Vegetables in the Round

Knowing that it is high season at the farmers' markets, and with company coming, last weekend Mary and I set out to put on an al fresco dinner that was local to the max.  When I look at the phone cam photos, I realized there was a motif to all the vegetable shots, thus the name of this post. 

Starting with Thursday, when we had word that Kathy and Brendan would be joining us, along with neighbors Sally and Dan, we started menu planning.  We knew we could count on our friends at the Luray farmers' market for fresh vegetables and steaks - but I also wanted dessert, so I called Main Street Bakery for pies, and then, we picked up wine from Wisteria, as I mentioned in the post yesterday.  So with few exceptions, and I would be pretty hard pressed to identify what they were, everything we had for dinner was grown or produced within ten miles of Hawksbill Cabin!

We started with the fairy tale eggplant, from Public House Produce, which I grilled.  I shared this recipe a few weeks ago - the little fruits are cut in half lengthwise, brushed with olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and cracked black pepper.  Then they are grilled both sides.  This was our appetizer.

I also grilled sweet corn directly on the grate.  The corn was also from David and Heather's.  It was gently brushed with butter and had a light sprinkle of seasoning salt - sometimes I leave this off, but because we were grilling for new company we decided to go whole hog. 

The heirloom tomatoes in the opening shot for the post were cut up and mixed with some mozzarella that had marinated in oil and garlic.  We served that as a side to the main course.  Also, Sally and Dan had dug some new tomatoes out of their patch just that afternoon, so we had a savory side of roasted taters from them.

The last dinner item was a batch of New York strips from Skyline Premium Meats.  After I thawed them I gently brushed them with oil, and seasoned them with sea salt, cracked black pepper and garlic.  Once the vegetables were grilled I had to recharge the coals - I wanted to cook the meat over hickory, so I used some seasoned Kingsford charcoal for that.  Half of the steaks were "rarer" and half were "done-er."

The dinner wine was the Wisteria Norton I'd picked up earlier.  After dinner and before dessert, we moved on to the Wisteria steel barrel Chardonnay, and I supplemented that one with a second Chardonnay bottle from North Mountain, over in Mauertown.  The rain came during the conversation time, so we hustled to move everything in off of the brick terrace, and resettled in the dining room.

Then out came a pair of fabulous pies.  I am sorry I don't have photos of these masterpieces, but we had one peach and one cherry.  They were so good, and we were lucky enough to have leftovers to enjoy a few days later.

Now that I am at the end of the post, I remember the two exceptions in this local feast:  the mozzarella we served with the tomatoes was a Whole Foods purchase, and Brendan and Kathy brought a couple of specialty Belgian brews that we enjoyed while the coals were firing up.

There was so much to choose from at the market this weekend.  After we had gathered everything we needed for the dinner, we made a second pass to pick up a few items from other booths - we got some two-color zucchini, and a regular eggplant.  Also some peppers, and I thought about getting a bunch of chard from Sustainable Shenandoah this time, but didn't because I'd have to keep it a few days before we could use it.

All in all, we had a fresh local dinner Saturday night.  What's not to love?