"Damn near local"

Ask any chef and they will tell you, that given the choice, they would rather use a fresh local product over a product that has traveled thousands of miles and was picked months ago. Sometimes, however, we have a recipe we are working on that really needs a little something something that is not available at the local farmer's market such as finding olives in Central Minnesota( not gonna happen) so for this unfortunate, yet all too common, occurrence I have coined the phrase " Damn near local".

First all, my definition of local maybe different than yours but it's my blog and I am defining local as anything grown, brewed, produced, baked, raised, etc... within 150 miles from home. So yeah, a beer from Duluth could be considered local but some of my favorite cheese from eastern Wisconsin isn't.

So here is the first in the "Damn near local" series, my take on the Italian summer classic salad panzanella. Just a reminder I really don't cook with recipes so what follows is more of a guideline let your taste buds be your guide!

 Damn near local panzanella - Tuscan style bread salad 
- makes enough for about 3 people as an entree

About 1/2 loaf of old cibatta bread  - don't worry if it is hard this salad was developed to use up old bread.
3-4 very ripe tomatoes, large diced - if the tomatoes are not insanely ripe don't make this salad!
1/2 of a red onion cut into rings

take the bread and place it in a large bowl then cover it with water. Let the bread soak up enough of the water to make it soft but not so long that it turns into mush. Remove the bread and squeeze out the excess water. Tear the bread into bite sized pieces and place into a large bowl.

After the bread has been soaked and squeezed you can start adding the rest of the ingredients. Here are the local ingredients included in mine - tomatoes, red onion rings, peeled and seeded cucumbers, parsley, basil, thyme, grilled and chilled chicken breasts. I also use a locally pressed virgin sunflower oil in the vinaigrette which is very easy - equal parts oil and vinegar with some Dijon mustard.I used 2 T oil and white wine vinegar and a T of Dijon. Helpful hint - when making dressing test it on a slice of cucumber to give a taste of how it will taste on the salad -if you just test it on a spoon or *gasp* your finger, it will,should taste too tart.

After adding all the local ingredients I added a couple of ingredients that make this "damn near local" as they were from outside the 150 mile limit -  cheese and olives. The cheese I used is one of my favorites, Montamore from Sartori in Plymouth WI. The olives were Kalamata from Greece - so definitely not local.

Once you have all the ingredients in the bowl, drizzle the dressing on and toss.

So the final score of the ingredients:

bread - Clearwater MN. aprox. 20 miles

tomatoes - Sartell farmer's market - 3 miles and backyard 20 feet

onion - Big Lake MN - 20 miles

sunflower oil - Pierz MN - 30 miles

herbs - backyard 20 feet

cheese -Plymouth WI. 330 miles

kalamata olives - Greece - nowhere close

white wine vinegar - France - again not from around here but really good

so out of the 8 ingredients, 5 were from within the 150 mile limit so I think that makes this dish 

"Damn near local"!