At the supper, in spirit anyway ...

Tonight was indeed the night of the next Syracuse Eat Local supper, and I had every intention of attending (especially since it was taking place so close to my house) ... I even went out to the Regional Market and the Syracuse Real Food Coop to make sure I had everything I needed ... but by the time I got home from the memorial service that was held this afternoon (a friend from church passed away the other day), I knew I was just drained and wouldn't be able to attend. :(

However, I still had all my ingredients and so I put together a lovely winter greens and potato casserole, courtesy of a recipe I found in the Jan-Feb 2004 Cooking Light magazine. Finding the ingredients was an amazingly simple task, thanks to the hard work of the folks at Stone's Throw Farm, home of some gorgeous organic veggies. They had pretty much everything I needed - a pound of kale, a pound of mustard greens and two pounds or so of some incredible red potatoes. The only thing on my list that they didn't have was locally made cheese, which I found at SRFC.

(I'll be adding a photo to this post when I'm done, showing you what I mean by "gorgeous" - I've fallen in love with their red potatoes, which are actually pink right through the center and seem to be far less starchy than any other potato I've ever sliced. They're not like those, well, the typical little red potatoes you see in the supermarket ... they're kind of elongated, not round, and a bit knobbly but not really ... well, you'll see.)

So even though I can't be at the supper tonight, I'm there in spirit with my potato casserole cooking in the oven.

Here's a bowl of fresh kale next to these luscious potatoes:


And this is a sliced potato, up close and personal.

I looked in the garden this afternoon and found one viable red tomato and dozens of big fat green ones. Most of the tomato plants have begun dying back, including the ones that overshadowed the bell pepper plants - which are now producing little peppers as if it were springtime. I can't blame them for being confused - today's weather was glorious, mid-70s and totally cloudless. Most of the month has been similar. Gotta hand it to the pepper plants: they managed to produce one or two nice big peppers before the monster tomatoes took over. Now they're trying again! That's the spirit!

I'm starting to think about autumn and what to do with my garden. I'm wondering about what to do with the herbs. Specifically, what do I do with the Greek oregano and the nice, tall rosemary bush? it would be great if I could transplant them into pots in my house and enjoy them all winter long.

One thing I very much want to do this fall is roast some vegetables, drizzling them with olive oil and sprinkling with chopped fresh rosemary before going in the oven. My sister does this and the results are incredible! I've never done it, and I have the rosemary, so I want to give it a go. Anyone ever roast veggies this way? How'd it go for you?