It’s already week six of the One Local Summer challenge! I feel a little bit like a local summer let-down, not because I can’t come up with a local meal each week, but because they all tend to look alike. I can’t help it! I get into something for a while and am totally happy eating variations on the same few meals over and over. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m digging salads right now, so at least I made this one extra pretty for you:
Mmm, vegetables. The egg, tomato, and balsamic vinegar (combined with olive oil, salt, and pepper for a super easy vinaigrette) were store-bought and local. Everything else was from the garden — lettuce, chard, onion, snow peas, broccoli, and green beans. Well, green and yellow bush beans. The first ones I picked! Is there anything better than lunch that’s fresh from the garden?
No, there’s not. Unless it’s making mulberry jam from wild mulberries. Two jars in the freezer and one in the fridge, all for $1.44 (the cost of the no-cook pectin packet). I did have to tediously snip off all the little stemlets from the berries — they’re attached to the fruit and don’t pull out, they way raspberry stems do. But you can save either your time or your money, right? Or just make jam from a wild fruit that doesn’t have little stems.
Which reminds me, I spotted some wild grapes. I’ll be keeping my eye on those.
