Dark Days: Week 12 – EAST recappers meals

It is really amazing to think we are 3 months into this challenge. That also means that this challenge is soon going to be coming to an end. There are still two meal challenges coming up - the Vegetarian Meal and a Breakfast Meal. We all look forward to seeing what the participants will come up with as we get closer to those mini-challenges.

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My meal (Emily from Sincerely, Emily) this week was, yet again, very simple. Not only was it meal YUMMY, but my mom would say it is “colorful” too! Eating colors are important! Normally, I would have put these three ingredients on the plate individually, but that day I decided to turn them into a tower – Tower of Yum! This tower started with a base of sweet potatoes topped with ground beef then another topping of slightly cooked chard (it still had some nice crunch in it) and I finished off with a sprinkling of green onions.

The flavors all tied together with balsamic vinegar (my only non-local ingredient) were amazing.

I will make this “Tower of Yum” again.

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Here at Chiot’s Run things have been a bit busy these last few weeks because of sugaring season (yep we tap our maple trees and make syrup, how’s that for local sweetness?).

As a result our meals have been of the kind that can be thrown together quickly, though not in the way most people think. For us that usually means some kind of roast with root vegetables. Everything can be thrown into a big dutch oven and then into the stove it goes for the afternoon. For my recipe on how I make it visit Eat Outside the Bag, my food blog.

Another tasty treat we’ve been enjoying is sourdough pancakes and homemade savory sausage. I make the sausage myself with pork from a local farm and the pancakes are made from freshly ground local wheat soaked overnight for improved digestion. It’s the perfect way to enjoy little of that sweet maple syrup we’re getting.
Here’s the recipe for my savory breakfast sausage.

Around here busy never means quick food that comes from a box only simple nourishing food that takes moments to throw together and yet is so much better than anything you could ever buy at a store or a restaurant.

What delicious goodness are you cooking up for the Dark Days Challenge?

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Dark Days: It’s a Sweet Sweet Thing – in the EAST

Last week we were able to read (and drool over) what the WEST prepared for the sweet challenge.  You can read about their adventures last week here.

On Guard…  step aside… it is now time for the EAST to show off their creativity.

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SOUTH Region (MD, VA, NC, SC, GA) with Emily from Sincerely, Emily

Attempting to reduce the clutter in her refrigerator, Annie (MD) from AnnieRie Unplugged challenged herself to cook as many local meals as she could and if she didn’t have local, then she used items from small local businesses or organic – and she made it through the entire week with impress meals. Grilled sausages and potatoes. Omelets. Pasta and salad. Chicken noodle soup. There was also a sweet treat of local seasonal ice cream for her husband. Her official sweet treat was peanut brittle. What a nice sweet treat it looks like. Visit Annie’s blog to see her posts throughout this self-imposed challenge with her refrigerator, but also for her beautiful peanut brittle.

Susan (VA) from Backyard Grocery was up for the challenge this week. She made two versions of a sweet treat. She poached some local pears in ginger syrup and created a type of ginger poached pear parfait using apple butter and freshly whipped creams in her layers with the poached pears. The other version was beautifully presented poached pears with freshly whipped cream. Those would brighten up the day for anyone. Head over to her blog to see her method and links to her resources.

The Valentine’s Sweets week was a challenge for Jessica (SC) from Eat.Drink.Nourish. Fruit is what usually comes to mind when she thinks of anything sweet and she found just what she was looking for when she was at the market; blackberries. Locally grown, flash frozen blackberries that were so big and juicy she was amazed.  She made buttermilk cornmeal biscuits, filled with blackberries, walnuts, goat cheese and honey.  I can hardly finish typing that description without drooling. Visit her blog to see her local sources and read her recipe.

Victoria (MD) from The Soffritto made some nice looking cornmeal cookies for this sweet treat challenge. She used local cornmeal and flour (and other local ingredients) to make this treat. Using a cookie cutter, some of them were shaped like dinosaurs (special for her little kitchen helpers 4^th birthday) and some where shaped like hearts especially for this challenge. Stop by her blog to read more and check out her local resource on the right side of her blog.

Rebecca (VA) at Eating Floyd made a beautiful fountainbleu cheese topped with homemade whole raspberry preserves. Rebecca has made this dessert for many years because it the perfect way to showcase in season fruits. There is some time involved, you need to start this dessert a minimum of 24 hours in advance. Starting 48 hours in advance is even better and I can see why. Even with the time involved, there is very little effort and very few ingredients.  (Don’t tell anyone that though) Visit her blog to see her tried and true recipe.

Jes (VA) from Eating Appalachia made a strawberry chocolate raw cheesecake. The other 2 challenge she is up against is gluten-free right now and she has been under the weather, so finding local ingredients in general, let alone when you are sick, is a challenge. Finding the local strawberries was a sweet treat in itself and she kept everything else sustainable, fair-trade and organic. This was her first attempt at preparing anything raw also so visit her blog for more information about her cheesecake and the recipe. It was a success!

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Ohio Valley
leader: Susy Morris from Chiot’s Run

For my own Dark Days Sweet I made some hand pies for Mr Chiots. I used soft white wheat from a local farm that I ground and sifted the bran out of. I filled them with some caramelized apple marmalade with thyme that I made last summer. Since Mr Chiots is a huge fan of apple pie he LOVED them.

Everyone else had some tasty looking sweets they whipped up the DD Sweet Challenge, though our numbers are dwindling down to a few hardy folks. I’m guessing a lot of folks didn’t realize how Challenging Dark Days were going to be.

Jenelle from Delicious Potager made Hillbilly Blondies since they contained black walnuts and bourbon (luckily it’s within range for her DD meals). For her other DD meals Jenelle whipped up Italian Sausage with red onion gravy and a side of potatoes. She came in with breakfast and dinner as well on another Dark Day with tomato gravy, which she declares as something we should wait no longer in making if we haven’t already. She also made Fettucini Alfredo, something I must add to my menu as it’s been way too long since I’ve had a serving of this on my plate!

Gabe from life, from the ground up. made Honey Shortbread (one of my favorite sweets since it’s not so sweet). You can’t go wrong with such a simple recipe, only 3 ingredients needed all of which should be fairly easy to source locally. For his other DD meal Gabe made Mushroom and Goat Cheese bread pudding, being a bread pudding fan I found myself wanting to make up a batch of this myself. Braised Short Ribs with root vegetables were also on Gabe’s DD menu this past month, something that is just perfect on a dark cold winter day. It seems our bodies really crave earthy root vegetables, fatty meat and long slow cooking.

Margo from Thrift at Home made a cherry pie for her sweet but didn’t get it posted in time. So her DD meals were Leg of Lamb (can we all say MMMMMM to that one?) served with spinach and mint jelly. For her second meal she used a meaty lamb bone and some dried beans. Add a salad and some flat bread on the side and you’ve got yourself quite a delicious meal. Looks like her kids enjoyed it as well!

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LOWER NEW ENGLAND/MID-ADLANTIC (NY, CT, DC, NJ and Eastern Canada)
with The Other Emily, from Tanglewood Farms

Well, the pickins were super thin this week in my region, but that’s just fine by me because Karen from Prospect: The Pantry made up for it by posting some gorgeous sweets on her blog that I just can’t get over! Her first post was a Pumpkin Flan that I can’t wait to try (I still have two winter pumpkins in my pantry, too!)

Her second sweet was just a gorgeous as it sounds: Lemon Verbena Sorbet, Cranberry Sorbet and maple candied cranberries. Mmm! I wish our house were warm enough to justify making frozen treats to eat (alas, it is currently 48º in my living room – we were late lighting the wood stove today!) She has recipes for each of her sweets on her blog, so definitely check them out; The photos here link to the individual posts so you can find the recipes easily.

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Dark Days: Valentine’s Sweets from the EAST recappers

We are onto our second challenge within the Dark Days Challenge. Valentine’s Day Sweets.  The objective is to try to use ingredients as local as possible to make some sweet treats leading up to Valentine’s Day.

Be sure to check out the companion post today to see what the WEST participants came up with for this challenge.

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Sweet… right! Well, sweets are just not high up on my list of things to make. With that said, I (Sincerely, Emily) am well aware that sweets do not have to be of the sugary, ooey-gooey type. For some people, that means stepping back and thinking outside the box because there are ways to make sweets that aren’t in the form of cakes and cookies, pies and pudding.

So, what do I do when I am challenged to make something sweet? Even if I did decided on a sweet treat, I would be challenged again. Flour – nope, haven’t found it locally yet. Sugar – nope, haven’t found it locally yet. Organic; no problem. Local is my problem (or maybe I should say “issue”)

The big reveal (I say as I pull the sheet off my masterpiece) taaaa daaa…. Candied Sweet Potatoes! Sweet – Yes! Local… YES!

I was quite pleased to be able to come up with something sweet using local ingredients. I should have served this for dessert.

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Sweets are kind of my “thing”  here at Tanglewood. I have set out to start a small bakery, selling from markets for now, specializing in dainty sweets made from whole, SOLE ingredients. The thought is that if folks realize they can be satisfied by a tiny bite of something incredibly high quality, maybe I can get it across to a couple of customers that it’s not the quantity that counts at all! (This is, of course, a secret agenda of mine… shhhh)

Usually my goal is to find ingredients that meet at least one of the SOLE guidelines (Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical) but for this challenge I tried, HARD, to go total SOLE for all ingredients except those I can never get (Damn you, salt) (and damn you cinnamon, too).

What did I end up with?

Heart-shaped miniature apple maple hand pies!

Usually when I make my recipe for butter crust (Pâte Brisée) I use a equal mixture of my very special flour (a hard red wheat) and a locally grown, but conventionally farmed and milled soft red wheat flour. The reason behind this is that the hard red wheat is very high in protein and gluten, but not terribly high in starch. The lack of starch in the hard red wheat means it has a hard time holding things together, and the texture can be a little chewy, or bready.

Still, for this recipe I decided to go all out on the crust and I used only my SOLE hard red wheat flour, which meant it was wonderful and flaky (due to the loads of butter I use) but kind of crumbly too. It would’ve been fine as a regular pie, but using it in a hand pie was sort of tedious as it felt like your pie was going to fall into pieces any second. Ah well. The butter is from our local dairy and the crust was sweetened just a tad with honey.

The  interior of my hand pies was really easy. I simply peeled and sliced some Winesap apple seconds that I picked up at the market a few weeks ago (they keep forever) and soaked them in the last of our maple syrup from 2011. I then tossed that in a Tablespoon of flour mixed with a bit of cinnamon. I know, I know… cinnamon doesn’t grow here, but I did buy it from a local itty bitty spice merchant, and I only used a little bit! Please don’t turn me in to the SOLE police!

I wonder what folks could come up with as alternatives to cinnamon. I had thought maybe ground sumac, as we have lots of that here, but experimenting with that is for another day I think.

I also admit that for the hand pies that I made for market I dusted organic, fair trade large-grain turbinado sugar on top to sweeten the crust just a bit beyond the honey I had used. It wasn’t local, but I did buy it from our local market which is run by a small family and specializes in healthful, organic foods… so that counts for something, right?

When I pulled them out of the oven they were simply steaming (yes, my house is that cold. Come to think of it, I think that was the morning you could see my breath in the kitchen.) This was early in the week when we still had a scattering of snow on the ground. Now it’s almost as warm outside as it was that morning inside!

I enjoyed one of these for breakfast and then packed the rest of them up for market where they sold out within the first few hours, despite their crumbliness! I had lots of people comment on them, too.

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Dark Days Challenge Week 7 WEST recappers Sunday photos

It’s supposed to be winter here in the States, but it seems that Ma Nature is a bit confused as of late. While some of us are getting snow, others are flooding and getting sunburns. Stews, soups, and one-pot meals go right along with winter weather – when it happens properly! Here’s what our “Western” Not Dabblers have been busy preparing for our first Challenge challenge.

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Even though the weather continues mild, I’ve been enjoying doing those wintertime stick-to-your-ribs one pot meals (Okay, 4 pots, a jar and two bags). Soup, chili, lasagna, casserole. You can see from the lasagna link that I didn’t do quite as well two years ago at making it through the Dark Days from preserved foods, but this year I’ve managed, with a little help from my year-round CSA, to stay local, even with the vegetables, and at that I’ve only needed to resort to spinach, chard, and frozen peas. I made a wonderful vegetable soup in homemade chicken broth (recipe: see what you have, throw it in a pot. Simmer until yummy. I did manage to stick to just one pot for this one.) Ate it while watching the State of the Union, and I thought it appropriate that the First Lady just happened to flash on the screen as I shot this!

Meanwhile, The USDA has now officially declared Chicago to be Zone 6A– that’s a movement of four half-zones since I started gardening in the early 90s. But there’s no such thing as climate change. Or something. Just ask a gardener.

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I write this post on one of those unusually sunny Winter days in the Willamette valley. I cooked my ‘challenge’ dish on a cold and sultry day, however so i made one of those slow cooked, bubbly, warm dishes: chilly! I usually make one pot/pan meals, though the kitchen still looks like a tornado went through it when i’m done. Not sure why that happens…. Oh right, i’m a terrible house keeper and tend to be lazy AND messy. Dang. This week i got some tasty local ingredients to play with and even got out my new-to-me cast iron to make a new chicken recipe. The goat chilly/stew turned out awesome and featured local (10 minutes up the road) goat meat, homegrown/preserved tomatoes and local dried chillies (plus regular grocery store onions, dried beans and salt/seasoning). Pocket had a no-bowl meal of the same goat meat, gnawing on two neck bones for 3 days, tapping into her carnal predator and nourishing her whole body from gut to silky-soft fur.

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Here at Unearthing this Life we’ve been using up the remnants of a couple of duck that we prepared. I like to try to eat nose to tail, but can’t always get over the taste of organ meat. So when I was faced with two duck liver I thought using them in a beef stew would be a wonderful way to disguise their potential iron-y flavor.

I used up the last of the garlic I’d brought up with me from Tennessee and sautéed them with some other traditional stew veggies: carrots, potatoes, and a few leeks I’d stashed at the end of the Farmers Market in fall. The only thing that wasn’t local was the organic celery and the salt.  I got both the beef and duck from the butcher down the road who purchases all of his meat from regional farmers. Toward the end of “stewing” I added the chopped liver, hoping it would stay tender and wouldn’t fall apart. Okay, so it didn’t help the liver from tasting like iron, but it was tender.

The broth was great, the vegetables cooked perfectly, and the beef was wonderful. I think we all decided the stew was fabulous … once we each took the liver out of our bowls.

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Don’t forget to check out the One-pot meals from our Eastern participants. If you’re joining us for the Valentine’s Day sweets challenge, be sure to check out the dates for your entries!

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Dark Days Challenge Week 9: One Pot Meals – EAST

Our first challenge with the Dark Days Challenge. Soup and One Pot Meals.  We had a look last week to see what the WEST came up with for this challenge. This week the EAST gets to show off their stuff. I see a lot of very creative One Pot meals out there. Enjoy!

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The SOUTH Region (MD, VA, NC, SC, GA) with Emily from Sincerely, Emily

Annie (MD) from AnnieRie Unplugged found herself with many eggs in the refrigerator and a one-pot meal challenge. She met this challenge head on with a beautiful frittata using all local and organic ingredients. Her frittata is loaded with onion, collard and beet greens. She also added baby swiss and topped off the whole thing with hydroponic tomatoes. She also used a unique ingredient to add a little bacon flavor – Bacon Jam! That sounds super interesting. Head over to her blog to find out about bacon jam and read more about her meal.

Susan (VA) from Backyard Grocery found herself uninspired for the one-pot meal challenge. She really wanted to challenge herself with something other than soup.  Between fighting a back that was in spasm and trying to figure out what to make she was about to just give up. Then it snowed! Suddenly she found herself in the mood for stew! Using venison along with other ingredients, including a walk out back into their “backyard grocery”  for turnips she came up with a beautiful stew. Susan also prepared a 2^nd DDC meal this week - stuffed venison with mashed turnips. It looks delicious! Visit her blog for great photo spread and recipe for both of her meals!

Rebecca (VA) from Eating Floyd had already planned a mid-winter party and soup was on the menu, so it fit in perfectly with this challenge. While the rest of us were cooking up a soup or one-pot dish, Rebecca made 4 soups (count them…4) plus relish trays, pickles & relishes, condiments and other tasty treats for the party and I was very impressed at the LARGE percentage of local ingredient used! Tuscan White Bean and Kale Soup, Easy Cassoulet, Spiced Butternut-Pumpkin Soup, Chicken Noodle Soup. This is truly inspiring. Head over to her blog to see all the recipes and locally source ingredients. This is truly an impressive post.

With winter-like weather finally making its way to the DC area, Victoria (MD) from The Soffritto figured that her favorite way to warm up was perfect for this one-pot meal challenge. Italians call it pappa al pomodoro, but she calls it Heaven on a Spoon. Tomato Bread Soup. She worked hard this past summer to preserve many things and time to use some of those wonderful things; canned tomatoes, frozen pesto cubs and frozen chicken stock. Now there is room in the freezer (prime real estate she calls it) for some of the soup she just made. Click on the link to see her recipe and information.

Jessica (SC) from Eat.Drink.Nourish. made Pigs in a Blanket for her one-pot challenge. Don’t let the name fool you, this is not what you are thinking. This is the first time she has made this recipe in her own kitchen. She used a recipe of polish/Slovakian decent that has been passed down in her family through more generations that she can count. Now that is history. She visited a farmer’s market that she had never been to before and brought home some nice stuff. Go to her blog to read the details and find out where her ingredients came from.

Jackie (NC) From Southern Fried Goodness challenged herself within this one-pot challenge. She said, “No shopping for ingredients” and she made a successful meal. A wonderful chicken and cabbage stew.  Her stew looks both feeling and tasty. She really came through using things from her pantry and refrigerator. Everyone went back for second helpings, including the friends they had over for dinner. Head over to her blog for her 100% made up receipt.

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Ohio Valley
leader: Susy Morris from Chiot’s Run

Here in the Ohio Valley winter has finally arrived, we’ve had snow, freezing rain, temperatures down in the single digits – perfect for a one pot meal.

Margo from Thrift at Home wasn’t super excited about the one pot meal challenge because she likes a little more color and variety in her meals. Nevertheless she managed to make something called Bounty Rice in a big cast iron dutch oven. It seems like the perfect winter meal chocked full of things like: organic cabbage, bell peppers, home-canned tomatoes, organic garlic, ground beef, homemade yogurt, organic raw milk cheese, organic beets, organic cucumber dills, sour cherries, organic ww pastry flour, milk, organic eggs.

For her second DD meal she went vegetarian (which may or may not be one of our future challenges). With Vegetarian Crab Cakes make from zucchini from the freezer and a host of other healthy ingredients. Add a salad and baked sweet corn on the side and you’re got yourself a great Dark Days meal!

Cristina from C & J Homemade missed a few weeks because she realized the Dark Days Challenge was a little harder than she expected. That’s OK though, she back strong this week with Cabbage, Chicken and Bacon Saute – she had me at bacon. I can only imagine how wonderful this tasted, I love cabbage, I love bacon and I love them together! She certainly came back to the DD challenge with a bang!

Jenelle from Delicious Potager (don’t you love that blog name?) made Asian Fusion for week 7 of the challenge. I must admit, a good stir-fry makes my stomach happy and hers looked fantastic, especially since it was made with venison.

For her second DD meal she almost ate it before remember to take a photo – now that’s some good Roasted Chicken with Shallots. Roasted chicken is probably one of the best Dark Days meal, you should be able to find local chicken easily in any part of the country. Side it with whatever vegetables you have at the moment whether fresh from the garden or from the freezer and you’re ready to eat. For Jenelle, this simple meal brought back lots of good memories – funny how food and flavors can do that.

For her one pot meal, Jenelle came in with Borscht made with venison stock. She’s getting so SOLE that she’s roasting up venison bones for stock. There’s something so beautiful about the ruby color of the borscht, something I’m definitely going to have to make soon, despite a funny childhood memory about it.

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LOWER NEW ENGLAND/MID-ADLANTIC (NY, CT, DC, NJ and Eastern Canada)
with The Other Emily, from Tanglewood Farms

This is the first week I have been so inspired to try a bunch of the recipes and meals posted by our Dark Days Dabblers! Whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner, elegant or simple, I know that as soon as I finish recapping our participants I’m going to be adding to my grocery/market list!

Angela (DC) from Bumblelush used the One Pot Meal as a chance to practice her lamb skills for Easter. She made a beautiful Crown Roast of Lamb with Root Vegetables, and I can’t believe how simple such an elegant meal sounds to make! After reading her post I feel prepared to try some of the more difficult cuts of meat, especially this one!

Because I have a lot of Appalachian roots, and I enjoy a challenge, I couldn’t help but want to follow Stacey (NY) from Fessenden Farm‘s lead. She posted a great recap of her experience with some particularly fussy grits. Despite the grits’ finicky directions that she was able to dig up on the farm’s website, she was able to complete them and they paired nicely with the rest of her breakfast meal.

Karen (NJ) from Prospect: The Pantry found a fantastic way to use the One Pot Challenge to her advantage in planning future meals throughout the week. She made a beautiful Sunday Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables and Cider, and from this one meal she was able to keep leftovers for other meals, including making stock from the chicken bones. I love the thrifty inspiration behind this, and as always her photos have made me seriously hungry!

I’ve been meaning to delve into frittatas, and Monica (NJ) over at Monica Tries to Cook has reminded me that I need to do so! Her frittata this week was full of swiss chard and smoked gouda (who can go wrong with smoked gouda?) and apart from the usual salt, pepper, and olive oil, everything she used was local!

Arlene (Eastern Canada) from Living my Dreamlife on the Farm has gotten off to a great start with the Dark Days Challenge. Her One Pot Meal was a delicious sounding Lamb Soup in broth. Her blog has a very detailed recipe that I think would cure anyone with the chilly winter blues.

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Dark Days Challenge Week 8 EAST Recapper Meals:Soup/One-Pot Meal Challenge

As the weeks go on in the Dark Days Challenge, we are all going to be challenging ourselves. This week is the first  or a series of challenges; Soup or One-Pot Meal. Be sure to read the companion post today where the WEST Group is doing a detailed recap for the first week in this challenge. I am excited to see what creative dishes the participants have prepared.

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I  (Emily S) have been fighting a nasty cold so I decided to go with a soup this week (actually a few soups.)  I used some frozen pumpkin and I still had some butternut squash that I had picked up at Boggy Creek Farm to use and I figured that would go well with the frozen pumpkin. I roasted up the butternut squash and some homegrown garlic and added it to the thawed pumpkin. I added coconut cream concentrate from Tropical Traditions, some homemade yogurt and milk. I topped each bowl of soup off with caramelized onions from the freezer. I love caramelized onions, heck I love onions. I love the flavor they add and the health benefits from them. Not being able to taste much of anything, I could taste the garlic and the coconut in the soup and it was very comforting.

The challenge for me this week was being too sick to put a lot of effort into meals. While the frozen pumpkin I used wasn’t local, it was from my parents garden and it was local to me when I was visiting them (I’m sure that counts for something). Basically I used what I had in the house. I also made a wonderful healing chicken soup and added loads of immune boosting dark leafy greens from the garden, ginger, turmeric and peppers. Everything was organic, and most of it was local. Both of these soups are what I needed this past week. I am feeling a lot better. Another soup is already in the refrigerator and it is full of more greens. I am going to make sure that I am completely over this nasty bug! Hand me another cup of garlic tea please!

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Here at Chiot’s Run it’s been a busy few weeks. With the launch of my new cooking/food blog Eat Outside the Bag and the possibility of a move in my future our lives have been full throttle trying to get things done. Food never gets put on the back burner no matter how busy we are. My main strategy for keeping our plates filled with nourishing goodness by cooking up bigs pots of one dish meals and lots of soup. This challenge within a challenge was perfect for me! For my one-pot soup meal it simple was the theme. I had a ham bone that I simmered in a pot for a few days, then I removed the bone, returned all the meat back to the pan and added cubed homegrown potatoes from the basement. Then I ran out to the garden to harvest some frosty leeks and kale, into the pot they went along with some homegrown dried sage and a good dose of salt & pepper. About a half hour later we were enjoying steaming bowls of soup on a single digit Ohio winter evening!

My other go-to quick meal is eggs. We enjoy eggs often when we’re busy. Earlier this week we got home late after a long day of work and running errands and I needed something quick. Fried bacon, eggs, atop a bed of local arugula and other bitter winter greens made for a super quick healthy meal. To read more about this recipe and the ingredients head over and read My Plate: January 16, 2012.

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This week’s one-pot Dark Days meal started with a craving. I woke one morning and thought “I must have curry”… Of course, curry isn’t grown particularly  locally, but I made due. I had quite a few organic varieties of curry in my pantry, as well as a can of organic coconut milk, so I figured I’d bend a couple of Dark Days Rules and use them in a quick curried root vegetable stew.

I was lucky enough that I had picked up some parsnips and a beautiful mix of orange and purple carrots from Tantre Farm in Ann Arbor the week before, and even luckier still that I had a couple remaining winesap apples in the closet, just past their peak. This was a super easy meal. Holy Cow.

I finely chopped a few cloves of garlic and sautéed them in the bottom of a large stewpot. I then chopped the carrots, parsnips and apples and tossed them in a pot, along with the can of coconut milk and two hefty tablespoons of curry.

Beyond that? I let it sit. When the root veggies were softened to my liking, I added some sea salt to taste (also not local, wah wah) and dinner was ready! This was almost shamefully simple, guys, but what’s not to love about something simple AND tasty? My only complaint is that I didn’t have anything to brighten up the taste much. It was very muted and perfect for a cold winter evening, but it was lacking the *KA-POW* that some chilis or a kaffir lime leaf would’ve offered. Ah well!

What’s even better about this stew is that all of the left over tidbits like apple cores, parsnip butts and carrot snibbles make excellently tasty treats for the sheep! Everybody was happy, and they enjoyed their Dark Days meal as well.

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Dark Days Challenge WEEK 8: One Pot Meals

It’s the first of our Challenge in a Challenge weeks! This week and next we (mostly) learned about one-pot meals. Soups, stews, cassoulet, and casseroles! One pot meals may or may not be created in only one pot, but they seem to all be warm and comforting, perfect for this time of year.

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MNLocavore has a very important post to read, all thoughts of actual recipes aside. She brings up the theme that comes up again and again–local food is still an urban, and largely middle class, phenomenon. Even highly motivated, educated rural, small town, and suburban eaters will struggle with this. Even farm families will struggle with this. The larger food system simply does not support locally sourced food, and the barriers to small merchants providing this sort of food are enormous. Read it. Then think about what you can do to help make a change.  Her one-pot post (pea soup) is here as well, and again, well worth the read.

Sanborn Sanctuary, which actually does appear to be a farm that has managed to meet our criteria made a scrumptious looking “overcooked ham” and some split pea soup. I’d love to hear more about local food issues among farms in their area! The internet-wide conspiracy to get me to make noodles is afoot, with Rubus Raspberry (note the new URL and the stylish new look!) making chicken alfredo with, yes, homemade pasta. Our Happy Acres made a one pot meal (chili) and some sweet potato gnocchi, which look amazing. (Also– is it my imagination, or did you grind your own flour?).

Lotta folks missing in action! As soon as you dig out, send us some recipes!

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This week’s ‘one pot meal’ challenge didn’t stop Methylgrace from using just about every pot in her house, it seems! I love how she turns a simple soup into a day long affair with an arsenal of pots, pans, cookie sheets, cooking methods and culinary magic. I’m also jealous that she had chicken feet in her stock. Some might cringe at the idea of boiling up chicken feet for consumption, but they have some of the most concentrated gelatin and tons of other healthful properties.  Farming mom made one of my favorite one pot meals: fritatta. She used her yard eggs and a bunch of other delicious homegrown and/or locally sourced ingredients. Her hubs may have coined the meal ‘egg pizza’ but she and i know fritatta is much better for you than most any pizza could be. She baked her fritatta in a cast iron pan and made a ‘crust’ of sorts of potatoes: a technique i usually use too! I just got some cast iron for Christmas, so i’ll try my next ‘egg pizza’ in cast iron! Bee Creative had a nice wander in some enchanting snow and supped on some tasty garden-soup for lunch. Snow definitely makes soup taste that much better!

        

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Not From a Box’s Teresa is detoxing for the next couple weeks so her entry in the challenge is a very austere beet and roasted garlic soup from Whole Living. It sounds so good and I have all the ingredients on hand, I’m making this as I type!

Julie from D.I. Wine and Dine made something I could also relish–a vegan curried vegetable pot pie–yum! She loves the ability to pan fry or bake in her cast iron skillet and decided for the challenge to do both. Most of her ingredients were local, except of course the coconut milk that makes the dish vegan. She wonders–does anyone know if coconut milk or dairy has more of an environmental impact?

Over at Stoney Acres, Rick has been exploring potato recipes, with a Baked Potato Soup and Baked Potatoes Stromboli, for which he graciously shares the family dough recipe. He says in general they are having trouble sourcing local pasta and meat. But for this meal was able to use 100% local ingredients. These sound like satisfying meals for winter days!

Toni from Itsjusttoni’s decided to make a family favorite—Potatoes and Cheese—using many homegrown SOLE ingredients instead of a box mix they have used in the past. She’s amazed at the selection of local cheeses she can find in Mexico, which sound mouth-watering. You know the resulting dish was a triumph when someone asks “is there leftovers?”

Lynda over at Cortina Creek Farms made a wonderful Chicken and Failed Dumplings A’ La Lynda Lou out of an “ornery old bastard that wouldn’t quit bothering the hens.” Although I’m a vegetarian, I (Sage) may be sending Lynda a couple of my roosters to re-educate! And in my opinion having too many dumplings is not a failure Lynda!

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Jennifer here, bringing lots of news from the “Midwest” group. I’ve got a few one-potters to share that sound super nourishing, and some meals that just look darn good. This week I’m starting with Dog Hill Kitchen who ladled a gorgeous bowl of Sausage and Greens Soup. She even included her homemade apple and anise sausage! If you have the chance, you should check out her walk-through of making sausages. Small Wonder Farm keeps on impressing me that she can pull off so many local meals considering the number of allergies she has to work around. Her one-dish meal was a beef pot roast with carrots, potatoes, and garlic (mmm, garlic!), and served with peaches straight of the canning jar. Not to be outdone, the previous day she served up another local meal with one of my favorite dishes: German Potato Salad. If any of you are familiar with Shapiro’s Deli in Indianapolis and the recipe they use, head over to Small Wonder Farm and give her some advice. 20-Something Allergies also has a lot to contend with but she still manages to pull it off with a well-rounded meal. Roasted chicken was prepared to optimal crispy skin deliciousness. But it gets better: brussel sprouts, green beans, and potatoes each prepared with duck fat were served as sides.

The Local Cook has been working on a Back to Basics series on her blog, but she still has time to cook up a really great looking dish. Lamb steaks were plated with collards cooked in garlic and served with a baked potato and herbed butter. She makes a good point about cooking locally, “start where you are” and use what local ingredients you have access to. Lastly is Mother’s Kitchen – serving up her week 7 meal. Not only did Cynthia get my attention with her lemon-y whitefish, but she served it with pickled brussel sprouts (say what?!) and Potatoes Anna. Now I know my goal for this week: to find local fish!

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Next week the “East” Contributors will be sharing the results of their One-Dish Meal. To stay current with other challenges be sure to visit the Dark Days tab at the top of the blog.

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Dark Days Challenge Recap: Week 7 (EAST Group)

Winter is slowly, but surely, arriving in more states as the weeks of winter go by in this challenge. Some participants are combing their shelves and freezers for the preserved bounties of long past summer crops hoping for a glimmer of sunshine to add to their meals while others are still able to go to farmers markets that have stands overflowing with fresh winter produce.

Be sure to check out the companion post to see what the leaders of the WEST Groups are cooking up this week for their meals.

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UPPER New England with Ryan from Phoenix Hill Farm

Barbara from the Crowing Hen week has been full of observations about her animals response to the cold weather and frozen ground. Seems like everyone is doing well, the goats can prance on the hard surface and her pullets have started laying tiny eggs! This week she made a made a Spanish omelette using the tiny eggs from her own flock and other local ingredients.

Anne-Marie from the green(ish) monkeys made Pumpkin waffles with bacon and apples. Her multiple CSA shares provide her family with ample opportunities to bring local and sustainable foods to the table like flour and pumpkins. Rachel from Great Faith in A Seed avoided food waste, used up some leftovers, and invented a great dish she calls Tzaitziki Eggs – scrambled eggs with onion and feta, topped with homemade tzaitziki sauce.

Lindsay from the 100 Mile Locavores made a Dutch Honey Cake with local rye flour, honey, milk and spices. She really likes to make this cake as a portable breakfast or quick snack.  As temperatures dropped in New England, Emily from The Finicky Farmer warmed up with a bowl of potato-leek soup, which was garnished with local cheddar cheese and dried thyme.

I agree with Brynne from You Got Me Cookin’ and her sentiment that it is impossible to resist mashed potatoes and cheddar stuffed inside sour cream cheese dough stuffed with caramelized onions. I’m not sure who would disagree with that!

Stephanie from This Little Monkey Went to the Market  gave me yet another reason to raise my own duck for meat this year. Her duck ragu using the leftovers from the duck they had the week before, and cheddar beer soup using a local, organic Quebec beer had my mouth watering and excited to have duck to use in the future. Lella from 31 and holding is a big fan of her crock pot and was thankful for being able to make her meal using canned tomatoes from summer bounties and locally made bread.

In their sixth week of the Dark Days Challenge, Lindsay and Erik from eatlocal365 learned to appreciate curly kale. They are big fans of the lacinato/Tuscan/dinosaur/black and Red Russian varieties, but for some reason they hadn’t every felt like trying the standard curly variety. Like most biases, they just had to meet an individual curly kale recipe in “person” to let go of their stereotypes. Oh, also, the chorizo helped!

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SOUTH (MD, VA, NC, SC, GA) with The Other Emily from Sincerely, Emily 

(I will be “The Other Emily” this week!)

Susan (VA) over at Backyard Grocery cooked Slow Cooker Chicken and Celery Root for her meal this week. With a freezer full of venison she feels like she had been cheating on this challenge. I don’t think so. It’s local meat, and that is how they eat. She decided to make chicken the star of her meal. Working long hours she decided to use a crock pot to cook the chicken, celery root and potatoes. A nice salad made from her first winter harvest from the garden finished off the meal. Head over to her blog to see her detailed receipt and her local resources.

Annie (MD) over at AnnieRie Unplugged used her crock pot and made a slow cooked beef short rib with a boat load of nice veggies. Potatoes, leeks, kale, Red Onion, Napa Cabbage, Carrots! That is one long list packed full of flavor and nutrients. She also added a tomato sauce that was also packed full of other veggies from the garden. She topped off this list with some additional herbs and spices. A perfect meal for a cold night.  Stop by her blog to check out her resources.

Victoria (MD) from The Soffritto prepared Egg Noodle Carbonara with Roasted Broccoli. With Return of the Jedi playing the background and only 10 minutes to go, their meal cooked in 9 minutes and at the end of the movie dinner was on the table.  Recently they stocked up on local veggies, noodles, grains & honey from Breezy Willow Farm in Maryland. What a great place to have nearby. Visit her blog to see her recipe and more details.

Jessica (SC) from Eat.Drink.Nourish. Between battling yet another cold that is making its way through their household to arriving a tad late to Charlotte Farmers Market for some of her ingredients, Jessica was still able to make Braised Short ribs over Garlic Mashed Potatoes served with a beet, spinach and goat cheese salad. Visit her blog to check out her meal.

Rebecca (VA) from Eating Floyd had a busy day but she managed to pull off a really nice local meal. A jar of preserved asparagus soup saved the night. She paired the lovely soup with a nice pear salad topped with pumpkin seeds and some no-knead bread to make ham salad sandwiches. To me, her meal feels comfortable, warm and inviting. Stop by her blog to learn about her local resources.

Jasmine (VA) over at 40 Shades of Green made a mostly local meal. Sausage with roasted beets, carrots and shallots with lentils. She has searched high and low and has been unable to find a local source for beans and legumes. So, even though the lentils are not local, she did find a company out in Idaho that works to preserve heirloom beans and lentils. Head over to her blog to see her newfound source and read about her meal.

Jes (VA) from Eating Appalachia stopped by her favorite place up the mountain in Floyd and picked up some fabulous ingredients for her meal. Spaghetti Squash with Brazil Nut Basil, oven Roasted Tomatoes & Spinach. She creatively tossed her spaghetti squash with her homemade basil pesto. Check out her blog to learn about her favorite place up the mountain for local foods and the surprise flavors in her pesto.

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OHIO VALLEY
with Susy Morris from Chiot’s Run
(click on the photos to be taken to post with recipe)

Here in the Ohio Valley Area – the Dark Days are officially upon us. Up until now, the weather has been more spring like. We’ve been having bright sunny warm days. As I sit and write this recap however, the sun is hidden behind the clouds, the wind is howling outside my window, the snow is drifting by the back door, and the temperatures are dipping down into the single digits – BRRRRR. No doubt this is why our numbers are dwindling in this group, perhaps everyone is snowed in?

Allison from The Life of a Novice went to Whitefeather Meats (the place that processed the half a hog I ordered earlier this winter) to get some delicious local sausage.

For her other DD meal Allison’s husband made a venison roast, which she wasn’t too keen on in the beginning, but ended up enjoying. Here at Chiot’s Run we only eat venison as Mr Chiots is a big hunter.

Gabe from life, from the ground up. always has wonderful creative recipes and these last two weeks have been no different. When I read the title Spelt “Risotto” with Butternut and Sage I was ready to make some for dinner. Butternut and sage is one of my favorite combinations (especially if you throw in some browned butter). It looks like his little boy will grow up loving it as much as I do! How wonderful for kids to be able to experience REAL food along with their parents!

For his second meal Gabe rolled up his sleeves and made some pasta – which is something I love seeing people try. Once you make it at home, you’ll never be able to go back to store-bought – it’s well worth the effort and I would highly recommend giving it a go. He topped this pasta with some delicious lamb meatballs and homemade tomato sauce.

Margo from Thrift at Home celebrated cast iron cooking with her first DD meal. I loved seeing this as I’m a huge fan of cooking in cast iron. She made roasted butternut squash and greens, it looked heavenly (and there was some bacon thrown on there for good measure).

I’ll let her describe her second meal in her own words because they’re perfect “The black eyed peas were cooked long and slow, salted, and then thickened at the very end with a little milk and flour batter. They were plain and creamy. Then the collards were spicy, meaty, and touched with vinegar. A lovely counterpoint.” All this goodness was followed up with Peach Kuchen – that’s one lucky family!

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LOWER NEW ENGLAND/MID-ADLANTIC (NY, CT, DC, NJ and England)
with The Other Emily, from Tanglewood Farms

It sounds like the Mid Atlantic and Lower New England groups have had the same mild weather we’ve had here in Michigan! Still, this doesn’t affect the availability of warm-weather foods, much, so we’re all tucking in to our winter recipes together.

I’d like to start this week’s recap with Angela (DC) from Bumblelush, who recently took a pre-holiday holiday to Iceland with her husband! While she was there she enjoyed a local meal of Icelandic Fish and Chips, and while revisiting her photos after the trip realized many of her meals enjoyed overseas were from local foods, as Iceland is remote and has to be fairly self-sufficient as a result. How cool!

Our next Dark Days Dabbler is Samantha (NY) from Listen, Foodie! She recently posted about an adventure in making baked beans from scratch and I just can’t wait to give this a go. She’s a fantastic writer and made this recipe seem super easy and approachable. Can’t wait to try it!

Many of our Dark Days participants are struggling with finding local grains and flours, but it seems that Stacey (NY) at Fessenden Farm has found local flour and made some scrumptious looking Blueberry muffins with it. She also did a post prior to her muffins about using fat to make lard. Her final photo of the cracklins made my mouth water! You’ll have to head over to her blog to see what I mean…

Monica (NJ) over at Monica Tries to Cook whipped up a batch of beans and cabbage this week using cabbage and potatoes from her farmers market, CSA shallots and some of the beans she used in the soup she posted about prior to this. The beans were more suited to this meal than the soup, and it looks like she got a very delicious meal from them!

Gaelen (NY) from Kitchen Jam has admitted to not being able to necessarily eat SOLE every dark days meal, but this one counts in my book! Feast your eyes on Pork Ribs with Pesto and Tomato, using local hydroponic tomatoes, frozen summer pesto and local pork!

I saved the post by Karen (NJ) from Prospect: The Pantry for last because, well, it’s just about the most unique Dark Days post I’ve seen yet! She has used spruce needles to … ahem … spruce up her cabbage stew, and she sourced her spruce needles from her locally grown Christmas tree! Of course, in order to do this you’d have to make sure your tree wasn’t chemically treated at all, but she provides substitution info for juniper berries too… Super inspiring!

Have you found any new and exciting local resources in your area?

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Dark Days Challenge: Week 6 EAST recapper SOLE meals

This week the “WEST” is doing a detailed recap for their Dark Days Challenge participants. Be sure to head over to the companion post today and travel around the “WEST” and see what they are all cooking this week

Here you will be able to get a glimpse into the meals that the “EAST” recappers have prepared.

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I know I (Emily from Sincerely, Emily) am being repetitive with a few of the ingredients I am using for my Dark Days Challenge meals. Chard seems to be a front runner in the line of repetition and so do turnips lately. Those are two of the things still growing strong in the garden. Lettuce is maturing now and we have started eating that. I will be adding lettuce to that list of repetitive ingredients as it moves into every meal. I am not complaining one bit, I LOVE to be able to walk out back and bring in fresh food, and I feel very fortunate to be able to do that so I am not bothered by the repetition in our meals one bit.

Most of our meals are made up with many SOLE ingredients. Many times there is a catch, not all the ingredients are local. The other night I made dinner with SOLE basil pesto, chard, ground burger and venison served over organic (but not local) bow tie pasta. So, the darn pasta made the meal null and void for the DDC. Even if I could have made the pasta it wouldn’t have fit the bill to fit into the SOLE category (flour – not local). Every other ingredient to that particular meal was sustainable, organic, local and ethical. Still, I feel very good about knowing that the majority of that particular meal fit the SOLE list.

For my meal I used some of the pork from last weeks meal and I made up a crustless quiche. It is such as easy thing to whip up and the ingredient combinations are endless. Kind of like pizza in that regard. When I have little bits of “this” and “that” that I need to use up, they usually wind up in either the crustless quiche, on a pizza or in an omelet.

Sincerely, Emily

P.S. you can see what the South Region has been cooking this past week over at Sincerely, Emily where I have put together a post about their meals.

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This week at Tanglewood my family was in town, wrapping up the holidays at our house. The final night of their stay, I decided to cook a simple dark days meal for everybody as a sort of farewell. We used up the very last of the organic hot house tomatoes from the farmer’s market (we’re very lucky to have some intense winter farmers in our area) and a beautiful head of buttercrunch lettuce. When combined with two pounds of locally farmed bacon, homemade organic mayonnaise and a loaf of sourdough bread, what do you get?

The season’s last SOLE BLTs!

Like I said: simple. I baked the bacon in the oven and saved the drippings for bird suet. If you haven’t tried oven baking your bacon, I strongly suggest it. It makes perfectly crispy, evenly cooked bacon every time! (Use a 375º oven, put the bacon on a baking sheet with walls and bake until desired hue of golden brown is achieved. If you want your bacon to have a little more crinkle to it instead of being plain and flat, roll some aluminum foil into little wormy rolls and lay the bacon across it to give it dimension.)

I paired the sandwiches with some beets roasted with red wine vinegar and olive oil (not local, but organic!) and finished with a side of locally made cottage cheese. It was simple and actually a little summery, which was appropriate with the bizarre weather we’ve had lately. It was interesting to have to whip up a quick and simple SOLE meal for so many more people than I’m used to. I can’t say I’m as much a fan of it this time of year as I would be during the warm season when I’d have more to choose from as far as ingredients…

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The last couple weeks have been as busy at Chiot’s Run as they have for all of you I’m sure. That hasn’t stopped us from stopping to keep up some of the traditions that have been going in my family for quite a while. On New Year’s Day, we traditionally eat sauerkraut & pork to ensure a prosperous year. Usually, my dad is the chef for this meal, but this year we weren’t able to get together so I made the meal for us at home. The pork came from a friend who raises hog, I made the sauerkraut back in October with cabbage from a local farm, and the rest of the ingredients came from our gardens. If you’d like the recipe & a little more info on this meal, click on the photos and they’ll take to the post on my blog.

Our family Christmas meal, which happened late, was also a Dark Days Meal. The ham came from the same hog that the pork for our New Year’s meal came from, the au gratin potatoes were made with local potatoes, milk, butter, cheese, and onions. The brussels sprouts were local as well and my sister brought homegrown corn and green beans. The only part of the meal that wasn’t local was the flour that went into the rolls, and it was from King Arthur, so at least it was purchased from a small company.

What challenges have you had this week?

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Dark Days Challenge recap: Week 6 WEST group

The Dark Days are really upon us in earnest, despite the extended mild weather in parts of our region (with apologies to the Plains, still digging out of the pre-holiday storm. The real Upper Midwest seems to have gotten hit, but here in the central midwest the mild weather extended into the new year. It can’t last though; now that the holidays are done we’re digging into the larder to stay on course!

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A lot of our Upper Midwesterners have had it fairly easy–in many parts of the region we’re experiencing the warmest early winter in decades. I (Xan) am still harvesting fresh, new chard from the protected corners of my garden, and my asparagus actually sprouted.  I picked spinach 3 days after Christmas and the parsley is going strong under its plastic “greenhouse” (an upended storage box).

I loved that my group included some non-recipe posts about shopping, books, gifts, family, and wine!

Backyard Farms (whom I missed in the earlier round up) started out by discovering that while spaghetti squash stores well, she’s not crazy about the taste. Like many, she moved on to beef with better success. She’s got some tips for Ontarians in this entry. Aagaard Farms went all out and made cheese from local goat’s milk (and looks like there’s a home-grown goat in the offing!). Squashblossom Farm did a “Solstmas” feast ( I LOVE that), and like many of us was harvesting kale in January.  Rubus-Raspberry has short ribs, roast chicken, and a fantastic and eclectic list of recommended books!

Sanborn Sanctuary learned how to make veggie stock. In Week 3 the recipe was chicken, but her big score was an amazing list of groceries, including lots of local, humane meat, for a hundred bucks. In Week 4, her opener says it all “Geez, what else could I put in the meatloaf?  BACON!!!”. (And bison. Of course. What ELSE would you make meatloaf with?) Week 6 featured elk sausage. I’m guessing they’ve got a lot of game around there.)  I’ll be right over. WooHoo Tofu was making leftovers and memories, including a luscious-looking chicken pot pie, something I’ve been wanting to try since I seem to have figured out pastry crust. She also has a thoughtful piece on “kid’s food, “ a fraught and brave topic to take on within our poisonous food culture, where kids are somehow expected to eat differently than adults.

Our Happy Acres made a gorgeous pizza from oven-roasted tomatoes and homemade sourdough pita (protip–never buy pita, it’s dead easy to make), and also a “non-traditional” chicken minestrone and whole wheat focaccia (hey, we’re making our own traditions). Taking on another fraught subject, MN Locavore has a great no-guilt step by step about dealing with dairy. She’s also got a list of Upper Midwest wineries (what about distilleries?), then finished off the old year with a scheduling panic, props to good friends, and a nice soothing carrot soup.

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It’s finally feeling like Winter up here in the Pacific Northwest. My Houstonian husband is getting his first taste of ‘real’ Oregon rain, and he hasn’t moved back to Texas yet, so we’re in good shape! I’m still struggling trying to find any local produce during the ‘farmer’s market free zone,’ and am looking forward to the 14th when our Winter market will open up. In the meantime I’ll be using more local beef, frozen veggies and fruits i put up in Summer and our dog is getting acclimated to all raw with a diet sourced from local farms and butchers. My blogging neighbors have…

Miranda’s bloggers/neighbors:

Nico and her Tiny Kitchen continue to amaze me with their stunning photos and creatively delicious meals. This week she cooked up some beans and wheat – and no, it does not look bland. I want to be invited over for this meal! Don’t miss her Christmas Eve post, either. Her recipe reminded her of “Baked Potato Soup” which just absolutely sounds amazing to me.

The Reluctant Blogger mixed up some holiday waffles, sampled assorted local ciders, and even “dug up” some oysters from a local seafood company! If her holidays weren’t full enough, she also managed to set aside some time to make some homemade tortellini with homegrown nettles and homemade ricotta cheese. Wowee! The Luscious Domestic worked on warming her belly and soul with some panade that looks very interesting. These Dark Days aren’t just for cooking: Bee Creative is spending her recent dark days with some mending along with making some homemade cereal bars.

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Over here in Midwest group, the meals are looking as gorgeous as ever.  I covered some of these recipes on a post last week at my blog, Unearthing this Life, but they’re so good that they’re worth mentioning here as well.

Dog Hill Kitchen has me wowed with not just one weekly SOLE meal, but an entire day’s worth! She shares her super simple recipe of Pumpkin Hash with Chorizo. It doesn’t take much to impress me with chorizo – and it seems my group love it as much as I do as I’ve had a recipe including the spicy sausage almost every week! The beautiful pumpkin for the hash was actually leftover from a previous detox soup – a savory juniper berry flavored Pumpkin Soup. The Local Cook baked up a tasty meatloaf made with venison, beef, and pork and served it with delicata squash and collard greens. I think my own husband would agree with hers:  that bacon makes everything better!

Emily, from Tanglewood Farms, made a recipe right out of one of my own books. She used up the last of her 2011 carrots to make my favorite soup: Potato Leek with Bacon and Carrots. Even better is that her husband attended the soup, diligently stirring it every 20 minutes while she worked with the horses all afternoon. I was floored when I found out Kirsten, from Small Wonder Farm, made a completely local Christmas meal. Roast leg of lamb, carrots glazed with cider molasses (boiled cider) and her own potatoes made for a full holiday meal. To feed her gluten-free household this past week, she prepared a meal right of the Organic Gardening magazine: Butternut, Apple, and Cranberry Gratin. Another fellow Michigander, Cynthia of Mother’s Kitchen, brewed up a tasty cocktail made with cherries, sugar and brandy – The Wolverine. Like me, she’s using up some of her canned items to supplement her meals. Doesn’t this cranberry mustard sound amazing?

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We’ve been having some gloriously beautiful days here in my part of the Southwest (Sage), but I’ve been laid out flat with a head cold since Christmas Eve! This means that Farmer Rick has been doing most of the cooking, and an admirable job at that. We discovered a lot of our lettuce reseeded itself and enjoyed a fresh homegrown salad last night.

Lynda, over at Cortina Creek Farms, made a pork roast dinner from pork raised by her grandson as his 4-H project, corn purchased at the farmers market in October that she canned, Italian parsley which is still growing like crazy in her garden along with some freshly dug fingerling potatoes and carrots.  She also grew the garlic and used Himalayan Pink salt and some fresh ground pepper.

Teresa at Not From a Box decided to try her hand at cooking from her German roots by making spinach latkes with applesauce and cabbage stuffed with mushrooms. She was able to buy nearly all the ingredients at the farmers’ market. She says the Challenge has made her think a lot about local foods. “For the challenges, I know why we have to do that: to get us to understand how to get by with what we have within our foodshed. It brings both an appreciation for the local food we have, as well as foods that we must get from further away.” She also made a monochomatic Christmas dinner, and to balance it out came up with a lovely dandelion salad. She got the idea from Saveur which said the dressing had been used by Germans on dandelion greens.

Becky from My Kitchen Solo had the opportunity to bring a braised lamb with curry and cardamom over to a friend’s birthday party. Way to go, sharing the SOLE! Following a French recipe, she was surprised to see the addition of honey, apples and figs to a stew like this, but admits the pairing made the meal–in fact, she got rave reviews from people in the Napa wine industry, so you know it was delicious.

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The days soon after the holidays always seem extra dark for me, even though they’re getting longer. The light and love of gathered family may have left our homes for a while, but we can continue to light up our dinner tables and kitchens with nourishing and beautiful meals that are good for our bodies,

souls and the environment in which we inhabit.

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