Dark Days: peas as far as the eye can see

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Blame it on my head cold or blame it on the holiday and being at home more than usual, but I managed three meals this week that qualify for the Dark Days challenge.

Two meals centered around the pound of dried black eyed peas from Margerum’s that have been hiding out in my cabinet.  One was the Black-Eyed Pea and Potato Curry I posted about a few days ago, and the other is Mushroom and Black-Eyed Pea Ragu served over polenta (lunch today).  As with the curry, the ragout was almost entirely local - the exceptions were the wine, tomato paste, and olive oil. 

I feel very lucky to be living so close to Kennett Square, the center of the universe when it comes to mushrooms.  Pretty much all year round, we never have to worry about being without mushrooms.  Sure, I sometimes wish citrus and avocadoes grew in Southeast Pennsylvania, but the mushrooms make up for it!

Today I’m just starting to feel a little better, but I don’t think I was ready to stand over a pot of polenta for half an hour.  It was totally exhausting!  I used the great toasted cornmeal sold at the Fair Food Farmstand for the polenta.  Good stuff!  I even have a little left over to serve with the ginormous amount of leftovers from the ragout.  Seriously, I could have fed an army from that recipe.

Dark Days meal #3 was dinner last night - slow-roasted leg of lamb with rosemary, garlic, and fingerling potatoes with a side of broccoli.  Again, all very locally sourced.  And economical, I might add.  I managed to get the leg of lamb at a half price sale, and it’s big enough that I have leftovers to make a lamb pot pie (which will be dinner tonight).

My sort-of New Year’s resolution for 2009 is to declutter the house…so I’ve been looking through my twelve tons of food mags and transferring the recipes I want to keep to We Gotta Eat (and then getting rid of the magazines - woohoo!).  The good news is that I’m finding all sorts of recipes that will work great for the produce that’s available around here right now.  Is there bad news?  Well, maybe - in that I may end up gaining 20 pounds due to the very awesome dessert recipes I’m also finding!