dark day challenge meal for the week

I finally cooked the pork chops, and they weren't too bad for a first attempt! They marinated in apple cider for a couple of days before I cooked this meal. Then I dredged them in flour (non-local, and I will probably skip this step next time)and seared them in a pan. Then I turned down the heat a little and added sliced onions and apples, and I put the lid on it and let them cook down. At the end I deglazed the pan with apple cider, and it was a lovely dish! I was surprised by how well apples and onions went together.

I served this with thinly-sliced fried potatoes (in my eternal quest to find more ways to cook potatoes) and broccoli with butter. I haven't used any of my frozen veggies yet; it seems like a waste to eat them when broccoli is still available fresh.

Tonight will be simple dinner of pasta (locally made) with my marinara sauce and garlic bread. Here's hoping there's still bread in the freezer!

Saturday market update

I had to make an excited post for today. Despite the fact that we are down to one market, we had a nice haul today. Lots of potatoes, an 18-pound marina de chioggia pumpkin, a squash that I'm betting is an ambercup, tons of broccoli (I think this will become cream of broccoli soup), a 1/2 peck of yellow delicious apples and a gallon of cider (I think it was the apple people's last week), and... a half-gallon of locally made apple cider vinegar! I had been hunting for local vinegar with no luck, and then voila. They also had some homemade tempeh, but I am not a huge fan of processed soy. If they are back again I may try it.

The folks from one farm were saying they'd continue until before Thanksgiving (they have to, they're doing the Thanksgiving CSA!) That gives me another two weeks to keep stocking up on their interesting squash (I get the marina de chioggia from them) and strange turnips and radishes.

Weekend local eating will feature broccoli, potatoes, eggs, ham, apples, greens, and pork chops. I have actually not ever cooked pork chops before, having been a vegetarian for a long time. Wish me luck!

local eating in the autumn

Last Saturday was the final week of a few of our markets, so it was a sad day indeed. The North Market farmer's market will hang on for a while (apparently it lasts until the farmers quit coming) and there will be a couple of special pre-Thanksgiving markets as well. We opted not to get a thanksgiving CSA as I didn't have a spare $150 sitting around.

We got a lot of stuff at the markets, as you might expect. Sunflower heads, French pumpkins (rouge vif d'etampes and musque de provence), raspberries (gotta love the late fall raspberries!), walnuts, short ribs (I've never cooked ribs before. This should be interesting), fresh Lima and white kidney beans, shallots (finally!), quince, pears, onions, chard, potatoes, carrots, broccoli... I think we bought 2 of everything. I gave the fridge a thorough rearranging and discovered that we're going to be eating a lot of carrots. (I somehow ended up with a crisper drawer full of them!)

I always cook a special meal for Halloween, focusing on favorite foods of my deceased relatives. This year I roasted a beautiful pasture-raised chicken and served it with honey ginger carrots, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and carnivale squash. The stuffing and seasonings were not local, but everything else was. Tomorrow I plan to turn the chicken into a stew with local carrots, onions, and potatoes.

Other local meals include my favorite weekday breakfast of local oatmeal, grated apple (a grimes golden this time, my grandfather's favorite), and maple syrup; also a lovely potato-leek soup with bacon. The local bacon we get is covered with peppercorns and gives an amazing smokey flavor to everything it touches.

It will be so sad to get up in the morning and only head to the one remaining market! I hope to use this weekend to stock up on more squash (kabocha, mainly) and hopefully find some late broccoli. I'm suddenly craving cream of broccoli soup, and it dawns on me that I've never made it! I don't think I have quite enough of it in the freezer to experiment.

One of the farmers last weekend had a sign up: Only 6 months until asparagus! It seems like forever, but I have a freezer full of summer vegetables, a garage full of winter squash, and stockpiles of soups and jam. I think we'll make it through the winter just fine (but I'll still dream of fresh asparagus in the spring!)

dark days challenge update

It's been a good week for eating locally. Over the weekend we had french toast and bacon in another permutation of local sunday brunch. We've had fresh pasta (from the North Market)with my homemade marinara sauce twice this week, with marinara sauce to spare. Both meals were accompanied by amish wheat bread with local garlic and butter.

Early in the week we had roasted chicken breasts and gravy with broccoli and mashed potatoes (only non-local ingredients were the stock and flour for the gravy.) The leftovers/scraps were reincarnated into chicken and noodles (amish noodles with carrots, onion, celery (non-local), chicken scraps and gravy.) Last night we had even more broccoli (it is so good, but the little green worms freak me out a little) with cottage ham, scalloped potatoes, and spaghetti squash. I cooked the ham in local apple cider and had local butter on everything else.

I also cooked many butternut squash into soup, and then determined that I do not, in fact, even like butternut squash. It is just too sweet for me. I left the soup very plain (just onion, garlic, and veggie stock) and froze it; I plan to season each batch differently, in hopes of finding a combination I like.

For this weekend I must have a few potluck dishes, which I think will include a salad with roasted beets, goat cheese (not local), and walnuts, as well as something involving squash, or maybe butternut squash soup. :-)

local food shopping in the fall

Yesterday was market day, and as it was the 20th of October, I think we can all agree that it is autumn. The weather is still unseasonably warm, though there have been some cold nights (no frost yet.) Three of my farmer's markets are ending this week (one more will continue until the vendors run out of produce; two other markets will have winter and/or a thanksgiving market day option.)

I went a little crazy at the market this week. It started out innocently enough - late strawberries, late red and golden raspberries, some bacon and cottage ham. The weekly split chicken breast. Four servings of locally-made fresh pasta. Some pumpkin ice cream. The the "getting carried away" part began.

I bought end-of-the-season roma tomatoes (ugly, but they made a wonderful pasta sauce for dinner tonight. It was wonderful! There's enough left to have our favorite local pasta meal for dinner again (local greens with helios radishes; marinara sauce over angel hair pasta; Amish-made wheat bread liberally doused with local butter and garlic.) I did unbend enough to use imported Parmesan (we've eaten all our pasta this summer with shredded local Gouda, which is surprisingly good.)

Oh yes, the marketing. Braising greens, salad greens, leeks, and lovely little heirloom turnips. Chestnuts for roasting. The largest carrots I've ever seen. Broccoli, eggplant, apple cider, green beans. And that's just the first market!

On to the next two markets! I procured 5 butternut squash, a pumpkin and 3 acorn squash (it was the farmer's last day, so I helped buy out her remaining produce.) Two pasture-raised chickens (also the farmer's last day at market; I have four of her birds in the freezer now.) A pound of grass-fed beef. Some lovely red-skinned potatoes with the whitest flesh you can imagine. A giant sunflower head (we may eat the seeds ourselves instead of feeding them to the squirrels.) Pullet eggs! I didn't really need eggs, but I have a weakness for pullet eggs. (They are the first layings of young hens. Very small, very pale yellow yolks, and a wonderful taste.) I also bought the aforementioned Amish-made wheat bread, and a bunch of peppers for the local food bank/community center (they were doing a produce drive at the market.) I also stopped for some local milk.

It will be a busy week in the kitchen - tonight I am blanching and freezing broccoli. Tomorrow I need to make yoghurt and a soup or two; I have ingredients for vegetable soup, potage bonne femme (a leek and potato soup with carrot) and hot-and-sour soup. The latter is the only non-local one, but it will still use local shiitake and scallions. Later in the week I need to parcook all of the butternut for soup and freezing. I should probably blanch and freeze some acorn squash too. And some onion/carrot mixtures for soup and stews. Whew! At least I know that wintertime local meals will be a snap!

local eating, week of October 15

Yesterday we enjoyed our favorite local brunch: pancakes (mix from Quiver Full Family Farm, ~20 miles, some non-local ingredients) with raspberries (Toad Hill Organics, ~70 miles) and peppered bacon (Blues Creek, ~32 miles). Butter and milk from Hartzler's Dairy (96.2 miles) and maple syrup from Pleiades (37.9 miles.)

Tonight's dinner is ham steak from Curly Tail (~45 miles), green lance from Wayward Seed (97.7 miles), potatoes from Flying J (26 miles) and squash from Bird's Haven (29.5 miles). Non-local ingredients: salt, pepper, brown sugar.

Come to think of it, lunch is local too: peppered bacon from Blues Creek, eggs from Quiver Full, and bread from Crumbs (~84 miles.) I'd better eat an apple (Wayward seed) to make that meal a little healthier. :-)

I should really just make a master list of all my local food sources. I'll try to put that together soon.

a winter eat local challenge

(I am failing to get the above button to work, so please follow the link below.)

I really meant to get back to some non-food content now that September has ended, but I just discovered the Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge. The goal is to have one meal a week that is at least 90% local throughout the whole winter. And blog about it, of course. It should be fun!

My freezer is stocked with corn, green beans, peaches and strawberries. There are smaller amounts of edamame, raspberries, stock, tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce. I have local pancake mix, soft wheat flour, oatmeal and corn meal. We are slowly stocking up on burgers, ground beef, and chicken. My stores of frozen soup are growing. I have plenty of honey but I could use some more maple syrup. I need to do a few experiments with root cellar-less root cellaring (I'm going to try coolers filled with sand) so I can try to keep potatoes and carrots (and turnips and beets and whatnot.) I could use a few more hard-skinned winter squashes.

I can't wait to see what the winter market brings! It's the first year for it, and this Columbus locavore is mighty excited.