If there is one thing I’ve come to appreciate this year, it is the appreciation for each individuals support of causes. I live in a non-profit household. I work for one, and my husband runs one. I now have several friends that also work for nonprofits. We all have the causes we support, feel strongly about, and live by. I really appreciate people who support causes that go against the prevailing system. Why? Because it’s hard work.
Being the person that I am…food lover, real food lover, nutritious food lover, nature lover…I am a big supporter of High Desert Food & Farm Alliance (HDFFA). The organization does everything to support our local farmers and promote the local food system, from seed to table. When I go to the grocery store, I’m in awe of where much of the food comes from. Most packaged food is coming from factories everywhere, with ingredients grown all over the place. Corn is in everything…well, parts of it. I’m currently reading a book that mentions how one country will grow fish, to ship to another country for processing, only to ship the final product back to the original country for sale. Hmmm, maybe we could still call that product “local” (and the marketers probably do!).
Menu, sourcing, and HDFFA directories on hand
So I’m on board with supporting a local food system. There are so many reasons that locally grown and processed food is better for us physically, mentally, and for our community. I wanted to do this dinner as a fundraiser for HDFFA, and to promote locally sourced foods to my guests. So how about I get to the fun part and tell you what we had for dinner? I’d like to kick it off by mentioning that I was able to procure several of my locally sourced foods from Central Oregon Locavore market. If you haven’t been, it is a great place to get all of your locally sourced goods!
Central Oregon Locavore haul
First, we had a Rogue Creamery blue cheese on crackers with a local honey from Sun Life farm. Jeff & Amy at Sun Life are friends of mine, so I was happy to start my dinner off with one of their products. I also featured a Chemistry Pinot Noir from Stoller Family Estate, with vineyards just over the hill in the Willamette Valley.
I made a homemade Dutch oven bread with local herbs and both white and red wheat flour from Rainshadow Organics. If you live in the area and haven’t visited them, you should check out the website, and make plans for a future tour while attending one of their brunches or dinners.
My salad idea came to me while in Dayton, OR. I ran into some delicious hazelnuts from Baird Family Orchards, and thought they would pair well with the Casad Family Farms beets I picked up at the then, recent Fill Your Pantry event. I found arugula, mesclun mix, and microgreens from Fields Farm, Boundless Farmstead, and Bend Gorilla Greens, respectively. THEN, I topped in all with olive oil and a delicious aged balsamic made right here in Bend by Celia’s Gourmet Foods.
Then, the main dish, a Beef Bourguignon. The beef is from a 1/4 cow share that we purchased from a local guy in Sisters, with my root veggies coming from farms I’ve already listed. I used a pretty basic recipe, and I puree some of the cooked carrots and onions to thicken the sauce (a tip from my dear friend!). Additional tip…the Vitamix is a game changer in pureeing those veggies. I tried it with my Ninja once and didn’t quite get the glossy finish that I got with the Vitamix.
I invited a new friend to this dinner and learned she is a vegetarian. I love the opportunity to cater to different diets, so I also whipped up a dish of roasted carrots, with a honey/yogurt/tahini sauce and crushed pistachios. It came out splendidly!
And now for dessert. After all the work I put in planning, sourcing, prepping, cooking, and printing out a menu with sources, I decided I’d keep dessert simple. I made Levain style chocolate chip walnut cookies (with Shelby’s eggs from Field’s Farm!) and paired them with our local favorite Bontà ice cream.
I know I referenced a lot of different places in this post, but I guess that was my intention with this first dinner. I wanted to showcase an example of the many local producers in our area. Takeaways? I think the dinner execution went well. I served and ate with 5 other guests. I’d like to attempt a larger group next time, and just maybe not eat with, so that I can concentrate more on serving, clearing, and dropping in tidbits of interesting local food system info. I’m hoping to make it at least a quarterly event, perhaps each solstice?
I’d love to hear any feedback or if you would like to hear more about any piece I wrote about, here!
And that’s a wrap!