Strawberries!

What were once little flowers...

are now berries!
We picked about a quart tonight and there should be plenty more on the way once we get back to warmer weather. Sometimes I have to plan for what I'll do with a bunch of berries after we pick, but not with these. I predict they'll be gone before the night is over.

Cider!

Is anyone else as incredibly excited as I am that the first Hoch Orchards apple cider came in today?!  It's the first batch, so it's a little tart...but it's incredible as always.  

I keep pouring myself a little jelly jar of it (you know, so I don't drink it all tonight).  But then I keep refilling my little jar. So far I've had 3 and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

Yum!!!!

The home stretch

So we're down to the last week.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm losing a little bit of steam on my local challenge.  I'm not necessarily eating less locally, but I'm just not blogging about it as much because I'm not thinking about it as much.  

 I really had no clue that I'd be able to eat so local for so long without feeling deprived.  When we started this back in June I thought I'd fall way off the wagon by the time the official local challenge started.  And I've certainly not eaten 80% local the entire 3 months, but it's been pretty close.  And all in all, it's not as hard as I thought it would be.  I mean, sure, I miss avocados and bananas.  But I'll  eat all the apples and raspberries I can while they're local.

I think I'm worried that if the challenge is not in the forefront of my mind (like it was for the first few months) then I won't stick with it.  It's sort of like when I first became a vegetarian back in 6th grade and used to have nightmares about eating hamburgers because I my dream I'd forget that I was a vegetarian.  But just like I rarely think about not eating meat now, I'm thinking less and less about eating local...even while I do it.  

Like today I barely cooked anything.  I grabbed a few berries from the backyard this morning before heading off to meet some friends.  I had leftover roasted baby red potatoes (from WI) with homemade hummus (MN chickpeas) for lunch.  Then I snacked on some homemade salsa and chips in the middles of the day and stopped at the Wedge while in Minneapolis for my dinner (Their deli's collard greens are awesome!).  Not too shabby.  

So I think local might be a long-term partner of mine now.  We've passed the lusty obsessive phase and have seen each other with ratty hair and morning breath...and we're still together.  

Anyone Else Feeling A Little Fractured These Days?

I've got to admit, the turmoil of our normally pleasant city this week has really distracted me from eating locally.

Not that I'm not eating locally, but I haven't found myself focusing on it with my usual gourmet gusto. Trying to keep groceries on the shelf at work (apparently, a fair amount of "anarchists" are omnivores) & spending my free time watching live feeds of citizen journalists being stomped & regular citizens terrified (not to mention a fair amount of internal conflict as to why I wasn't out getting stomped) has kind of... dampened my enthusiasm. It's hard to eat when you are angry.

So it's been a lot of local hot dogs & salsa, of late.

I did find time to wrap up the beef stock saga with a tasty soup made with leftovers & bulk staples, however:

Local beef broth & pastured lamb, with kale & barley.

The broth & bits of tender lamb were leftovers, the onion & kale were from my last allotment of farm goodies, & the barley is just one of many local items in our bulk bins at the Market (& a very useful thing to have around the house).

It has certainly been a wild, & often disturbing, week. But at least soup is non-partisan & good for you!



-nano out.

Cheese &... Dog Biscuits, Anyone?

As some of you are aware, I've been talking some smack about baking my own crackers from scratch. Crackers are important to me. I love crackers & cheese. We sell an awesome array of cheeses at the store, many of them local in origin. & as we know, eating locally often requires us to make our own convenience foods for those times we just need a simple snack. & as far as I know (someone please, please correct me), we don't have any local crackers to go with our nifty cheeses.

So I took it upon myself to make manifest my own cracker destiny.

& I failed miserably.

Witness the results of my hubris:



What are those, cat turds?

These misshapen spawn of lofty good intentions are my first-ever attempt at the fine art of cracker manufacturing. I was hoping to use local buckwheat flour alone, in order to make my crackers gluten-free-friendly (although the chilled butter kept them from Vegan status). Boy, did that not work!

Perhaps the dearth of buckwheat cracker recipes to be found online should have clued me in.
But the real blame rests solely on yours truly. Despite roughly a decade spent in professional kitchens, I have practically no baking skills, whatsoever. Too much math, too much precision measuring, & too much faith in chemistry & temperature. I simply don't feel comfortable when I can't meddle in the process after it's started.

But one of the main benefits I think we can all recognize from our various Challenge adventures is that even when we stretch farther than we can reach, we learn valuable things about our relationship with our food.

So, I'll lick my wounds, eat my leaden, soggy crackers (they go particularly well with the Pastureland herbed gouda, thankfully), & survive to bake another day.


-nano out.

Good-Natured Ribbing.

If you are of the omnivore persuasion, perhaps you've noticed that the Market has Shepherd Song Farm (WI) pastured lamb loin & rib chops on sale during the Eat Local period.

Being as I'm the meat buyer for the store, I thought I might take a moment to highlight the rib chops, as well as show one of the possible end uses for a stock such as the one I've been blathering about recently.

I'm a big fan of braising, a cooking technique closely related to stewing, but with a bit more class. Both methods produce intensely flavored & richly sauced dishes, often utilizing tougher & cheaper cuts of meat. But braising allows for the use of the whole cut in the final dish, whereas stewing requires cutting it into pieces. Additionally, any bones can be left intact, enhancing the flavor & final presentation.

The first step is to brown the meat in the pot (or deep pan) that you'll be braising in. The object here is to color & flavor the outside of the cut, not cook it all the way through:




Once the meat is nicely browned, it is removed & kept warm while the vegetables (in this case, onions, carrots, roasted garlic & the rest of my homemade tomato paste) are caramelized in the same pan. Vinegar or wine can be used to deglaze the pot, & aid in the eventual softening of the meat's tissues. The cooking liquid is added to the veggies & brought to a low simmer. A stock made from the same animal, or one complimentary to it, is the best bet. Obviously, having devoted my free time over the last 24 hours to making beef stock, that's what I went with.

The resting meat is then added back into the mix:

I upgraded my cell phone in May, in part so I could take nicer pictures
of things like food. Now I need to find one that takes pictures of smells...

After about 30-45 minutes of low, low covered simmering, the lid can be removed & the cuts of meat turned every 10 minutes or so, to help build a glaze on their surfaces. This should continue for at least 30 more minutes, until the meat slides right off of a fork when pierced. Meanwhile, any side dishes can be completed. When the cuts have finished braising, they are removed & kept warm, along with some moistening cooking liquid. The liquid remaining in the pot can be skimmed of any fat & strained of vegetables. I reduced mine a bit further to concentrate the flavor, making a partial demi-glace, & then thickened it just slightly with a little roux.

Local pastured lamb rib chops with demi-glace,
gruyere mashed potatoes, & wilted red mustard greens.

A word of warning; Beware the power of the red mustard greens! Seriously, they don't mess around. They certainly served their purpose as contrasts to the intense flavor of the beef stock-based demi-glace, but if I were to use them again, I'd probably seek to mellow them out somehow...

Overall, though, this was a great meal & well worth the wait. I've still got plenty of stock left over for other projects, as well.

It never ceases to amaze me how much better food is when we are deeply involved in its production. It looks better, smells better & tastes better. Is it a placebo effect brought on by the feeling of "I did that"? Is there some sort of actual metaphysical cause?

Does it matter?


-nano out.

When life gives you squash...

What the heck do you make?

I am the lucky recipient of a whole case of locally grown, organic yellow summer squash. I need to preserve it somehow. I've read that summer squash and zucchini are best preserved in the freezer, but I just don't believe that they won't turn to mush. And I don't want to can just plain ole squash in water/lemon. I'm not sure I'd ever use it. So what should I make?

Last night I used about 1/4 of the squash to make 5 quarts of summer squash soup. It's just a simple soup of onions, garlic, squash, and veg. broth. It's light and summery- I think it'll be perfect for a quick meal this winter.

But summer squash preserving recipes are few and far between. And making sweet jam with them doesn't appeal to me (plus, I have a lot of jam!)
I'm thinking about a corn/summer squash salsa because you can never have too much salsa.