One Local Summer hasn’t officially started up yet, but here in Berkshire county, we’re eating local several days a a week thanks to the amazing, beautiful bounty of the Caretaker Farm CSA. Tonight we had a positively sublime summer salad due, in part, to a bit of a cheesemaking fluke. From failure comes total deliciousness — tonight at least.

As you might remember, Dan and I have failed before at cheesemaking. And I thought we were mostly over it, until we stopped by Neighborly Farms in Vermont last weekend, and met the baby cows and sheep, and came home with a quart of goat’s milk, convinced we were going to make some chèvre.

Needless to say, we failed once again. What we ended up with was more like goat’s milk yogurt. It was a little too runny to really be called cheese, but if I wasn’t prepared to throw it out, nor was I prepared to hunker down with a spoon and granola at breakfast time. What could I possibly do with this weird concoction? I thought back to the spectacular (one year anniversary!) dinner we had last weekend, at Hen of the Wood restaurant in Waterbury, Vermont. Dan had a really lovely salad dressed with buttermilk dressing, and my salad featured spring peas, radishes, and crème fraîche (and feta, delicious local feta). The two ideas cross-pollinated, and I had a solution for dinner tonight.

Following the skeleton of a recipe for a standard buttermilk dressing, I whipped up a salad dressing with the un-chèvre:

1/3 cup goat’s milk yogurt (or buttermilk, if you’re normal)
2 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. mayonnaise
2 tbs. apple cider vinegar
1 scallion, thinly sliced

And, with that, dressed a light salad of young leaf lettuces, sliced red radishes, and snap peas.

The tangy goat’s milk was the perfect accompaniment to the sweet lettuces and peas, and the radishes had just the right bite to cut through the subtle creaminess.

Atop my salad I perched a homemade portobello mushroom and quinoa veggie burger, and Dan had a local, pasture-raised burger with Shropshire blue cheese and grilled onions.

We complemented the meal with Ommegang’s bizarrely-named Ommegeddon — but any farmhouse ale would do. (My vote goes to Southampton Saison.)