Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Two Local Dinners

I'm still a pitiful excuse for a blogger. However, we finally have internet at the new digs, so the posting should become more frequent-- excepting next week when I'll be taking a trip to Tigalda to do some archaeological survey.

Since my last post I've been back to the Wednesday Market, and finally made it to the South Anchorage Farmer's Market and the 15th and Cordova Farmer's market. It's been beautiful, but mostly the bounty I've been bringing home has been beautiful! Look at those amazing golden beets from Rempel Family Farm.

I also have two tasty local dinners to share. (Since I'm once again behind, and owe a few weeks to the challenge in terms of posting my meals...though I've successfully made at least one entirely local meal a week since my last posting!)

Two or three weekends ago we ventured down to the mouth of the Kenai river to do some dipnetting. While Cheryl caught her first fish (ever!) and Kelly and James came home with two, we got skunked. I think that's the first time that's ever happened to me while dipnetting.

Having entered the weekend with the expectation that we'd be coming home with at least 20 fresh fillets, I couldn't let go of my desire for salmon the following Monday night. Thankfully, I had one final sockeye left in the freezer from last summer, such were the beginnings for one local dinner.

The salmon went into the oven with a little olive oil, a few onions and some fresh dill. I tossed a salad of local greens, red cabbage, onions, carrots, tomatoes, and goat cheese. The salmon seemed the perfect opportunity to cook up the Beach Asparagus I'd picked up at the previous Wednesday Market. I sauteed the beach asparagus with some Mat-Su Valley Potatoes and olive oil. The saltiness of the beach asparagus with the mild taste of the potatoes and the rich olive oil where the perfect combination!



Topped off with two pints of the Broken Birch Bitter from Homer Brewing Company- What a perfect local summer meal!










This past week's local dinner was more basic, but no less tasty. Having just seen mention of roasted turnips and mashed potatoes on the South Anchorage Farmer's Market Newsletter, and two fresh snow apples (white turnips) I knew this had to be the basis of this week's one local dinner!



Not quite an hour later, potatoes mashed (skins on), turnips roasted with olive oil, garlic and Mark Remepl's beautiful golden beets, and a side of beat greens and rainbow chard creamed- I had one tasty and simple local dinner. (Which I proceeded to stick in the refrigerator so we could meet Kelly, Cheryl and Sed for a hike.) Home alone last night (with T in Kenai setting up for the field project both of our agencies are working on this week) feeling hungry, but not terribly motivated, I popped this all into the oven for a few minutes and enjoyed it so much!

Two local dinners, One Local Summer!

1 comment:

Trav said...

Eating without me. Scandalous!