Get ready, get set ...

Tomorrow the month long Eat Local Challenge starts and I thought I would do a trial run tonight at dinner - and what a delicious dinner it was !
Both hamburger and accompanying vegetable were inspired by Emlyn, who is an inventive and imaginative cook who combines sometimes odd ingredients fearlessly and comes up with surprising new creations.
The hamburger was mixed with chopped onions and a generous scoop of black bean sauce with garlic, a Chinese sauce. The patties were cooked on the grill by Mr. T while I made the following :

1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into bite-size slices

1 zucchini, sliced the same way

5 small, mildly hot, red peppers,diced

1/2 onion, sliced

Bunch of chard, washed and cut into ribbons

garlic, minced

olive oil

1/4 c white wine

Saute the squash in olive oil until slightly caramelized and soft, add a generous sprinkle of garlic, salt, pepper and 1 t sugar . Stir gently, cook a few more seconds and reserve.

In the same large pan, saute the zucchini in some more olive oil until slightly soft, add peppers and onions and cook until vegetables are crisp-tender. Salt and pepper and reserve.

In yet the same pan, heat some more olive oil, add the chard and saute until it turns dark green and looks cooked. Add garlic and salt and cook a few seconds more. Finally add 1/4 c white wine and boil down until wine boils away. I used Riesling, which is slightly sweet and combined really well with the sweetness of the butternut squash.

When ready to serve, arrange chard around the rim of a serving platter, place zucchini mixture in the middle and top with the butternut squash.

This is such a pretty presentation - too bad we dove right in and ate it up before I had a chance to take a picture.

The dinner was judged to be delicious. I have a feeling we will not suffer by eating locally ! All the vegetables came from our garden, the rest of the dinner was food that was in the pantry or the refrigerator.