Dark Days: the two week update

Sunday, March 01, 2009

The Dark Days challenge is drawing to an end - the last day is March 15.  It’s not that eating seasonally is much of a challenge anymore.  Last year when I was taking sign ups for One Local Summer, I heard a lot of that as reason why people decided not to join the challenge - it wasn’t a hard thing to do, so why bother?  Well…because it’s fun.  Because there are still an awful lot of people who think eating seasonally and locally is difficult, even in the Summer.  Because there are people who think eating seasonally/locally means boring food or plain food or expensive food.  Because I like finding out what other people are doing with their local foods.  So that’s why I personally like challenges - whether it’s the Dark Days challenge or the upcoming One Local Summer challenge.

This Dark Days update covers the last two weeks.  Believe it or not, dragon boat season has already started for me and time is at a premium.  We’re training up the new novice crew right now, and our boats should be in the water within two weeks.  It seems pretty crazy considering the meteorologists are calling for a foot of snow overnight!

My most recent meal was 100% local - a recipe from the latest issue of Eating Well, basically portobello pizzas.  Natural by Nature makes ricotta cheese from local milk, and I’ve been dying to use it for something, so this worked out really well.  The ricotta is really good - very fresh tasting…although I did feel a little guilty for not making my own.  Ricotta cheese is so easy to make!  It was also a great opportunity to use up some of the tomato sauce I canned last Summer, too.  I julienned some baby spinach from Rineer Family Farm for the filling and threw in some dried sage and pepper flakes from last year’s garden, too, and mixed in some grated raw milk cheddar from Green Meadow Farm.  The portobello mushrooms were from Mother Earth Mushrooms.

I’ve also been trying to cook a new recipe from Simply Organic, a cookbook I received for Christmas, each week.  Last week I tried the recipe for Roasted Rutabaga and Lamb Sausage.  Everything was roasted in a mix of raspberry preserves (I canned some last year) , garlic, rosemary, and red onion…but it was just a little too sweet for my tastes.  I used merguez sausage from Jamison Farm, and the onion and rosemary came from Fair Food.

Lastly, I made a roast chicken from Griggstown Farm, and served it with a mash of potatoes (Lancaster Farm Fresh) and celery root (Fair Food) and sauteed cremini mushrooms (Mother Earth).  All yummy!

Weirdly, I’ve been in the mood for salads lately - funny, since so much of the greens we got in last year’s CSA went right into the compost.  There’s something nice about seeing baby lettuce after a long Winter, I guess.  So I’ve been eating lots of salads of lettuce from The Common Market and baby spinach.