Sunday, August 02, 2009

One Local Summer: Week 9
























Had friends over for dinner Saturday night. Henry loves lamb and his wife hardly ever cooks it so I promised him a BBQ leg of lamb.

Our Friday CSA box pretty much determined the rest of the meal: beets, green beans, carrots, garlic, onions, lemon cucumbers and tomatoes. Thanks to Google I found a recipe for oven roasted beets (although you have to steam them first), green beans and carrots. Add some olive oil, thyme, hot pepper flakes, salt and garlic; roast until everything looks crispy. The recipe also called for chard but I didn't have any. The surprising thing about the dish is that you serve it at room temperature with a vinaigrette dressing; then you top it with chevre cheese.

I made a lemon cucumber and tomato dish topped with feta cheese, which I dressed in a sweeter vinaigrette. The Georgia streak tomatoes were from our garden.

Also served a rosemary bread from a local bakery with a dipping sauce of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Kerry BBQed the lamb to perfection.

Dessert was locally grown melons from the farmer's market. We don't get a fruit share from our CSA.

The only non-local items were the cheeses, wines and balsamic vinegar. Leftovers tonight.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In a way, the surprise of the CSA share and the challenge to get creative with the ingredients given is a lot of the fun :-) I'm not a beet fan, despite the many attempts and variations on how to cook them (roasted, grilled, in soup, etc).... can I snag your recipe to give it another try? How long do you steam the beets before roasting?
Lemon cucumbers are delicious. I haven't seen melons yet in our farmers' markets, but I know several farmers do grow them, so hopefully soon!