The Ugly Side of Local Eating

OK -- so "ugly" is in the eye of the beholder, right?
I'll let you decide ... after you take a look at dinner.

Yeah, it's a pretty "colorful" dish. Not exactly what I'd call traditionally attractive... though this combination really packs a nutritional wallop. And this dish scored us another local eating victory -- during a week when the outlook was starting to feel a bit bleak.

Remember those two heads of red cabbage? And those sleek leeks? Well, I decided to go for broke and combine them with a bit of spinach pasta. Slow cooking the leeks and shredded cabbage with a couple of tablespoons of paprika and a bit of salt rendered the vegetables meltingly tender and sweet. Likewise, a bit of olive oil and a fair amount of time in the oven gave the roasted butternut squash a nice, caramelized flavor. Paired together with the pasta (and later topped with a dollop of sour cream) it was a treat that far surpassed expectations.

This is one of those dishes that wouldn't win a beauty pageant. The sort of thing that I probably wouldn't serve to company. But, it made a hearty autumn main dish with plenty of delicious leftovers to scare our co-workers the next day at lunch!


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VegHead Chili

When we got home from Dallas, we surveyed the contents of the refrigerator.

• 2 small red cabbages (from our CSA booty)
• a few locally grown carrots
• 2 sleek leeks (locally grown, obtained at the co-op)
• a bunch of peppers (both sweet and hot) from the garden
• some lonely celery (I do not believe this was local...!!)
• 1 locally grown butternut squash (OK, not in the fridge... but close)
• a few onions (from last week's farmer's market)

Alright, alright. The outlook was better than expected. But, it still presented a few challenges for an entire week of eating.

Fortunately, I was saved by a few of my freezer staples: frozen roasted tomatoes from last summer's CSA and a bag of grilled corn (from earlier this summer when we were eating corn on the cob by the boatload). We also have a well-stocked pantry, so cans of beans (from MI), and spices (from Penzey's) were also readily available.

HaHA! I shouted (accompanied, of course, by the prerequisite menacing grin). And I began chopping.
Somewhere along the line, three beans escaped from their respective cans and posed for me on the cutting board... so I took a photo.
And a beer from Viking Brewery flung itself out of the fridge. So, I decided to make use of him. He turned out to be a secret ingredient (though I'm fairly certain that an ordinary stout would do in a pinch).
I roasted up a few poblanos from the garden, tossed in a few jalapenos. And WA-LA! Veg-head chili.
The cheese on top is truly gratuitous, considering the already delicious nature of this chili. But, we couldn't resist being a little bit indulgent.

This chili was a winner this week, not only because it tasted great, but also because it made a large enough pot to provide lots of leftovers for lunch (and another dinner).

If you're interested in the basic recipe, I'll share.
Veg-head Chili


NOTE on the Viking Hot Chocolate Beer: Pretty interesting stuff. A bit sweet for my taste -- which is why it ended up in the chili, rather than directly down the hatch. But, I like the adventurous folks over there at Viking. They get thumbs up for originality.



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