Dark Days Meal #9: Chuck Roast w/ root veggies, Salad, and Buckwheat/Sourdough

The Dark Days Challenge is on! Running until March 31, 2012 over 100 participants will be doing our best to cook and blog about one meal per week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients. Recaps will be hosted by the blog collective Not Dabbling in Normal where you can follow along with all of the other participants. 

This week's Dark Days meal continued on the trade of hearty roasts and root veggies, but I was fortunate enough to also have a delicious local salad and an entirely local loaf of buckwheat x sourdough bread! The chuck roast had a wonderfully rich flavor and was only a bit dry, which was my own fault. The roasted root veggies included carrots, parsnips, onions and potatoes. The salad was a mix of winter greens & edible flowers with radish, carrot, apple, and goat cheese. 

The buckwheat x sourdough had a rich earthy taste without an overly heavy crumb which complimented the roast and veggies perfectly. Having a nice fresh salad on the side is a nice treat in the middle of an admittedly mild winter!

The bone-in chuck roast was from John Crow Farm. The carrots and parsnips for the roast as well as the carrot and daikon radish in the salad were from Winter Moon Farm, while the onions and potatoes in the roast were from Red Fire Farm. The salad greens were from E & T Farms and the garlic and basil goat cheese is courtesy of Crystal Brook Farm. The apple in the salad was crispy and sweet and came from Charlton Orchards. The buckwheat/sourdough was made using buckwheat flour & a mix of whole wheat bread flour's from Four Star Farms along with my King Arthur Flour sourdough starter that I had fed with the same Four Star Farms whole wheat flour. 

I will be on the lookout for a nice pork cut to feature in an upcoming Dark Days meal as I feel there has been a lot of beef and sausage but not as much pork.