It’s holiday entertaining season. A time when we gather at friends’ houses, churches, neighbors and our homes. If you want to support local businesses when you entertain, then consider adding some of this local fare into your soirée.
Pull all these products together and build an incredible locally sourced charcuterie board. They’d also make a great gift basket for a foodie. Or pick and choose your favorite to incorporate into your holiday fare. Here are some fabulous local foods for entertaining.
Swiss-style cheese from Grison Dairy & Creamery in Ava
Adrian Buff and his family started a dairy farm in Switzerland but did not like the strict rules governing farms. So in 1997, they moved to Ava. After high school, Buff returned to his homeland to study cheesemaking. A few years later, Buff returned to start making cheese at their family farm Grison Dairy & Creamery in Ava.
He produces three cheeses:
Ozark Mutschli, a semi-hard pasteurized cheese.
The Grisontaler, a hard cheese made with raw milk that is aged at least 60 days in a warm cave. There, it develops eyes, the characteristic round holes in Swiss cheese that are caused by the formation of carbon dioxide due to microbial metabolism. The Grisontaler is more characteristic of traditional Swiss cheese.
The Säntis is made with seasonal milk, and it is washed in a beer and herb solution. Adrian uses a different local beer each year this year used Piney River’s Black Walnut.
Find it: Brown Derby International Wine Center, Mama Jeans Natural Markets, and the Grison Dairy & Creamery website.
Toffee, caramels and sweets from Uncommon Confections
Elisabeth Graff’s grandfather always loved peanut brittle but the soft and airy type, not the hard one that stuck to the roof of his mouth. Graff started making a brittle with those characteristics and discovered her love of creating sweets. She worked for UPS full time, but in her spare time, she started Uncommon Confections in 2012. Next, she tackled toffee and found a winning recipe with her chipotle toffee, which has become a top-selling product. Graff makes melt-in-your-mouth peanut brittle, different toffees, pretzel ale caramels, salted caramel and chocolate-dipped pretzels.
Find it: Harter House on Eastgate, Horrmann Meat Co. on West Battlefield, and through her Uncommon Confections website.
Dates and date syrup from Date Lady
After the birth of her son, Colleen Sundlie and her husband Ryan moved to the United Arab Emirates for a job opportunity. There, she fell in love with tender, plump dates and date syrup — a dark, sweet syrup used in everything from coffee to desserts. After they moved back to Springfield, she decided to start Date Lady. In 2012, she launched the business. The syrup is imported, but the products are bottled, labeled and packaged in Springfield.
The dates are perfect on a charcuterie board, and can be stuffed with nuts and dipped in chocolate for a delectable confection. The syrup is made with organic dates and is delicious drizzled over brie, stirred into coffee and used in desserts. The website features a variety of recipes, including one perfect for the holidays: 10-minute Chocolate Date Truffles.
Find it: Hy-Vee, Culture Counter, Mama Jeans Natural Markets and many more. There’s a store locator online on Date Lady's website.
Bread and cinnamon rolls from Neighbor's Mill
If you need bread this season, Neighbor’s Mill has you covered. This bakery has everything from crusty sourdough loaves to sweet pecan and strawberry, super moist pumpkin bread, and good old-fashioned Country White loaves for sandwiches. In addition, if your holiday plans include brunch, pick up a six-pack of their take-and-bake cinnamon rolls, which come with cream cheese icing. These would be a perfect addition on Christmas morning.
Find it: 1435 East Independence, Suite 110, Springfield., and on the Neighbor's Mill website
Goat and cow cheese from Terrell Creek Farm
Back in 2012, Lesley and Barry Million turned their cheese-making hobby into a business when they launched Terrell Creek Farm in Fordland. They craft artisan goat cheese with milk from Nubian goats, a breed known for high-quality, high-butterfat milk production.
The cheeses have won numerous ribbons and competitions and they have an extensive line of chevre, flavored crumbles and now cow’s milk cheese.
Many of the soft goat cheese crumbles are delicious on salads, in dips or spread on bread. But they also carry cow’s milk Camembert, different brie options — traditional, one with cranberries and walnuts and another with peppercorn— and their latest addition is 417 Fog, an ash-ripened cheese.
Lesley describes it as “The rich, perfectly fudgy interior has a line of edible ash running throughout. It also features a cream line under the soft-ripened rind that’s the stuff dreams are made of, and that only gets better and more deliciously oozy with age. So good it doesn’t need anything other than a bottle of bubbly.”
Find it: Farmers Market of the Ozarks Saturday mornings, MamaJeans Natural Markets, Price Cutter, Brown Derby International Wine Center, Millsap Farm stand and Urban Roots Farm stand. And on the Terrell Creek Farm Facebook page.
Good Clean Wine bubbly
Elle Feldman and Courtney Dunlop can hook you up with some bubbly with their line of Good Clean Wine.
Good Clean Wine is sustainable wine with no added sugars or sulfites. The line of dry wines is made in Italy and fermented in stainless steel instead of oak. They have a variety in the lineup, from sparkling spumante to a Cabernet. Online, you can purchase wine bundles. The ladies are both into health and beauty and went on a quest to discover a healthier wine.
Feldman was recently sampling their wine at Macadoodles and shared a scrumptious mulled wine recipe with customers. She has fond memories of visiting European Christmas markets and sipping warm, spice-kissed, mulled wine. She was kind enough to share her recipe for Italian-style mulled wine.
Mulled Wine:
- 1 bottle Good Clean Red
- 1 orange, sliced
- 2 tablespoons mulling spices
- 1/2 cup honey
Combine red wine, honey, sliced orange, and mulling spices in a stock pot. Bring to a boil, continually stirring honey until dissolved. Reduce to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 30 min. Ladle through a fine-mesh strainer into mugs or heat-resistant glasses to serve. You can garnish each mug with an orange slice or stick of cinnamon if desired. Serve steaming hot.
Find it: Macadoodles, Brown Derby International Wine Center, and directly through the Good Clean Wine website.
Dark chocolate, ethically sourced, from Askinosie Chocolate
What pairs well with wine? Chocolate. Particularly dark chocolate and red wine. That’s where Askinosie Chocolate comes in. This is a small-batch, bean-to-bar chocolate factory works directly with cocoa farmers in other countries and profit shares, so you can feel good about eating it. They team up with sustainable farmers and have a line of award-winning products. The single-origin bars hail from farms in Ecuador, Tanzania, the Philippines and the Amazon. There are fun holiday flavors, such as gingerbread, and classics, like dark chocolate with candied orange peel. Dark, milk and white chocolates are available. Many of their chocolates are dairy free. They are five-time Good Food Award Winners.
Find it: Harter House, Hy-Vee, Mama Jeans Natural Market and Brown Derby International Wine Center. But the best selection is at the factory at 514 E. Commercial St. or online at Askinosie Chocolate's website.
Elk summer sausage from Hemlock Hills
Rick and Kathy Ewert own Hemlock Hills, an elk ranch near Lebanon. They’ve been raising elk for 15 years and have 80 in their herd. They have a variety of products from burgers, jerky and elk sticks to summer sausage — with or without cheese.
Their plain summer sausage has won first place two years in a row at the North American Elk Breeders Association conference in the summer sausage elk meat contest.
It’s perfect for a charcuterie board or just snacking with some cheese and crackers. It’s unique, so it makes a good gift, too.
Find it: They normally sell at Farmers Market of the Ozarks but are off for the rest of season. You can message them about buying products through the Hemlock Hills Facebook page.
Apple chips from Don's Happy Apple Snacks
Don’s Happy Apple Snacks are delicious, dehydrated apple slices. They pair well with Chardonnay, and are perfect for a charcuterie board (or in your child’s lunch box).
Don Schmedeke — gardener, former loan officer and farmer and company founder — started growing Fuji apples and dehydrating them. He has a small orchard in Mount Vernon, and his hobby soon became a business. MaMa Jean’s Natural Market was the first to accept his chips, and it became clear that customers were hungry for this healthy snack.
He has several flavors of apple chips and expanded his line to include dehydrated kale chips.
Find it: Harter House on Eastgate, MamaJeans Natural Markets and on the Don's Happy Apple Snacks Facebook page.
More stories like this?
Don't miss our series of Holiday Guides, which include our editorial picks for where to buy gifts locally, the best spots to see holiday lights, Ozarks-made drinks for your holiday parties and where to buy Christmas cookies from Springfield bakeries.
