We had the perfect weather for the evening with a slight breeze to keep the mosquito's away and it was warm but not too hot. Our backdrop, as provided by our neighbors the Jaegers, was a beautifully harvested wheat field with the golden straw and bales showing off their fall color in the setting sunlight.
Aaron Hill, from Fargo Brewing Company, was an excellent co-host for the evening and did a fabulous job of teaching us all about the great microbrews from their business.
The first course of the dinner, the appetizer, was pizza. Guests had three pizza's to try out. The first was a lemon basil marinated chicken pizza on a BBQ sauce sourced from Oakes, ND - Dad's Ropin' Good BBQ sauce. We had to search long and hard and do more than a little begging to get our hands on this no longer made sauce, but MMMM, MMM, MMM, was it worth it! The second pizza was a pesto sauce, made with the pesto recipe on our website, topped with garden ripened tomatoes from Jerry's Gardens - Jerry Harmel of Rugby - and mozzarella cheese. And last, but certainly not least, was the lamb pizza. Several people were unsure of eating lamb and it was interesting to see after the first round of serving how much lamb pizza was leftover, but it wasn't long before people started coming back for seconds and thirds of the lamb pizza and before we knew it not only was it gone but people were demanding the recipe. Which, by the way, is now posted on our website www.gardendwellersfarm.com on the main dishes recipes page.
It worked out well that opposite the view of the fantastic straw bale field was a view of Adam's sheep and with so many people asking questions about the lamb, we had Adam take a few minutes away from cooking to explain about his fabulous 'hair' sheep, the Katahdin's. One of them is visible in the photo below in the lower right hand corner of the picture, along with two of our 'free range' hens.
The next course was a little surprise as well. Along with a great herbed salad with pistachios and pepitas, we served apple bobs dressed with a yummy lime cilantro sauce. This was another item people came back for seconds and thirds on.
The main course, the beef kabobs made with grass fed beef marinated in an herbed marinade turned out perfectly grilled by Adam and Chef Ken and the colors of the peppers from local producers made it just as lovely to look at as to eat.
The kabobs were served with two sides that also brought a lot of interest to the dinner and were items that few guests had experienced before this evening. We planted some rat tail radishes this year and found them to be the perfect snack with beer when quick pickled and along with those, our 'Pea Currant' cherry tomatoes made the best red/green combination!
The final course of the evening, as described to me by one of the guests, was 'life changing'! Stephanie's gingerbread cake, made of course with the darkest molasses, local honey, local eggs, dark brown sugar and Fargo Brewing Company Sodbuster Porter beer, then served with that same beer and topped with Pride Dairy vanilla ice cream - was literally the grand finale'!
Photo above courtesy of Christie Jaeger
A good time was had by everyone and we certainly enjoyed having them all with us!
Even as the sun was setting on this perfect evening, people enjoyed the food, farm, fun, and new friendships made with everyone at our Farm to Table Dinner.
Back at home today we just finished cleaning, washing, and putting away all the utensils and other items from the dinner and updating the website with all the recipe's we used.
We're very thankful to everyone that attended the dinner. We hope you had as much fun as we did! And...we hope to see you again next year!
Remember to look on our website: www.gardendwellersfarm.com on the recipes pages for all of the instructions on how to recreate this great food in your own kitchens and
Live Life Well Seasoned!
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