Farm to Table

I have been hearing about farm to table dinners for the past year or so and love the idea.  The premise is that you go to a farm and have dinner where the food comes directly from the farm. These dinners can cost over $100 to attend so I have never participated.

Since I have been trying my hand at gardening for a year or so, I am also very excited to eat food my family has cultivated.  Each Friday I have coffee with a friend who also is into gardening.  We were chatting and decided it would be fun to do a pot luck farm to table dinner where most dishes had at least one ingredient from our respective gardens or other harvesting methods (I'll explain that later). We invited one other couple who also gardens and cooks.  The result was fun, delicious, and definitely worth repeating.

The first decision made was I would host since I live out in the country.  I picked a location out in one of our fields that had wonderful views and opportunities to see the wildlife.  We moved our outdoor table and chairs out to the field and set a casual table.  The center piece was a simple glass jar with a few stones and a tea light inside.  A sprig of tree moss from our tree was tied around the top with string. The color scheme was beige, white, and glass so the focus stayed on the natural surroundings (and, of course, the food). 

The center piece doesn't show, its hidden behind the salt and pepper

 We also brought out our large bar-b-que to give some heat and a cooking surface.

Here is the food heating and chicken cooking. 

Last week we had pretty cool days so we were a little worried we would be chilly but nature was on our side.  We started around 3:30pm with a temperature of 68degrees.  It did cool down considerably by the end but that's why we had the fire.

Here was the menu:
Course 1 - Homemade Pickles; cheese and crackers
Course 2 - Garden Salad with vinaigrette;  Tomato Soup with whole wheat Challah Bread 
Course 3 - Barbequed Chicken; Roasted Vegetables (cauliflower, carrots, radishes, and onions); Chard Polenta
Course 4 -  Blueberry Cobbler with vanilla ice cream

I made three of these dishes.  The first was the tomato soup.  I had frozen tomatoes from the spring and that was enough for half of what the recipe called for so I had to supplement with canned crushed tomatoes.  I will absolutely make that soup again, it was delicious. 

Isn't that a fabulous color?!

The second dish I made was the roasted vegetables.  I have been super stressed about my cauliflower because our overnight freezes have turned the heads a bit brown.  Roasting them seemed like a good way to "mask" the discoloration.  I also had to soak them in salt water to help rid us of the additional aphid proteins.  I didn't think my carrots would be ready but I was pleasently surprised.

I planted a variety including multicolored carrots and Parisian carrots - those are the round ones.

I also stole some radishes from my mother's container garden and pulled one of my onions.  Look at this gorgeous skillet read to go into the oven!

Pretty colors make everything taste better :  )

The last thing I made actually broke all of the rules.  I made the blueberry cobbler and none of the ingrediants came from my garden.  I justified it by telling myself we had tried to grow blueberries and failed.  Also, I just love desert and who doesn't love cobbler?

I said other harvesting methods and here is what I meant.  The same person who brought the pickled veggies (she canned those last summer) also brought the chicken. The chicken had been slaughtered and plucked by her daughter, fresh and hormone free.  It was wonderful chicken.

My other friend brought the salad - all garden ingredients.  She has started eating a lot of dandelion greens and dill, this made a very yummy salad.  She also brought the polenta and bread.  Both of these used eggs from her chickens as well as some garden items. 

So combine the good food, nice views and a few bottles of wine (some of it form our local wineries), our farm to table dinner was a relaxing and yummy event.  We will most likely be doing another one when our spring gardens are producing. Looking forward to it!!