torley manor

Tonight our friend Deanna came over for dinner (and band practice). Being that she has some issues with soy and wheat foods, we sought a meal that lacked both of these things. Luckily the local produce is abundant and a great meal was made.

First, a mixture of green and yellow string beans from our garden. These started coming in a little over a week ago. We’ve been eating lots of them. Sooo good and very abundant. Beyond eating them, i’ve already been able to put away six freezer boxes of them. We just steamed ‘em and then lightly salt and peppered them with a healthy dose of Earth Balance (the new SOY-FREE variety!!)

Second, a mix of local beets bought at the co-op and chard and kale from the garden. Last week our friend Sara came over and made some beets using a zesting of lime and ginger and it was delicious. Tonight Emma copied that recipe, tho’ also juicing the lime for some extra kick and adding the aforementioned kale and chard to round out the greens. The beets were boiled and then sliced. Then the beets, the beet greens and the chard/kale mixture were cooked down in a skillet with some fresh garlic from our recent garlic harvest.

Third, spicy sweet potatoes (i don’t think these were local.) I think we’ve blogged about these before. We just microwave the potatoes to soften them up, then skin and cut them into thin slices/chunks, fry in a frying pan with a little salt and pepper, then right before you are done frying them up, adding a good squirt of sriracha sauce. Toss ‘em around a bit to mix the sauce onto all the potatoes and let ‘em fry a few minutes more to get some crispness.

Finally, we made up a batch of quinoa to supplement all the veggies. I gave mine a shot of Braggs Liquid Aminos and mixed it in with the greens/beets. Good eats!!!

I washed my meal down with a little sun tea that I made in the backyard the other day.

Add in a couple extra friends joining us for dinner and then a productive band practice session afterwards and you got a wonderful evening.