Skip to main content

What's the big Dill ?

By

     In August of last year I had one of the best sandwiches I have ever had. It is pictured here. That sandwich was served to me at the HARVEST TABLE restaurant in Meadowview, Virginia. The restaurant's menu is always changing to take advantage of local products. The owner insist on serving local products and even has a list of around 90 businesses and farms where she gets her food. The list also tells how far the businesses are from the restaurant. Some as close as 1 mile to the farthest about 200 miles. The sandwich featured here is their chicken salad (not like a chicken salad I was used to). Poached or roasted chicken between two slices of cheddar cheese, one yellow the other white, with a fried egg on top. But the bread was what sold me. It was a Dill Bread that had been toasted.
    I decided that day that I would try to recreate the sandwich at home. First I had to find a dill bread recipe. I went to the source but as I thought, the chef at the HARVEST TABLE declined to give me the restaurant's recipe. Next I went on line. There I found many recipes. It seems a lot of them use cottage cheese in the dough and dill seed as apposed to the dill weed I was familiar with. Eventually I settled on a recipe from a TASTE of HOME Holiday  cookbook from 2010. Have I mentioned that I collect cookbooks? This had been in my possession from 2010 and sadly I had not made a recipe from it until this last week. The bread turned out very good. I first sampled the bread sliced warm with a dab of butter. Then later constructed the restaurant's sandwich and the next day we finished the loaf with more traditional chicken salad sandwiches. All were very good but my favorite was the warm slice with the dab of butter.
    If you get a chance, go to the HARVEST TABLE restaurant. But at least read the book by the owner "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. She is of course a well known writer with multiple best selling novels. This book chronicles a year in her life when she converted to local organic only food. It is much more than a food diary. It entertains throughout! It is an inspiration to me to make changes. I believe I can increase my consumption of local grown and raised organic food. But no matter how inspired, I will never be the writer she is!





.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It was just a platter !

By
    There was a platter in some of my grandmothers things that my father had brought home years ago. There is a picture of a turkey on the face of the platter. It is still in fair condition considering that I am sure grandma used it a lot. We celebrated every holiday and lots of Sundays eating at her house. And since she didn't have a lot of "stuff" stored around in her small house, I'm sure I have seen it setting on the table with hams, turkeys or meat loafs to be served.      It wasn't until I turned it over that the true value of this platter was revealed to me! No it wasn't a makers mark from a fine china company in Japan or Germany. Nothing to convince me that this was valuable fine china. It was a piece of adhesive tape right in the middle of the back. Written in grandma's hand writing was a note. It read, From Mary Kathryn and Robert Lee, 1953. It was a gift to her from my parents in the year that I was born. Priceless!     The first thing I d...
2 comments
Read more

Cooking at 7200

By
     I recently I drove to Laramie Wyoming to visit my son and daughter in law. As usual, when we get together we cook. We try new techniques  and recipes that we think will compete or beat restaurant meals. I believe that we were successful with our attempts this time. Although it took me awhile to adjust to cooking at a high altitude. It takes a longer time or hotter temp to complete your dish. First up, Ty.     Ty was anxious to show me a new technique. He used a Sous Vide to cook a Prime Rib Roast. A Sous Vide device brings your dish to a perfect temperature in a vacuum sealed bag in water and holds it there until you are ready. In this case it was a rib roast. After reaching the assigned temp he then seasoned the roast and seared all sides to finish. For a beef eater this was outstanding. I can see a Sous Vide device in my kitchen soon.     I had a Cooks Country magazine from Feb/Mar 2020 with me to try some new recipes. I made their It...
3 comments
Read more

Too many radishes !

By
    I have grown up eating radishes. I have eaten them plain mostly but like to slice them and put on buttered bread for a sandwich. (Something I learned from my Dad).  I have added them to green leafy and potato salads as well. I really thought that I had them every way possible. Now our twin granddaughters like them sliced by the hand full.     We have included them in most of the gardens that we have planted over the years. Usually we plant early and then once harvested we plant tomatoes or some other later crop. We no longer have a large garden. Mostly we are planting in containers. This year we decided to grow a few vegetables so the twins can learn to appreciate where their food comes from.     Like every year we seem to plant so all of the radishes are ready at the same time. So I decided to find a different way to use them and found a recipe for Sweet and Spicy Pickled Radishes . The addition of Cilantro and Jalapeno peppers added the spic...
Post a Comment
Read more