Lunch in a hurry, as usual

The garden's doing great this year and that means when we're home we're usually working out there or in the kitchen putting up produce. Strange as it seems, amongst all this food, it can be hard to get a meal on the table some days.

Saturday's meal, put together on the run between garden chores and a little holiday merry-making, was meatloaf made with local, grass-fed beef from the freezer, red cabbage and summer squash from our garden, grain from down the road in Raphine (Wade's Mill) and a few new potatoes I couldn't resist picking up at the farmers market that morning. The squash casserole and rolls included eggs from our backyard hens, plus butter and a bit of top cream from a dairy at Burnt Chimneys. The meatloaf and squash also included onions from the garden and the meatloaf utilized a few tablespoons of the wonderful tomato powder I made earlier this spring with what was left of last year's dried tomatoes. Red cabbage required a dash of homemade apple cider vinegar and local honey, too.

Too get it on the table fast, I prepared the squash casserole in the morning and refrigerated it, unbaked, till close to lunch time. The red cabbage went in the oven with the meatloaf a little over an hour before lunch. And the rolls were made with refrigerator dough I try to keep on hand so we can enjoy fresh hot bread with most meals. They spent most of the morning rising in their baking pan on the counter and then went into the hot oven as the meatloaf and squash casserole came out.

We had ice-cold apple cider we made and froze late last fall. I often can cider, too, but then it just becomes apple juice, in my book. This stuff was still the real thing and a perfect sweet yet refreshing drink to go with the rest of our local meal.