Garden Caprese Toast

We’re all familiar with the concept of Caprese Salad, but moving that salad onto a slice of toast and adding a few humble ingredients changes the entire plate.

Again, we’re putting the emphasis on fresh, local, seasonal ingredients in this dish. Our Garden Caprese Toast is a great appetizer or snack that really tastes like summer. One of my favorite things to do with this is to use it as an appetizer before serving a nice juicy steak. It’s a huge hit, looks great, and will really impress your guests. It’s also fairly easy to prepare this in larger numbers, which makes them perfect for entertaining.

What you’ll need:

French Sourdough Bread (we got ours from Empire Baking Co.)

One tomato (either Roma or heirloom)

Sliced Havarti cheese

One avocado

Fresh Rosemary

Fresh Oregano

Butter

Microgreens

Salt & Pepper

First, preheat your oven to 500 ̊. Line a baking sheet with foil. Cut two slices off your loaf of bread. If you’re having this for lunch, try to cut on a bias to get a bigger slice; if this is the appetizer, a normal slice will work (to keep people from filling up on it!). Slice several pieces off your tomato, as well as the avocado (of course, no pit or skin). Lay the bread on the pan and spread butter over the bread. Now very finely chop your rosemary and oregano and spread the herbs over the butter bread. Once the oven is preheated, pop ‘em in. Keep a close eye on them because they will toast fast at that temperature! Once toasted, quickly remove from the oven and slap some Havarti on top of the bread. If desired, you can stick them back in the oven for a few seconds to melt the cheese a bit more.

Now that the toast is toast… Lay the tomato and avocado slices on top of the cheese, alternating between the two. I personally like to cut the tomato slices in half. Next, sprinkle some salt and pepper to taste. Lastly, as a super nutritious garnish, sprinkle some microgreens over top of everything!

Some variants: Havarti is my favorite sandwich cheese, but one could be more “Caprese” and use fresh mozzarella, cheese curds, or any other type of cheese! The possibilities are virtually endless. Another thing I like to do is use truffle salt as opposed to table or sea salt; this pairs very nicely with the truffle cheddar from Brazos Valley Cheese. 

Raw Milk

What is raw milk? You may have been hearing more and more about this creamy, delicious substance lately. If you ask the government, raw milk is a deadly pool of bacteria whose mere presence will annihilate entire cities. To those less influenced by politics and lobbyists, however, raw milk is a pure product filled with good bacteria, enzymes, vitamins, and protein.

Simply put, raw milk is unpasteurized milk. In the early 1900’s, dairy farms moved into the cities. Many of them situated next to breweries and distilleries and began the caged animal operations the food industry has become known for. In these dairy “farms” the cattle were kept in cramped conditions and seldom, if ever, saw the light of day. They stood in their own, and other cows’ feces. The farmer would buy the spent grain from the brewery next door and feed it to the cattle. Grain feeding changes animals’ internal chemistry, and spent grain are void of most nutrients. This led to highly infected milk which was often supplemented with chalk to keep a white appearance. Drinking that stuff raw (to this day) is highly likely to at least make you very sick. The government did what it does best and began regulating the dairy industry.

Raw milk sold on actual farms, however is a very different story. Many true dairy farms have a very small number of cattle. Their cows are grass fed and pastured. They don’t stand in poo all day long. In fact, this type of raw milk is actually safer than pasteurized milk. For more info on safety and to find quality raw milk near you, visit www.realmilk.com.

Raw milk farms cannot legally advertise in the state of Texas, nor can they sell through retailers. You have to go to the farm to buy it. The closest one to us is Lavon Farms in Plano. There are others around, but they are the most convenient option for my family. 

If you haven't yet tried raw milk, don't be shy! It tastes just like store bought milk, only creamier and a tad less... milky. Now, when I drink store bought milk, it always smells and tastes sour to me. The easiest way to transition into raw milk is to go to a health food store and buy non-homogenize milk. This alone is so much better than standard store bought milk. It will help you become accustomed to the texture of raw milk and the cream plug on the top actually tastes delicious in coffee. 

Raw milk butter made at home

I usually buy two gallons at a time. First, for drinking. I like whole milk. From the second gallon, however, I take the cream plug and plop it in my coffee. Then I take the first quart (first 1/4 of the gallon) without shaking the jug and make butter.  From the butter left overs, I make ranch dressing with the buttermilk. The rest of that gallon is now reduced fat milk, which my wife prefers. For more on simple ways to use raw milk, be sure to check out our upcoming posts which will contain butter and ranch dressing recipes. 

Butter and ranch dressing made with the leftover butter milk

Raw milk is so healthy and so useful. For the adventurous, you could make your own cheese, yogurt, or other fermented/aged dairy products.  

PS: Yes, there is a government warning on raw milk... at least in Texas. If that bothers you, next time you go to a fancy restaurant and order a steak or get your eggs over easy, look at the bottom of the menu. You'll find a government warning about consuming raw or under-cooked meat, poultry, and seafood. You are15 times less likely to get sick from raw milk.

We used this local vendor for this recipe:
Lavon Farms

Changing our Views Changed our Weight

We’re not one of those “will there be anything at the potluck that WE can eat?” families, but we’ve found over the past year that it really IS easy to change your family’s food (without ruining everyone else’s day) if you’re passionate about doing so. We realized pretty early on in this journey that you don’t have to be super passionate about it, and you don’t have to make a change big enough for anyone else to notice. Much like Dave Ramsey’s “Debt Snowball” (something we’re still trying to perfect), the tiniest bit of passion that you use to ask questions about the foods you currently eat will most likely inspire you to be more passionate and ask more questions. If you’re anything like Matt and I, your questions will quickly become about the foods you are NOT eating…yet. What should I be eating that I’m not? How can I afford different foods? What changes are realistic for my family’s schedule? Why am I interested in making a change? What are people I know doing that I like? That I don’t like?

Our desire for this blog is twofold. We are realizing that while simply living the cards we’ve been dealt over the past year, we are in a state of nutritional transition. My husband and I have lost a combined 120 pounds (not just from changing nutrition of course), and we’ve been able to get our son through 6 months of mostly organic, homemade finger foods. If I had told a friend from 2 years ago that I planned on changing my way of eating to what we’re doing now they would have laughed hysterically and then said, “You’re acting strange. Do you need a Big Red (red soda for you Yanks) and some BBQ?” It saddens me a little that we don’t have any record of the transition that took place in our lives. All the little memories we’ve made while maneuvering farmers markets, talking to farmers and ranchers, and ATTEMPTING to grow strawberries for our parrot will have to live on as just memories. There is no tangible record of our recent changes. We’d like this blog to serve as a chronicle for the changes that are yet to be seen. Alternatively, our hope is that we inspire others to question their food. We aren’t trying to convince you to come to the Dark Side. We are totally fine if you eat fast food cheeseburgers every day (something we did not too long ago) and tear them into bite-sized pieces for your little ones. We just noticed that something in our lives had great room for improvement, and for us that was the food we were putting into our bodies.

Sometimes we still happily eat out at restaurants, enjoy a late night trip to grab a sundae, or drink an entire day’s worth of calories in one sugary drink. The biggest difference for me is that I rarely feel guilty about these not-so-healthy decisions now. We know that we’re feeding our bodies better than ever before. We are also starting to notice the physical reactions our bodies have to some of our guiltiest pleasures. Educating ourselves on the foods available to us hasn’t been completely easy (Did you know that it is illegal to market the selling of raw cow’s milk in Texas? Matt and I have felt a bit like crack addicts trying to shadily ask around at farmers markets, “Do you know where we can get some raw milk?”), but we’ve been able to take back part of our lives by doing so. We don’t feel like food addicts anymore, and we want to make your food education journey less difficult by sharing our knowledge every step of the way.

Delicious Blueberry Chutney

Blueberry Chutney on chicken breast with honey mustard

With summer in full swing, you’ve probably noticed a lot of blueberries at the Farmers’ Markets. Few things really epitomize the flavor of summer like fresh blueberries. They go great in your favorite cereal or ice cream, or just by themselves! One of my favorite things to do with them, however, is to turn them into a sweet and savory chutney sauce for pork or chicken.

This combination of sweet and savory works really great if done properly. The good news is that it’s pretty simple. In addition to having this chutney with meat, one could also use it with a fromage platter. Now, I am definitely no sommelier and I know that port is traditionally a desert wine, but I have found that the cheese of Brazos Valley Cheese pairs beautifully with the Dry Comal Creek port that we use in this recipe. Most notably, the Italian black truffle cheddar really does nice with it.

We find it fitting for our inaugural recipe to make a sauce that is simple, versatile, seasonal, and oh so delicious.

Now that you have a few ideas, on to the chutney! You’ll need the following:

1 cup blueberries (whole)

¼ raw sugar

2 tbsp. raw honey

2 cloves garlic

¼ large red onion (should yield about ½ cup when chopped)

                It is optional, and delicious, to substitute 2 medium shallots for the onion; in fact, it is my preferred method

2 tbsp. butter

¼ cup sherry vinegar

¼ cup port

Salt/pepper

Optional – rosemary and oregano to taste

Blueberry Chutney with a cheese assortment

First, mince up your onion (or shallots) very fine. Ideally, they should mostly cook away and you’ll be left with just their flavor. Now crush the garlic. No need to chop this, just crush it enough to break it up a little bit. You can do this by laying your knife flat over the clove, then smashing it with your hand. It goes without saying to be incredibly careful not to cut yourself.

Next, heat up a large sauce pan over medium heat. Melt one of your tablespoons of butter in the pan. Once the butter is melted and hot, add your onion/garlic to the pan and let it cook for a few minutes. We’re not trying to caramelize the onions, but rather “sweat” them. They should go from white to almost clear.

While the onions are cooking, in a mixing bowl combine your other ingredients, minus the honey and other tablespoon of butter. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Once the onions are properly sweated, add the bowl of berries and ingredients to the pan. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, stir in the honey and reduce the heat to low. Simmer uncovered for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Essentially, we’re trying to get the berries to release their precious juices and then reduce the water out of them to concentrate the flavor. Once the 20 or so minutes have passed, gently stir in the last tablespoon of butter.

Now all you have to do is decide how you want to enjoy this delicious concoction. To expand on the fun, you could try adding mint leaves or replacing the blueberries with blackberries or even raspberries if you were so inclined. Plus, blueberries (and other berries) are pretty easy to freeze, so save your extra berries and you could enjoy this chutney in the winter time as well!

We used the following local vendors for this recipe:
La Esperanza Farms (blueberries)
Brazos Valley Cheese
Texas Honeybee Guild

Welcome!

Welcome to Eat Local Dallas! We're a husband and wife team who have recently moved to Dallas. We have a one year old son as well. 

We're amazed at all the fresh, local items available at the many DFW area farmers markets. One of our goals is bringing you fresh, local, and seasonal recipes using ingredients that can be bought from local farmers and ranchers at the DFW farmers markets. As a side note, we hold no financial interest in, nor take consideration from, any of the merchants. As well as avoiding legal issues, this ensures that when we name a brand, it's because they're good, not because they paid. 

With that all out of the way, we look forward to bringing you the best that Dallas has to offer. 

Until next time,
Matt & Tori


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