Busy, busy

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Last week was busy, but I was still able to sneak in some seasonal and local eating!  Even better, the meals qualify for the One Local Summer challenge!

Last Sunday I ate up some things I bought at Clark Park market and Headhouse Square market - honey-glazed pork with swiss chard gratin and stuffed zucchini blossoms. I was particularly excited about the zucchini blossoms - not just because I don’t get to eat them too often, but because they served as a vehicle for the garlic scape pesto I recently made.  Hooray!

You know, many of the recipes I’ve seen for zucchini blossoms involve deep-frying.  On a hot, humid day, the last thing I want to eat is something deep-fried.  After looking around for ideas, I finally found a recipe for zucchini blossoms that just calls for a quick saute.  In addition to the garlic scape pesto, I stuffed the flowers with a tiny bit of homemade mozzarella before cooking them and they were really yummy little bites!

Where it all came from:
pork, Lancaster Farm Fresh - 100 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
swiss chard, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
milk, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
flour, Daisy Flour - 60 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
zucchini blossoms, Culton Organics - 86 miles
mozzarella, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy milk - 100 miles
pesto

not local: olive oil, salt and pepper

Another meal from last week involved bison burgers.  I’ve never used ground bison before, but googling for bison burger recipes assured me that no special handling was required.  The same thing went into them that goes into regular burgers: egg and a bit of bread crumbs, salt and pepper.  Served up on Wild Flour bakery’s insanely good challah rolls, they were excellent!  To accompany the burgers, I made a salad of cannellini beans, grape tomatoes, basil, and olive oil.

Where it all came from:
bison, Backyard Bison
egg, Natural Acres - 100 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
challah rolls, Wild Flour - 23 miles
cannellini beans, Margerum’s - 20 miles
grape tomatoes, Paradise Organics - 49 miles
basil, my garden - 0 miles

not local: olive oil, salt and pepper