We ate like kings after our visit to the Des Moines Indoor Winter Farmer's Market the Saturday before Christmas. Many of our favorite summer farmer's market vendors were there, selling everthing from apples, mushrooms, cheese, flours and other grains, to locally grown hand-spun yarn and wine, all produced locally.
I think I was most excited to find the fresh spinach from Bluegate Farm. It was all I could do to restrain myself to purchasing only two bags. We bought apples, Honeycrisp and Jonagold, to replenish our supply of local fresh fruit. The pecans on the salad I'm considering local, as we bought them from a roadside stand in Missouri on our way back home from visiting my mom last October. I lightly toasted the pecans and sprinkled them over the tops of the salads.
Finally, my favorite local goat cheese producers, Northern Prairie Chevre, supplied the feta. Though I purchased the tomatoes at a grocery store, they too are locally grown at Graddy's, a hydroponic tomato producer in Caroll, Iowa.
The main course was locally-made tortellini sold at the market, served with my homemade all-local-ingredient rosemary pasta sauce. I topped the pasta with more of the local feta.
The garlic bread was made with a loaf from our local, favorite bakery.
And finally, I made two pies for dessert. Above is a somewhat blurry photo of a sour cherry pie, made with cherries from a local orchard.
The pumpkin pie was made with butternut squash grown in our own yard. Both pie crusts were made with locally-grown flour. Next year I plan to purchase lard for crust-making from one of the hog producers in my CSA.We felt truly blessed to have so many wonderfully fresh local ingredients available for what turned out to be a great meal!
4 comments:
Truly.
Madly.
Deeply.
i totally applaud your dark days efforts at local eating. the best i've done is use some of my own tomatoes and basil and rosemary for a sauce --- ONCE this season. i even took a picture because, after reading your blog, I thought it should be documented (at least personally of not thru my blog).
It's all the advance planning, Julia. I make the sauces in August and Sept. and freeze them, making eating local and fast easy in the winter. Same with the meats, grains, etc., that we have. You should look into Farm to Folk CSA in Ames - that's where I get my fruit, Paul's grains, my veggie CSA and lots of my meat from its members. We also put away (canned or froze) corn, green beans, peppers, onions, tomatoes - lots of the basics. I bought a bushel of potatoes from a local grower, too.
Apparently, I'm finding this a lot of fun to do!
Kings indeed, what a feast. I'd have gone batty for the spinach too - greens are so uplifting (crazy to think of it like that, but somehow true). Local pecans, yes, since they are "local where you bought them" and your local bubble travels with you, right? You can find locally made tortalini, lucky you! And such the options at the farmers market :-)
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