Farmhouse Meal

Speaking of delectable, even gourmet local foods prepared in simple ways in the home kitchen (see previous post on fermented foods), we felt so lucky to consider our meals of the day. We eat many local grown or prepared foods including many from our own garden, and try hard to eat in season as much as we can. Often we can start to take this for granted, but the day's meals seemed especially wonderful in the context of the earlier fermentation workshop. Here is what we had - no photos were taken as we were simply enjoying the foods as a family.

Brunch with our friend who dropped in from out of town:
- buckwheat flapjacks made with local organic flour (buckwheat and whole wheat) and local free range eggs from our backyard hens
- served with local maple syrup, homemade organic yogurt and strawberry/peach sauce made from organic fruit we harvested and preserved this past summer
- maple glazed tempeh made with locally produced tempeh (produced in a small-scale production facility on the next street over from our house), made with local maple syrup, and cayenne, garlic and herbs from our garden
- herbal tea from our own herb garden
- our baby Maya, who's just started solid foods, ate local pure applesauce we'd canned in the fall for her (made from wild harvested apples, and apples from our own property)

Dinner as a family consisted of this:
- creamy roasted carrot soup with local organic carrots, herbs from our garden
- served with a small dollop of organic yogurt and fresh rosemary (from our greenhouse)
- herbed biscuits made with local organic flour, served with organic goat chevre
- assortment of ferments - stuffed local wild grape leaves and dilly beans made by one friend; the best sauerkraut I've ever had, prepared by another friend; sour cherry wine made by another friend who led a winemaking workshop here last year
- as we were finishing up dinner, the same winemaking friend made a surprise visit with another large carboy of freshly racked local homemade rhubarb wine he wanted to share with us!
- fresh greens are sprouting in the greenhouse and soon we'll harvest our first salad of 2009

We felt well nourished, and so blessed by our incredible array of talented friends who are making such bold and wonderful forrays into local foods!