foodwineclick

My goal was to make dinner as close to 100% from the farmer’s market, supplemented by herbs from the backyard.  I did allow myself common kitchen condiments; we have very few olive trees (for oil) in Minnesota!  You can see my main ingredients below from Kingfield Farmer’s Market in South Minneapolis.  My previous post went into the details of my trip to the market.

Dinner would feature Salmon, baby leeks, young yellow and green zucchini squash, and corn on the cob.  As good Minnesotans, we eat fresh local corn on the cob every chance we get in the summer.

Raw ingredients from Kingfield Farmer’s Market

While preparing dinner, we enjoyed a cheese plate with cheeses from LoveTree Farm, bread from Sun Street Breads, and local honey from Beez Kneez.

Cheese plate featuring LoveTree Farms cheeses and Beez Kneez local honey

The marinade for the salmon consisted of honey, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic cloves and salt.

The salmon sits in a simple marinade

After slicing, I tossed the zucchini and leeks in a bit of olive oil, and rosemary, thyme and tarragon from the garden.  Then, into the grill basket!

Veggies in the grill basket

Just a touch of olive oil on the bread before crisping it on the grill.

Crisping the bread on the grill

The salmon looked great just as it came off the grill.

Finished salmon, almost ready for dinner!

It was really fun to start at the farmers market and end up with a nice family dinner at home.

Dinner out on the patio

Pinot Noir is a classic pairing for salmon.  In keeping with the local theme, I went with one of our favorite Pinot Noir’s: iOTA Cellars.  iOTA Cellars is a wonderful estate vineyard & winery in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  It is a partnership of our old next door neighbors in Edina and their sister/brother in law.  I’m collecting photos from a couple of visits and will dedicate a post to iOTA Cellars in the near future.  On our last visit to the vineyard in April, Johanna and Don gave us a real treasure; a bottle of their last “amateur” wine.  The following year, iOTA was officially born.  Johanna suggested we share it with our (young adult) kids at a family dinner.  She suggested we not hold it for too much longer.

On the contrary, this wine was wonderfully fresh and probably would have been happily cellared for a number of years more.  It was a perfect match for our dinner.  Our preference in Pinot Noir runs toward those which are light on their feet; not overly ripe and heavily oaked.  This wine tasted of cherries and a bit of forest floor; perfect for the salmon!

iOTA Cellars “commercial” Pinot Noir; please excuse the snow!

The photo above is the iOTA Cellars wine you can buy today.  Please excuse the snow, I took this photo back in February.  We get ours directly from the winery in an annual shipment.  This wine is a single vineyard, estate grown and bottled Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.  The wine sells for $36, which we think is a real value for an artisan wine from Oregon.  Look them up!

If the iOTA Cellars is a bit out of your price range, here are a couple other Oregon Pinot Noirs we have enjoyed, and they are widely available:

• A to Z Wineworks Oregon Pinot Noir – typically $14-20 in your local wine shop
• Erath Oregon Pinot Noir – also typically under $20.

You may see our dog, Gus, hanging around the kitchen in some of our photos.  Gus loves fresh sweet corn, so we always reserve an ear for him.  At first, he politely works on the cob of corn.  After a few minutes, his love of sweet corn takes over and he proceeds with abandon!  Our old dog, Woody, carefully ate just the corn and left the cob.  Gus isn’t so picky; when he finishes, nothing is left!

Gus likes his corn

Actually, Gus LOVES his corn. Don’t chew with your mouth open!