The night before we had this meal we celebrated our 9th anniversary at one of the better (in my humble opinion) fine dining restaurants in Memphis, Hunt Phelan, that makes good prodigious use of local ingredients from local farmers. It is my favorite go-to restaurant for special occasions. This meal, however, rivaled my wonderful carrot-ginger bisque and redfish clemenceau. It was a roasted halal chicken with halved baby onions and a roasted beet, feta, and basil salad.
A little bird told me that all of the halal meats in Memphis were raised by Mennonites in the Jackson, TN area. The butcher at the shop I went to agreed, then disagreed. I think we had a language barrier. I'm going to try the other halal butcher I know about and ask him, but for now, I'm calling this delicious chicken local, hailing about 60 miles from Memphis. The onions, basil and beets were from Whitton Farms, and goat feta came from Bonnie Blue Farm.
I bought one chicken to roast and another to cut up and freeze. We already made chicken and dumplings with my local flour, local milk, and Whitton's leeks, onions, and carrots, but no matter how you cook it, chicken and dumplings just isn't a pretty dish. It's white with flecks of vegetal color. But it was very very good.
And I made a 95% local blueberry pie- my first double-crust pie ever. I used this recipe for the crust and nothing but blueberries, flour, a sprinkle of sugar, cinnamon, and water for the filling. It was so, so good. As in, eat it for breakfast good.
Have a wonderful week! I'm looking forward to making a tomato cobbler this week- it is my favorite!
2 comments:
i love pie for breakfast. really an underutilized option in my opinion. great sounding local meals all around!
I so wish we could get local flour around here!
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