Dark Days Lunches (with a little cheating)

It wasn't easy to pick a meal this week to dedicate to the Dark Days Challenge.  For some reason I kept changing my plans at the last minute and adding in an ingredient that made the meal not quite qualify.  So in place of one fully local plate I give you my past two lunches, each with one glaringly not locally sourced ingredient but lots of local flavor.

First we have yesterday's Sunshine Chicken with roasted roots.  I used a whole chicken from Hubbell Farm, which I broke down, the wings are pictured.  I shared this recipe back when I first started blogging and my family and I still love it.  Of course it calls for lemons and my lemon tree croaked right after I got one batch of fruit from it but they are in season and organic.  The root vegetables I roasted this time were turnips, beets, parsnips and onion-- a very good combination.  They came from 9 Bean Rows and vendors of The Saturday Farmers Market at the Village.  I cooked the roots in Hubbell Farm's turkey shmaltz.

And today's lunch was lamb arm chops from Starlight Hill Farms served with a variation on this cherry tomato salad.  I used kale, turnip greens and red onion from my 9 Bean Rows winter CSA share but couldn't resist the totally out of season cherry tomatoes John brought home.  I dressed the salad with verjus from Black Star Farms, lots of dried spearmint from my garden (re-hydrated in the verjus), salt, pepper and Higher Grounds olive oil.  You can see the distinctive oil label glowing in today's fantastic sunshine in the background of the photograph.

*Both of these meals fit the requirements of my January Whole 30

Visit Not Dabbling In Normal on Sundays for the round up of Dark Days meals. You can also visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of our Midwest group entres.  

Dark Days Lamb and Kraut Salad

My lamb from Starlight Hill Farms arrived this weekend so for this week's Dark Days meal I made some pan-fried blade chops with kraut and kale salad.  The kraut and kale salad was inspired by Mother's Kitchen's recipe this week. I also used her kraut recipe to make my homemade sauerkraut, made this fall with cabbage bought at the farmer's market.  For the salad, I used Red Russian Kale and the sweetest little white turnips both from Blackbird Gardens, bought at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons' Saturday market.  I skipped the onion and carrot, used organic flax seed oil and added some anise seeds because I have become very fond of them with sauerkraut.  Thanks Cynthia for your Kraut and Kale Salad and Homemade Sauerkraut Instructions.

Visit Not Dabbling In Normal on Sundays for the round up of Dark Days meals. You can also visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of our Midwest group entries.  

I noticed today that the star is even more crooked than it was when I first put it up and that we have a Christmas spider in residence.

Dark Days Borscht with Goat

We went downstate for a quick visit this weekend.  While there my mother served us a delicious borscht that reminded me that I've been making roasted beets too often, some soup was overdue.  For mine, I added some goat meat we bought from friends.  Though the kids have mostly been uninterested in it, John and I were surprised how much we liked the goat.  I have a lamb order from Starlight Hill Farms that will be filling my freezer by the end of the coming week so I decided to finish off the rest of the goat before it arrives.  I'm sure this would be good done with lamb, beef or vegetarian.

Borscht with Goat
In a soup pot, brown goat stew meat (~10 ounces) in some bacon fat. (Did I mention I obsessively save animal fat?) Remove the goat meat with a slotted spoon and set it aside.  Soften an onion, two medium beets, and a small celery root in the bacon fat, seasoning them well with salt and pepper.  The onion I diced but the beet and celeriac I cut into small batons.  Of course wash and/or peel the vegetables first.  Add the goat meat back into the pot along with 4-6 cups of water or stock, a pinch of allspice, a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of dried dill weed.  Stir and adjust seasonings as needed.  Bring the soup to a simmer and cok for 20 minutes, or until the meat is tender.  Add a couple of cups of shredded cabbage and cook just until the cabbage is done to your liking. I like the cabbage still a little crunchy. Taste before serving and add more salt, pepper or vinegar if needed.

Dark Days Challenge Info:
The goat meat came from friends who raised the animal themselves.  The bacon fat is from either my homemade bacon or Gallagher Centennial Farm's bacon.  The onion, beets, celeriac and cabbage are from various vendors from the Saturday market at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons.  The vinegar I used is Eden Foods Ume Plum Vinegar.  Eden Foods is a Michigan company although I do not know where they source the ingredients for this product.

This Sunday will be the first Midwest roundup at Not Dabbling In Normal.  You can visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of the entries so far.  

Penny has discovered a box of her brother's old animal figurines

And Alex got a haircut!

Fragrant Beef Salad

It's been awhile since I've put forth an entry for the Mother's Kitchen Spice Rack Challenge, but her entertaining post and my love for cumin were inspiration to get me moving.  This past winter I was trying to think up new ideas to use the ground beef from the steer share we purchased.  I remembered the spiced beef from a Middle Eastern bakery near one of our previous homes in Sterling Heights, MI.  This bakery served spicy beef on top of brick-oven fired pizza dough with slices of fresh tomato.  (They have to-die-for cheese breads as well but those are now merely daydreams from my previous life as a dairy eater.)  I used my memory to try and recreate the flavor of the meat and it became a favorite dish this past winter.   The main spice is cumin so this is a perfect dish for this month's challenge.

Fragrant Beef Salad
Inspired by the meat flat breads from Maatouk Bakery.  This is my taco salad use for the spiced meat, of course you could use the beef on top of pizza dough like they do or like taco meat in tortillas.
Makes 2-4 servings depending on your hunger

1 pound ground beef, ground lamb is also wonderful
1 large onion, chopped
~6 cups greens (spinach, arugula and kale all work well)
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin seed
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
good extra-virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper (or a pinch of cayenne)
salt

-Brown the meat, preferably in a cast iron skillet.
-When browned and mostly cooked add the onion, spices, salt and pepper.  Add a little olive oil if needed to lubricate the onions so they will cook well.   Stir and cook over medium high heat until the onion is soft and browned a little.  Taste for seasoning and add more salt, pepper and spice as desired.
-Wash, chop and dry your greens.  Top the greens with the beef mixture and then top with the tomatoes.
-Season the tomatoes with salt and pepper and drizzle over olive oil to dress the greens.  Enjoy!

Even though I miss the ocean there are some pretty great consolation prizes here at home- the tomatoes, kale and onions in this salad are all fresh from my garden.

An older cumin recipe to share, Black Bean "Tacos" with Smoked Paprika Shiitake Mushrooms

Cherry Tomato and Mint Salad on Lamb Steaks

There needs to be a saying for vegetable gardens along the lines of "a watched pot never boils." A watched plant never produces. A watched plant never grows. The watched tomato never ripens. Never turn your back on a zucchini plant. Ok, it needs some work.

We've been scouting the cherry tomato plants every day for the one or two ripe tomatoes to fight over and then I turn my back and BOOM! I have a load of cherry tomatoes needing to be picked. Ripe tomatoes are falling off of the vine and I'm feeling guilty. Looking around, I see that the mint has begun to flower and needs to trimmed as well. I know I have a lamb steak waiting in the fridge. Thus was this salad and my lunch born.



Cherry Tomato and Mint Salad
Makes enough for 2

3 cups cherry tomatoes
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup of fresh mint chiffonade
1/2 small red chili, chopped into fine dice
salt and pepper

-Slice tomatoes in half (quarter any large ones). Place in a bowl.
-Add chopped mint, lemon juice, olive oil and chili (or sub 1/8 t cayenne pepper). Add small amount of salt and pepper, toss together gently and taste for seasoning. Add more salt and/or lemon juice as needed.
-Serve with lamb steaks or good bread.

This little yellow pear tomato was almost too cute to eat.

I'm sending this post Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event created by Kalyn's Kitchen to help everyone explore new uses for herbs.

This week's host is Srivalli from Cooking 4 All Seasons. Visit her site at the beginning of next week to see the other herb-inspired recipes.