Sunday Dinner and Dark Days 14: Sauerkraut and Sausage

I have a lot of homemade sauerkraut in the freezer!  And it's time to eat down the freezer.

Menu:
sauerkraut and sausage
garlic mashed potatoes
glazed carrots (honey, butter & marjoram)
applesauce

We needed the carrots for the color, or else the plate would have been very brown.  Not the color we hunger for in late winter!

Saturday:thaw sauerkraut and sausage in fridge

Sunday morning:slice carrots into coins - place in saucepan on stove
chop potatoes - set in oven on timed bake
combine sauerkraut and sausages - set in oven

Sunday noon:
set table
steam carrots, glaze them
put applesauce in glass bowl

Dark Days ingredients:  organic sausage, homemade sauerkraut, organic potatoes, organic garlic, butter, organic carrots, honey, homemade applesauce

Another Dark Days 13 Because Vegetarian is How We Do It

I know these Dark Days' posts are getting old for you.  They are for me, too.

Look, I enjoy the challenge of limiting myself only to local foods once a week and the meals really are delicious and enjoyable.

However, the challenge of photographing the food in the literal dark days, and then saying something about it on the blog. . . . well, this cook needs some fresh ideas.  (And isn't that why spring follows winter?)

And here, we have another vegetarian meal because I got off track with the theme.  And this vegetarian theme is something that I do easily and, I like to think, well (as opposed to the other  Dark Days' themes: desserts, one-pot, breakfast).

Menu: 
portobello pizzas with garlic, bell peppers, and feta
green salad with shredded carrots, turnips, and radishes - vinaigrette
homemade rosemary noodles with brown butter

Homemade noodles are not like dried semolina pasta.  They are really egg noodles, so they don't fit in very well with the Italian theme here.  Polenta would have been more Italian.

These portobello pizzas were a hit and really not hard to make, although I did add an extra step to the recipe I used.

4 portobello caps, steps removed, brushed clean
1-1 1/2 cups thick pizza or spaghetti sauce
cheese (I used slices of mild goat feta)
1/4 - 1/2 cup pizza toppings (I used chopped bell peppers from the freezer and chopped garlic)

1. Grease a rimmed baking sheet.  Lay the caps on it.  Bake at 425 F for 15 minutes.  Flip.  Bake another 15 minutes.  Water will run out of the caps and sizzle.  You are drying the caps out a little - skip this step if you don't have time.
2.  With the caps stem-side up, place the pizza toppings on as you would pizza.
3.  Reduce oven heat to 375.  Return pizzas to oven. Bake 10-15 minutes, until heated through. (My pizza sauce was already hot so this didn't take long).
4.  The tomato sauce juiced out onto the already blackened mushroom water.  It looked like a terrible mess, but when I took the pizzas off the sheet, I immediately put water into it.  After supper, it was a breeze to clean (or Mr. Thrift would have grumbled and left the scene).

Then we sat at the table looking at Genevieve's love letter to The Sound of Music and ate fastnachts because it was Fat Tuesday.  The children wanted to know if Easter was tomorrow.  Oh no, children, there are still many dark dregs of winter left and a long wait until the glory of Easter.  Waiting.. . with flashes of spring all along the way.

Dark Days 13: Meatless

The storage onions are tired of winter, but at least I can find local onions this winter.  Last winter, they disappeared from market around November.

Overhead as Ben dug seeds out of the crook-neck pumpkin: "Nasty nasty slimey junk."

The Dark Days' people have issued some themes as contests.  The current contest is vegetarian.  No problem - we eat vegetarian most of the time.

I was pleased with the balance of tastes, textures, and nutrition in this menu.  However, the casserole was less than great because I absentmindedly doubled the yogurt.  I've made this casserole before and we like it, but this time it was watery and the squash was puny because it was a bad season for squash.  Plus, I had carefully fiddled with the seeds to have something local and crunchy for the top, but they were just too hard for pleasant texture. 

The bean spread, however, was lovely.  I modeled it on hummus, but used as much local stuff as possible.  I even plucked some parsley out of my back yard that had survived the winter.

Menu:
Arabian Squash Casserole (from Moosewood)
green salad with honey mustard dressing
homemade tortillas with white bean spread

Dark Days' Ingredients, all local, and where specified, organic:  organic crook-neck pumpkin, homemade yogurt, organic goat's-milk feta, organic onion, organic green and purple lettuce, organic honey, horseradish, organic WW pastry flour, milk, butter, organic white beans, organic parsley, organic garlic

Dark Days 12: Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?

Oh yes she can, and make it local too!

Genevieve and I picked cherries last summer and then we sat on the porch with Ben and pitted most of the cherries.  I say most, because we found a fair amount of pits in our pie.

We had some of our own ice cream with the pie, left from breakfast last week and by now thoroughly frozen.

The cherry pie followed a meal of 1000 Island Slaw with Chicken and baked sweet potatoes. 

I adore this coleslaw, and I loved how the flavors all went together in this menu.

I bought local chicken breasts and roasted them.  Ben liked picking the meat off the bones.  Then I made a little pot of stock with the bones, which turned out to be providential because my husband came down with the nasty cold that is everywhere right now.  Real chicken stock fights that junk like nothing else!

(Specifically, Dark Days' ingredients, all local, and where noted, organic:  organic chicken, homemade mayo with local eggs, homecanned pickle relish with local veggies, homemade ketchup with organic tomatoes, organic cabbage, organic scallions, organic sweet potatoes, cherries, organic WW pastry flour, butter)

Dark Days 11: Lamb Bone with White Beans and Rosemary

There are local dried beans at my market!  I've been searching and begging for these for several years.  Farmers told me beans aren't hard to grow, but I never got a satisfactory answer as to why local farmers were not growing and selling dried beans.

Finally, last week, one of the farmers I have gotten to know pulled out a little paper bag of dried beans that he had saved for me.  I didn't ask him to do that, but he was excited that I was excited. 

See, when you buy directly from the producer, most of the time you become acquainted and sometimes end up friends.  Friends look out for each other.  They take checks from you because you don't have cash.  They track you down when you left behind your bag of produce.  They greet your children and save treats for them.  Like most relationships, there are awkward spots, like where you buy carrots at another stand and another market seller sees them sticking out of your bag.  Or when you ask your farmer how much canning tomatoes will cost and it's more than you want to pay.

I love my farmers' market.  I do also like the trade routes that bring me coffee, cinnamon, chocolate, tea, and olive oil.  But I strongly dislike imported dried beans when we have the capability to produce our own right here.

Well.  On to the Dark Days' supper. We loved this soup I made up.  I cooked the meaty lamb bone with water and a splash of vinegar for a few hours, being careful to shake the rich marrow out of the bone into the broth.  Added the soaked beans and a few garlic cloves.  At the end, added some chopped onion, home-canned tomatoes, rosemary, fennel, and salt and pepper.

I made tortillas using this recipe - I have tried at least 4 recipes for tortillas and this is the one I kept and love.  It's become our all-purpose flatbread.

We also had a gorgeous green salad with watercress, shredded turnips and honey mustard dressing (local honey, local horseradish).

Sunday Dinner and Dark Days 10: Leg of Lamb

The thing about buying a whole animal for meat is that you must figure out how to cook its various parts.  I handled lamb chops and lamb stew easily, but leg of lamb intimidated me for over a year.

So I studied up.

I rubbed on herbs and poked in garlic slivers, mostly following Simply in Season.

When we came home from church, the house smelled wonderful. . . but the lamb was rather rare for my liking.  It was, thankfully, tender and flavorful.

I served it with mint jelly made specifically for this purpose; I was not a fan of the flavors together, but my husband and kids really liked it.  In fact, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the rest of that mint jelly.  Can't face it on toast in the morning or with peanut butter. . .

Menu:
roast leg of lamb
mint jelly
baked potatoes with butter
steamed spinach with butter and lemon

Friday:put lamb in fridge to thaw
bring mint jelly up from basement - so pretty

Sunday morning:
rub lamb, set on timed bake
wash potatoes, place in oven as well

Sunday noon:
wash and steam spinach
set table
light candles because these are the dark days (I love that phrase, "dark days")

I divided the leftovers for the freezer in three ways: one bag of meat chunks, another bag of meat chunks plus a little bag of pan drippings (I'm thinking shepherd's pie), and the meaty bone for soup.

Specifically, dark days ingredients, all local and where noted, organic:  organic leg of lamb, organic garlic, organic potatoes, homemade mint jelly, spinach, butter

Dark Days 9: One-Pot

The Dark Days' Challenge is giving some extra challenges by having theme weeks.  This week was one-pot meals.  Frankly, I like more variety and flavors on my plate, but we achieved that in this meal by having dessert and pickles with our pot.

This was our centerpiece, courtesy of 3-year-old Ben.  He must collect something on a walk, and I think the little glass dish elevates the sweet-gum balls nicely.

My dad joined us for dinner.  He liked the Bounty Rice so much, he called the next day to make sure he was getting the details right as he told Mom about it.  I was tickled.

Menu:
Bounty Rice (referred to in this previous DD post)
Pickled Beets
Dill Pickles
Cherry Cobbler
Pouring Custard

Specifically dark days ingredients, all local and where noted, organic:  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

Non-local:  a little onion, organic brown rice, sugar, salt, the dried herbs.
Comments on the non-locals:  The last local onions disappeared from market around Christmas.  The farmers grew storage onions, but customers bought them out.  It could be seen as a good problem, but it's been happening for years.  I bet the farmers think their local onions aren't important, so they just fill in with shipped onions when theirs run out.  I told the farmers how much I wanted to depend on storage crops from them:  onions, carrots, apples, potatoes. 

Also, I have never dried my own herbs, but I think this will be the summer for taking on this new project.

Dark Days 8: Down by the (Vegetarian) Bay

Menu:
Vegetarian "Crab" Cakes (zucchini fritters, essentially, with a good dose of Old Bay)
Cocktail Sauce
Baked Sweet Corn
Green & Purple Lettuces with Radishes, Carrots, and Vinaigrette

We like a lot of horseradish in our cocktail sauce!  And a splash of hot sauce, too.

And then we invited our friend, who is also our plumber, to sit down and eat a bit with us before he fixed a leak in our laundry room.

So the photos ended, and the conversation got lively.  I didn't think to ask my family for their rating of the meal, but they ate enthusiastically and there was a polite, but deadly, argument over the last crab cake.

Specifically, the Dark Days' ingredients, all local and where noted, organic: 

organic zucchini from the freezer, egg, organic scallions, homemade breadcrumbs from organic flour, homemade ketchup from organic tomatoes, horseradish, corn, another egg, milk, organic lettuces, organic radishes, organic carrots, organic garlic clove in the vinaigrette

Non-local ingredients:  oil, Old Bay, hot sauce, vinegar, fish sauce, salt, pepper

Dark Days 7: More Greens (but dessert too!)

If I wasn't documenting a Dark Days meal, I would never post these photos. They're terrible, taken at suppertime in the dead of winter. The meal was good, though, and it was all local food, so I'm posting it.

Menu: organic black eyed peas, cornbread with local cornmeal, eggs, milk, and butter, and collard greens with local organic bacon; dessert was Peach Kuchen (local peaches from the freezer, local organic whole wheat pastry flour, butter, egg, and homemade yogurt from local milk).

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.

Family's opinions:
Husband:  Great supper.
Ben, age 3:  I liked the cornbread.
Genevieve, age 6:  I liked the beans.

Dark Days 6 Brought To You By Cast Iron

No dishes to speak of!  I used a Dutch oven for the collard greens and my skillet and lid for the acorn squash. 

I've made cornbread dressing so often that I just winged it here.  I baked the halved acorn squash, covered, for about 45 minutes.  Then I filled the cavities with cornbread dressing, sprinkled a little raw bacon on top, and baked them about 20 minutes longer.  The extra dressing went in a casserole alongside.

The kids treated the squash like bowls and ate mostly dressing.  I think they were a little perplexed. (Aunt Shana, are you reading?  Ben's wearing a trendy necklace that his sister made him from your Christmas gift!  They played with the beads in such utter absorption that I kept checking on them because usually that quiet means naughty or sleeping.)

But my husband ate the squash right down to the skin.

(Specifically, dark days' ingredients, all local and organic noted:  acorn squash, cornmeal, organic eggs, milk, butter, organic celery, onion, organic bacon, collards, organic garlic)

Dark Days 5: Transforming the Ugly Beets

Don't they look awful?  They were some odd cross between golden and regular beets, but they were also woody inside.  I had a plan, however! 

1.  Scrub.  Bake, covered, for 1 hour or until tender when poked.
2.  Allow to sit for up to 10 minutes.
3.  Dump beets in cold water.  Slide skins off - they will come right off with your hands!  Run a little more cold water over them if needed.
4.  Now you have cooked, skinned beets.
5.  Puree according to Mollie Katzen's directions in Moosewood.  Flavored with salt, homemade applesauce, apple cider vinegar, and local honey (and non-local lemon).

I only used a few beets for the sauce.  The rest I pickled with a siriacha brine.

Beet sauce served with Cottage Potatoes (local cheese, butter, potatoes, sweet onions; not local rosemary and homemade bread - but made with organic flour).  Roasted brussel sprouts.  Local, and sadly, according to my market farmer, the last ones until next fall.

Family's opinions:  The kids weren't very enthused about the brussel sprouts, but I paid no attention because sometimes they adore them.  Logically, I think they'd want some nice vegetables after all the Christmas sweets, but their tastes aren't logical.

My husband and I enjoyed the flavors in this meal.  The beet sauce is definitely more than the sum of its parts.

Genevieve and I ate together after some shopping, leaving a Christmas gift from Aunt Mel spread out on the table.  Genevieve didn't eat much before she wanted to work on her mosaic again.

(Dark Days Challenge explanation here, in case you haven't read any back posts)