Devilishly Good Dinner with “Dancing Man”

Hi all! Locavore Lady here with my weekly blog on local food. As many of you may know, Tuesday nights are special for my family as we host a weekly dinner for us and our friends. Our family goal of sourcing at least 75% of our meal with locally produced food became very easy last night as most of the food we had came from our backyard. We had some old friends from our time living in Madison join us and they brought the adult beverage, “Dancing Man” beer from New Glarus Brewery.

Some of you may be wine drinkers or beer drinkers or non-drinkers, I am a picky-drinker. I have a 2 beer/glass appetite with a 1 beer/glass body. Bummer, but that means I don’t drink just anything. Once in a while I will try something new but usually I stick to what I have enjoyed in the past. For me, that means drinking the local brews called “Spotted Cow” and “Fat Squirrel” from the New Glarus Brewery and occasionally, a hefe-weizen from Germany. I lived in Germany when I was in college and worked at an Irish pup there, where I really grew to love the various wheat beers Germans brew. I particularly liked the medium colored wheat beers that are served in enormous, curvy glasses designed to allow slow pouring of this large head producing beer. I have longed for a beer like the ones out of Baveria, Germany but have struggled to find one here that lives up to my memory.

Last night was a wonderfully surprising success at finding just such a beer. Our friend that brought the beer knew that I enjoyed wheat beers. He had worked in a bar as a younger man, thus knowing just how to pour and serve the traditional wheat brew. When he brought it in, I was a bit skeptical because of the name “Dancing Man” but as he was slicing the lemons, reaching for my enormous, curvy glasses, I knew this was bound to be good. He took each bottle out, gently rolling it until all the particulates on the bottom had been evenly distributed throughout the liquid gold, and then proceeded to pour, slowly, into the side-ways tipped curvy glasses, allowing a creamy, frothy head to form without spilling over.

Now, he had my attention. I couldn’t wait to try this intriguing beverage that visually, so closely resembled the heavenly German beers of my memory. As I lifted the beer to my face, I inhaled, deeply, the soft aroma of ripe wheat and the zing of lemon. As I took my first sip and let the ambrosia play across my palate, I was transported to a different time and place, where I had no one to be responsible for except myself and could sit and savor the moment without distraction. Truly, it was a wonderful sensation. I had to keep telling myself to slow down and drink it slowly, but in the hot, humid Wisconsin evening, cooking dinner over a hot, steamy stove, my beer glass was quickly drained of its nectar.

If you are wondering what our local food options were for our meal, you couldn’t get much closer than we did to 100% local food. We mixed up our home-grown ground beef with my husband’s Chabli Kabob spices and got out the skewers for some grill action. While several items came from area farmers’ markets, from our garden, I harvested super, sweet corn, yellow gold potatoes, tomatoes, onions and cucumbers for a medley of organic, chemical free veggie options. The potatoes were boiled just to the point of softness, left with their skins, mashed to crumbly perfection with just the right amount of Kosher salt, ground black pepper and finely chopped leek. This concoction was spooned on to wonton wrappers, folded over and sealed to form a triangular pocket called Boulanee. If I wasn’t hot from boiling the corn and potatoes, I was definitely hot after frying up the Boulanee pockets.

My husband then went on to make our garlic-mint yogurt sauce that we serve with almost every hot meal. The night before, Bashir and I had chopped tomatoes and cucumbers to make our Afghan Salata but decided to make a smaller, second batch for our guests that don’t enjoy onions so much. While we were prepping and cooking, and drinking, children went from the barn where newly hatched chicks awaited their love and attention to playing in the basement where it was much cooler. Soon, dinner was up and everyone was called to the table. Most of our regular foods were pretty new to our friend’s children who were game enough to give them a try.

Our sweet corn was the easy bet for food favorite with the children but the Boulanee was the winner in the end. The kabobs were popular with the adults and the Salata was enjoyed by all with Mint ice cream finishing off a delightfully delicious dinner with our friends and the “Dancing Man”. Leave me a comment on what your favorite beer is. Check out Local Dirt for a farm or farmers’ market near you. You might even find your favorite local brew on the site as well! Know your farm, trust your food and bring delight back to dinner again.

A little bit of "Grace" makes cheesecake special!

Greetings all! Have you ever eaten something so good that as you close your mouth, you stop to just let the flavors and texture play across your palate? Well, that is what happened to me last night with our desert, Bailey’s Irish Cream cheesecake by Grace Cheesecakes, Madison, Wis. Tuesday nights are special for us as we often have guests join us for dinner. Some are regulars and others drop in as their schedules allow. Last night, we had planned on a few more guests but as it turned out, life interfered and it was just us and our good friend Robert Purvis. He joins us most every week and adds his humor and wisdom to all our family discussions being held that evening.

For those of you who think your life is just too busy to sit down to a family meal around the dinner table, let me assure you, it can be done. We are a typical American family with both of us parents working full time and two teenagers at home involved with sports AND a small farm, so trying to have a sit down dinner every night is a pipe dream. The reality is, though, we CAN do it at least once a week and generate a great deal of positive family harmony in that one meal.

Our family goal of sourcing at least 75% of our food locally is shared with our guests as we tell them the story of each food item and the farm it came from. We involve the whole family and our guests in the preparation of the meal as well as include some adult beverages and special kid ones like Sprecher Root beer or lemonade. We usually take pictures of the table all spread out with our evenings’ special and oh and ah over the bounty displayed before us. You don’t need to wait for Thanksgiving or Christmas to have that kind of dinner. We do it every week.

This week, our meal was vegetarian, Afghan style since my husband was the cook for the evening. I was in charge of bringing desert. Bashir cooked up some of his yummy Basmati rice, sabzi (cooked spinach with garlic, cumin, salt and pepper), garlic-yogurt sauce, salata using tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden, and a heavy garlic brochette. We adults enjoyed a light rose wine and the kids had some rarely served cola. Dinner was flavorful and satisfying with lively discussions ranging from the kids’ recent week spent at 4H camp, the monsoon-like rains and dealing with difficult people. We never lack for topics to discuss and by including our friends in on them, we often see things from different perspectives.

Desert was what everyone was waiting for though. I was late getting home due to a meeting with Lori Christilaw, owner and pastry chef of Grace Cheesecakes, Madison, Wis. Everyone agreed that it was worth waiting for! I first met Lori early this summer during one of my visits to the Dane County Farmers’ Market in Madison. I talked with her a bit about Local Dirt each time I purchased some of her yummy creations and finally decided it was time to show her the site when she wasn’t busy selling cheesecakes or breakfast bars to customers at the farmers’ market.

She graciously agreed to a meeting at her bakery where I learned that not only is she a pastry chef with a degree in culinary arts, she also does massage therapy a couple of times a week. She is amazing. On her sticker that graces every cheesecake box, it says they are made with love and truly, we could taste it. Her magic fingers not only make people feel good, her food made us pleasantly sated and content on the beautiful Wisconsin evening last night. Life really is good.

Lori took her time in developing Grace Cheesecakes by acquiring not only her degree in culinary arts but also working for the Paper Valley Hotel, Appleton, Wis. learning how to create seasonal deserts before it became all the rage. She takes great pride in her creations, striving to use as many local, Wisconsin ingredients as possible. She also works hard to create deserts that address the desires of people with dietary issues wanting palate-pleasing options. She moved to Madison in 1993 and became a member of the Dane County Farmers’ Market in April 2006 after a three year wait.

She typically bakes twice a week in order to meet the demand for her cheesecakes and breakfast bars not only at the DCFM but also for weddings and special events. Lori is fearless when it comes to baking for large numbers of people. I am terrified to cook for more than just my family and she willingly takes on orders as high as 3000 when preparing for events like the upcoming Taste of Madison without even flinching.

I am in awe. I am even more appreciative after enjoying last night’s cheesecake with my family and friend. It finished off a long day with a sweet note. I invite you to check out http://www.localdirt.com/ for a local farmer or baker near you where you can purchase delicious food and share it with your friends and family.

Try one of Grace Cheesecakes and leave me a note at to what flavor you tried so I know what to order next. Know your food producer, trust your food and bring joy back to the dinner table.

Hi all! Well, I survived another intense county fair season in central Wisconsin. This year, my children and I participated in the Stoughton Fair, held in Stoughton, Wisconsin as well as the Dane County Fair held in Madison, Wis. While I did not actively do any showing of animals, I was the groom and chauffeur for my children and their animals.

County fairs help to define our summers as well as the summers’ of many local farmers who have fair-aged children enrolled in 4H or FFA or even Boy and Girl Scouts. Children and their parents start planning in the fall of the previous year what their projects will be. These range from quilts to cattle. Some fairs allow you to compete in classes that judge the best eggs or the best preserves or the best in shooting sports. Most fairs include entertainment that can include musical guests, dances or even pig wrestling. There is always a carnival to go on rides and eat deep fried food too.

Kids spend months preparing their projects, whether they are works of art, preserves, or animals and then spend one crazy, intense, HOT week showing off their projects in hopes of receiving a blue ribbon. We belong to the Brooklyn Mighty Mites 4H group and are lucky enough to have a variety of families that enjoy creating many different projects for competition at our local fairs. Many of our members go on to compete at the Wisconsin State Fair held August 5-15. We have members that are active in cake decorating, quilting, preserve making, woodworking, shooting sports, dog obedience, beef cattle, dairy cattle, chickens, turkeys, sheep, llamas, rabbits, horses and swine.

2010 was a good year for the kids of the Brooklyn Mighty Mites as they came home with many blue ribbons and championships in almost every category. My own family showed chickens, a Shetland Sheep, and horses. All but one chicken took home a blue, the sheep earned a blue and both my children earned a Reserve Champion Western Pleasure Rider/Horse in their age categories. It was HOT and I was worried we all might melt in the heat as it radiated up from the blacktop and concrete. Luckily, we didn’t and when Sunday night rolled around, for both fairs this month of July, and we had to break down all our stall decorations, a deep sadness set in as the reality of it being 12 months before we all get to socialize with our animals and our friends all over the county for several days again.

While my children were prepping animals for show or keeping their stalls clean, I walked around the various barns connecting with the parents of other fair participants. I talked to them about Local Dirt and how it could help them reach out to consumers wanting to source their food more locally. Most everyone was excited about the idea of being able to easily reach out to potential customers and the stickers we have saying “I’m Locally Grown” were incredibly popular. They ended up in every barn and on many stalls. There were even kids wearing them. I look forward to helping them become more active in using our site and encouraging my readers to talk to your local farmer and show them the site.

Now it’s time to contemplate if we will participate in the Wisconsin State 4H Horse Show held in September at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds and to get back into blogging about local food that I have purchased from some of the local farms that were represented at this year’s local fairs. Check out www.localdirt.com for a local farmer near you.

Sometimes dinner doesn't turn out quite as planned :)

Hi All! Well last night I thought I would try something different with dinner. We love enchiladas and I decided I wanted to try to make it healthier by changing up some of the ingredients. I thawed out some of our grass-fed ground beef and seasoned it with taco seasoning. After it was nicely browned, I added some canned, diced green chilies and stewed tomatoes. I then added a bit of shredded mozzeralla to the pan.

Here’s where I really went wrong though. Normally, I make enchiladas using flour or corn tortillas. This time, I thought I would try a different brand that was super high in fiber and lightly flavored with basil. After I loaded the tortillas with the meat sauce, rolled up and placed in the lightly greased pan, I covered it with a “hot” enchilada sauce and more shredded mozzeralla cheese. This was then placed in the oven for about an hour at 350 degrees.

When I pulled it out, it looked great! The cheese was nicely browned on the edges and everything smelled wonderful. We had also decided to try a raspberry/grape Wisconsin wine. I didn’t realize that it was slightly carbonated but thought it still might taste good. Then I read the label closely and realized that I had bought a dessert wine! It is meant to be drunk while enjoying some sort dark chocolate creation. Unfortunately, I had not planned dessert, let alone a dark chocolate one. Our friend, Bob, had brought fresh black berries from his garden to be served with our white chocolate/vanilla ice cream. Ugh!

Needless to say, it was not one of my best meals. It wasn’t horrible but the flavors just didn’t play across the palate like I would have liked and the texture of the high fiber, flavored tortillas just didn’t work for me. My husband and Bob did have seconds but I could barely finish my first serving. While I didn’t like the wine with the meal, I would be willing to try it again with a dark chocolate dessert.

Live and learn. Cooking is not something that comes easily to me but I will continue to try new recipes with locally produced food at least once a week and if it fails, I just need to remember that is part of the learning process.
Have you ever made a meal that, while totally edible, just didn’t taste the way you wanted? Or choose a wine that really didn’t go with the meal? Tell me your failed attempts and what you learned from it. Know your farm, trust your food and bring fun back to the table! Check out www.localdirt.com for local food near you.

News from the Hen House!

Hi all! Locavore Lady here with a story on life on a small farm and how small farmers strive to provide safe and healthy local food. Not only am I passionate about sourcing local food, I love to grow it! I have a large garden that is just coming into its own and my kids and I raise chickens for eggs and meat. The kids also take some of their birds to local fairs as one of their 4H projects. Out of all the different species I have raised over the years, chickens are THE most enjoyable! The kids love them too and it shows in their superior care our chickens get and the championships our kids have been consistently bringing home over the years, for their unique and purebred varieties, crossbred layers and meat chickens.

Our laying hens are never turned into stewing birds, for a few reasons. First of all, they give us big, beautiful, brown eggs for 3-4 years so I feel the least I can give them in return, is a safe and warm place for them to live out their natural lives, which is about 5 years. Second reason we don’t turn them into stew or soup, is that there isn’t much left of the bird after producing and laying eggs non-stop for several years. We keep our birds under lights all winter so they continue to lay. That means their systems never take a break. A typical, healthy laying hen produces 1 egg every 26 hours or so. The older the bird, the longer time it takes to lay an egg and the bigger the egg. My third reason for not turning them into stew or soup is that I love listening to them in the backyard and the fact that when we start new young birds, they are the wise elders that show the young ones how to find food out in the pasture and where to lay their eggs. Not to mention, knowing where to go when it gets dark and you don’t want to get eaten by a coyote, fox, badger, skunk, raccoon, owl, hawk, wild cats or dogs and weasels.

Life on a small farm for most animals is very pleasant due the reduced number of animals and thus less work for the farmer. Most of our friends that also have small farms, allow their animals to be outside as much as possible in order to increase the quality of life for the animals but also to reduce the amount of maintenance and cleanup needed. Animals kept in a barn all the time, or in a cage all the time, need a lot of care in order to maintain their health. My family is active in 3-5 other sports at any given time, involved in school activities and 4H projects so “keeping it natural” is our best fit option.


That being said, one of the things we do every year in order to maintain the safety of our eggs and meat, is to test all adult chickens for Salmonella Pullorum. The test is a simple blood test with a serum that detects the presence of antigens in their system to the S. Pullorum bacterium. I am a Wisconsin State Certified Pullorum tester and thus was crazy-busy this past weekend testing many local 4H kids’ flocks. (Our local fairs start this week.) It is really quite simple, in theory, to do. You catch the bird. You prick a vein under their wing for a drop of blood to appear. Catch the blood droplet with a special tool and mix with a drop of serum.

If the bird was a carrier or actively fighting Pullorum, the blood would immediately start to clump up into little purple dots. That would be very bad as all the birds would then have to be destroyed in order to minimize the contagious nature of this for other flocks in the area. It has not been seen in Wisconsin in a very long time, several decades, due to the aggressive testing of flocks around the state and nation.

Like I was saying, it sounds like it would be simple, right? Wrong. First you have to corral the chickens, then catch them one by one, band them with identifying leg bands, and then immobilize them in a way that doesn’t hurt them but allows for the blood test. Lucky for me, my daughter is a GREAT chicken wrangler and was able to assist at all the farms we went to over the weekend. We also enlisted the help of some friends Saturday night for our own chickens. We have roughly 50 chickens of eight different breeds, some being easier to catch than others. Some of them are quite big and some are small with some being noisier than the others in their protest of being pulled off their perches for the evening. We had one Sumatra rooster truly sound like he was saying “help” before I even approached him with the needle!

3 hours later, all our birds were done and settled back into their coop for the night, with their feathers a bit ruffled but no worse for the wear. We also maintain a USDA certification for meat and egg production and sales. Some small farmers do this and some don’t. Some small farmers are organic with some just using organic practices but held off getting the certification due to the high cost in obtaining that certification. We are one of those farms. We are organic as possible in our practices but the cost of becoming certified has been cost prohibitive.

Cornish/Rock cross Champion Meat Chicken on R&B Acres LLC farm, Oregon, Wis.Get to know your local farmer by going to www.localdirt.com and finding one near you. Read their biography and order their products. Know your farm, trust your food and bring fun back to the dinner table!

Thanks and enjoy the day – Renee, aka Locavore

Sucess with Seasonal First Foods

Hi all! I definitely like being a locavore and sharing my finds with family and friends. Dinner the other night was another big hit. After a monsoon-like day, and sloppy, wet visits to the Southside Farmers’ Market run by Robert Pierce and the Oregon Farmers’ Market run by David Woodcock, I finally made it home with my “finds” just in time to see the sun come out and witness a beautiful sunset during dinner. Our children are on vacation with their Grandfather this week but our weekly Tuesday dinner was still on and actually had more than the usual visitors.

This week’s mission was to find something that was a seasonal first. I thought it might be a bit of a challenge but I was wrong. Not only did I enjoy the first zucchini, I found the first baby red potatoes, broccoli, beets and kohlrabi! Dinner was coming together nicely. On a whim, I decided to see what yummy, cheesy type of bread the Silly Yak Bakery at the Oregon Farmers’ Market might have. Again, success was mine as I took home a bag full of cream cheese stuffed jalapeño bread bites that were topped with asiago cheese and a cheesy, Italian pull apart bread.

My husband had pulled some of our grass-fed ground beef out of the freezer and mixed it with spicy Indian seasonings to make his ever-popular Shami Kabob. He also whipped up his delightfully delicate mint-garlic yogurt sauce that compliments the spicy heat in the kabobs. He served his kabobs with lightly grilled tortillas and my locally found veggies.

I warmed up the bread in the oven and while he was grilling the kabobs, I prepped the veggie kabobs of zucchini and tomatoes with a mustard, chili pepper vinaigrette marinade from Savory Accents that my son had picked up at the Saturday Dane County Farmers' Market, Madison, Wis. I then steamed my first local broccoli, beets and kohlrabi that were lightly seasoned with Himalayan sea salt that I had purchased at another farmers’ market in Madison a few weeks ago. My baby red potatoes were boiled just to the point of succulent softness and served whole with Wisconsin butter as an option for topping.
The only thing not local on the menu that night was the wine. This was due the fact that our guests had brought the wine and weren’t quite aware about our family’s challenge to source as much of our food locally as possible. When we teased them about it, they promptly suggested that we “destroy” the evidence of a non-local food item as soon as possible. Done!

The only thing I wasn’t successful at for our dinner was the dessert. I had really hoped to have fresh sheep’s milk ice cream using some of the milk from our sheep but I didn’t realize how long it took to make homemade ice cream. After about 40 minutes of shaking and stirring, we gave up and got out the Wisconsin vanilla that was in the freezer which was topped with a lemon-strawberry puree. All in all, there were smiles all around. Know your farm, trust your food and bring merriment back to the dinner table.

Check out www.localdirt.com for locations where you can find seasonal food firsts near you.

Here is our recipe for the mint-garlic yogurt sauce that can be used as a salad dressing, veggie topper or great meat marinade:

1 container of plain, full fat local yogurt (usually 12 oz)
4 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced
1 small bunch (about 6 tender stalks) of fresh mint, chopped fine. For a finer texture, stick to chopping just the leaves.
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix and enjoy!