ELC 9/07, Day 2

What did we eat? Well, I'll tell ya.

Breakfast:
Fried egg sandwich (eggs: 61.7 mi, garlic rolls: 11 miles - both purchased at the Royal Oak Farmer's Market)

Lunch:
Open-faced burrito (tostada?)
Eden black beans (20 miles*)
fresh heirloom tomato salsa (tomatoes, onion, garlic, jalepeno, cilantro - local; unlocal: lime juice, salt)
shredded raw milk cheese (40 mi)
TJ's whole wheat tortillas (non-local, but perishable in fridge)
TJ'sVeggie & Flax tortilla chips (non-local)
*We are suuuuper lucky that there is an organic source for convenient food like canned beans, canned tomatoes, pasta and lots of other things located here in Michigan. Read more about why Eden is a good company here. We know for sure that the tomatoes are grown within 100 miles of here, but other sources are at least on U.S. family farms. And they're organic. So a good choice for the cook in a hurry.


Dinner:
We had dinner at a friend's house, which was super fun. We brought Marinated Veggies and Tofu and an Apple-Raspberry Crisp, and they provided some Veggie Italian Sausage (Whole Foods Field Roast brand, Apple Sage Potato flavor - OUTSTANDING!!) and an edamame wild rice salad, also very yummy. I have no idea how local their contributions were, but here's how ours broke down:

Marinated Veggies and Tofu
Eggplant, summer squash and garlic from our CSA share (65 mi)
Tofu (3 mi)
EVOO, Balsamic vinegar, white wine, lemon juice, Braggs, dried basil, oregano and marjoram (non-local)

Crisp
Apples and Raspberries (purchased from Farmer's market, 3 miles away; not sure where the farms are, but probably well within 100 miles)
Butter (3 miles)
Oats, flour, cinnamon, salt (non-local)

In Other Local Eating News
This is just another dinner we had last week that featured mostly local ingredients.
We had sauteed summer squash, corn and peppers (sweet and hot) with dill (all local except EVOO and s&p) and pasta with seared veggie kielbasa, green bell peppers, onions and jalepeno (veggies local) with tomato sauce.

Preserving the Harvest
On Thursday I spent most of the morning de-seeding jalepeno and serrano peppers from several weeks of CSA shares for freezing. Don't worry - I wore gloves. :) It was a lot of work, but now we have "fresh" peppers every time we need them for salsa, soups, sauces, etc.

Right now in the crockpot we are simmering a ton of cheap local heirloom tomatoes, some onions (150 miles away - oops, an oversight. Should have bought more at the FM, but we've never done this before, so you live and learn. We bought them at our local health food store, so it is a local business.), local peppers and garlic from the CSA, and non-local EVOO, sugar, salt and spices (and tomato paste will be added at the end). But soon we will have transformed tomatoes that were not pretty enough for market into something delicious that will see us through several meals of pasta, pizza and other delicious italian things. We're planning on freezing at least 2 quarts and eating the rest. I can't wait!