Rhythm of the Season

Eating seasonally is the natural extension of eating local.  It connects us with the rhythm of the growing season and adds a cozy structure to the year.  As Andrew Zimmern said last week on MPR's Appetites, in the fall we stop craving tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella salads and start turning our minds to roasted root vegetables, and hearty soups.  Many of you, like me, will spend the next few weekends canning the last of the summer tomatoes and dreaming of how it will perk up your winter chili.
At Lucille's Kitchen Garden we are literally buried in apples and pears as our customers turn from the bright flavors of strawberries to the comforts of cinnamon and ginger. This week I was thinking about how we all benefit from the fact that we crave things when they are in season.  First, our produce doesn't have all the food miles created by shipping heavy items like apples and pears across the country.  We still carry many of the flavors throughout the year, but we can usually stock up on them now.  Secondly the price of raw ingredients is about 1/3 less when they are in season, which allows us to keep a competitive price point and make our products available to a wider audience of people.  Finally, it just shows how many of us have embraced this natural rhythm of the season in our food lives.
I was especially excited this week to see that The Heavy Table combine our Ginger Pear Jam with Donnay Dairy's Granite Ridge, amazing aged goat cheese in a fantastic sandwich that I will be making this weekend.  Check out the blog and let me know how it goes.  Don't worry, in about 9 months we will be back to pure bliss at the idea of a caprese salad!

The Pizza Part

I started with a thin crust of dough and let it rise for about an hour. This adds a lot of air to the dough and makes for a very light, crunchy crust. I topped with Red onion, Duck Confit, Lucille's Kitchen Garden Cranberry White Balsamic Chutney, and Mascarpone. I also sprinkled with olive oil and just a little White Balsamic Vinegar.

Duck Confit Update # 3

Place duck meat into sterilized jars and cover with duck fat. Place lid on and refrigerate. The fat becomes solid so you can pull the pieces of duck out without getting chunks of the fat. However the fat gel is very rich and flavorful, so a little sticking to the meat enhances the flavor. I have read that the duck confit is good in the refrigerator for a month to 6 months, but as this is my first time making it, and because I am using cooked duck from the start I am not sure how this will affect the shelf life. For now I am concerned with the long anticipated pizza.

Market Supper

Lets face it. We live in Minnesota, and that means that eating locally can be a daunting task for a good portion of the year. While there are many things that we can get year round such as our meat, cheese, eggs, milk, and of course, jelly, we are slim on the fresh veggies, that abound mid-summer. As I polish off the last of a quiche that I made with eggs, cream, asparagus, and cheese from the Mill City Farmer's Market, I wonder if it would be so hard to eat at least one meal a week that is made up from local ingredients, even during the "lean months" To that end I am going to be putting together a Market Supper sheet each week to help plan a healthy local meal for my family and yours. Due to my limited technical abilities, you will have to click on the image to get it to enlarge, so that you can read and print it. I will also have copies available at our booth at the market each Saturday from 8:00AM to 1:00PM. For more information on the impact of eating locally and how one local meal can cut thousands of food miles from your weekly total and lessen your oil consumption, follow this link to an article that Kare 11 did with the help of Linden Hills Co-op http://www.kare11.com/onlive/shopping/shopping_article.aspx?storyid=494018 See you at the Market!