100 Mile Monday – My Favorite Beet and Apple Salad, Pot Roast, and Whole Wheat Sourdough Ciabatta

I know there are TONS of linky collections and blog hops out there, and I’ve only just discovered them!  So it seems a bit soon for me to host my own, but I’m doing it because I haven’t found a blog hop that focuses on LOCAL food.  The rules for this 100 Mile Monday link-up are that the dish or meal needs to feature food from <100 miles, (as inspired by the 100 Mile Diet from the book Plenty ).  No, you don’t have to harvest your own salt (they do this in Plenty ), but to be clear, all the produce, meat, dairy, and grains have to be local.  If you have local oil options (like I do) then use them!  If you have local spices and herbs use those too.

100 Mile Monday requirements for the meal or recipe you link:

• All produce, grains, dairy and meat are from < 100 miles away.

My meal posted below meets the requirements.  The one thing that I really couldn’t get locally was a good type of nut.  Ontario seems to have peanuts, but I have not yet found any good tree nuts like walnuts locally.  I hope to eventually find some, but have only lived here for 3 months!  So yes, I used walnuts in my dish, but not very many!   All my produce, grains, dairy, and meat were from <100 miles away.

The Meal:

Our meat for this week was the last piece from our small box that we got from Vibrant Farms through Bailey’s .  On Thursday I cooked it as a pot roast in the crockpot with potatoes, parsnips, onions, carrots, and radishes.  I also made 4 loaves of whole wheat sourdough ciabatta, and my new favorite beet and apple salad! Oh man, I know I’ve been eating beets all winter but they keep getting better.  The beet and apple salad idea came from Food & Wine but I modified the recipe a bit, partly because for starters I didn’t have pistachios and didn’t feel like buying them.  I’ve seen plenty of salad recipes that feature beets and apples (my own included) but many were more complicated or used spinach (which I rarely have on hand at this time of year).

At the very last minute that evening we invited the neighbors over and the meal turned out to be a great one for sharing!  Everyone enjoyed it and even though it was a huge crockpot full of pot roast there wasn’t too much leftover.  We had 3 of the 4 ciabattas too so I’d say they were well-received.  Oh and the beet & apple salad?  There was none left!

Pot Roast

When I make pot roast in the crock pot I just add whatever wintery vegetables I have available, a piece or two of local meat, some garlic, Italian seasonings, salt and pepper, a bit of red wine, and water and let it cook all day.  Things usually turn out quite tasty so I haven’t done much to improve upon this.  However, here is a link to a standard pot roast recipe .

Whole Wheat Sourdough Ciabatta

I’m not ready to do a recipe for this yet because I wasn’t completely satisfied with how it turned out.  Bread is tricky, especially if you have little experience.  Therefore I don’t want to give a half-hearted recipe and tell you to experiment.   Until my recipe seems completely replicable here is a link that looks good and is similar to what I did (I was working with the knowledge of several non-whole wheat recipes and also sort of making things up).  I kept track of what I did so I can improve my own recipe and post it in the future.

Holy Cow Vegan’s recipe looks straight-forward and successful, with very nice bubbles!

http://www.holycowvegan.net/2012/03/whole-wheat-sourdough-ciabatta.html

My Favorite Beet and Apple Salad

This is adapted from Food and Wine’s recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4-6 medium beets, cooked/roasted
• 1-2 apples, sliced into wedges
• ½ cup walnuts or pecans
• ¼ – ½ cup goat cheese, crumbled
• 3 Tbs. oil
• 2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbs. lemon juice
• 1 Tbs. horseradish or horseradish sauce
• Salt and pepper

Put a tablespoon of oil in a baking dish (I used Corningware because it has a lid), roll the beets around to coat with the oil, cover and bake at 375 for 1 hour.  Remove the dish and leave the lid on allowing the beets to slowly cool*.  Peel the beets, and then slice them into pieces about 1cm thick and wide.

If you like your walnuts sweet and crunchy you can add a small amount of butter (1 Tbs.), honey (1 Tbs.), and salt (dash) to the walnuts and lightly candy them, by cooking over medium heat until they are just starting to turn black.  Remove the pan from heat and allow to cool.  They should be crunchy!

Make the dressing by thoroughly mixing the oil (your choice, preferably local), lemon juice (this will never be local here) horseradish, and a dash of salt and pepper.

Toss the beets and apples with the dressing and top with the walnuts and crumbled goat cheese.  To crumble goat cheese from a “log” just unwrap one end and twist a fork into the cheese allowing the cheese to crumble onto the top of the salad.  Drizzle any extra dressing on top and serve or refrigerate until dinner.