There’s no reason to pack up the grill just because the calendar says summer is over - fall is a great time to grill, particularly here in DC where summer humidity (and mosquitoes!) drives us indoors too much of the time. Char-marked root vegetables are a fun way to blend summer flavors and seasonal produce.

Recipe: Grilled Butternut Spears

Ingredients:

• 1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into thick slices
• 2 T olive oil
• 2 t cumin
• 1/2 t cayenne pepper
• sea salt

Ingredients: Whisk seasonings into olive oil and toss half of the mixture with butternut spears. Let sit for 20 minutes. Wrap spears tightly in foil and place on upper rack in grill over medium high heat for 20 minutes. Remove from foil and place on grill rack, sear for 2-3 minutes more per side. Brush with remaining oil mixture and enjoy.

Farm of Origin: Butternut squash from Norma’s Farm, Alexandria West End Market.

September is a wonderful month at our local markets, with tomatoes and peaches mingling with winter squash, sweet potatoes, the return of salad greens (arugula!), and sweet, crisp apples. Now that we’ve roasted, salsa-ed, gazpachoed, and preserved a gazillion tomatoes, we’re embracing fall and highlighting a few DC-area bloggers who are making the most of the season’s fresh produce.

SQUASH
One of my favorite squash vendors, Three Way Farm at the Del Ray Market, reports that summer zucchini is winding down fast with the shortening days. I shredded and froze a few more pounds today, and am ready to embrace butternuts, spaghetti, acorns and all the other winter squash that add serious heft to my fall market basket…

• The Arugula Files makes a Italian Sausage, Arugula & Squash Soup, with butternut squash.
• Dish-trict shares Brown Rice with Butternut Squash, Wild Mushrooms & Salami.
• And I made grilled butternut spears, getting the most out of our grill while it’s still warm.

APPLES
“Appy? appy” need an appy!” is a frequent refrain in our house these days. Aside from the stash of little delicious, honey crisp and such we keep on hand for snacking, I buy some of the bigger, tarter varieties for cooking. (Jonagold and Matsu this weekend, from D&S Farms at Del Ray.)

• Tiffany at The Garden Apartment perfects the Apple Pie, with Jonathan apples from Bigg Riggs.
• Capital Cooking’s Lauren shares an Apple Crisp recipe, for those who want to skip the crust.
• I made a savory Apple Celery Soup, with Bigg Riggs’ lovely Rambo apples.
• And for still more apple ideas, check out Everyday Food’s Apple Fest round-up.

MISCELLANY
Of course it’s not all squash and apples, check out a few other seasonal ideas.

• Sylvie, the Rappahannock Cook’s Upside Down Plum Spice Cake, with Italian blue plums.
• The Food Scribe’s Lemon Cucumbers & Beets, with fun heirloom cucumbers from Evensong Farm.
• Everyone seems to be pickling these days, and The Slow Cook offers Pickled Okra (one of quite a few pickle recipes he’s posted).
• Grape & Goat Cheese Pizza from Food Rockz Man.
• Speaking of grapes, Ramona at Houndstooth Gourmet made an eye-catching Gorgonzola Cheese Blintz with Concord Grape Sauce. Yum!

We will be participating in the Eat Local Challenge for the month of October, so check back for updates & we’ll see you October 24 for the next FarmFreshDC round-up.

When canning tomatoes recently, I saved some to make a batch of fresh tomato soup. This is highly adaptable and a great way to use up any stray vegetables in the fridge. I froze a portion and the remainder lasted us two nights. The first night we ate it plain with country ham & biscuits on the side, and the second night I added cooked sausage slices to the portion we were about to eat. You could poach some fish in it or add cooked shrimp, chicken, or other protein to make a complete meal.

Recipe: Harvest Tomato Soup

Ingredients

• 2 T olive oil
• 6-8 tomatoes, seeded and diced (or two 8 oz. cans crushed tomatoes)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 1 ear corn, cut off kernels
• 1 T dried oregano
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 4 cups water
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (or parsley)

Instructions: Heat olive oil in soup pot over medium heat. Add garlic, onion and carrots and saute until onion is golden. Add tomatoes, oregano, broth and water. Bring to boil, reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in zucchini and corn, simmer five minutes longer. Add cilantro and season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat. Serve with a nice crusty baguette and enjoy!

Last week was Virginia’s Farmers Market Week, so we celebrated by heading to three local markets last weekend. The toddler and I visited the McLean Market Friday morning, which is located in a shady corner of a park and had a nice mix of vendors, many familiar and a few new. The Middleburg ice cream truck was a fun touch. Westmoreland Berry Farm had giant blackberries and sweet raspberries - the toddler instructed me to keep them coming, one color in each hand. They also had one box of wilted squash blossoms (we were there shortly before closing time) that she threw in free since they were rather sad-looking. Mount Olympus Berry Farm had a rainbow of beautiful peppers (I picked purple and orange), tomatillos and purple and white cream peas. We got our favorite sweet potato bread from Grace’s Pastries, to eat along with the berries, cheese and watermelon for our picnic lunch. (At Clemyjontri, awesome playground a few minutes away.)

Saturday morning the toddler and I headed down to Old Town Alexandria. There were still a few dubious produce stands, including one with lemons and avocados, but I was pleased to see some well-known vendors, like Bigg Riggs, J&W Valley View and Twin Springs. I still have to dock them points on the lay-out though, with so many vendors smushed together in the front and wide open patches in the back, it made for tough going to get through to Bigg Riggs. But, peaches were everywhere. One vendor had a bin of squash blossoms and some small gooseberries still. We hit up the meat/dairy stands, with sweet Italian sausage from Babes in the Woods, Calhoun’s Country Ham, and Blue Ridge Dairy ricotta.

For brunch that day I stuffed my squash blossoms with the ricotta, fresh oregano and a bit of prosciutto, then coated in corn meal and fried. The corn meal was a little heavy - I might mix it into a batter next time instead of dipping in milk/egg and corn meal separately - but they were oh so good. (And that was my local corn meal, too!)

Sunday was a quick stop at the West End Market, where Norma’s had these lovely purple tomatillos. Since I already had the green ones from Friday, I had to pass them up. We picked up Hilldale’s organic chicken which isn’t cheap, but was far and away the juiciest chicken we’ve ever had.

I was sick all week so we stuck to simple meals and I really slacked off in the photo department.

Dinner #1: Grilled Tomatillo Chicken — We marinated the Hilldale chicken (breasts and legs) in a tomatillo-pepper salsa and grilled it, along with some corn on the cob from our CSA bag. Simple and so good!

Dinner # 2: Italian grill — Babes’s Italian sausages, peppers, pattypan squash and golden zucchini, all brushed with olive oil, fresh oregano, sea salt and pepper and thrown on the grill. The toddler is rejecting squash lately (last year he ate the golden zucchini straight from the market table) but loved the sausage. Served with watermelon agua fresca to drink, made from the final remnants of our Eastern Shore melon.

Note to DC-area bloggers: This is the week for the August Farm Fresh Recipe Round-up. Email me at foodietots at gmail dot com by midnight Weds. Aug. 13 if you have a favorite recipe to share!

This week, with Father’s Day on Sunday, our one local summer “day” was spread out throughout the week. For Father’s Day, the husband and I went out to an Italian cheese and meat course at Cheesetique, followed by dinner at Rustico. Rustico is a great neighborhood restaurant that sources a lot of their products from local farms and producers, and has a massive beer selection. I managed to have a fairly-local meal there, with Chesapeake (Dragon Creek) oysters, asparagus salad with FireFly goat cheese (MD, 173mi.), and the most local beer they had on tap, Southampton Ale (NY, 330mi.). (On tap = less packaging, which offsets some of the miles, right? That’s my story, anyway.)

I visited two farmers markets this week, Alexandria’s West End and Penn Quarter in DC (photos), plus had the CSA bag. We still have a fridge full of veggies to use up before the next CSA delivery on Wednesday as I just can’t pass up all the great summer produce that’s coming into season! Here’s what we cooked this week:

Dad’s Day Brunch: Pattypan squash and Virginia spicy beef sausage hash, chocolate-strawberry stuffed french toast, topped with strawberry red wine sauce. (Non-local but organic chocolate, bread from local bakery.) This squash hash is a great way to lighten the traditional potato-based dish for summer.

Recipe: Squash and Sausage Hash

Ingredients:

• 1 large pattypan squash, diced (any summer squash would work really)
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 2 sausages, sliced
• 1 t olive oil
• 2 T parsley, chopped

Heat oil over medium high heat. Add sausage and brown. Reduce heat to medium and add onion and squash. Cook about 5-7 minutes until squash is tender and golden. Remove from heat, add fresh parsley and serve.

(Toddler tried to like this, but the spicy beef sausage was just too spicy! Will make sure to get a sweet sausage for him next time.)

Dinner 1: garlic scape pesto-marinated flank steak and golden zucchini on the grill (non-local brown rice).

Dinner 2: leftover steak and zucchini salad, with a side of roasted asparagus, egg, and shaved Everona Stony Man cheese.

Dessert: previously mentioned Summer Solstice Shortcake with Basil-Infused Berries. (non-local flour, baking soda and salt)

So far my only local grain find is Maryland corn meal. I need to find some other grains, but I have a feeling whole grains like brown rice are not going to be possible.

Farmers/Producers:

• Parsley, scapes, lettuce - Potomac Vegetable Farms CSA, VA, 23mi.
• Asparagus, berries - Westmoreland Berry Farm, VA, 71mi.
• Stony Man (aged sheeps milk) cheese - Everona Dairy, VA, 83mi.
• Squash, onion - J&W Valley View Farm, VA, 84mi.
• Organic eggs - Hilldale Farm, VA, 111mi.
• Sausage, flank steak - Fauquier County, VA, 67mi. (via Let’s Meat on the Avenue, 1.1mi.)