We picked the first beets of the season this past week along with one acorn squash, one cabbage, and two large eggplants. We also made a trip to a local Farmers' Market and bought some fabulous apples from Branstool Orchards, four quarts of nice green beans, a beautiful yellow squash, and some Russian kale.
We used the eggplants and squash to make ratatouille following a strict Niçoise recipe with the following ingredients:
eggplant (ours)
squash (local)
garlic (local)
onions (local)
peppers (ours)
tomatoes (ours)
parsley (ours)
thyme (ours)
rosemary (ours)
We had this for dinner on Saturday night with our beets and beet greens with a mustard vinaigrette, a loaf of bread from Lucky Cat Bakery (local), and an apple pie with apples from Branstool Orchards (local). Major ingredients of our dinner that were not our own or grown locally were olive oil (tough one to grow in Ohio), flour, salt and pepper, sugar, and the wine (white wine from Reuilly in Burgundy). Our chickens ate the apple cores and a lot of the vegetable trimmings.
Sunday night, we roasted a chicken (local) and had it with acorn squash (ours) stuffed with apples (local), onions (local), and raisins. We also had the Russian kale (local) braised in vegetable stock with onions and garlic, served with Tuscan white beans. This was served with a bottle of white Burgundy, and the leftover apple pie.
We blanched the green beans, vacuum sealed them, and put them in the freezer for this coming winter.
These menus were prepared simply based on the seasonal ingredients that were available in mid-September. You don't have to be a fascistic locavore to make this happen. It takes no more time to go to a Farmers' Market than to Kroger, and it is way more entertaining. And always, it supports local farmers and the people they employ.
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