As we prepared to welcome baby #2, this holiday weekend was an exercise in clearing out our CSA produce from the fridge. We grilled flank steak one evening, and I had chimichurri on the mind but was missing jalapeno peppers. (Chimichurri is a South American pesto-style green sauce, typically made with parsley and peppers. We first tasted it at an Argentinian steakhouse in Puerto Rico, on our honeymoon.) When my dad arrived back in town, imagine my surprise that a garden-fresh care package from my sister-in-law in North Carolina contained … jalapenos! I used the last of our CSA garlic scapes, and parsley from my herb pots. Unfortunately my basil plants have quite overshadowed my parsley, so I didn’t have quite as much as I would have liked. But this turned out delicious just the same. We also roasted beets, zucchini and yellow squash on the grill. Simple and tasty!

Recipe: Garlic Scape Chimichurri
(If you don’t have garlic scapes, substitute fresh garlic cloves.)

Ingredients:

• 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded (leave seeds in if you like it extra hot)
• 3 garlic scapes, cut into 1-inch pieces (or garlic cloves, peeled)
• 1 cup fresh parsley
• 1/3 – 12 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions: Place peppers, garlic and parsley in food processor and process until finely chopped. Gradually add olive oil until a pesto-like consistency is reached. Stir in salt and store in refrigerator until ready to use.

Notes: I rub a generous amount onto flank steak, place it in a pan and add half a bottle of beer, then marinate it for at least 1 hour before grilling. Then serve extra chimichurri along side the cooked steak. It’s also great tossed with potatoes and/or zucchini before roasting them. Enjoy!

Please join in and share what local foods you’ve enjoyed this past week!

Local Potluck Tuesday — a few guidelines:
1. Share a relevant post — a recipe, menu or pictures of a meal featuring local foods, from the farmers market, CSA, farm stand or your own garden — using the MckLinky widget below. In the link title field, enter both your post title and your name &/or blog name, e.g., “Lemon Cucumber Salad — Colleen @ FoodieTots.”

2. Bonus points if you included your kids in picking, growing, purchasing or cooking the ingredients for the meal! (And by bonus points, I mean increased likelihood of seeing your post featured in a future post.)

3. In your post, please link back to this post here at FoodieTots, so your readers can find the potluck and be encouraged to join in as well.  Of course if you don’t have a blog, you’re welcome to share in the comments.

That’s it! I hope you’ll join in and share what you’re cooking up that’s fresh & local to you!

Garlic scapes are commonly used in pesto — a great way to store them for later use as the scape season is fairly brief. And I like to throw them whole on the grill for a little mellower flavor and perfect accompaniment to a grilled steak. This week we again had Cibola Farm’s buffalo meat, the meaty steaks rubbed with olive oil, smoked paprika, oregano, salt and pepper before grilling. We also had home-baked brioche, which is not exactly local as I don’t have local flour, but I’m taking partial credit here because the rich brioche dough got a boost of flavor from our local, cage-free farmers market eggs and butter. I haven’t had much time to bake lately but am looking forward to cooking up some cherry treats now that the first cherries have arrived at our local markets. We snacked on Emperor Francis cherries from Long Meadow Ecological Farm found at DC’s Eastern Market on Saturday.

We’ve also been snacking on some local goat cheeses from Firefly Farms and Spriggs Delight in Maryland. You can read more about them over on the cheese blog.

Recipe: Grilled Garlic Scapes

• 4 garlic scapes, rinsed
• 1 drizzle olive oil
• course salt and pepper

Instructions: Toss the scapes in olive oil till lightly coated. Place on hot grill over high heat and sear several minutes, until soft and grill marks appear. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper. Serve along side your favorite grilled meat or fish. Enjoy!

One Local Summer is an annual challenge in which people around the world join together for 13 weeks of seasonal eating, supporting local farmers and exploring their local foodsheds. Visit FarmtoPhilly on Tuesdays for the weekly round-up; here’s what my neighbors in the Southern region cooked up this week.

Recipe: Beer Can Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 can beer
• several stems green onions
• fresh parsley
• ¼ c butter
• 2 T brown sugar
• 1 T cumin
• 1 t cayenne pepper
• salt & pepper
• 1 whole chicken, 3-4 lbs.

Instructions: Preheat the grill to medium (350*). Open the beer can and pour out (drink) about half. Poke several holes around the top, and stick herbs in the can’s mouth. Place on a large plate or stand. (If you don’t have a stand, you can balance the chicken on the grill using the can and its legs to form a tripod.) Soften the butter and stir in the sugar and seasonings. Rub the mixture under the chicken’s skin and all over the exterior. Place the chicken over the can and carefully transfer onto the grill. Grill over indirect medium heat for 1 hr. to 1 ¼ hrs. Remove from grill (very carefully!) and let stand for 5 minutes before carving. Serves 4.

Recipe: Grilled Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 2 large sweet potatoes
• 2 T butter, softened
• 1 T brown sugar
• 1/2 t cumin

Instructions: Cut sweet potatoes in half lengthwise. Spread butter over cut sides, sprinkle sugar and cumin over the top. Wrap in foil and place on grill, away from the flame, for 40 minutes. Serves 2-4. Enjoy!

Farms of Origin

• free-range chicken, Smith Meadows, Va.
• butter, South Mountain Creamery, Md.
• white sweet potatoes, a Virginia farm, Del Ray Farmers Market, Va.
• herbs, Potomac Vegetable Farms CSA, Va.
• beer, Starr Hill Jomo lager, Va.

To close out the summer, we savored the best of local foods from coast to coast. I’ll write more about our Oregon finds later this week, but for the official last post of One Local Summer I wanted to detail the family barbeque we had this weekend for the toddler’s 2nd birthday.

On the menu:

• Heirloom vegetable crudite with Italian “Little Tree of Sarzano” zucchini, lemon cucumbers, yellow and purple peppers, purple cherokee cherry tomatoes
• Corn chips with fresh peach salsa
• Watermelon gazpacho
• Grilled corn-on-the-cob with South Mountain Creamery butter
  
• Virginia beef hamburgers (freshly ground by the butcher) on Va.-made buns with Tom’s cave-aged smethe cheese & Amish pickles (PA), Bigg Rigg’s ramp mustard (WV) and Mr. Ugly tomatoes (MD)
• Beverages: Peach Sangria, with Barboursville sparkling wine (VA); Fordham (MD), Dominion (VA) and Dogfish Head (DE) beer.
• Dessert: birthday cake & cupcake from Buzz Bakery.

The produce came from our Potomac Vegetable Farms CSA; Mt. Olympus Farm, Reid’s Orchard and a Northern Neck VA farmer at the McLean market; and Tom the Cheese Guy, D&S Farms and the plant stand at the Del Ray market.

Only non-local ingredients: tortilla chips (though Snyders were from PA), jicama, seltzer, Gulden’s mustard and organic ketchup. One lesson learned – don’t ask a butcher how much beef you’ll need unless you want some giant burgers! But they were oh so very good.