One Local Summer, Week 7

Just back from our road trip through British Columbia, so tonight's dinner is the only meal I've made here at home this week. It was an almost all local meal. We haven't had chicken in a while and I had a hankering for it. So we've grilled some local chicken breasts that I had marinated in ginger, garlic and chili powder - based loosely on a recipe in The Farm to Table Cookbook.
Chard from our garden sauteed with garlic and some hot pepper.
Gratin with local fingerlings, shitakes, and mild. I didn't have time to look for a local substitute for the cheese, so I went ahead and used gruyere as called for in the recipe. This was also a variation on a recipe in Ivy Manning's book.
And, finally, a green salad with lettuce from our garden.


The potatoes look a lot better in the before picture than they do in the completed meal - partly due to my picture-taking abilities, but also probably due to the fact that it got overcooked while I was waiting for Grady to get back from a visit to the neighbors. (Always handy to have someone else to blame!)

I haven't posted any pictures of Molly lately - the namesake for the "old dog", as I explained in the very first post of this blog. The potatoes gratin may have been overcooked, but that didn't keep her from showing her interest. She was happy to have us back home and she always appreciates it when we eat on the deck since the table there is lower than our kitchen island, making it much easier to get her nose up close.



We did have a lovely dinner in Victoria that also qualifies for One Local Summer. I asked our host at the B&B for suggestions of restaurants that use local products in their cooking. He enthusiastically suggested three restaurants that he said were all very good. We chose Paprika Bistro and it was excellent. I started with a salad of local organic greens, green apples, Poplar Grove Tiger blue cheese and hazelnuts. Then followed with Cowichan Bay Farm duck with sour cherry and ginger sauce and a potato strudel.

A few more observations on our trip through B.C. later. I managed to come home with one souvenir I didn't appreciate, a full-on cold with all the usual symptoms. So, this is about all the effort I can muster tonight.