ELC Day Two

Because I'm not wasting food, I am eating the yogurt that I forgot about this week, so it won't go bad. So I had that with "Good God Granola" from Snow Creek Family Organics (Sandy Ridge, NC) this morning. They didn't grow the ingredients, but they put them together.

For lunch, I had a salad with the thinnings from my garden this weekend. Tennis ball lettuce, spotted Aleppo lettuce, the few Lutz salad beet greens that survived the Critter, carrots, and French breakfast radishes, topped with marinated goat cheese from Goat Lady Dairy (Climax, NC). This was my first salad from my garden. Last year I ate my first salad in late March!

For dessert, I had a slice of wholegrain bread from Simple Kneads Bakery (Greensboro, NC) topped with quince butter that I made this past December, from the quince tree next door.

As I posted before, what I am exploring this month as part of the Eat Local Challenge is making my salad dressings from scratch. Yes, it's simple, but I've never bothered because I liked the bottled dressings I bought. Here's the recipe I used for a basic vinaigrette from my favorite cookbook writer:

1 cup olive oil
5 Tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp salt

Her recipe then calls for garlic, but I added 2 Tbsp. of garlic chives from my garden instead. I poured it all in a bottle, shook it up, and that was that.

The vinegar was local! I bought it from Quaker Acres Apiaries at the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market. It is honey wine vinegar, and if you want to hear all about it, all you need to do is look at it and you'll get the full story.

Did I like the dressing? Well, not especially. I think I'll use it to marinate a roast. I'm a green goddess girl, myself. I need to make a trip to Earth Fare for some Homestead Creamery buttermilk. And I'm going to make mayonnaise.

While I'm there, I may buy some North Carolina trout. Although Earth Fare sells humanely-raised meat and poultry, I asked the guy at the butcher counter, and none of it is local. Not much of the seafood is, either.