Last Day

Hard to believe September has come to an end. Indeed, it is a frosty morning. Down to 30 degrees last night, so far it does not look as though it killed anything.

As I will be in town tomorrow we are shipping orders today. I start with a breakfast of left over leftover chili (that recipe really made a lot!) with egg and cheese. Melon and cider to round it out. Book group tonight, I will see what local fare the gals bring. I am taking a bottle of Briceland "Champagne" to celebrate.

A busy day - no lunch. Grazed a bit on apples (they are close enough - we will be borrowing a neighbor's cider press this weekend), peppers, tomatoes.

Only food harvest work was picking dinner ingredients and adding some trays of tomatoes to the dehydrator.

Made a ratatouille to take. There is a recipe in the Localvore handout, but I used another. I cannot believe I did not make this all along! The perfect harvest season fare - with zukes, onion, eggplant, peppers - a garden medley of the best kind. That, Champagne & a bottle of the Elk Prairie in hand I joined my friends in a chat 'n chew around books about Julia Child.

How apropos!

There was local salad, a chili relleno casserole with local peppers, Orzo salad with local vegetables, homemade pickles, pasta with homemade sauce. It was tough, but I stuck to these and the ratatouille, with the rather large loophole of the other ingredients involved. I did not eat cornbread and several other delectables with only out of area ingredients... but waived mightily on the carrot cake. They could have been local carrots... not!

I stuck to the Elk Prairie - and we never did get around to the champagne.

I'll write a summation of what I learned later in the week. It really has been an interesting journey, with much the same and some new. I was, perhaps, more lax that I should have been, but I know I will be having many more localvore meals every day.