Fall is an extra special time of year for seasonal food here in Wisconsin. Our months of hard work in the fields and gardens are paying off, yielding a bounty of fresh, delicious food. Though fall is often marked with a mad rush to get everything harvested and preserved, there is also still enough warmth and evening light to celebrate our abundance together with friends outdoors. We asked four local farmers to share their favorite fall recipes with us, and then we came together to enjoy one last harvest meal.
Lasagna del Bosco
Lasagna del bosco is an original dish from the Bellazzini family and translates to “lasagna of the woods.” In their opinion, it is the perfectfall comfort food. Fragrant sage and bountiful bunches of rosemary from the garden bring a freshness and warmth, while mushrooms add a rich fall flair. Wild porcini and hen-of-thewoods mushrooms are plentiful in autumn and can be substituted for the cremini mushrooms. At their farm-to-table dinners on Friday and Saturday nights, the Bellazzinis love serving this recipe as a primo piatto, in small squares, as they often do in Italy after the salad but before the main entreé. For more tasty Italian recipes that use local food, visit the Campo di Bella website and explore their cookbook Campo di Bella At Home.
Serves 12 as a starter, 8 as a meal
Campo di Bella
With a restaurant, farmstay and onsite winery, Campo di Bella is Wisconsin’s very own Italian “agritourismo” tucked right into the beautiful hillsides of rural Mount Horeb. Marc and Mary Ann Bellazinni’s Italian heritage inspired this 20-acre farm of their dreams. In the beginning Campo di Bella was simply a CSA farm, but Marc and Mary Ann eventually shifted their focus to a winery and offering Italian- and French-inspired meals at the farm. Open for multicourse farm-to-table dinners on Friday and Saturday evenings year-round, Campo di Bello shapes their seasonal menu around the vegetables grown in their garden and pasture-raised heritage lamb. Other ingredients are sourced as close to the farm as possible from local artisan producers. They also serve wine made from grapes harvested from the farm’s own vineyard and offer lodging through Airbnb, complete with views overlooking Blue Mounds State Park and cuddles with farm dog Stella.
Pepper-Crusted Steak with Hazelnut Slaw
This recipe calls for a delicious spice blend that includes Sichuan peppercorns (which are not actually peppercorns, but rather the berry of the prickly ash plant, a woody shrub found throughout North America). These peppercorns lend a zingy, tingly and peppery flavor to dishes. You can purchase them locally from Penzey’s Spices or forage them after consulting a wild foods expert. No Sichuan peppercorns? No problem. This recipe is just as tasty without them!
Mastodon Valley Farm
Nestled in the hills of the Kickapoo River watershed, Mastodon Valley Farm raises grass-fed beef, pastured pork and prairie-fed chicken regeneratively on their 220-acre farm just outside Viola. Peter and Maureen Allen deliver their meat across the region through a meat CSA that operates much like a produce CSA, receiving payment in advance for regular shipments of mixed meat products. Wondering about their name? Peter and Maureen like to say they manage their land like mastodons, keystone species who once held back the growth of a woody understory, allowing for diverse and highly productive landscapes. Today at Mastodon Valley Farm, they are restoring diverse savanna ecosystems that provide abundant and delicious food. For those interested in learning their methods, their Mastodon Valley Farm School has courses available to help farmers and homesteaders become a keystone species themselves–teaching how to co-create resilient, regenerative and productive landscapes.
Dukkah Potatoes
No fall harvest meal is complete without potatoes, and these potatoes—seasoned with an Egyptian-style dukkah nut and spice blend—pair perfectly with pepper-crusted steak. Much like the steak rub, you will end up with more dukkah spice blend than you need for this recipe, but we promise you won’t be sad about it.
Squashington Farm
Farming together since 2013,Sarah Leong and Pat Hager run a small, certified organic CSA and market farm just outside Mount Horeb along with their two children and pup Butternut. The majority of their 150 CSA members pick up directly from their farm or at the Mount Horeb Farmers’ Market through a market-style share (where you take what you want and leave what you don’t). Their CSA also offers a fruit share in partnership with Atoms to Apples and a bread share through Tisha’s Delicious Bakery. They are mainstays at the Thursday night Mount Horeb market and show up nearly year-round with their produce and value-added goods. Sarah and Pat just wrapped up their first season at the Dane County Farmers’ Market–offering everything from greens to beans.
Sautéed Kale and Sweet Potato Salad
This sautéed kale salad is a perfect start to fall when the harvest is at its peak. Most of the ingredients can be pulled straight from the garden making it an ideal addition to a fall menu. The sweet potatoes and cranberries nicely balance the bitterness of the kale, and the mushrooms add a subtle hint of nuttiness that brings it all together. This recipe uses white button mushrooms because they’re so easy to source but the recipe is tasty with other mushrooms like lion’s mane and oyster as well.
Rooted
Made up of two farms–Troy Farm and Badger Rock Urban Farm–and countless community-based programs, Rooted is a Madison nonprofit devoted to increasing equitable access to land, fresh food and learning opportunities throughout Wisconsin. The Badger Rock Neighborhood Center, where Renesha Carter formerly held the role of Community Connector, is a gathering place for the neighborhood providing seasonal, summer youth, and special activities at low or no cost to participants. The programs are aimed at helping enrich and strengthen the community while also nurturing resilience within each individual. The farms also serve as educational spaces for community members that double as spaces for vegetable production. Their certified organic produce is available through their membership program, at their on-site farm stands and at the Northside Farmers’ Market. Carter currently works for Public Health of Madison and Dane County with the Women, Infants & Children Program which provides healthy foods and health information to women, infants and children nutritionally at risk.
Apple Pear Crisp
To be completely honest, I’m not much of a baker. As a vegetable farmer for many years, salads come much more easily to me than dessert. When it comes to sweets, I’m kind of a two-trick pony. I tend to lean on local sweeteners like maple syrup and honey, and I love to brown some butter for a “wow” factor. This recipe has both.
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