilla for Sydney, and we knew Cameron would get some kind of junk after T-ball so we suggested he pass on dessert. He agreed and ended up with a Tim Horton's donut from one of his team mates. Seriously. At 7:30 PM. On a school night. After T-Ball. Sigh.
Managed to pull him away before he noticed they were also handing out Koolaid Jammers. Double sigh.
Shannon A.
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