Weekend of Delights

As many of you know, I am living two lives at the moment: one in D.C. and one in Somerville. This also makes for two food lives: one in D.C. that values convenience and one in Somerville that values local eating. This past weekend, I reveled in our amazing Massachusetts resources to create a fantastically flavorful menu for dinner with Susan and Tim. We had two feet of snow last week, so we kept warm by mixing cocktails and making dinner together on a cold, wintery Friday night. The satisfaction of looking at the table and knowing exactly where everything came from does not wear off - if anything, it gets better.

Here is what we had and how to get the ingredients and recipes for this simple, yet elegant meal. There was silence around the table as we all took our first bites of perfectly cooked Chestnut Farm lamb...

Foster Friday Soiree Menu

Aperitifs:
"Old-fashioned" cocktails with Enterprise Farm citrus juice and Kentucky bourbon
When Pigs Fly rye bread spread with Cabot butter and Alaska smoked salmon

Dinner:
Chestnut Farms roast lamb with gravy
Whipped Waltham Fields butternut squash with Massachusetts apples and New England maple syrup
Boiled Enterprise Farm new potatoes with Cabot butter

Cocktails: Old-fashioneds are one of my favorite cocktails, and they are assembled this way - place a sugar cube in the bottom of a glass, sprinkle with bitters, then add a shot of whiskey. We used Kentucky bourbon, courtesy of Andrew's step-brother, who lives in Kentucky and visited the distillery himself. Then, fill the glass with citrus juice - I used a mixture of fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juices from our Enterprise Farm winter produce share. I decorate the drinks with a twist of citrus peel.

Canapes: Andrew's step-mother Leslie brought us a beautiful can of smoked salmon from her visit to Alaska. Alaskan smoked salmon is quite different from what Northeasterners are generally used to: it is thickly cut, has a heavy, smoky flavor, and is moist and delicious. We put this delicacy on When Pigs Fly rye bread, which comes from Maine and is sold in the Somerville bakery, spread with Cabot butter from Vermont.

Roast Lamb: Thanks to Julia Child and Chestnut Farms for coming together to produce an incredible entree for our meal. I was terrified of destroying this beautiful piece of meat, which came as part of our meat share from Western Massachusetts, so I consulted the expert: Julia. She suggested treating the meat very simply, which means that I patted the shank dry, sprinkled with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then seared the meat on both sides (~7 minutes per side) at 450 degrees. Then, I turned down the oven to 350 and cooked the meat to 140 degrees using our fantastic new digital meat thermometer. Meat cooking is definitely *not* my strong suit, but this was fool proof!

Gravy: I made a pan gravy by throwing some carrots and onion in the bottom of the pan while the lamb was roasting, then deglazed the pan with chicken stock and a bit of flour (King Arthur!) until the gravy was thick and could be strained.

Squash: We had some very large Waltham Fields butternut squash in the pantry, which have been ripening all fall. I find squash are generally under-ripe when they come from the farm or store, so I want the flesh to be bright orange after I have aged them in the pantry. I dry roasted one of these in the oven, then scraped it from the shell and, using a wooden spoon, I whipped it with a bit of New England maple syrup, Cabot butter, and two apples (which I had peeled, cored, chopped, and cooked until soft) from Waltham Fields Community Farm share. Even Andrew - who does not love squash - couldn't get enough.

New Potatoes: these are so good fresh that I didn't want to do anything to them, so I boiled them in their thin skins and served them hot with butter and salt. Mmmmmm, a perfect vehicle for our lovely pan gravy.

Wine: Sorry to disappoint, but we weren't pairing this spectacular lamb with wine from Massachusetts...still going to Italy for that one.

This menu came from what was available in our pantry and freezer, and was planned using only those things we had on hand. The result was a finger-lickin' good meal!