Sunday Photos- Local

This week, we’re inspired by the leaders of natural and local, be it gardens or food.

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This week I (Sincerely, Emily) arranged a field trip for the local garden club that I am in. We went to The Natural Gardener in Austin, TX owned by John Dromgoole (has been doing an organic radio show for 30 years.) The nursery was wonderful and celebrates 30 years this year. Then we headed to lunch at a local restaurant called Jack Allen’s Kitchen. They work with local farmers to use local and seasonal food in some of the dishes.

Pumpkin Seed Pesto Marinated Chicken Breast, Portobello mushroom stuffed with artichoke gratin and goat cheese drizzle

It was a great day. Local Nursery. Local Restaurant (serving some local food!) Good Friends.

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As local as it gets. The last tomato harvest.

What have you been up to this week?

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Dark Days “Challenge in a Challenge” Vegetarian! (West Recappers)

“Vegetarian” is always a great theme to cook with: you’re pretty much guaranteed all your guests can eat it, vegetarian dishes are generally pretty healthy (other than those pasta and cheese options), cooking with all vegetables (especially seasonal) is generally the most sustainable way to cook, and cooking vegetarian is easy: no worrying about bringing meat up to safe temps!

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Wahoo! I FINALLY cooked an entirely SOLE meal, and was up to the veggie challenge. I have been slacking off, more or less, during this entire challenge, but i finally did it. On a week that most of the other recappers are busy! Oh, well.

For my vegetarian dish, i made a fresh salad and a fritatta of sorts. The fritatta was more veg than egg, and i DID use balsamic on the salad but ALL other ingredients were from either right down the road (literally), or a neighboring state (Californian olive oil).

This “fritatta” turned out way more veg than egg, but was still pretty yummy. I followed my normal fritatta guidelines: potato crust, veggies, egg mixture poured over the top and baked at 400/425 for 20 minutes or until firm throughout. For this meal i used the following ingredients:

• 5 eggs from a neighbor’s hens
• half bunch kale (from Gathering Together Farm (GTF), an organic farm 1 mile from my house)
• 3 cloves garlic (from GTF)
• 1 purple potato (GTF)
• 1 crown broccoli (GTF)
• 1/3 leek (the white part) (GTF)
• 1 smoked serrano pepper (from my step-mom in Eugene)
• pinch dried basil (stored from my Austin garden)
• Salt/Pepper
• Splash milk from Lochmead Dairy (about 40 minutes away, no hormones added)

For the salad, i tossed GTF’s salad mix with a shredded beet (from Denison Farms, also local/organic), chopped walnuts (that i picked locally this past Fall), more salt and pepper and a drizzle of California olive oil and who-knows-where Balsamic. Local, fresh, seasonal, healthy, SOLE and vegetarian! I finally did it!

PS, in exciting personal-blogging news: i’ve launched a brand new website: Pocket Pause. I will post a full on introduction for my next Friday post on March 9th, but feel free to check it out now!

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Do you enjoy cooking vegetarian dishes, or do you find them limiting?

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