playing with lard, DD week 14(?)

I picked up a tub-o-lard from my favorite vendor at the market recently. So this week we've been looking for ways to use it. First trial, the quiche crust:



This isn't exactly a prime DD meal, as I ran out of homegrown spinach and used some frozen from the (ahem) store. And I think I threw some mushrooms in there I had laying around. And half and half. But it had plenty of local goodness too--6 of our eggs, scape pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and zucchini from our home garden, plus some market onions and some leftover market horseradish chive havarti and misc. ubiquitous Wisconsin cheeses. The crust was pretty good too, though a little crumblier to roll than my all-butter crust (might just be a problem with my proportions though).

And today: Enchiladas with refried beans




These were a better dark days meal. We do a pretty simple veggie filling, just sliced market onions, mixed with some homemade ricotta and yogurt, plus a WI pepper jack cheese. The sauce is a ridiculously easy recipe I found years ago when out of prepared sauce--and now I never have to buy it. It's also a great option for converting to local--I can up 8-ounce jars of tomato sauce for just this type of recipe, and you could easily use homegrown spice mixes to substitute. The corn tortillas alas are not homemade, but I did get them at the little family-owned Hispanic grocery down the street! :)

Enchilada sauce:

2T each flour, oil, and chili powder
cook as a roux stirring for several minutes and add
1 cup of plain tomato sauce, and one cup of water.

Add some cumin and salt/pepper, and per the recipe, garlic powder (I used fresh garlic cooked along with the roux), and bring to a gentle boil until it thickens to a nice consistency.

If you like the store-bought version, this tastes just like it, but you could definitely tweak it for a bit of interest.

The refried beans were home grown (Brockton Bean from Seed Savers) cooked with a bit of lard, and some garlic and serrano peppers (frozen from our harvest last summer). Beans were so-so, I've never been that great at making refried beans from scratch, but the lard definitely helped. We squeezed one of those mini meyer lemons in at the end as they needed something, and that helped!

We served with more homemade yogurt and salsa.