Dinners on the Farm 2011 Season At a Glance
PLEASE NOTE: AS OF MARCH 3RD, ALL OF OUR DINNERS ARE SOLD OUT. WE AREN'T TAKING NAMES FOR WAITING LISTS. HOWEVER, WE WILL REPOST SEATS ON OUR WEBSITE AS WE RECEIVE CANCELLATIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATRONAGE.
May 28th Celebration of spring
After our long, cold snowy winter, we plan to celebrate spring in all its glory! We’ll feature tender wood-grilled lamb from Caveny Farm in Monticello, Illinois, fresh picked spring peas, delicate asparagus, spring greens and many herbs from our organic gardens. With rhubarb and strawberries for dessert, our first dinner of the season will reawaken your taste buds to the joys of local food.
June 11th The Pampas meet the Prairie: Argentina in Illinois
Leslie and Chef Alisa wax poetic on their past travels to Argentina, with a menu featuring their most fond gastronomic memories. The immigrant populations of Italians, Spaniards and Germans had strong influences on Argentina’s cuisine, making it a true fusion of old world and new. You’ll dine on empanadas, mate cocido (a typical tea made with mate leaves), grass-fed beef “a la parilla,” vegetable-rich salads such as “ensalada russa” and gelato with goat’s milk “dulce de leche.” Of course, our dear friend from Argentina recommends a nice, velvety Malbec wine to accompany the meal.
June 25th Summer Beer and Cheese
Local Brewmeister, Bill Morgan, and the folks at the Blind Pig Brewery return to Prairie Fruits Farm to pair up his extraordinary local micro-brews with our chef’s cheese-centric food dishes. We’ll have four beers and four “small plate” courses that highlight the season and the beers themselves. Scheduled at the height of the berry harvest, juicy tart gooseberries, currants and raspberries will surely find their way onto the menu, along with hand made sausage and local, farm-raised fish.
July 2nd Fourth of July “Chicken Throw-down”
Chef Paul Virant of Vie Restaurant, Western Springs, Illinois returns as guest chef for another season of “Dinners on the Farm.” He describes this July 4th feast as “excessive, delicious, down-home Americana fare.” In the true competitive spirit of the holiday, he will dazzle you with chicken prepared two ways—fried and wood-fire grilled. Expect loads of salads, corn on the cob with chin-dripping melted butter and fruit-filled pies a la mode. We’ll provide the bibs; you bring the brews.
July 16th A Greek Kitchen in Illinois 'Eliniki Kouzina ' (and we’re not talking Greek Town)
Our neighbor down the street and her mother, Ya Ya Diamando, hail from Greece (by way of Australia). They even have their own olive grove which produces some of the most intensely fruity olive oil you will ever taste! It turns out they are both phenomenal cooks, and they will team up with our chef Alisa to prepare a feast of traditional Greek dishes with a local flare. Imagine baked fresh-water prawns with tomatoes and feta cheese 'Yarithes tou Fourno,” stuffed tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers 'Yemista,’ lamb cabbage roles with egg and lemon sauce 'Lahano Dolmathes,’ walnut semolina cake ‘Karithopita' and spoon sweets with ice cream and cherries 'Yliko Koutaliou.' Are you transported to the Mediterranean yet?
August 6th Peak of the Summer Vegetarian
It is no accident we set this dinner at the height of the summer season. We plan to get our hands on the best produce the Farmers’ Market has to offer along with our farm’s own organic vegetables and fruits. Mix that up with Illinois’ finest goat and sheep milk cheeses, and you can expect a menu that will offer sweet and savory, raw and cooked, smooth and crunchy, hot and cold, sour, salty and spicy. Vegetables lend themselves to any and every preparation under the sun and that is exactly what we intend to do.
August 20th Tomatoes galore
Guest Chef, Thad Morrow, of Bacaro Restaurant in Champaign returns to the farm at a time when dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes are dripping from their vines. Chef Morrow pays homage to both diversity and peak flavor of this new world crop. You’ll be seeing ‘red’ (and green, yellow, orange and purple) in soups, salads, meats and yes, even dessert.
September 3rd End of Summer Barbeque
Who says that barbeque season ends when school begins? Smoke and fire inspire this menu that includes Triple S Farm’s (Stewardson, Illinois) heritage pork prepared on the “big daddy” Prairie Fruits Farm wood-fired grill, sun-ripened heirloom tomatoes, freshly-dug potatoes, sweet corn, Wes’s fresh-churned gelato and the juiciest peaches you have ever eaten.
September 17th Fiesta Mexicana
Our Mexican fiesta on the farm is back this year, and with the help of some of our best friends from south of the border, we plan to offer up a “spicy” menu reflecting the diverse cuisines of Mexico. Expect pastured poultry, hand-made corn tortillas, tamales in fresh corn husks, huitlacoche (aka corn smut fungus), mole poblano, goat’s milk cajeta and fresh cheeses.
October 1st The 100 Yard Dinner or “Duck, Duck, Goat Cheese”
Join us for Prairie Fruits Farm’s signature dinner in which the entire menu is created from ingredients grown or raised within 100 yards of the dining table. This year we are going to try our hand at raising ducks—Muscovy to be precise. One of Chef Alisa’s favorite proteins will inspire a creative menu that will incorporate a full year of food preservation, the entire gamut of our farmstead cheeses, eggs from our beautiful hens and fresh fruits and vegetables from our certified organic gardens.
October 15th Meatless Comfort Food: Fall Vegetarian
Many people don’t realize that vegetable production continues well into the fall in Central Illinois, despite the colder temperatures and frequent light frosts. Our kitchen will use the full bounty of late harvest vegetables to create an incredible autumnal menu. Expect winter squash, root vegetables, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potatoes and tender cool season greens paired with cheese, sweet goat’s milk, summer preserves, pickles, apples and honey. This multi-coursed evening will inevitably get out of hand and leave you wishing you wore an adjustable waistline set of trousers.
October 29th Urban Cowboy or Country Meets City
Many Chicagoans know Jared Van Camp, Chef of Old Town Social as the Charcuterie King of Chitown. Few know that Jared’s roots lie in the black earth prairie of Central Illinois. Jared returns to the Prairie Fruits Farm kitchen to cook up some gussied-up urban street foods with bucolic country roots. Given his penchant for cured meats, we’re likely to dine on an array of sausages and hams. Jared promises that “everything will be made from scratch using the finest local food ingredients around.”
December 3rd Winter Beer and Cheese Fete
It may be cold and blustery outside, but we’ll keep you warm and cozy inside with winter brews from Brewmeister extraordinaire Bill Morgan and the Blind Pig brewery. Our festive holiday event is always a big hit with heartily crafted beer on tap bridged with multiple small plates that highlight the season. It's worth the price of the ticket alone it to hear Bill's vivid descriptions of each beer and how it pairs perfectly with each course.
