A fine way to start the Summer

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Last night I made my first official One Local Summer meal.  It was not without its drama, of course.  Let it suffice to say that I love the people who run the Fair Food Farmstand, and thank them for doing me a massive favor yesterday.  Thank you!

Anyway....my first OLS meal of the challenge is walnut and mashed potato croquettes with catsup.  The recipe is from a book given to me last year on my birthday by a good friend and her husband, the title of which is Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  I am not a vegetarian, but the book has some very excellent recipes in it and is a good source of inspiration for me when I’ve got 12 tons of corn and no inspiration!  In this case, I had some black walnut meats from Green Meadow Farm that I was dying to use, and I’m always happy to use up some of the homemade catsup I canned last season.

I haven’t eaten something called a “croquette” since I was very young and my mother foisted store bought, frozen chicken croquettes with that nasty chicken gravy on us.  I’m pleased to say that the walnut and mashed potato croquettes were a whole other animal - very light and yummy.  Not surprisingly, my husband took one bite, made a face, and declared them awful - he does that with just about half the things I make.  And in this case, he heard “croquette” and expected them to be just like those gross frozen chicken croquettes of his youth (apparently, nearly everyone of our generation knows the horror of the frozen croquette) - and was sorely disappointed that they weren’t.  As you can tell, dinnertime is often a point of contention at our household.

So how did I do on keeping it local and following the rules of One Local Summer?  Pretty well…

Walnuts, Green Meadow Farm - 50 miles
Potatoes, Green Meadow Farm - 50 miles
Butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
Cream, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
Bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 10 miles
Sage and rosemary, my garden - 0 miles
Eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
Onion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
Catsup, my garden - 0 miles

Not local: salt and pepper, oil for frying