Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge: Week 2

I'll be updating this post throughout the week, rather than posting separately on our different meals. Week one was a short, quick week, so it featured only one meal. I'll try to be better about posting (and taking photos of!) different meals in the subsequent weeks.

Zero Mile Meals:

Breakfasts are nearly always zero mile meals, often featuring homemade toast, grape or strawberry jam, and our own free-range eggs, which are, in my opinion, the most perfect food ever—filled with flavor and a built in sauce, just doesn't get any better than that!





Rosemary and garlic roast pork tenderloin, roasted butternut squash stuffed with garlic zucchini hash, roasted sweet olive tomatoes with garlic and green pepper, homemade ciabatta bread, and a side salad with oakleaf and red salad bowl lettuces, gold nugget tomatoes, red onion and carrot. I brined the tenderloin for about 2 hours before cooking, and it was superb! We had some spring garlic coming up because it's been so warm, so I chopped that up and used it in the rub for the pork. Mmmmm. Everything you see here was produced on farm except for the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, flour, salt and pepper.




25 Mile Meals:

On this particular morning, I enjoyed a breakfast burrito on a homemade tortilla stuffed with eggs, salt-cured bacon, and sauteed green onion and green zebra tomato—all zero mile. What bumped this into the 25 mile category was the local cheddar cheese from Trickling Springs Creamery because I'm all about the cheese.



Roast beef with gravy, roasted carrots and onions, kale sauteed in olive oil and garlic, sliced Brandywine tomato, and homemade ciabatta bread. All the produce came from our farm. Yes, we're still getting tomatoes at the end of October! Crazy weather. I'll be picking a bunch of the green ones this week to save in the root cellar.



Again, a zero mile meal but for the meatballs, which bumped us up to a 15 mile meal and are totally worth it. I eat way too many of these when I make them, and of course, having bought half a cow, we have lots of ground beef in the freezer! This meal featured homemade ciabatta bread and angel hair pasta, with a slow-simmered sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes, garlic, thyme, parsley, rosemary, and oregano all grown here on the farm, in addition to a salad of mixed baby greens with a balsamic vinaigrette. The greens included tatsoi, broccoli raab, kale, speckled bibb, oakleaf, and black seeded simpson lettuces.

6 comments:

Paige said...

Very impressive!

Christy said...

Those all look really good! I get my milk from Trickling Springs. The place down the road carries it in glass jars. I guess it isn't as local as I thought, but it is really good milk.

Danielle said...

Yeah, Trickling Springs supplies a lot of farm stores in the area, but unfortunately, they just lost their two biggest local contracts to Organic Valley, so they're now getting all their milk out of Lancaster, making them far less local for me as well. We've just switched to South Mountain Creamery here in Maryland, also about 24 miles or so away—plus, they deliver!

Christy said...

Ah, so they are much closer to me now. That is good to know, I may have to refigure the mileage then.

Madeline Rains said...

I am so inspired! I had been gearing up for one all local week, but when I look at not including oil and flour I think i could go longer. Our meals today were all from the farm and often are so what am I waiting for? Thanks for the mouth-watering menus and pictures.

Kim said...

Danielle, I'm impressed (and a little jealous) that you farthest meal fits within 25 miles. Fabulous!