Local Dinner Challenge!

This Friday will be my turn to host our monthly friends dinner night. Once a month, a group of my girl friends get together to help us keep in touch as our lives get busier and busier as we get older and our families expand! We take turns hosting and the the host chooses the theme. It seems to always be at my house come Christmas time - in the past, it was nice having it at our old house because we had a very large and open floorplan, so it was easy to have all of us over with the kids, all opening presents and running around. I loved decorating that house with the 14-foot ceilings and I had this huge balcony and banister that looked so pretty wrapped with garland and lights. We let that house go when we decided to downsize. I will miss decorating that house - the new house is smaller, but we have knocked out some of the walls to open up the rooms with our self remodel.  ...Back to the original reason for this post: my theme for my turn at hosting dinner!
I chose the theme "Local Bounty, Holiday Style" - Basically, your old favorite holiday recipes, but with some or all of the ingredients from less than 100 miles away. I found that it was easier than some of my friends thought it was going to be to come up with some local flavor! We are lucky enough to live in the Pacific Northwest, where there is local fare at every turn - even our Costco carries local goods! My dish is going to be mashed, sweet squash - the squash is from my mom's friend's garden, the cream is from Alpenrose (a local dairy - they have Organic options too!), and Butter from Tillamook (also local for us). I feel bad because I usually make a turkey for our Christmas girls night dinner, but, well, I just don't feel like spending the time this year (even though I did score a free 18 pound turkey from Fred Meyer last month, I will keep it in the freezer a wee bit longer for my family Christmas dinner instead - I can't believe that is next week!). I'd love to use some of my chickens' eggs too - maybe I'll come up with another side-dish of some sort just for an excuse to use our eggs!  I'm still so excited that they started laying... and they are laying like mad - we got 18 eggs in just a little over a week!
So, the challenge for you is to try seeking out those local gems for your next holiday party or Christmas feast! You will be amazed at how far away some of the food items you normally purchase are from when you really look into it - many not even from our country! What kinds of brands, foods or ingredients are local to you?! Leave a comment and share with us!