Yesterday morning, The Unicyclist, mom, and I left Hooterville for the bustling streets of Big City, WI.  Among our other errands was the intent to pick up enough goods to pull off our first local meal for the Dark Days of Winter Challenge.  I felt confident we’d be able to pull it off, despite the fact that our trusty CSA share was 1500 miles away in Phoenix.  Southern Wisconsin is rife with farms and markets, with a couple trusty co-ops thrown in for good measure, and I only had to stay 90% local.  Plus, I already had a plan: mushroom soup.  Something creamy, flavorful, with fresh garden herbs.  Something utterly unlike the pale goop that comes in a can at the grocery store.  Something inspired by the drool-worthy gravy from the green bean casserole I made for our holiday dinner.  Something like this:

The Dane County farmers’ market was our first stop.  Even in late November, it was thriving.  Piles of potatoes, shallots, garlic, sweet potatoes, spinach, red chard, radishes, burdock, late tomatoes from hoop houses, cheeses, apples, and baked good were piled high along the crowded aisles.  I snapped up a small bag of shiitake mushrooms, bread from a local bakery, some Brussels sprouts, eggs, and a head of romanesco, which appears to be some beautiful alien cauliflower.

Photo courtesy of Jon Sullivan, released into the public domain

The meal was starting to take shape: some good, fresh bread, the soup, a spinach salad with hickory nuts and dried cranberries, and romanesco on the side.  After a stop at the Willy Street Co-op for milk, butter, cream, and button and crimini mushrooms (from the discount bin!  W00t!), we had everything we needed.

The salad came together in a snap–fresh spinach dotted with goat cheese, roasted hickory nuts, and dried cranberries.

Mom and I decided to steam the romanesco plain, adding a sprig of rosemary from her garden in the last few minutes to infuse it with flavor.  It was a simple, fresh dish, sweeter than cauliflower but with a similar flavor and texture.  With a touch of butter and sea salt, it was good to go.

What about the centerpiece?  Since my cookbooks were in Arizona and I’d never made a cream soup before, I had to largely wing it.  I knew the basic principles, but I wanted something lighter than your typical cream-based soup, since I tend to find them overly rich and heavy.  The flavor of this particular soup was sop-out-the-bowl-with-your-bread delicious, and the consistency was ideal for me, though die-hard creamy soup fanatics may be disappointed.  Try it for yourself and see what you like.  Everything was locally sourced except the two stalks of celery, the smattering of flour, and the bullion cubes for the broth.  The herbs came right from mom’s front yard—the few remaining bursts of green in the dying vegetation.

Although this meal had room for improvement in the local sourcing of ingredients, I think making a more local meal would be pretty easy.  Imagine any of the following:

• wilted spinach salad with hard-boiled eggs
• omelet with local cheese, sun-dried tomatoes from summer, garden herbs, and leafy greens
• pinto bean soup with peppers (great for Arizona)
• local butternut squash ravioli (I still have wheat berries from the CSA waiting to be made into something tasty)
• local grilled cheese sandwiches with salad

Sure, the spices and staples like oil and vinegar will likely be coming in from elsewhere, but the color and flavor of local produce will take center stage in any of the above. It’s almost enough to make one look forward to the dark days of winter ahead.

Guten Apetit!