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!