her able hands

This post is a practice run for the One Local Summer 2007 challenge. Liz at Pocket Farm is hosting the second annual challenge to eat at least one all-local meal each week for the summer, and then post about it. I wanted to participate last year, but the move and the new job made my brain all squicky and I just couldn’t get it together enough (although I ate and fed my family plenty of local foods). I’m excited about doing the challenge this year, and looking forward to tracking what I do. My own personal challenge is to prepare foods in ways I never have before.

Oh, and guess what? Today’s our one year anniversary in this house! We spent it at the old house burying our St. Joseph statue and mowing the lawn in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity, and wondering who we can call in to bale the cut grass.

Aaanyway…this is a practice post because the meal I made yesterday was mostly local (the salmon, the marinade and the asparagus were not) and also because it’s a week early. We had friends and Chris’ mom to dinner last night and in honor of opening day at the farmers’ market, I wanted to attempt as much local food as possible, without having to drive half an hour to get it (local meat and cheese means driving)

There was an amazing amount of locally and organically grown produce at the market, especially for the first day of the season, a far cry from previous years when it was all plants and bread. I scored some gorgeous Butterhead lettuce to add to my own delicious greens for a giant salad (along with Arugula, Lolla Rosa, Tom Thumb, Viroflay Spinach, Mustard, Mizuna and my Dwarf Grey Snow Peas, tossed with balsamic vinaigrette).

These peas are incredible. Too bad the plants are all turning yellow from the ground up and have stopped flowering, probably due to the onset of true summer—drought and heat.

I also picked up a few zucchini and summer squash, bunching onions and a loaf of whole wheat sunflower bread (not sure if she uses local flour, highly doubtful).

I didn’t take a photo of the peach pie from the local small bakery (also not likely local ingredients) but it was delicious.

The awesome garlic farmers were there with garlic scapes and spring garlic. They’re also my neighbors and want me to design their farm logo, and when they said they want to pay me, I jumped on that with “pay me in garlic!”

Their recipe for garlic scape pesto:

1/2 lb. scapes chopped into one inch pieces
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups grated hard cheese (they say parmesan, I used asiago)

Blend scapes and oil in blender (next time I’ll use the food processor because the blender kept jamming up and took forever to blend it all), then dump into a bowl. The recipe didn’t call for it, but I added sea salt and pepper.

Mix in the cheese by hand.

I sliced the bread, brushed with oil, grilled on both sides, then got Tyler to spread the pesto on the warm bread and top with a spoonfull of chopped cherry tomatoes (not local) and basil (mine). That was apps with beer while the fish finished grilling and the grilled asparagus and squash cooled.

We all pretty much moaned our way through dinner, and while I was swirling the last slice of bread around on my plate to pick up all the little bits, I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo after the finished pesto (which I made in the early afternoon) so you’ll just have to take my word for it…dinner was good, and about 60% local.

Technorati Tags: eat local, locavore, garlic scapes, farmers’ market, one local summer

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