Dark Days Eat Local Challenge - Week 7

Here is my first effort made with heirloom beans from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa.
I received lots of beans for Christmas (see previous post!) and couldn't wait to try them out.
I made Tuscan Style baked beans with Rosemary and Garlic, one of my favorite quick and easy bean dishes, using green flageolet beans, a French legume sometimes called the "caviar" of beans.
And if I liked caviar, I'm sure I'd agree. They were exquisite.
What I love about this dish is that flavorful broth it creates. We used local garlic and topped the dish with homemade croutons. Yum!




I have developed an incredible love of beets over the last couple of years. When I was a child, we only had pickled beets my mom had made. Yummy, but nothing like these slow roasted beets, sliced and topped with a couple teaspoons of olive oil, balsmic vinegar, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a smattering of parsley. The beets were from our CSA, the other ingredients, obviously, weren't.


Pumpkin-Corn Meal bread is packed with flavor and healthy ingredients. All the flours and corn meal were from Paul's Grains in Laurel, Iowa, and the pumpkin came from our own, home-grown butternut squash. The eggs were local as well. We served slices of the quick bread with local honey and homemade raspberry jam.

Our dessert, not pictured, was local strawberries, frozen this summer, and Christmas cookies. A few of the cookie ingredients were local, such as the flour and eggs.