Another play on a classic today, the eternal combo of fish sticks and mac and cheese. 

While I didn’t fry the walleye, you could.  I seasoned the walleye with salt and pepper, cut a shallow slit in the top of each fillet and stuffed them with a combination of fresh herbs.  Then a drizzle of olive oil and it’s into the oven for about 15 minutes, depending on the size of your fishies.  If you have the time, brown some butter in a pan with a sprig of fresh rosemary for a quick and flavorful brown butter sauce to drizzle over your fish.

Spaetzle is a simple batter to mix up.  I used about two cups (half whole wheat flour from Flying J Farm and half unbleached white flour from prairie Mills) along with 3 local eggs and about a half a cup of milk from Snowville.  You want it nice and thick (like pudding almost) so you can press it through a colander with the back of a spatula over a deep pot of salted boiling water.  You don’t want it running through of its own volition, you need to push it through, otherwise you’ll be left straining out a bizarre oatmeal-looking slop.  (Not that this has ever happened to competent Persephone.)  Each batch of teeny tiny dumplings are done in about a minute.  Lift the spaetzle out of the water with a strainer and place on a clean kitchen towel to drain.

Homemade cheese sauce is a snap to make.  Warm a chopped yellow tomato and some garlic  and add it to the cheese sauce to give a potentially heavy dish a nice touch of freshness.  Mix in a couple of generous spoonfuls of the tomato cheese mixture into the spaetzle that’s been moved to a saute pan to rewarm.

Serve the two together and you might be able to get your kids to try your version every once in a while.  And every once in a while is not a very bad start.

The only items in dinner that were not local were the olive oil and the salt and pepper.  Neat-o.  Complete sourcing can be found on the Farms and Producers page.

Playlist included Superior, by Columbus local Colin Gawel.