Crunchy Granola Party

Gahlord and I spent yesterday evening at the house of our friends Allaire and Seth, who moved into their first house in Williston last month. Their new kitchen is spacious and wood-lined; the perfect spot for group cooking endeavors. Three other friends showed up, and we all made dinner together, while Allaire got some localvore granola baking in the oven:

I was so hungry when we first got there after work that I started just eating dry oats from a bowl. It was actually kind of nice; very filling, anyway, and that's what I needed. Later on I added a bit of grated cheddar cheese, and I liked it so much that I might try to reproduce this snack today. The rest of the cheese went into these zucchini fritters, which were really good. The recipe came from The Joy of Cooking, but true to the spirit of the evening, we substituted rolled oats for the breadcrumbs. (Bread has been a precious commodity this week, because of the amount of time it takes to make it. That may change a little bit after this evening, when we start picking up our local bread share, but generally, this month is making me much more conscious of not wasting food.)

We also had a bok choy salad, roasted eggplant, spicy Tex-Mex cabbage, grilled hamburgers made with beef from Laplatte River Angus Farm, water, cider and wine. For dessert, we ate what my friend Mandy had baked and brought: a dough-based custard dessert she called a "dilip," apparently named after an Indian chef. This one was full of blueberries, not too sweet, and definitely tasty.

Localvores chow down:

We didn't really have any dried fruit for the granola, so Allaire mixed in some mushed-up, gently cooked blueberries to give a slight fruity flavor. She made two batches, one with honey and olive oil, and one with butter and maple syrup. The latter is my new favorite thing, since the saltiness of the butter goes really well with the delicate maple sweetness. (Recipe to follow). Before we left, everyone got a bit of toasted-oat tastiness to take home in a paper bag. Normally I prefer muesli, but there aren't a lot of really crunchy-sweet localvore foods that aren't vegetables, so having granola for breakfast really made my day.

Yogurt with granola, blueberries and red currants:

For lunch, I ate Cabot cottage cheese, three tender carrots, and the last of the bean salad.
Gahlord has been craving pasta in a major way, and although we don't really have time to make the wheat-flour kind (which requires a resting period before you roll it out), we might try making potato gnocchi for dinner tonight.

Comments

[Anita]

You can make pasta without a long resting period- ten minutes will do just fine. If you make a good sized batch, you can eat some immediately and let the rest dry- wooden clothes drying racks work well for that unless you have cats that like to swipe at hanging strands of pasta....... Then, just store the dry pasta and use it like store bought- just better.

[Meghan Dewald]

Thanks, Anita! I've made (and dried) pasta before, but the recipe I currently use requires an hour-long rest before rolling. Any chance you might be willing to e-mail me your 10-minute-rest version?

I can just imagine cats going nuts with the stuff; it would be too much like string to resist!

[Dilip]

Perhaps you were talking about my "Blueberry Dilip" in Sarah Kramer's "La Dolce Vegan!" cookbook? Check out my blog at dilipdinner.blogspot.com . Best wishes!