Knitting 40 shades of green

7th Annual Slow Food Dinner

7th Annual Clyde’s Farm Dinner

Clyde's Willow Creek Farm
42920 Broadlands Boulevard
Broadlands, VA (571) 209-1200

Clyde’s, opened the barn door and garden gate at Willow Creek Farm to welcome Slow Food members and friends to tour their organic garden—where all their veggies grow—and to eat a five-course farm dinner.

I didn't get a chance to tour the gardens but the location is absolutely lovely. The food was fabulous.  I didn't do such a great job of photo documenting here but will share what I have.

We started the evening with Blanc de Blanc from Kluge Estates  and glasses of white Sangria with peaches and blackberries and passed appetizers that included some baby tart with chard, pieces of pork belly and a consume with a single cherry tomato floating in it.  The pork belly was a first for me and it was much better than the name makes it sound.

The first course consisted of the cutest poultry breast and thigh I have seen in a long time.  I didn't remember to take a picture before I had devoured the wee bird.  It was described as "Roasted "EcoFriendly Farms" Poussin with roasted peaches, greens, pickled onions, and Willow Creek Farm herbs".  I do believe the cooking method was different for the two pieces of poultry.  This course was accompanied by a lovely dry Rose from Barboursville Vineyard.  (Which is lovely to visit should you get the chance.  I have wonderful memories of climbing around the Jeffersonian ruins in the rain with my father and step mother several years ago.

The next course of Maryland Jumbo Crab Cakes w. local corn and tomatoes and micro greens was accompanied by Jefferson Vineyards' Viognier.  The sweet corn went very well with the sweetness of the Chesapeake Bay crab.  It was definitely the tastes of summers past and brought back memories of sitting at the picnic table in Edgewater picking crabs and eating corn on the cob (possibly stolen from the neighbor's fields and hopefully not the cow corn they put around the perimeter to discourage the likes of us).

The next course was Wood-Roasted Virginia Prime Rib of Beef  served with tomatoes and smoky blue cheese gratin and new and fingerling potatoes.  I am not usually a big fan of blue cheese but the combination of the smokey blue melted with the fresh tomatoes was pretty good.  I may have to experiment with this concept. This was served with a Garnett from Hillsborough Vineyards. 

The cheese plate was a little less local than they had planned but they all came from small craft dairies.  There was a Twig Farm (VT) soft Goat Tomme, a Rainbeau Ridge (NY) Chevre Log along with a Carr Valley Cheese Company (WI) Cave Aged Marisa.  This was served with a desert wine, also from Hillsborough called Moonstone  and  followed by desert of a warm corn cake with sweet corn ice cream and blackberry compote.

All in all it was a lovely dinner despite a rather opinionated table companion who did not wish to be dissuaded from expressing her lack of tolerance for people who held views different from her own.  I think I may have been quoted as saying "Your intolerance is intolerable".  She did apologize at the end of the dinner.

One Local Summer: Week 11

All of the obligations of returning to work after vacation caught up with me this week and I had lots of good intentions for cooking but few of them were carried through with the intent I had planned.  Before the weather got to incredibly hot temperatures, I sliced up an eggplant and baked it in the oven intending to make Rollotini  or maybe a pasta-less lasagna.  Between back to school night and other various meetings , it didn't happen.  Not wanting the eggplant to go to waste, I  made this mixture of eggplant, red peppers and ricotta cheese (and a sprinkle of shredded non-local parmesan.)

I had made some Sweet corn and squash soup that I was too lazy to strain but it tasted wonderfully.  I topped it with a few fresh  cherry tomatoes for color.

Maybe not the most beautiful meal but it was certainly tasty.

One Local Summer: week 9

The weekend has been full of fun, friends and eating -- lots of eating and now it is Sunday night and I realized that I haven't put up a post for one local summer this week hosted over at Farm to Philly .  I attended a Slow Food DC dinner last night that was both wonderful and local but that deserves it's own post, so I will see what is in the camera to be shared.

Ah, here is a meal and a recipe to share:  gazpacho with carrot and apple salad (the bread was bought at a the farmers' market as well, although I am unsure of the baker.  I was going to guess Uptown but that doesn't seem right.)

The first of the summer apples appeared at the market last week or maybe the week before and it had been months since I had made my favorite apple and carrot salad.  I was in luck, because after picking up a pair of apples at Bigg Riggs Farm, I wondered over to  Shlagel Farms and found they had carrots which can be hard to find at the markets around here.   The recipe is super simple but the results are quite tasty.

Carrot and Apple Salad
(Very slightly adapted from a Weight Watcher's Momentum Program pamphlet)

2 large apple(s), 1 red and 1 green, cored, thinly sliced, cut into matchsticks 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice, or less to taste 3 cups carrots, cut into matchsticks
1/4 cup chives and/or scallions, chopped 1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp table salt 1/4 tsp black pepper, or more to taste (make sure this is freshly ground) 2 oz feta cheese
Place apples in a large bowl and toss with lemon juice. Add carrots, chives, oil, sugar, salt, pepper and cheese; toss to mix thoroughly. Yields about 3/4 cup per serving. Enjoy!