If I were to look into statistics (that’s if there are any!) I would say the most common activity on a summer Saturday in Ontario is BBQing. Now that great farm fresh produce is starting to pop up from region to region, I look forward to my weekends cooking up a storm after long hikes in the valley with my dog Zurich.
My wife had a great idea to go on a local adventure to shop for fresh local products and try to make a 100% Ontario produced dinner. Spending about 5 minutes of prep time on localharvest.ca [5] and coming up with the menu, I mapped our route and away we went.
The Menu:
Main
15-17 oz Striploin to split with salt, black pepper, 3 dashes of Montreal Steak seasoning, and 1 tablespoon of mother in laws minced garlic from the garden.
Grilled BBQ vegetables with portabella mushrooms, red, yellow, orange peppers, red onions with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sweet soy sauce, pickle juice, salt and pepper.
Grilled asparagus with salt, pepper, olive oil, and a dash of balsamic vinegar
Fiddleheads pan-fried with butter and garlic.
Dessert
Ontario Strawberries.
Fresh baked butter tarts.
Our first stop was down the street to Cutting Edge Meats [6] were we picked out a fabulous 15 oz striploin that owner Michael cut just minutes prior to our arrival. The beef was fresh from a supplier in Bruce Country and couldn’t ask for more local than that.
Just around corner is Goldsmith Orchards [7] a local favorite for fresh produce. They always seem to have everything I need and what they don’t grow themselves they venture around to supply their customers with the best produce from Ontario. We grabbed our greenhouse peppers, portabella mushrooms, asparagus from Meester’s Farms in Collingwood, fiddleheads picked just off of Grey Road 13, a pint of Niagara Region fresh strawberries, and finally one of Jenn’s favorite treats, home baked butter tarts.
I learned a lot on this little adventure. All in all we were excited that everything we needed was at our fingertips and that summer was arriving, producing more and more farm fresh products each week. 6.7 km’s was our total distance and about 45 minutes of our time socializing and spending time together. After dinner was done, sipping on our drinks, Jenn and I looked at each other and realized that time is virtually irrelevant when it comes to buying fresh local products because it just tastes better.
Fresh Ontario Dinner
Fresh Ontario Dinner
