Creative Use of Farmshare

Tonight, I made a massive, insanely ambitious dinner, given that my kitchen faucet is broken and I have no running water in the kitchen. But we were being overrun with vegetables, and something had to be done. Our farmshare buddy is exceedingly pregnant and not at all in the mood to be cooking veggies. My plan was to cook as much of the farmshare as possible in one meal, invite my pregnant friend and her family over for dinner, and then freeze the remains for use after the baby is born.

First, I thawed a frozen lamb shoulder from my meatshare. I'd been saving it months for a special occasion, but I just threw up my hands and decided that the lamb was a special occasion in itself. I rubbed it with olive oil, shallot salt, Spanish thyme (three of only five non-local ingredients in the entire meal), and homegrown rosemary and roasted it at 425 degrees F.

While that roasted, I chopped up a variety of root vegetables: Yukon Gold new potatoes and shallots from the farmers' market, carrots and yellow onions from the farmshare, red and golden beets from my own garden (I saved the greens). I sliced these very thin, going for roughly quarter-sized pieces about an eighth of an inch thick. This I drizzled with Kate's Homemade Butter, olive oil, maple syrup from North Hadley, and table salt (non-local ingredient number four). Using both olive oil and butter is key - trust me. I laid this out in a very shallow layer on a large baking sheet and popped it in with the lamb.

Next, I looked at what was bursting out of the veggie drawer of my fridge: eggplant, zucchini, onions. Aha! Ratatouille! I ran out in the rain and picked two tomatoes. Into the skillet: olive oil, homegrown garlic, farmshare yellow onion. Once they were translucent, I added the tomatoes, chopped. And once that had broken down into a nice stew, I chopped up and tossed in three japanese eggplants, one fat zucchini, and basil from the farmshare, seasoned with salt.

I left the ratatouille on the backburner and turned back to the beet greens. I pulled out my All-Clad everyday pan (something between a skillet and a paellero, indispensible), and tossed in some chopped Applewood Farms bacon (non-local ingredient number five, but at least it's all natural and uncured). I added to this some chopped red onion from the farmer's market and sauteed until translucent, then tossed in the beet greens and swiss chard from the farmshare, seasoned lightly with salt.

While this was cooking down, I pulled out the farmshare spaghetti squash I'd roasted earlier in the day because my husband, mistaking it for a cantalope, had cut it open. I scooped out the flesh into a glass baking pan, topped with more Kate's Homemade Butter, and popped it into the oven beside the lamb to reheat.

By then, the lamb had reached 120 degrees F, the root veggies were starting to crisp up, the ratatouille was done, and the greens had wilted nicely. Time to set the table. By the time I got everything else out, the lamb was up to 140, but smelled done. I suspected the meat thermometer, so I pulled it out and made a couple of experimental slices. Turned out that the top of the roast was quite nicely done, but the muscle beneath was not. So I carved what was ready and brought it out.

Caveat: two out of three of the children refused to eat any of this except the spaghetti squash and had to be supplemented with Barilla Plus penne and melted cheese, so technically, the meal had two more nonlocal ingredients. (My two-year-old eats anything and loves vegetables, just as my picky five-year-old did, when she was two.) Otherwise, by volume, I'd guess that over 90% of the meal came from within 100 miles of our table.

The dinner was marvelous. The lamb was probably the best I've ever cooked (hurray for Chestnut Farms!), the root veggies delicious, just slightly crispy and sweet, the ratatouille perfectly cooked, neither underdone nor soggy and infused with the marvelous flavor of the basil, and the greens nicely counterpointed by the bacon. The one problem: we had almost no leftovers! I still have a bit of the lamb, and I froze about 3/4 quart of the squash and 1/2 quart of the ratatouille. But it did nicely solve the problem of my overfull refrigerator. Now, if I can just get rid of that red cabbage...

Afterwards, our dinner guests commented on how good the meal was, and I asserted that it was the ingredients, which they pshawed. But it's true. These are all dishes I make all the time, and they were just so much better with high quality, fresh, local ingredients. Hmm... now I need more lamb. Thank goodness the meatshare is coming on Tuesday.