Well, let’s be honest up-front here. This was not a 100% local meal.  I honored the spirit of Dark Days, but not the cold, hard rules.

I confess: I used up some things that desperately needed using, since Shepherd’s Pie is such a wonderful haven for wayward mushrooms and forgotten produce that’s been living on the edge for some time.  I could have make it without these things (I did contemplate doing so, in fact), and it would have been equally delicious…but I didn’t.  And I think that’s okay. One of the reasons in favor of eating seasonal, local veggies is the benefit it has on the environment.  Making sure my borderline produce wasn’t wasted definitely fit with that goal.

Who were the non-local food fugitives in question?  A handful of crimini mushrooms, and a half-package of frozen peas that was getting freezerburn.  They were nice, but they didn’t make or break this dish.  It’s like chili, minestrone, stew, or any of that sort of thing: what ya got is what goes in the pot.  And it’ll be tasty.  Really.  Oh, the deliciousness that is a hearty cut of garlic-potato-topped vegetarian pastoral goodness.

There’s not a recipe for this, per se, so I’ll just give you the basic run-down on the process.  Make of it what you will.

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Now, I’ve sure eaten risotto.  Good risotto.  When the Unicyclist was living in Europe for a year for his studies, we were fortunate enough to take a month to explore.  While I may not be able to recall just exactly  what all our particular priorities were for our travels, I do remember that art, architecture, and food figured pretty high on the list.  That’s how we wound up in Italy.

Enter risotto. Well, and pizza and a plethora of amazing pastas and calzones and fabulous beans, but that’s all off-topic.

Risotto.  Mmm-mm, risotto.

See that?  That’s butternut squash risotto with fried sage leaves and toasted walnuts.  This picture makes my knees weak even now.

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Last week, there was a moment.

The moment came some time after the third batch of homemade cream of mushroom soup, some time after I had a nice dusting of flour on my face and four pies sat cooling on the counter, just a minute or two before my second green bean casserole completely from scratch was popped in the oven.  The moment came after Thanksgiving trailed so closely on the heels of our early family Christmas, leaving no space to breathe.

It was the moment—just one moment—when I questioned the wisdom of investing so much time and effort into fancy holiday dishes that would almost certainly be devoured in a single sitting.  What was the point?

However, when your guests ask permission to lick out the green bean casserole dish and the insane amount of garlic potatoes you made are devoured almost the second you turn your back, when the table is surrounded by fat and happy tummies and family faces smiling contentedly…when all this is going on and you know you fed your guests real, healthy food, responsibly grown…well, things are pretty doggone good.

But I have to say, the Unicyclist and I are looking forward to keeping things simple around here for a while.  Today, for our second Dark Days Challenge recipe, we decided to hit the nearby Sunday farmers’ market and see what we could come up with that wouldn’t be overly fussy or fatty, seeing as how we recently consumed half our body weight in pie.  Here’s our haul:

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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:

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Thursday is CSA day, and this week I was able to pick up a nice selection of goodies including a canary melon, an acorn squash, some red potatoes, a bunch each of beets and turnips, beautiful French breakfast radishes, I’itoi’s onions, and an Asian green called tatsoi (or tat soi).  I decided that three of these things belonged together; three of these things were kinda the same.  (Everybody sing!)

Now that all the Sesame Street geeks have been outed, let’s get back to the recipe.  I figured these Asian themed ingredients would go nicely together:

It was a warm afternoon in Phoenix today, so I decided to make them into something light: lettuce wraps.

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