0 Last night's dinner....

I wasn't planning on posting anything today, but I felt so good after eating last night's dinner that I felt compelled to share.  I hope that those of you reading and following this blog regularly will someday get the same satisfaction from eating local foods and those things that you made, baked, cooked or canned yourself.

I started this blog too late in the year to share with you how to can fruits and vegetables, but I will put up a blog about how to do it next year when the time is appropriate.  I always get a good feeling when I can stuff - it's fun to do and you know you will enjoy great tasting produce all year long.  Last year, I canned peaches, tomatoes, pickled cucumbers and corn - and then ate them all year until fresh ones came into season again.

About three weeks ago I canned a few dozen jars of pickles - 2 dozen each of Bread & Butter and Garlic Dill and a dozen Japanese pickled carrots/cucumbers/radish.  So last night's dinner consisted of locally grown fingerling potatoes, yellow squash, home made/canned pickles from local cucumbers and salmon (I wish that part had been local too).  It was so delicious and especially satisfying because I knew most of it came from a couple of local farms. 

You never really know how pickles are going to turn out until you open the jar and last night was the first time I was able to open the Bread & Butter and the Garlic Dill pickles.  I wish I knew what kind of cucumbers I used for the Bread & Butter pickles.  I had never seen them before this year, they were a grey/green color and had ridges going down the length of them.  I had used them about 4 weeks ago for sour cream cucumbers and they were very crunchy, so I decided to use them for the Bread & Butter pickles too.  Well it was a good decision because they retained their crunch.  I saved a lot of the seeds and will try to grow them next year.  For the Garlic Dills I used regular & pickling cucumbers - they were tasty and had a nice snap to them too!  The Japanese pickles won't be ready to eat for about another 3 weeks.

For the rest of the dinner, I had broiled the potatoes, squash and salmon.  Mmmmm, good. 

I sliced the fingerling potatoes into thirds and the yellow squash into slices about 1/8" thick.  Laid them all on a aluminum foil covered cookie sheet with two pieces of salmon.  Brushed everything with olive oil.  Then I sprinkled a little salt on everything, some dill weed on the salmon, some garlic powder on the potatoes and the squash, a little oregano on the squash and then put the whole thing under the broiler for about 20 minutes.   When they came out, I sprinkled a little parmesan cheese on the potatoes and then served the whole thing on the cookie tray.  An easy and delicious meal in just under 30 minutes!

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