In less than a week, I'm starting the One Local Summer challenge which requires one meal a week that is completely local (oil, salt, pepper and spices are allowed to be non-local). Participants will blog about their entries and share them on the main site over at http://www.farmtophilly.com/, the hosts of the challenge.

I'm in the midst of clearing out my fridge and keeping it chiefly local or organic or some approximation thereof as the farmer's market gets into full swing. Tonight, I grilled up a flank steak (which was not particularly local, but taking up valuable space in the freezer) with a marinade made of garlic, cilantro, salt, pepper and local scallions. I served this with grilled local sweet potato half-moons tossed in sea salt and chili powder. The real centerpiece, however, was an all local/home-grown green salad (although the vinaigrette required transgressions, of course). I used red and green leaf lettuces from our container garden, as well as home-grown basil and mint. I tossed these with farmer's market scallions, radishes and carrots.

It will take some major steps to turn that meal into a One Local Summer-eligible one, but it felt good to be able to throw together a mostly local dinner using what was available to me already in my fridge. That's the ultimate goal - to make these meals so effortless that I won't even consider the take-out option.

Local items: carrots, radishes, scallions, sweet potatoes

Home-grown items: lettuces, basil, mint

Could do better: meat, garlic, cilantro

Non-local staples: olive oil (from local shop that supports local farmers), vinegar, salt, pepper, chili powder