Living local in Eugene, OR
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Salads, Vegetables - cool weather on Feb 9th, 2009
We still have a month before the first day of spring, but this is the best description for something with peas in it. We brought this dish to a community potluck honoring our local farmers and it was gone before we made it through the line (sorry no photo of the final dish). I’ve made [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Garden, Grains & legumes, Salads, Vegetables - cool weather on Jan 31st, 2009
Its been a relatively quiet blog week for us so I wanted to finish the week with something really good. It was supposed to serve 4 but we ate almost all of it for one dinner. I didn’t even give Matt a chance for the leftovers.
It is another recipe from Heirloom Beans, which I continue [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Grains & legumes on Jan 20th, 2009
We kicked off our new President’s inauguration with oven fried buttermilk chicken thighs, roasted sunchokes, and farro with spinach. Part of the Dark Days Challenge is to try a new vegetable in January. We finally got around to adding something new to the mix with the sunchokes (also called Jerusalem artichokes) that I purchased at [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Grains & legumes, Soups on Jan 19th, 2009
Somehow we managed to accumulate about 3 pounds of local black turtle beans and the freezer is still ejecting random bags of frozen corn or green beans whenever I open it, so the quest of using our local food stash continues.
I had this recipe from Smitten Kitchen marked in my favorites since the fall when [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Markets & farms, Portland, Soups, Vegetables - cool weather on Jan 11th, 2009
We made our first winter squash soup of the year with the Sibley Squash that I picked up at the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market this morning . Our main purpose of going to the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market was to procure some Ayers Creek Farm heirloom beans but I couldn’t resist when I saw this beautiful squash [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Pasta on Jan 4th, 2009
We were looking for an easy meal afterreturning from a long weekend in Bandon. And I didn’t want to go to the grocery store, so pasta with bolognese sauce it was. Typically bolognese sauce simmers for several hours, but I found a recipe in Cooks Illustrated last year that cuts the time way back (to [...]
Posted in Bandon, Dark Days Challenge, Markets & farms on Jan 2nd, 2009
The holidays are over, but I still wanted some local cranberries. Every time I am in the produce section at the grocery store, I look at the box in hopes to see Oregon cranberries. Instead I walk away disgusted that a grocery store in Eugene buys cranberries from Wisconsin. What the heck?
We did manage to [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Markets & farms on Jan 1st, 2009
Beans and grains have become a bit of an obsession around here. We are headed to the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market next weekend in search of some beans. A helpful reader turned me on to Ayers Creek Farm (thank you!), owned by Anthony and Carol Boutard. I have exchanged a few emails with Anthony and read [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Grains & legumes on Dec 24th, 2008
When we decided that we would eat as much locally grown food as possible, we started using mostly dried beans. There are sources for some dried beans (mostly black beans) in the Willamette Valley, but that will hopefully be increasing with the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project that is focused on converting grass [...]
Posted in Dark Days Challenge, Soups, Vegetables - cool weather on Dec 19th, 2008
I have never thought that borscht looked like a soup that I would like to eat, let alone make. But our visit to Belly changed my opinion of borscht. Brian ordered borscht for dinner and kindly let us all taste it and it was delicious. I think the color is what turned me off. Its [...]
