With the 4th of July indicating that summer and summer vacations are officially on in full-force, this presents some challenges to local eating, but some great opportunities as well! We explored several of these opportunites during our recent vacation around Washington State
One highlight was the chance to give a workshop about local and seasonal eating on a budget, while at the Conscious Culture Festival in Tonasket, WA. During the workshop, we talked about when different foods are in season in Washington, using this great resource from WSDA. After we sorted that out, we talked about where to get these foods and what kinds of foods we can make with them on a budget. I had great people show up for the workshop and we had some great conversations about food!
We were camping during the festival and it was a fun challenge to eat healthy, local food. I pulled some of our yummy pre-made dishes from the freezer, handily also serving as their own ice packs in our cooler while camping. These included some of the morel dishes from the spring and paired them with some fresh salad made with lettuce from our CSA share. We topped the salad with some pickled beets and garlic-scape and parsley pesto. Another salad was accompanied by open-faced english muffin sandwiches. These had some almond cheese and humus as toppings along with garlic-scape and parsley pesto with roasted morels and sun-dried tomatoes.
I had the chance to stop by the University District Saturday Farmer’s Market in Seattle. It was really fun to see all of the fun and diverse local foods available there. I found some more of my favorite garlic scapes, basil, spinach, camelina oil, mushrooms and that it is kohlrabi season! There were some local favorites from nearby the PCW foodshed, even all the way over in Seattle I found the Tonnemaker booth! Olsen farms selling beef and potatoes from Stevens county, WA and the Camelina Gold folks from Ritzville, WA.
We enjoyed our farmer’s market finds paired with a few additions, with good friends after an amazing hike at Mt. Rainier.
We had chopped scallions with garlic scapes and then added the red peppers provided by our friends. Then, toward the end of the cooking process I added a can of Wild Alaskan Salmon, and a few minutes later I added chopped spinach and a bunch of fresh basil to top it all off. We served it over some gluten-free pasta with some salad of sliced kohlrabi, cucumber and fresh tomatoes sprinkled with camelina oil from the Farmer’s Market and more of the fresh basil.
For dessert, we had some fresh, local, berries and cherries served with coconut roll cookies and chocolate from our Theo factory tour.
We enjoyed buying berries and cherries all along our road trip from roadside stands. On our way home, we even picked up a 25lb box of cherries grown in Naches, WA from a local fruit stand. We have been pitting them and putting them into the dehydrator for our enjoyment in oatmeal, on salads and in snack mixes during late fall and winter.
Always with gratitude- especially to Shane McFarland for helping to clean up the messes I make!