if i knew that you were coming i'd a baked a cake.

Monday, May 15, 2006

ELC Day Fifteen

Lunch today was late because I was too stressed out to eat, but once I did I had a salad with lettuce, spinach, radishes, and carrots from the back forty, strawberries from my front porch pots, sprouts from Snow Creek Family Organic Farm, and homemade dressing made with an egg from Back Woods Family Farm, olive oil, buttermilk from Homestead Creamery, and herbs from the back forty. I snacked on roasted peanuts from Faucette Farms.

Dinner is coming out in a few minutes. I was tired of eating rabbit food, so I made a basic peasant dish - a layered hamburger and potato casserole. I used to make casseroles with cream of mushroom soup, but for the past year or so I've been making a thick white sauce with chopped mushrooms to substitute for that. It makes an ordinary dish seem like a gourmet meal. Well, I don't think anything could make this dish seem gourmet, but it sure is good.

Sources:
Hamburger - Rocking F Farm
Onion - Faucette Farm
Elephant Garlic - My back yard
Red potatoes and white mushrooms - Gann Farm
Milk - Homestead Creamery
Butter - Homeland Creamery
Flour - Old Mill of Guilford
Extra-sharp cheddar cheese - the Molners at the Curb Market - technically not made by them, it is Amish cheese that they get from Ohio. I can't find a local source of sharp cheddar, and life is not worth living with only regular cheddar. And Ohio is not so far away...

Part of the problem with this time of year is that I spend the remaining daylight hours in the garden, and then I end up cooking very late, if at all. Normally I would cook a few big dishes on the weekend to get us through most of the week, but again, this time of year is full of things that keep me out of the kitchen on the weekend.

We need more restaurants that make an effort to buy food from local farmers. We have some, such as Lucky 32, Green Valley Grill, Bistro Sofia, and Bert's, to name a few, but we need more on the lower end too, such as breakfast places that serve local sausage, bread, and pasture-raised eggs. I was in a place in Asheville that charged a little extra for free-range organic eggs. I would happily do that if I had a choice here in Greensboro.

2 comments:

Liz said...

If I ever get to Vermont, I definitely plan to stop in at the Farmer's Diner. I also heard that he wants to start building "pods" of local food diners around the country.

No sharp cheddar here either... mine either comes from Mass. or Canada. Like you, it's something I'm not willing to give up.

Jeph said...

Plus our amish folk out here make some great cheese (amongst other things, like our dining room table!).

Love your site!