Free!

We were able to put this dinner and dessert together without needing to buy anything!  We just used things that we both already had and made a few small substitutions if needed.

Now that Cornerstone has a dairy cow, there have been lots of fresh, raw dairy products available for us to use--one of them is real buttermilk, which is the byproduct of making cultured butter.  When we saw the recipe in the October 2011 Bon Appetit magazine for Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Waffles, we thought it would be a great thing to make with chicken raised at Cornerstone and buttermilk from the Jersey cow, Tess!

The garlic and herbs were from Cornerstone as well, and we used a combination of pork fat and coconut oil to fry the chicken in.

Chicken and waffles was something we hadn't tried before, but the combination of the slightly sweet waffles with homemade butter and maple syrup, and the spiced chicken with hot sauce was actually really good!

In order to use some of the winter greens, such as kale and swiss chard, growing abundantly at Cornerstone, we made Creamed Collard Greens from the November 2011 Bon Appetit, using the greens we had available in place of the collard greens.

Of course the milk and cream were from Tess, and we used smoked bacon from La Biondo Farm on Vashon.

We also made a simple green salad with Cornerstone greens and a maple-mustard vinaigrette, and Brandon and Lauren made polenta with delicious homemade stock.

For dessert we had To Die For Banana Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting from Tasty Kitchen.

We almost had to buy one banana to be able to make this cake, since Luke saw the bananas on the counter and had one for a snack!  But there just happened to be one over-ripe banana left at Cafe Luna that Bethany was able to grab as she was leaving work :)

This post is far overdue...this meal was made in the end of October...so there are a few more to come that will hopefully be up soon!