Wowza!

It's been a while. I've been cooking, but very very uninspired. I think it was the winter doldrums, you know? Now that we're getting some sun in our part of the world again (she types as it rains...) I've been feeling very inspired, motivated, and spring-cleaning-ish.

New Direction?
I've been thinking a lot about either starting a new blog or changing and expanding the focus of this one. I'm not sure where I'll end up yet. But lately I've been bitten by the organizing/cleaning/decluttering/money-saving/meal-planning bug...that is to say, sustainable, mindful home management. So you may be seeing more posts on those topics in the near future. Or you may see me linking to a new place where all that stuff will be. Let me know if you have an opinion either way. But there will still be delicious, vegan food. Just, you know, more than that.

Big New Goal: Meal Plan!
And follow the dang thing...
Monday: Honeybaked lentils with coconut rice, baked winter squash with ginger; leftover squash got leveraged into pumpkin Squash Muffins, yum!!! Super double bonus: Made homemade whole wheat bread! (Used bread machine dough cycle, which is the awesome).


Tuesday: (frozen) Pesto with spaghetti, chopped leftover celebration roast, and sun-dried tomatoes, steamed broccoli with lemon, red leaf salad with chopped Pink Lady apples and local hazelnuts with homemade balsamic vinaigrette

Wednesday: Rustic Black-Eyed Peas with Mushrooms, (leftover) coconut rice, garlicky kale and more of the red leaf salad combo from Tuesday

Thursday: Nearly Instant Thai Soup with Corn (from Vegan Express), more salad combo!

Friday: Pizza night with pesto, broccoli or kale (depending what's left!), sun-dried tomatoes

Saturday: Breakfast: biscuits and gravy, grapefruit. Dinner: Burrito night out with friends

Sunday: Breakfast: Pancakes! Dinner: Indian Night! Chana Masala (with extra gravy to freeze), cumin rice, salad

Monday: Mac and Cashew Cheese, [whatever fresh veggies I buy at the farmer's market Sunday]

Tuesday: Gimme Chimis (from ED&BV), Guac & Corn Chips

Wednesday: African Peanut Stew, bread

Thursday-Monday: Out of town; play by ear

Garden in the Works!

Did you know my parents have a mostly empty 2 acre field behind their house? Well, they do. And we are lucky enough to use some of that field for an awesome kitchen garden! This is a little tricky, because, well, they live 3 hours away. But we visit about every other weekend so the little dude can get his fix of grandma crack, so we're hoping that we can keep it going and maybe bribe my parents with produce to water and weed occasionally.

This past weekend Chad went out to roto-till the sod into our garden. And that sucked. A lot. So my dad went across the street and asked if his friendly neighbor wouldn't mind using his tractor to dig up our beds. $40 later, voila! Garden. We measured 3 foot beds and figured out our paths, and altogether, we figure we have about 700 square feet of actual gardening space. Woo-hoo!

So far we've planted:

• 6 Quinalt strawberry starts
• 3 Tomato starts
• Snap peas
• Shelling peas
• Leeks
• Scallions
• Spinach
• Cabbage
• Pac Choi
• Heirloom lettuce

And we have a LOT of space to go. My dad insists we grow completely insane and not-of-this-climate things like corn. But we'll also have lots of bush green beans, carrots, kale, chard, summer squash, broccoli, and possibly potatoes and bell peppers (although we have to start peppers inside and I'm not really sure I'm that ambitious this year.) We also hope to put in some perennial herbs. Oh! And we convinced my parents to plant 6 fruit trees! Woo-hoo! 3 apples (gala and honeycrisps) and 3 peaches. I'm so excited! Our plan to transform their land into Post Peak Oil readiness is underway, bwaaaahaaahaaa!

We're also planning on container gardening at our place. We've got three tomato starts ready to plant, and some chives and oregano to re-pot (who knew they were perennial? Not me until they came back to life recently!) And our thyme is coming back. Our rosemary never died, but might need a larger home. I'd also love to do some salad greens and some kale in some half whiskey barrels. But we'll see how far we get.

The raspberry canes are starting to look leafy and productive! I can't WAIT until fresh raspberry time!

Ok, off to rid my kitchen sink of dishes. It's another new goal of mine - empty, shiny kitchen sink. Dishes washed and dealt with immediately. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but man, it really improves my mood and encourages me to spend more time in my kitchen.

Smelling the lilac blooms from our backyard is a big incentive, too.

Roasting Vegetables and Some Savory Lentils

Last week as I was having that panic stricken moment of "OMG there are too many vegetables in my fridge what do I do, let's just go out to eat instead." I talked myself off of that ledge with the foolproof idea of just throwing them all in a pan with olive oil and salt, roasting them at 400F for about an hour or so, and reaping the deliciousness afterward.

This incarnation of OMGVeggies includes:
Cauliflower*
Yellow Onion*
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes*
Golden Beets*
Carrots*
Mushrooms*
Chives*
Garlic*
Cubed Herb Tofu**
Olive Oil
Smoked Paprika
Salt and Pepper

I also made some roasted yukon gold potatoes*** with rosemary* and garlic* and some Garlicky Kale (Farmers Market) with Tahini Dressing (from VWaV). Yum! The cherry tomatoes burst during the roasting and mixed with the olive oil for this sweet tomato-y fantasticness. All of the veggies turn into golden love nibbles. Seriously, I'm not really a huge fan of beets or cauliflower, but roasted like this, everything just tastes luscious and juicy. Mmmm.

This week I'm participating in a "Giving Our Cookbooks Some Use" challenge over at The PPK Forums - this week the cookbook in question is Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. I have this cookbook, and I've made several recipes, but I love a challenge and I don't use this book as much as I should. So I'm challenging myself to make:

• Lemon-broiled green beans
• Blackened Tofu
• Savory French Lentils
• Roasted Winter Squash Rings
• Pan-Fried Temp-teh
• Teriyaki Quinoa
• Pumpkin Cheese Pie

Seems kind of psychotic, but I have all this stuff in the house already, so it's just a matter of making the time.


I started off the week right by making the Savory French (Puy) Lentils and Lemon Broiled Green Beans last night. YUM! Both were super easy and very tasty, and I would recommend them to all. I will definitley be making both again. I freaking love lentils, don't you? They're just so dang good.

To round out the meal I made a (huge) batch of this rice mix I bought at Trader Joe's - I think it has red, wild and brown rices mixed together, and I cooked it with some garlic powder, oregano, evoo and salt, so it had some flava on it's own. It went great with the lentils. I also made some quick pickles with our gabillion cucumbers and some radishes, red wine vinegar, sugar and salt. The rest are actually pickling in the fridge in jars, woo-hoo! Oh and we had an arugula salad topped with sungold cherry tomatoes and some of the tahini dressing leftover from the kale the other night. It was like a feast, I tell ya! I love fall, so many good things to eat.

* = CSA, Organic!
** = NW/Local Product
*** = Picked it ourselves! Organic.

We went apple and potato picking this past weekend, and also picked up some winter squash. I'm feeling a combo soup coming on...stay tuned.

A Pretty Dang Local Thanksgiving

AKA DDELC #6
So Thanksgiving was a blast! Here was our menu:

Bryanna Clark Gorgan's Soy and Seitan "Turkey" (not local but homemade!)
Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes (local potatoes, half and half)
Cornbread stuffing (local cornmeal, celery, onion, sage)
Good Gravy (local thyme, milk)
Steamed Brussels Sprouts (local sprouts)
Cranberry relish (local cranberries)
Buttermilk-Blueberry Pie (local buttermilk, blueberries, eggs)
Maple Pumpkin Pie (local pumpkin, half and half, eggs)
Potato Rosemary Rolls (non-local, but homemade)


Everything was delicious! We were especially in love with the "turkey" - it is amazing to find that you can make you're own tofurkey like product for so cheap and with so little effort - and the results are way better than tofurkey! Seriously, I think the whole roast cost us about $5 in ingredients and fed us for well over 4 days - some of those days more than one meal. And the toddler LOVED it. We will definitely be making this again - like maybe once a week until the end of time. And supposedly they freeze well, too. Yay!

I would also like to add that I made both of my piecrusts from scratch this year - I've NEVER made piecrust before and I was a little worried. Then I saw Martha Stewart on Wednesday and she made it look soooooo easy to roll it out and whatnot that on Thursday, I was like "This will be a piece of cake! Or pie!" Fast forward several hours, hissyfits and globs of dough flung across the kitchen in fits of rage....The goddamn dough kept sticking to EVERYTHING! Yes, even after I refrigerated it! And froze it! Goddamn dough! Then I remembered reading somewhere that I could roll it out between pieces of plastic wrap, so I gave that a whirl as a last goddamn chance...and it worked. Beautifully. As if I had never squished the everloving shit out of the dough in frustration nor thrown in at my window in despair. It all came out beautifully. So note to self: use the goddamn plastic wrap, you idiot. Save some years on your life.

I would also like to say how awesome and easy it was to make REAL homemade pumpkin pie! With a pumpkin! And no cans of any kind of milk, just real, local half and half! It was a miracle, and so delicious. Definitely making that one again!

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge, Meal #1

Well, our first DDELC meal was a total success!

Menu:
Roasted Delicata Squash with honey butter and dried cranberries
Honeybaked Lentils
Braised Brussels Sprouts
Tamari Roasted Squash Seeds

Roasted Delicata Squash
Serves 2

2 Delicata squash, halved, seeds and pulped removed and reserved (CSA - 65 mi)
2 T butter (non-local, exempt)
2 tsp honey (Davisburg, MI - 41 mi)
2 T dried cranberries (Not sure on the distance, but they're from MI)

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place squash, cut side down, in a rimmed baking pan. Roast for 30-40 minutes, or until tender when poked with a fork.

After the squash come out of the oven, place 1/2 T of butter, 1/2 tsp of honey and 1/2 T of cranberries in each half. Serve!

Honeybaked Lentils
This recipe comes from someone on MotheringDotCommune. It is the MOST delicious way to serve lentils, hands down. If you use brown lentils (like I did), they come out the consistency of baked beans or so. If you use red lentils, expect to eat this as soup, which is just as delicious, just different.
Serves 4, or 2 with leftovers

1 cup lentils (Kingston, MI - 83 mi)
2 cups water (0 mi!)
2 tbsp honey (Davisburg, MI - 41 mi)
2 tbsp soysauce (non-local, exempt)
2 tbsp olive oil (non-local, exempt)
1/2 tsp ginger (non-local, exempt)
1 clove garlic (CSA - 65 mi)
1 small onion (CSA - 65 mi)
salt & pepper (non-local, exempt)

Option 1: Bake in a covered dish at 350 until tender (about an hour and a half).
Option 2: Put everything in a saucepan on medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. When boiling, reduce heat to simmer and cook until lentils are tender, about 40-50 minutes.

Simmered Brussels Sprouts
from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
Serves 4 or two with leftovers

1-1 1/2 lbs brussels sprouts, trimmed (CSA - 65 mi)
2 T butter or olive oil ((non-local, exempt)
1 clove garlic, smashed (CSA - 65 mi)
1 T plain breadcrumbs (non-local, freebie)
1 T lemon juice (non-local, exempt)
pinch of dried parsley (non-local, exempt)
salt and pepper (non-local, exempt)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil; salt it. Add the sprouts and keeping the heat high, boil for about 10 minutes or until just tender. Drain and plunge into cold water. Drain again.

Heat the butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add the garlic and cook for a few minutes. Add the sprouts and the breadcrumbs. Stir until heated through, about 3 minutes

Remove the garlic if you want (I left it in), toss the sprouts with lemon juice, parsley and salt & pepper.

Roasted Squash Seeds
from The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz

Preheat the oven to 325F. Place the pulpy seeds in a bowl of water, and use both hands to remove chunks of pulp and fiber from the seeds. When reasonably clean, drain the seeds. Toss the seeds with your choice of seasoning (I used a squirt or two of Braggs). Spread seeds out on a cookie sheet in a single layer, and bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until seeds are lightly toasted and crispy all the way through.

ELC Menus, Days 13, 14, 15, 16

I've been behind on updating. I'm wiped OUT, so I'll try to keep this short:

Thursday, September 13
Breakfast:
We ate out at The Flytrap, a local "finer diner." The owners used to be our neighbors! They are really nice. We rode our bikes even though it was in the 40's when we left!

Lunch:
Leftover Marrakesh Curry over couscous

Dinner:
Bag o' fettucine alfredo from the freezer (TJ's brand - so good, soooo not local)

Friday, September 14
Breakfast:
Oatmeal with local pear, dried cherries (non-local maple syrup)

Lunch:
SOS (aka sh*t on a shingle) - leftover beef style seitan with leftover good gravy on local rye bread (the baby was kookoo for this today!)

Dinner:
Seitan and gravy (new batch!)
Roasted Acorn Squash (CSA; so good! Used Didi Emmon's recipe)
Garlicky green beans (CSA and local butter)
Garlic rye toast (local bakery bread, local garlic)

Saturday, September 15
Breakfast:
We suck - there was a lot of back and forth about whether to ride our bikes due to cold temps and the possibility of a large Farmer's Market haul. We didn't end up riding; we usually stop at a local bagel shop on the way when we ride; we miscalculated our hunger and ended up at a non-local bagel shop for breakfast (Bruegger's). Blah.

Lunch:
Backyard tomatoes and basil on farmer's market rosemary and olive oil bread with local raw cheese from Lansing. YUM!
Apples (FM)

Dinner:
Pizza from local bakery (Because I was in the kitchen All. Day. More on that later.)

Sunday, September 16
Breakfast:
Homemade buckwheat pancakes
Hashbrowns (from freezer - trying to use up and make room!)
Apple

Lunch:
Grilled cheese (local bread, butter and cheese)
Homemade tomato soup

Dinner:
Eh. We kind of suck a lot this weekend. We took a late hike at Kensington Metropark in Milford, MI which we love. It was a lovely walk, we saw heron, swans and sandhill cranes, really really close! So cool. Lots of critters, including a squirrel who was throwing walnuts at us. Lots of them.

Anyway, we found ourselves late (like 6:30) out in the middle of nowhere and really really hungry. Our options were extremely limited, but we really wanted something at least kind of local - so no Chilli's, Applebees, Quiznos, Subway, Arby's - which were the choices we had. Then we spotted a Leo's Coney Island, and if you're from Michigan you'll realize this isn't that local, but it's kind of regional anyway, right? They're basically diners. This one happened to have quite a bit of Greek fare on the menu, as well. We had really, really bad gardenburgers with even worse fries. Seriously. It was a lesson in why not to frequent these kinds of places.

But Silas got to visit a backhoe loader in the parking lot, which was like the baby version of crack.

ELC Day 12

ELC Epiphany
I've always been loathe to waste food that I made (not so much leftovers, but loaves of bread, jars of sauce, baked goods, etc) because, well duh, I put effort into. I saw it transform from raw ingredients into something else entirely, as if by magic.

But I had an epiphany this morning while eating breakfast. Maybe epiphany is too strong a word; let's say I had a sudden realization. When I know where my food comes from, I am loathe to waste any. I was inhaling my toasted peanut butter and local raspberry jam sandwich on rye this morning (I woke up ravenous, omg, thought I would die). And since I had toasted the bread prior to making the sandwich, all the pb&j were getting melty and squishing out the sides of the sandwich. And I thought, "I'm not wasting this jam! Someone made this jam with their hands. With real raspberries. In their kitchen. " So I started using my finger to mop it up and lick it off. Now, it might have been low blood sugar at the time, but thinking back on it, I really think that it's true: when you have a more personal connection to your food, you really want to, sort of, well, honor the food. And the people who made it/grew it for you. When your food isn't coming from a faceless corporate factory, the connection to other people becomes more transparent. I want to honor the farmer that grew the raspberries, the person who stood in the kitchen making jam, and poured it into jars, made labels and brought it to the farmer's market. It's easier to imagine human faces behind this food I'm eating, and that makes it more special.

Now, I'm not about wasting food in general, but it's hard to care quite as much about food that you know was mass produced. It's a little more soulless, a little less there there. I've worked in an industrial food setting before, and I know what that's like (I wasn't in the food prep areas, I was in admin, but believe me, I've seen what happens there). Underpaid people doing hard physical labor with few benefits and long hours. The cheapest ingredients. Giant giant giant vats of food. It's just plain creepy. I'm sure not all industrial food settings are the same, but I still contend that as the process of growing/cooking/packaging becomes further and further fragmented, the person-to-person connection to the food grows weaker and weaker. And we all suffer for it. It's like when Thich Nhat Hanh talks about interbeing:

"If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are" (Essential Writings, p. 55).

Like seeing the cloud in the paper, eating locally is opening my eyes to the farmers and artisans in my food. It is a very peaceful realization. If I were a great buddhist, I would be able to see them in the mass-produced food, too. But I kind of have to wonder: are they even in there anymore? Does any love at all go into the products at the industrial level? If so, t's definitely harder to detect.

On a totally different subject: Making Seitan
For dinner, I tried making seitan using vital wheat gluten for the first time. Previously we had only had seitan purchased already made from the freezer case and we've always been sort of mediocre fans (a distant third to tofu and tempeh on the pseudo meat product scale). But since we can't find local tempeh in any shape or form, I decided to give it a go. I realize that the vital wheat gluten isn't local, either, BUT you can make seitan using just wheat flour. Which I can get locally, so there. But before going to the trouble I wanted to see if homemade would turn out at all.

So I followed the directions on the back of the box, but used a broth recipe from La Dolce Vegan ("beef" flavored). I realized after I started making the broth that it was probably for only half as much seitan, but I thought, it's just simmering in the broth, so there'll be enough, right? Eh. It looked fine when I dropped all my little seitan steak-lets in the broth, but holy crap, when I checked on it a few minutes later it had EXPANDED. Quite a bit. So I poured some more water in and added a little concentrated broth goop to make up for the diluted broth recipe.

And it turned out great! It seemed to be more strongly flavored than the store bought stuff - in a good way. We only used half of what the recipe made, but it keeps for about a week in the fridge, so we'll just use it up later in some other dish. And now I'm ready to try it from just wheat flour. The real scratch method. In a couple of weeks.

And with that I bring you our menu from today (I should note that I haven't felt well for a few days, but today I realllly got my appetite back!):

Breakfast:
Peanut butter (from Costco, ack!) and red raspberry jam (from the Lansing City Market) on toasted rye bread (from Strawberry Moon bakery in Ferndale).
Yogurt with fresh peaches (from Lansing)
Strawberry kefir (purchased from the local HFS in Ferndale, Natural Food Patch)

Lunch:
Poor man's omelet: rye bread cubes toasted in local butter, with 2 local eggs poured over. And a little local gouda shredded on top.
Rye toast
Local apple

Snack:
Chocolate with hazelnuts (from TJ's - I know, it's my weakness)
Kettle corn (from Lansing)
Mint tea (fresh peppermint and chocolate mint from the backyard)

Dinner:
Marrakesh Vegetable Curry (using local peppers, squash, carrots, onions, garlic, chickpeas, dried cherries, ginger juice, sunflower seeds; non-local spices, oil, OJ, raisins)*
Homemade seitan (using vital wheat gluten mix)
Whole-wheat couscous (purchased in bulk from local HFS)

Dessert:
Local cinnamon ice cream (OMG YUM!)


*Marrakesh Vegetable Curry is sooooooo good. This is the second time we've made it, and it rocks. Use whatever vegetables seem appropriate, it's a very flexible recipe.

ELC Days 10 & 11

I was feeling under the weather yesterday, so no post. I'm going to keep this quick!

Menu, Monday 9/10

Breakfast:
Homemade granola
yogurt
kefir
Pero (strange toasted grain beverage, sort of like coffee)

Lunch:
Tofu "egg" salad sandwich
Popcorn
Backyard tomatoes

Dinner:
Gnocchi (from Roma)
Homemade tomato sauce
garlic rye toast
slow roasted roma tomatoes

a couple pieces of hazelnut chocolate...mmmargh...

Menu Tuesday, 9/11
Breakfast:
Kefir
scrambled local eggs
Gatorade (to combat my dehydration/stomach cramp problem)

Lunch:
Disappearing pasta shells and zucchini
1 slow roasted tomato half (hurt my tummy)

Snack:
Key lime pie bar from Pinwheel Bakery

Dinner:
Grilled cheese on rye (local bread, local cheese)
Tomato soup w/ chickpeas and fresh basil (just our tomato sauce thinned down; almost totally local!!!)

In other news....
We picked up the food dehydrator yesterday! It's a Ronco!!!! Haven't tried it ouy yet, but soon...very soon. As an aside, it appears everything we buy off of craigslist in detroit is available for pick-up on Prentis street. We bought a car from a guy on Prentis like 3 years ago, and yesterday, like 4 buildings down, a dehydrator. Strange, no?

Oh and we also picked up our CSA share yesterday (on foot! Go us.) Here's what's in store this week:

Butternut Squash

Acorn Squash

Green & Red Peppers (sweet)

Beans

Eggplant

cherry tomatoes

Macintosh apples (from Brozowski Farms)

Tomatoes-6 romas per share

More soon.

ELC Day 8: Lansing Day Trip

Yesterday we piled into the car (late) to head out for Lansing. Chad was attending the Michigan Policy Summit and Silas and I decided to tag along to see what fun could be had in the state capital. We explored the Lansing City Market, which was smaller than I expected but had a higher variety of food items than ours here in Royal Oak. By that I mean, Royal Oak has mostly produce, some eggs and chicken, and a few producers of bread (and one farm provides beans, flours, and seeds). Lansing hosted fewer produce tables, but more were organic; they have their own cheesemonger, for which I am eternally envious (they even sell local cheese!), and they had more types of flours available. Oh, and a couple who sells delicious popcorns. Anyway, if you combined that market and our market, most of my food needs would probably be met. I know that Lansing hosts several other farmer's markets throughout the week, but this one was the only one there on Saturdays.

Can I just say that Lansing has their own Locavores group? And that they are hosting a week-long Eat Local Challenge for the Lansing area?!? So so envious am I. Why not here, why? I should start one. Maybe soon.

Lansing was a cool town. Everyone was super nice and helpful - several mamas pointed me to fun things for toddlers (like the downtown Library, where Silas burned off a lot of steam) and one mom in particular pointed us to a very cool Italian grocery store, right near the city market, called Roma. We went there after picking Chad up from the conference, since even at progressive events in Michigan, vegetarians are left to starve (he said for lunch they served him a pile of white rice with some soggy baby corn and carrots. Swear to god.) What a score! Even though it was the end of the day, they still had delicious, fresh food. Chad had a veggie calzone while I inhaled the spinach pie. Oh, and did I mention dessert? Cannolis!!!! And a mini-eclair. Chad had some raspberry cream cheese pastry and an apricot bar (he's allergic to the chocolate, y'know). We also bought a huge tin of EVOO and some frozen homemade gnocchi. It was a good find.

So what all did I find at the farmer's market? I'll tell ya:
2 lbs Jennings Brothers Soft Wheat flour ($6)
Grassfields Raw Milk Organic Cheese (1/2 lb Gouda, 1/2 lb Cheddar) ~$13 for both
2 quarts organic heirloom tomatoes ($6)
1 dozen free range large eggs ($2.50)
1 quart organic Paula Red apples ($2.75)
1 pint dried local cherries ($3.50)
1 bag of baby rice popcorn ($2)
1 bag of kettle corn ($3)
1.5 quarts of local peaches (can't remember...)
1 pint local raspberry jam ($2.75)

A pretty good haul, all in all, for about $45. So what are we doing with it all?

3 of the peaches became Peach Coffee Cake for breakfast (which also used 2 of the eggs). The tomatoes are now in the slow cooker turning into some more delicious homemade sauce that well will freeze in quart bags. The cherries will either go straight into our bellies or into the next batch of homemade granola. The apples are almost gone. The cheese is outstanding! We just ate pieces of it today with lunch, it's great snacking cheese. I'm psyched to learn that I can buy it online! Although it's 165 miles away, I feel like it's worth the extra mileage because it's a)raw milk cheese b) organic c) really local otherwise, as in, they feed their cows with feed from Michigan. So it's worth fudging the mileage a little. Plus, it's so freaking tasty!

Day 8 Menu Wrap Up

Breakfast:
Homemade granola
yogurt
eden soymilk

Snack:
Popcorn, an apple, some hunks of gouda (me)

Lunch:
Egg salad sandwich and Odwalla C Monster from Great Harvest Bread Co. (me)
DH: inedible conference food

Lunch, take 2 at Roma Grocery:
Veggie Calzone
Spinach Pie
Assorted desserts

Light Dinner:
Fresh tomato salad with local mozzarella, basil from the backyard, EVOO and balsamic reduction
Leftover rosemary biscuits

Not such a local day menu wise, but we increased our local food stores and spread some money around Michigan's local economy!

ELC, Day 7 Menu

Breakfast:
Scrambled local eggs
non-local Yves veggie sausage patties
Rye toast (from local bakery, Strawberry Moon)

Lunch:
Me:
Tofu "egg" salad sandwich (local tofu, celery, onion, garlic and dill; non-local mayo, mustard, relish, turmeric) on local rye bread

Husband: Leftover swiss chard lasagna

Both: Disappearing zucchini orzo (made with veggie pasta shells instead of orzo). A tasty way to use up 2 zucchini and 1 summer squash!

Dinner

Chicken fried tofu steak (local tofu)
Good gravy
Blanched green beans (local) with local butter and garlic
Tomato (backyard), mozzarella (address is local), and (backyard) basil salad, drizzled with non-local EVOO and balsamic reduction. Oh god.
Homemade rosemary butter biscuits (rosemary from the backyard, local butter, all other flours, leavenings and salt non local).

As an aside, this is what happens when you let a 14 month old loose while you and your significant other are too tied up in a discussion of the ethics of carnivory (inspired by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) to notice what he's up to:

Luckily, he didn't eat any part of it, just piled it all neatly on the floor. Blargh.

ELC, Day 6 Menu

Food Consumed Thursday, September 6

Breakfast:
Homemade granola (60% local by volume :D)
Yogurt
local blueberries
Strawberry kefir

Lunch:
Canadian bust. Terrible pizza. See previous post for a breakdown.

Dinner:
Swiss Chard Lasagna

Using no-bake noodles, homemade local marinara, local chard, and TJ's Quattro Formaggio cheese blend. And semi-local cottage cheese (150 miles). Not bad! A good way to use up chard. I got the idea from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

ELC 9/07, Day 5

We're figuring this stuff out, I swear.

Breakfast:
Homemade granola (about 60% local by volume; local oats, butter and sunflower seeds; unlocal: coconut, wheat germ, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, cinnamon, canola oil and maple syrup)
Yogurt (nonlocal; can't find any local! help?)
Eden soymilk (local company)
Strawberry kefir (unlocal. Anyone have a local source?)

Lunch:
Hubby was sent to work with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on local bread, an heirloom tomato salad with local mozzarella cheese (non local EVOO, balsamic and salt), and a local Molly apple.

I munched on leftover tofu "egg" salad sandwiches (local tofu, celery, onion; nonlocal soy mayo, mustard, relish, turmeric, s&p) on fresh rye bread from one of our local bakeries, Strawberry Moon (they use organic flour, too, yay!; the ambrosial tomato salad from vintage cooking (so good!) with local cherry & pear tomatoes and oregano from the backyard (nonlocal EVOO, honey and s&p). Oh, and alert the media! I, Chessa, former hater of all things related to raw celery, at several skinny stalks of fresh CSA celery! Dipped in nonlocal peanut butter. But seriously, I don't think I've intentionally eaten raw celery since I was in 3rd grade. Always hated the stuff. I feel a little silly now, because mostly it just tastes like crunchy nothing. But it was my one holdout, immature "I hate you just because" vegetable, and I'm feeling pretty awesome about overcoming that issue. Could it have something to do with it being local, and not grown for the supermarket showcase? It makes me wonder.

Dinner
For dinner, I was planning eggplant parmigiana, because we received two white eggplants in our CSA share. My recipe called for me to peel them and bake the slices for 15 minutes. I realized as soon as they were sliced and on the baking sheet that this was probably going to be far too little eggplant to make it. Hmmm. So I thought, maybe lasagna! I got out my no-cook lasagna noodles, the homemade sauce and the TJs cheese. But what about ricotta? We didn't have any, so I thought maybe seasoned tofu, but that would be a lot of work (what with needing to food processor and then having wash it). Then I realized that on a whim earlier this week I purchased some local-ish cottage cheese (funny story: I bought it because the brand was "Michigan." When I got home I checked the location on the packaging out of curiosity and found that in this case Michigan was in Ohio. Lame.) I checked in with the internet and found that yes, cottage cheese can sub for ricotta with no known issues. So in it went. About an hour later, I dug into our tiny 8x8 eggplant lasagna, and all I can say is, it was worth it. So good! The sauce was amazing, the eggplant tender and smoky, and the cottage cheese did just fine, thank you.

Oh and we also had some cherry/pear tomatoes that I intended to make into salad, but when the time came around to do it, I was too hungry so we just ate them plain. Still delicious. :)

And there may have been an ice cream run later in the evening, to a locally owned joint just a few miles up the road.

ELC 9/07, Day 4

Breakfast
Ok, not so local, but we're using stuff up!
Organic Yogurt (from TJ's - package says MA)
Organic Banana
Local blueberries (purchased at RO Farmer's Market)
Homemade granola (local sunflower seeds; everything else non-local that we know of)

BUT! I now have oats, sunflower seeds and honey to make more granola, now that we used up that last batch. I think I'll still add the non-local pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds, although I'm not 100% on this yet; it would be really cool to have 100% local granola....except for the cinnamon anyway.

Lunch
I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver right now (so good!) and I was reading the tomato chapter while nursing the baby down for his nap and starting to think about lunch. We had 3 plum tomatoes left from our Farmer's Market bargain box purchase, so I made the same marinated deal as the pizza last night (local garlic and basil, non local EVOO, S&P). We cut a baguette in half (from 11 miles away) and spooned this over the baguette and topped it with the TJ's cheese again. AAAGH! It was the most delicious thing ever. And even though my husband did set off the smoke alarm while broiling (something to do with a bamboo skewer being used to prop the bread up), it didn't wake the sleeping child, so all was right with the world.

Dinner
I braved a new recipe from the Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook, Chicken Fried Tofu. It was a big hit! We served with "Good Gravy" from the same book, and it was delicious. Super simple ingredients (local tofu, plus a little flour, baking powder, oil, and s&p), the trick was freezing the tofu, thawing it, and then refreezing the whole mixture for another 1/2 hour before you can fry it. So just a little planning.

We also had some garlic toast with local sundried tomato bread, and a simple tomato salad that I read about at cooking vintage. Delicious!

Silas stuck with dried apricots, local apple, local cheese and some tomatoes. He's a good eater, that kid.

Preserving the Harvest
So we finished up the homemade tomato sauce yesterday, and it is sooooo good! After letting the sauce simmer for most of the day, I added 3 6-oz cans of tomato paste to thicken it up and blended it alllll together with my handy dandy immersion blender (how I love that thing!!!!). Oh, wow. The sauce is a light orange-y color, almost like vodka sauce, creamy and beautiful. After letting it cool down for several more hours, I bagged 2 quarts for the freezer, jarred another quart for the fridge and jarred another 3 or so cups to send home with Magnifico. Yay!

I can't tell you how wonderful it was to look lovingly on my beautiful crockpot of tomato sauce last night. My husband and I were positively mooning over it. We did some rough calculations and figured that although the tomatoes themselves were a deal, with all the other ingredients and electricity that went into it, it wasn't "cheap" sauce. But hey, that fancy Rao tomato sauce is like $10 per jar, so I think the effort, time and money are worth it. To see gorgeous heirloom tomatoes that are about to be chucked into the compost bin magically transform into a ton of delicious sauce that will feed my family (and our friends) for several meals? Priceless.

Random Musings
I'm on the desperate hunt for local dairy items. I have a source for (non-organic) butter, milk (which we don't drink), and ice cream, but not so much for cheese, yogurt and kefir. After having read A, V, M and about how easy it is to make homemade mozzerella and other soft cheeses, we defnintely want to give this a try. I know one can make their own yogurt and kefir, but I have no idea how complicated this is, and I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. But it would be pretty cool to make all this stuff myself. After the high of making tomato sauce, I'm anxious to find my next fix...

Garden Notes
We're growing 4 different types of tomatoes this year (Yellow Pear, one called Sunbeam, a Beefsteak variety, and a patio variety). They are all doing really well. The Yellow Pear is absolutely crazy! We're growing everything in containers, because we weren't sure about the trustworthiness of our soil (we rent, and we heard that it has a high mercury content). The pear is in a small garbage can, like the kind you'd use in the bathroom (with holes cut in the bottom for drainage). The sunbeam and beefsteak are in half of a barrel, and the patio is in a 12 " planter. There are 10 or so tomatoes on the patio plant, one is just starting to get ripe. There is one red tomato on the beefsteak plant, with about 3 green ones still growing. Nothing's turning on the sunbeam plant, but there must be 6 or 7 good sized green tomatoes ready to ripen. And I can't even tell you how many cute little pear tomatoes there are! About 4-5 that are just about ready to pick, and about a gazillion green ones (ok, maybe like 30?)

We've also got 5 basil plants (2 genovese, 1 opal, 1 ruffly opal, and 1 pesto - little green leaves with white edges). The ruffly opal almost died earlier in the season because it was too shaded by the tomato plant, but I transplanted it and now it's trying its darndest to make a comeback. The other varieties are all delicious and doing well, as long as I remember to water enough. ;)

We are also growing thyme, oregano and rosemary successfully. Cilantro was not such a success. That thing bolted straightaway and then just stopped. Lame!

We're also growing 4 types of mint: Peppermint and chocolate mint are growing well in a bucket together, 2 pineapple mint plants are growing successfully in another bucket, and the orange mint is in a cheap plastic planter off in the shade by itself (it's the only variety that wants more shade than sun).

It has been so fun to have a garden this summer. We also had several sugar snap pea plants that we grew from seed, and they produced really well for the first half of the summer. We planted them in a half barrel with petunias, and holy moly, the petunias were out of control crazy about them! I think they add nitrogen back to the soil and the flowers were diggin' it.

Other than the peas, nothing else was grown from seed, but next year, that's going to change! Watch out, seed catalogs. I'm comin' for ya.

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!

Sunday Stuff and Things

So we're leaving for Oregon for 3 weeks this coming Saturday. This forced us to be very very mindful of using things up before we go! Because of this (and because I'm on this crazy declutter/budget/simplify-your-life jag) we made up a weekly meal plan! And I'm going to try to stick to it, by gum!

What we've had so far:

Saturday
Breakfast:
Tofu scramble
Herb Roasted Red Potatoes
Toast with Earth Balance
Juice
Coffee/tea

Lunch:
Leftover pizza from Friday night (doh! not vegan. They were out of soy cheese and we were des.per.ate.)

Dinner:
Peanut Red Curry with onions, peas, and carrots over brown rice
Spinach Salad
Edamame

Snack/Dessert:
Newman's Ginger-O's (those things are the DEVIL! but vegan!)

Sunday

Breakfast:
Toast with Cashew Butter (YUM!)
Juice

Lunch:
Bow Tie Pasta with Broccoli, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Kalamata Olives and Garlic Olive Oil
Ginger O's

Snack:
Berry Berry Juice from local juice joint (vegan) - Chad and I split one

Dinner:
Almost Irish Stew (from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker) - uses up the navy beans I made last week, the chicken style seitan we needed to use, baby carrots, red potatoes, a can of green beans, onion, garlic, broth and spices. My house smells soooo good right now!

Coming up this week:

Monday: Magical Loaf Studio Loaf, Leftover Roasted Potatoes

Tuesday: Chilli Con Bulgar from La Dolce Vegan!, Garlic Toast, spinach salad

Wednesday: Tofurkey-Avocado Reubens, bread and butter pickles, spinach salad

Thursday: Either Biscuits and Gravy or Tempeh BLT's

Friday: EAT OUT

Lunch for each day will be leftovers from the day before or Cashew Butter and Apricot Jam sandwiches. We also have the fixins for some smoothies, cuz we need to use up our jug-o-juice!

Can she actually stick to the meal plan? Will this change her life forever? Stay tuned!!!