Who says you can't have authentic Mexican in the Midwest?

Part of our eating locally series...

I made (vegetarian) Chilaquiles with 100% local ingredients...
- tortillas, made at the St Paul's East Side tortilleria La Perla, minutes from our house
- tomatillos, from St Paul Farmer's Market (obligated to be local*)
- chiles, from our CSA box
- cilantro, from St Paul's Farmer's Market
- onions, from our CSA box
- white cheddar cheese, local & purchased at our co-op, Mississippi Market
- sour cream, local & purchased at our co-op
- garlic, from our CSA box

Here's a (not-very-glamorous) photo...



We've also made (not Mexican, but I don't feel like doing a separate post!) herb-zucchini fritters and steak as part of our local-eating challenge.

The zucchini fritters:
- our garden zucchini
- basil: combination of our garden and CSA box
- mint: from St Paul Farmer's Market
- green onions, from St Paul Farmer's Market
- Italian parsley, local & from our co-op
- local egges, from our co-op
- bread-crumbs from A Toast to Bread Mediterranean Style white bread, a Dayton's Bluff (our 'hood) bakery
- non-local oil and creme fraiche

The steak was bought at our co-op and comes from A Thousand Hills Cattle Co., near Cannon Falls, MN. It's grass-fed (in fact, we have had nothing but grass-fed beef since we moved here). Just seasoned with salt & pepper and pan-grilled.

shredded zucchini, a green onion and a sprig of mint,


The finished products,


Many days we eat local sweet corn for lunch. Actually we eat it all the time. We get about 12 ears of corn in our CSA box every week! It is DIVINE.

*You may think that it is self-evident that if we buy something at a farmer's market it is local. And this is very true at the St Paul's Farmer's Market, all produce and other products (cheese, meats, eggs, some prepared foods like bagels, egg & spring rolls, handcrafts, flowers) must be grown/made locally and no re-selling of produce bought from someone else is allowed. The Minneapolis Farmer's Market is apparently (haven't actually been so this is hearsay) not so much on that bandwagon - you can buy Dole produce (?!). However, the Mill City Farmer's Market, also in Minneapolis, has only locally-grown, organic produce. We haven't been to that one 'cos 1) we love the St Paul Farmer's Market and 2) holy moly, it's hard enough to get us out of bed for one farmer's market, let alone two! :) 3) less fossil fuel expended getting us to the St Paul one since it is 1.9mi from our house (this has never been a conscious reason, but it sounds good, no?! Self-righteous? Us? Nooooo...). Many of the farmers at the market belong to the Hmong ethnic group - according to the Hmong American Institute for Learning St. Paul is the largest urban population of Hmong in the world! So it's cool to see all the different kinds of produce they grow, in addition to tomatoes, zucchini, squash, basil, cucumbers, cilantro, potatoes, green beans, etc. One of these days I will have to take close up photos of things like bitter melon- very cool looking and the different varieties of eggplant which just look like art.
Here's a photo I took a couple of weeks ago at the St Paul Farmer's Market...