One Local Summer - Week 8

I don't think we've had a meal this week that hasn't included some kind of local produce.  When the bulk of your grocery bill is spent at the farmer's market, it's difficult to get too esoteric with your cooking.  Sure, I made muhammara that included pomegranate molasses.  But that same dish contained leftover bread from a local baker, roasted peppers from my garden and tomato paste canned last year.  However, I think my favorite meals this week have been the two or three where the majority of the ingredients traveled less than 50 feet.

Salt boiled new potatoes dressed with a little butter made from Cruze farm milk.  Nothing tastes better than the sweet mealiness of new potatoes that 20 minutes earlier were lurking in the dirt of your garden bed.  Sliced Burgundy Traveler tomatoes dressed with a little red wine vinegar and olive oil glisten on the plate.  And I've recently discovered a new passion - roasted green beans.  I type that with some trepidation because I don't want anyone to think that I'm a freaky health nut that would turn down peach cobbler to nibble on some kale.  However, I think I could eat my weight in roasted green beans.  The olive oil caramelizes them and turns them into a crispy snack food with the slightest hint of vegetable flavor.  I would eat these as a snack, at 2am in the morning when I was drunk and have lost whatever compunction I might have about gorging on high calorie snack chips.  That's how much I like them.  Peach Brown Butter Bars have become a favorite new discovery and I've made them several times.  But my favorite meals are simple meals like we had last night.  Eating local is a wonderful thing. Eating out of your back yard?  Even better.

Comments

[Mangochild]

This time of year, its hard *not* to eat meals with all-local fare. The simple ones are often the best. Eating potatoes "that 20 minutes earlier were lurking in the dirt of your garden bed" is my idea of perfection. And if people think you're strange in the love of green beans roasted like that, well, I guess I am too - they are addictive! :-)

[TNLocavore]

I agree - plus this time of the year, eating local isn't about giving anything up. It's about eating the best food you can. Local seasonal produce is soooo much better than anything you can get at the grocery store.