Eat Local Challenge - Day One

I thought I'd begin with a photo of a usual fall breakfast ingredients here at Green Leanings. The oatmeal is from Stutzman farms in Millersburg, Ohio - 84.5 miles from my home. They also make cereals with puffed corn and spelt, and I'll be adding those to the breakfast roster as the month goes on. The maple sugar (best thing ever!) is from Pleiades Maple Farm in Mt. Gilead, Ohio (~43 miles), and the apple (variety: golden grimes) is from the orchards of Bill and Vicky Thomas in Philo, Ohio - approximately 73 miles. I peel and grate the apple into the oatmeal as it cooks, which doubles the volume and makes a great and healthy breakfast. A little maple sugar to sweeten and a sprinkle of cinnamon, and it's pure heaven.

Lunch today was leftover pork roast (from Bluescreek in Marysville, Oh, about 30 miles) with cider gravy from the aforementioned orchard. I also cooked an acorn squash from Elizabeth Telling farm, which is 115 miles by car (but still within the 100-mile radius) and drizzled it with maple syrup from Pleiades.

Tonight I am attending a cooking class at Columbus' historic North Market, so who knows how local the food will be. The market is home to Bluescreek meats, the Greener Grocer (emphasis on local produce) and other fine purveyors of local food, as well as a wonderful farmer's market on Saturday.

Since I will be eating at class tonight I decided to have the launch dinner last night, and it was a stir fry with a veritable plethora of local ingredients: chicken thighs, broccoli, edamame, yellow summer squash, shitake mushrooms, scallions (from the garden), carrots (3 varieties), and swiss chard. It was so full of veggies that we didn't even miss the rice! The chicken and most vegetables were purchased at - you guessed it - the North market.

October Eat Local Challenge

It's almost time for the Eat Local Challenge! This is my second time participating, and I'm quite looking forward to it. We're a month later this year, so I'm interested to see how that impacts my food choices.

Here is my statement of participation:

1. What is your definition of local?
I'm going to go with the 100-mile radius. At this point in my adventures as a locavore (one and one-half years) I am pretty well set with suppliers, and they are all within that radius.

2. What exemptions will you claim?
-The usual suspects: tea, sugar, salt and pepper, spices, oil
-The (very) occasional pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks (I don't think I can make it through October without them!)
-Any condiment/seasoning in my refrigerator
-Bread that is not made with entirely local ingredients, but comes from local bakers or bakeries.
-yogurt for cultures (just enough to make my own with local milk)

3. What is your goal for the month?
I want to learn to make things that I normally rely on local producers to obtain, most notably pasta and bread. I am in possession of a bag of local wheat flour, and I plan to use it! My oven is too dubious for loaf bread, but I plan to try some flat breads and maybe bread machine recipes. I'd also like to come up with more inventive meals, and limit the meat-veggie-starch type of offering.

Behind on updating, and another breakthrough local meal

Okay, so I haven't been so good with the updating. I could blame it on Hurricane Ike (which gave Ohio a pretty thorough spanking) or on the green beans (have I put up enough to last the winter?) but instead I shall throw out some mea culpas and try to be better.

This past weekend was so amazing that it will take several posts to cover it all! Farmer's marketing, the Ohio Fish and Shrimp Festival at Freshwater Farms, and the freakin' spectacular "Shake the Hand That Feeds You" dinner by Slow Food Columbus at Flying J Organic Farm were all crazy, wonderful highlights.

First, the Ohio Fish and Shrimp Festival! We rushed through the markets on Saturday morning and then made the hour drive out to Urbana, Ohio, for a quick visit to the festival. I fed the trout, petted a sturgeon, and stuffed myself on grilled shrimp and shrimp cocktail (along with the best fresh kettle chips EVER) before spending all of our money on fish and shrimp. I'd never had freshwater shrimp before, and I have to say they were delicious! I wimped out and only bought shrimp tails; we never found the place that was selling the heads-on shrimp, and I'd spent all of our money anyway. Next year I shall be more intrepid and acquire the whole beasties and make some shrimp stock.

If we'd had more time I'd have stopped to pick raspberries (there are a couple of big berry farms are in Urbana), but with a dinner to get to I headed home.

So this is what happens when you buy a bunch of fresh fish and shrimp, don't have an opportunity to cook it immediately (and must consume it all in one meal):



Not only do you get a crappy, blurry, dark picture, you get cornmeal-breaded trout topped with creole shrimp, served with a side of Swiss chard with onions and garlic!

The only non-local ingredients in this meal were the canola oil for frying, salt and pepper, and a little tomato-paste-in-a-tube to augment the tomatoes in the creole shrimp. The best part is that this was a totally unplanned meal - I had all of the ingredients on hand. The fish was dredged in local wheat flour, then local egg, then local cornmeal. The creole shrimp had local butter, onions, garlic, poblano peppers, freshwater shrimp, and grape tomatoes and celery from the garden. The Swiss chard was cooked with locally made apple cider vinegar and local butter. And the whole meal took under an hour start-to-finish, and that included peeling and de-veining the shrimp.

No wonder my diet isn't working! A wonderful meal, and one I am very proud of. Being a locavore rocks.

One Local Summer - Week 13

It's the final week! This dinner was a vegan tribute to Debbie, the coordinator for the Midwest for this challenge. (Thank you for all of your hard work!) It was a simple dish, served warm, and was somewhere between a stew and a salad. Local black beans teamed up with onions, bi-color corn, and grape and pear tomatoes from the garden. The only non-local ingredients were the oil (for sweating the onions) and the spices (cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika.) I am sure I will be revisiting this dish over the winter!

Leaves are already crunching underfoot in my yard, but with the warm days and bountiful markets it definitely feels like summer is still with us. I did see the first pumpkins this past weekend - but I think I'll wait for watermelon season to end before I start buying fall produce!

One Local Summer - Week 12

I didn't get a chance to photograph this week's meal, so I thought I would include some gratuitous cuteness for your pleasure. The black cat is Jinx, ans the vision of fluffiness is Mr. Grey.

This week's meal entry was a totally local chicken gumbo! It included chicken breast and chicken chorizo, corn, onions, green pepper, garlic, tomatoes, celery, thyme and okra. Non-local additions were salt, pepper and oil. It would have been better with bacon (wouldn't everything?) but sadly we were out. It was the only ingredient missing from the recipe though!

Other than cooking, I've been putting up berries and even made my first batch of marina sauce! I'd forgotten how incredibly messy that is. The weather has been terrible for tomatoes this year, so I hope that some big boxes of romas will make it to market eventually.

One Local Summer - Week 11

This week's meal featured pole beans from the garden, chicken wrapped in bacon, corn on the cob (we aren't tired of it yet!) and the cutest little baby red thumb potatoes. Non-local ingredients were olive oil, red pepper flakes (to jazz up the pole beans) and salt and pepper.

We have actually had local meals every day this week, but I didn't take pictures of them all! We had pizza yesterday, since I thought that both cooking and processing 4 dozen ears of corn for the freezer would be too much work. (And I was right!)

One Local Summer - Week 10

Can you believe it is already week 10? The summer has flown by. I'm finally home from my travels, which means it is time to buckle down and start putting up food - and get back to having lovely local meals!

This week's meal is a chicken thigh roasted with garam masala; potatoes, onions and pole beans pan-fried with cumin and coriander; eggplant, garlic and grape tomatoes cooked in garam masala and cumin; and corn on the cob with lime, butter, and chili powder. Tomatoes and pole beans are from my garden, and all other meats and veggies (and garlic) are from local farmers. Spices, olive oil, and lime were the non-local components.