Local Seasonal Eats

Buffalo Wings - Photo:Lindsay

The busy summer days have, unfortunately, resulted in some very simple dishes this past week.  With all the great seasonal ingredients, you really want to make something unique and different but between boating, baseball games, and making any excuse possible to enjoy the few non-rainy days, simplicity has been high on my list.

We started the week out with some baked hot Buffalo wings ala Good Eats with Alton Brown.  I’ve been catching up with some old episodes of, what is in my opinion, the best food geek show out there.  After watching his tribute to the Buffalo Wing, I thought about the wings I had picked up from Jordandal Farms, at the Westside Community Market, a few weeks back.  Although, like most Good Eats recipes, there were a few more steps then I would have expected, the baked wings came out crispy and flavorful.  With a side salad of fresh greens topped with a light vinaigrette to balance out the high calorie wings, this made for one heck of a meal.

Beef and Broccoli - Photo:Lindsay

After a Wednesday market teaming with broccoli, I decided to make the most of the sirloin tip chunks that had been in the freezer for a few weeks.  A quick search on Epicurious’ iPhone app (will launch iTunes) revealed a recipe for Quick Beef and Broccoli.  Sounded like a great meal for after our evening workout.  So, with just the most elemental of prep (cleaning the broccoli and trimming it right into a storage container when I got home from the market) we had a meal in as long as it took to boil some rice.  While I thought it was OK, Lindsay was less than impressed, and wished it had some more flavor.  I guess with convenience you sometimes get the occasional bland dish.

BBQ Onion Burger - Photo:Lindsay

Deciding I wouldn’t let another beef dish go down this grey path, I decided to go all out with a BBQ burger on Friday.  With advance apologies to the folks at Fountain Prairie farms, who recommend only using a little salt and pepper on their burgers, I went a bit more extreme.

To start off, I mixed the meat with chopped bacon and roasted garlic chips. Some reserved bacon grease and a Tbsp of butter was used to slow caramelize a coarsely sliced onion.  After 30 minutes of cooking on low, when the onions were a translucent light brown, I mixed in what might easily be the quickest and simplest homemade BBQ sauce (recipe @ allrecipes.com).  The burger was topped with a slice of everyday cheddar from Bleu Mont Dairy, a heaping helping of the onion mixture and a few pickles.  To “healthy” this meal up we served with it Green Beans from Xay Lo Garden and seasoned shredded turnips. Needless to say flavor was not an issue here, but an outside table setting made it a lot easier to clean up the inevitable mess.  It was a happy and very satisfying mess.

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