OLS Week #7

There are times, I've come to realize, when life just doesn’t make itself conducive to blogging. Hence me not getting my meals posted in time to be included in the One Local Summer week 7 OR week 8 roundup (delinquent, I know). Luckily, while my past few weeks have been hectic and jam-packed, they’ve remained conducive to eating locally. But the business isn’t calming down, so for now I’m reporting things with a two week delay.

Week 7
This week, I found myself between travels, having arrived back from a trip to Virginia on Monday and planning to depart for Los Angeles on Friday. My four days in town left me not very much time to plan, procure, or prepare.

One conviction I've had about any sort of conscious eating habit is that it must not be unwavering. We eat not only for our own personal sustenance but to share an experience with those we choose to dine with. Never have I felt it appropriate to decline to dine with someone because of my own personal food preferences. (This is what has kept me away from vegetarianism, what makes me recoil at Atkins-esque diets, and why I will never decline homemade dessert after dinner). So this week, when I was faced with dining situations where eating 100% local just wouldn’t work, I improvised. Instead of one 100% local meal, I made two 80% local meals, sacrificing that other 20% each time to be able to dine with friends and to not subject them to eating only the limited local foodstuffs I had on hand.

I also realized something else for the first time this week: eating locally, for me, can also be convenient. Sure I've enjoyed the languid summer weeks when I've had nothing pressing on the agenda, allowing me to spend hours at several farmers’ markets throughout the week, exploring and procuring, and another several hours in the kitchen on Sunday afternoons whipping up elaborate, celebratory meals. But languid summer days don’t come around that often, while the need for a meal obviously does. Both meals I prepared this week were possible with only a quick visit to a farmers’ market, some surplus from my garden, and a visit to a local Henry’s, which surprised me with several identifiable local ingredients.

(If I may digress for a moment, Henry’s has tended to anger me for some time, proudly boasting “Eat Local” signs while neglecting to clearly identify the sources of products on the shelves, or worse—just last week I found three “Eat Local” signs posted above a bin of what was clearly identified as Maui pineapple—if only I had a camera. While this is a discussion for another time, the idea of “greenwashing”—boasting claims that a product has such “en vogue” traits as being organic, or local when it barely meets the sustainable criteria that these traits were founded on—angers me to the core).

The first 80% meal this week was made before I had a chance to visit a farmer’s market, relying only on what was in my fridge, garden, and grocery store. The result was linguini with sausage and mushroom-port tomato sauce, with the flour for the pasta, the organic leeks, and the sausage coming from non-local sources. The tomatoes, eggs, two types of mushrooms, shallot, garlic, and port were all local.


Home-made Linguini:
2 cups flour
3 eggs
4 tablespoons cold water, if needed
In food processor, mix flour and egg until dough forms a rough ball. Add water 1 tbsp. at a time as needed if dough doesn’t integrate. Remove dough from processor, combining any stray pieces. Turn out on clean, floured surface and knead for 5 minutes until soft. Let sit, covered, for 15 minutes and up to 1 hour.

Turn dough out onto floured surface and roll out with rolling pin, over and over until as thin as possible. If dough reaches size of surface and you need more room, slice dough into two or more parts and roll individually. When it can’t possibly get any thinner, slice dough into 1/8” strips using pizza cutter. Carefully place strips on a baking pan lined with parchment paper until ready to cook. Dough can be refrigerated at this stage for up to 2 days or frozen for up to a week.
To cook: bring 4 quarts water to boil. Add pasta and cook for 5 minutes, until al dente.


Sausage and Mushroom-Port Tomato Sauce:
2 sausage links
1 bunch leeks, white and pale green parts only
2 shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
¾ cup button mushrooms, diced
½ cup oyster mushrooms, chopped coarsely
2 cups fresh tomatoes
1 cup port
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

Remove sausage from casings. Brown sausage in large, heavy bottomed skillet over medium-high heat, about 7 minutes. Transfer to bowl and cover. Drain any fat from the skillet, add 1 tbsp oil. Add leeks and sauté 5 minutes, until translucent. Add shallots and garlic, cook for 1 minute. Add mushrooms, stir for 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, port, sugar, and salt. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes, covered. Uncover, add sausage, and simmer for 10-15 minutes longer. Toss over just cooked pasta and serve.


The next meal was the quickest I've made all summer: Mushroom, Arugula, and Red Pepper Fritatta served alongside an arugula salad. The ease of this meal is its versatility—practically any ingredients for the filling will do, and after dicing all the ingredients for the frittata, I just tossed any leftovers into the salad. Since I toted the ingredients to a friend’s house to prepare just before hitting the road to LA, this worked out perfectly. The 20% un-localness in this meal was chicken—as my friend had several chicken breasts that wouldn’t make it through the weekend, which he opted to prepare rather than waste.


Mushroom, Arugula, and Red Pepper Fritatta:
8 eggs
1 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
½ bunch arigula diced (about 1 cup)
4-5 oyster mushrooms, sliced thin
¼ cup shaved sharp gouda or other aged cheese

Preheat oven to 350. In large, ovenproof pan, sautee onion and carrot over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add bell pepper, cook for 3 minutes more. Add mushrooms, cook for 2 minutes. Add arugula, stir, and remove from heat.

Whisk together eggs, salt, and pepper in a large bowl until yolks are well integrated. Bring pan back to medium low heat , add eggs, and cook, slowly, pushing mixture gently with spatula to expose uncooked eggs to bottom of pan. Cook 3-5 minutes, until bottom of eggs are set.

Sprinkle grated cheese on top and transfer pan to oven. Cook 3-5 minutes longer, until top is gently brown and eggs are firm to touch. Carefully remove from heat, divide into 4-6 slices, and serve alongside salad composed of any unused vegetables (mine was an arugula, red pepper, and button mushroom salad dressed with local olive oil and non-local vinegar).


Whew! That makes me only a week behind…Week 8’s local meal to be posted shortly…