Dark Days Meal # 2: Garlic Horseradish Sirloin with roasted Carrot & Turnip.

The Dark Days Challenge has begun! Running until March 31, 2012, over 100 participants will be doing our best to cook and blog/write about one meal per week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients. Recaps will be hosted by the blog collective Not Dabbling In Normal. I will post links to recaps so that you can follow along with other participants. 

It finally started to get cold a few nights ago so I turned toward something hearty for this weeks dark days meal! We started with a too sweet butternut squash soup that I floated a crostini with melted cheddar in. The crostini was made from an extra piece of the crusty dutch-oven bread I made and the cheddar was from Smith's Farmstead which was a great way to balance the overly sweet soup. Our main course is pictured in this post, a delicious garlic and horseradish marinated sirloin steak with roasted carrot and turnips! This wasn't a tough dish at all. Once the steak was defrosted I rubbed a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of salt, a tablespoon of garlic pure6, and a tablespoon of horseradish all over the steak and let it chill out, covered in the fridge for a few hours, flipping it occasionally. When it was time for the carrot and turnips to go into the oven I cooked the steak in some melted butter.  As the steak finished resting the carrot and turnips were ready to come out of the oven.  Though the soup wasn't met with glowing reviews (it was edible but nothing special) the steak was good enough that it passed Gail's 3 bite test as she ate a few pieces and even set some aside for lunch too! The veggies were very easy and required very little effort. This type of dish can easily be modified for whichever root veggies are on hand. 

To make the root veggies preheat oven to 425 F,  cut veggies into wedge's or fry shapes and place them into a bowl. Drizzle them with a tablespoon of olive oil, a pinch of kosher salt, and a mix of thyme/marjoram/rosemary. Spread vegetables in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes.

All of the ingredients except the olive oil, salt, and pepper we used for this meal were sourced locally:

For the soup:

Butternut squash from NorthStar Farm. Onion from Enterprise Farm. Apples and cider from Allandale Farm. Cheddar from Smith's Farmstead.

For the steak & root veggies:

Sirloin from Stillman's. Garlic from farmer's markets this summer/fall. Horseradish from our garden. Carrots from NorthStar Farm. Turnips from Heron Pond Farm, and herbs from our garden.