Summertime Rolls

I was in need of something summery this week, so sweet corn jumped to the front of the list, and corn chowder just happens to be about my all time favorite thing to eat.  If you are so inclined, and I am, fry up some bacon pieces in a saucepot and then add the soup to those little, browned chunks and serve it embellished that way.  The sweet corn of course is from our summer time stash of Crossroads Community Farm corn that we cut and froze in August.  This is the time of year when that work begins to pay dividends.  The onions and carrots are still local and the little dice of potato, nearly my favorite part of the soup, is from our last haul of Tree Farm Yukon Golds.

Reminiscing about summer got the bread salad going too.  In a Stone Soup manner I just kept digging into our larder bringing up some dried heirloom tomato slices, frozen Snug Haven roasted reds, Dreamfarm Chevre ( yep, it freezes beautifully ) and above all slices from our beautiful, home cured prosciutto.  This ham was from a Berkshire pig, pasture raised by Prairie Fire Farm, and is about TWO years old!  It is in peak condition now, I’d say, and we are into the best part of the leg.  It is important to get a leg that is butchered skin on to make one of these cured hams well, and few slaughter houses scald and scrape anymore – the skin on processing term.  But Prairie Fire has such a butcher at hand, and their pasturing of the animals is the difference maker in terms of quality.  Note the dark , ruby color of the meat and the 1” thick cap of fat surrounding the muscle.  I have a second ham from them from 2012’s drought year and it is very lean compared to this 2011 fat beauty.  We’ll see how it eats soon enough.  Enjoy a dinner of reminiscences!