Saturday, November 10, 2007

Local Meal of the Week: Beef & Potato Curry

I was a bit late getting to my official local meal of the week, though I'd had a supper of Thorn Crest Farm's eggs (wow, those dark golden yolks!) and Brick Oven toast a couple of days ago. Tonight I made an easy beef and potato curry, with ground grass-fed beef from Thousand Hills Cattle Co., farmers' market potatoes and onions, Sno-Pac frozen organic peas from Caledonia, MN, and the last of my little tomatoes from my own garden. With it we had some pita bread that I deemed local by virtue of the fact that it had been in my freezer quite a while! The only other non-local ingredients were the minced garlic from a jar, some fresh, grated ginger, curry powder, and a sprinkling of salt. Not the fanciest meal in the world, but it made the house smell good and warmed the stomach going down.

2 comments:

Rob Hardy said...

I don't suppose there is local ginger, but until the beginning of the 20th century, wild ginseng grew in the local woods. To tide themselves through lean years, the pioneers harvested it and sold it to the eastern markets. It's one of the many things (cranberry bogs and pitcher plants are another) that we've lost over the years in the Northfield area.

(There is "wild ginger" growing in the Big Woods, but it's not related to real ginger, and I wouldn't recommend using it as a spice!)

Unknown said...

I heard about the local ginseng history while working as an editor on the "Cows in the Kitchen" sesquicentennial book about cooking and eating throughout Northfield's history. There's a Ginseng Lane off St. Olaf Avenue, as you're probably aware.

I have very little experience with ginseng, but I sure love fresh ginger!