One Size Fits All

Its been a while since I posted a dark days update. And for me its still dark days since the farmer’s markets don’t open until May.

Last night I made black beans and acorn squash quesadillas. The filling was a recipe from Veganomicon (latest from Isa Chandra and Terri Romero) which I got via inter library loan. The recipe was actually for an empanada, but I’ve never had an empanada so I had no idea what it looked like. Plus I was too tired to be fashioning pretty little shapes out of dough. My husband always has a batch of dough ready to make tortillas which was what I used. We had just cooked the beans the night before in the crockpot, so I used the beans plus some old shriveled acorn squash that was starting to look really sad. To dress up the beans and squash, I fried onions, garlic in olive oil and added chilli powder (no japapenos), cumin and a bit of water to make the dish mashable.

It came out really well!

I also baked some potato chips which is one of my favorite and easiest snacks. I cut potatoes into bite size pieces and sprinkle oregano, chilli powder, cumin powder, salt and olive oil and bake it until done. I think these were called Jamaican jerk fries in Vegan with a Vengence.  

I think eating locally is starting to get easier despite the fact that we’re still buying at least 2 organic tomatoes (grown in mexico) at $4.99/lb every time we buy groceries. I will not be doing this anymore…because Mexico is far away and thus not local. I did go without tomatoes for about 2 months…but I still can’t completely stop eating it. There are too many dishes I eat that call for tomatoes and I just don’t like squash and turnips and parsnips and an entire assortment of veggies that are available in the winter season. Obviously if I had canned the summer produce I wouldn’t have this problem. But…I have many excuses for not canning including: school was driving me crazy and I was terrified of this toxin called botulinum toxin.

Except for oil, flour, rice, chocolate, coffee and some spices we’ve been eating local produce for nearly all our meals. I did experiment with local spelt flour and found it to be a good replacement for regular midwestern flour from King Arthur, but spelt flour is a bit too expensive for our budget right now.

One of the reasons I’m really looking forward to moving to Southern California is because of the food. There is a possibility that I can eat locally grown citrus fruits and bananas and avocados and have fresh cilantro all year round. Right now, I could just go out and eat the non local items like I am with tomatoes, but I can’t seem to do it. At some point last year I read articles and watched documentaries on the plight of banana workers. Google will yield many results. It really depressed me and I asked my husband if we could stop buying bananas. He had already given up avocados…so this was yet another item I was asking to give up. After he watched a documentary or two with me (Life and Debt depicts this issue quite well) he agreed. An added bonus to not eating bananas would be the elimination of fruit flies attracted to banana peals in our composter.

I am trying out all these challenges to test myself and for a bit of excitement…but now I have to grapple with all these moral issues to boot. I find it difficult to eat a freakin’ banana now because I have the image of banana workers getting beaten by cops for asking for higher wages.  

I’m looking forward to berry season. I’m sick of eating apples. 

I went on a cooking frenzy today. I made tofu, soy milk, roasted butternut squash soup (recipe from vegan with a vengence), mashed potatoes and punk rock chickpea gravy (also from VWAV), and peanut butter oatmeal cookies. Potatoes, some of the soy beans, butter nut squash, chickpeas and some of the spices like thyme and oregano were local.

Half the cookies were for our neighbors who for some nice reason decided to clear the snow from our steps and the sidewalk in front of our place. I was  touched so I baked them cookies.

I decided that for the rest of the winter season I will not be purchasing from the winter buying club.

The money I pay to the winter buying club is a deposit that has to be paid a few weeks before the food is actually delivered. I was using my credit card for the deposit because I get 1% cash back and I like any sort of free money I can get my hands on. However, the past few months have resulted in missing food. I do get credited back for the stuff not delivered, but the credit isn’t posted for another month after the delivery date. The food hasn’t been delivered for any number of reasons including bad weather, delivery sent to the wrong site, etc. This is annoying because I planned menus based on what I ordered. And if a key ingredient doesn’t arrive, it messes my plans up. And now I have a cash flow problem because I have to use money budgeted for something else to get the food I wanted.

I have been using the fair food stand and a natural food store to supplement our food purchases so I will continue to buy locally…just not from the winter buying club.

I have not completely forgotten about my dark days challenge. Last month I was bad. I bought tomatoes at $4.99/lb. They were organic and look pretty sad, but they are edible. I bought fish. The flour I used was grown in the midwest. I bought a small container of soy creamer to use at work with my coffee. I bought lemons and cilantro that were organic, not local. I bought several bottles of Enrico’s tomato sauce that were also organic. I couldn’t figure out who actually owns the company. They seem to not be controlled by anyone terrible.

I believe that is all the sins I committed in Jan.

Now that my husband is unemployed, he has made himself useful by making all our meals - from scratch. So yes, I now have my own personal Jeeves. We’ve mostly been eating the same set of meals. Beans in a variety of ways (purchased through the winter buying club). So there have been many enchilladas and quesadillas. We’ve been eating pizza (using the pesto as one of the toppings which I made several months ago with the last batch of fresh basil). Husband has been eating lots of local meat and sausage - I seem to have lost interest in eating meat. We have also been eating rice (not local) stir fried with a variety of veggies (local). So not a complete sinner, but comfortable enough that I don’t have to only rely on root vegetables.

Today I made Autumn and Winter Soup. The recipe is from The Balanced Plate, by Renée Loux. The recipe is below: INGREDIENTS:

1 large yellow onion, diced

1 red onion, diced

4-6 shallots, peeled and chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 carrots, scrubbed or peeled and roughly chopped

2 parsnips or 2 to 3 turnips, scrubbed or peeled and roughly chopped

2 ribs celery, roughly chopped

1 medium sweet potato or yam, peeled and roughly chopped, or 1/2 winter squash (red kuri, kabocha, or butternut), peeled and seeded

4" sprig rosemary

2 tsp fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried

1/2 tsp chipolte pepper(optional)

4 cups Hearty Vegetable Stock (I used water)

4-6 tbsp olive oil

1-1.5 cup parsley leaves

2-3 tbsp fresh oregano

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

In a medium large stockpot, place the yellow and red onions; shallots; garlic; carrots; parsnips or turnips; celery; sweet potato, yam, or squash; rosemary; thyme; and chipolte (if desired). Cover with stock by 1". Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft enough to easily pierce with a fork. Using a blender, blend until soup is smooth. Add the olive oil, parsley, oregano and salt and pepper. Adjust to taste.

This is a bit of a brain dump.

Over the weekend we had more meals that were cooked from locally grown ingredients. Spelt pancakes (containing a bit of cinnamon) and served with sliced apples and maple syrup (all local). It was excellent! I also baked a vegan tart from the Vegan with a Vengence cookbook. The crust was an almond/spelt crust and it came out quite well. I don’t know where almonds grow, and since I got them from the local Acme several months ago, I don’t think they are local. The original tart recipe was a pear and cranberry tart but I had apples so it became a apple/cranberry tart and it was so good! I admit I love my own cooking more than anyone else’s. Especially now that I’ve been cooking for atleast 7 years and have gained some experience. I also experimented and made an egg curry using homemade soymilk to make the gravy and it came out well. I normally would use coconut milk, but I read some article about some group of people being exploited in some country over the coconut milk and coconuts, so I have stopped using coconut milk.

I am mildly concerned that I am almost out of onions and the winter buying club does not carry onions. Perhaps the Fair Food Farmstand will have some.

I’ve pretty much cleaned up the fridge and am eagerly looking forward to this week’s Winter Buying club delivery. I think I ordered about 10 lbs 29 lbs of food most of it being various tubers. I also ordered 5 lbs of honey which I hope will last us awhile. I hope the food arrives safe and sound. And that the weather isn’t too sucky since I have to pick this stuff up after work when I am going to be completely drained.

Last night’s dinner and today’s brunch was the most local yet.

Last night I made steak, glazed carrots and mashed acorn squash (I over cooked the squash so I mashed it).

I marinated the steak in dijon mustard, soy sauce and worcestershire sauce and cooked it on low heat for about an hour. The carrots were lightly sauted(?) in butter and I drizzled some balsamic vinegar on it. The acorn squash was baked and then cooked with butter, thyme, garlic and rosemary and mashed. Everything but the dijon mustard, soy sauce wocestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar was local.

Today’s brunch was scrambled eggs, chicken sausage and walnut/cranberry bread. All were local and incredibly delicious! The coffee was not, although it came in a brown bag from Old City Coffee which will be composted.

I just made kim chee. The chinese cabbage, carrots, garlic and daikon radish are local. Additionally, we can use kim chee to make kim chee chigae which is a meat based soup and very, very tasty. One of the reasons I love making kim chee is, because its extremely easy to make, very inexpensive and can be made in parts which is perfect for someone lazy like me.

Since the end of tomato season and after we ran out of the last jar of home made tomato/pizza sauce, I’ve been really craving pizza. So I made pizza this week.

I wanted to eat tomatoes that were local when picked and hopefully preserved and turned into pizza sauce. I went to the Fair Food Farmstand and had no luck, but did purchase some local spelt flour. I then stopped by Kauffman’s Lancaster County Produce and almost was disappointed until I spied the stewed tomatoes. It had a vinegar as an ingredient that made me pause, but I purchased it. I was not disappointed. The toppings for the pizza were a herbed local cheese and a local feta cheese. It was most excellent.

After I joined the dark days challenge, I found out that there was a winter harvest buying club. I immediately joined and expect to get my first set of produce in January. So now, the challenge doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. My argument is that some people get to freeze their buns in 85 degree weather, I get to have local produce all year round.

Still, I did stock up a little bit before I found out about the buying club so that I wouldn’t have to visit a regular grocery store for a little while. I had purchased two gigantic bottles of honey (we’ve stopped using sugar in our household), lotso carrots, onions, potatoes, radishes, apples, pears etc. Most of my meals are cooked from scratch and many contain local ingredients. Except for the spices (cumin, salt, coriander, etc) and other dry ingredients like flour pretty much everything is local.

This past week the most fun item with local ingredients that I prepared were samosas. Although I am not a vegan anymore, I love cooking from Vegan with a Vegence - a vegan cookbook.  The recipes are all delicious and most are easy to make and take few steps. Best of all, the measuring doesn’t have to be exact. For the samosas that I made, the carrots, endamame beans, onions were all local. The flour was not. Neither was the oil.

In an earlier post I had wondered whether the soy beans I purchased from a vendor at the farmer’s market was grown organically. Now I have evidence that it is. I am very happy.

In addition to freezing my buns, I also decided to join another challenge: The Dark Days Challenge. Sounds ominous. Since I will be getting a school break in 8 days (wee!) I have all sorts of plans on what I would like to do. Although I do like Kim Chee, I am hoping I don’t have to eat cabbage the entire season.

I didn’t plan as well as I would have liked. Even if I did manage to get canning supplies I was just short on time the entire year. So while I am not as well prepared on the vegetable front, I am a bit prepared on the meat front. I started eating meat again after being vegetarian and occasionally vegan for a good number of years. Since I stopped eating meat because of taste issues (factory farmed animals taste terrible), I stopped eating it. Now with my buying club subscription, I bought quite a bit of meat that should last us at least until February. I have already gotten used to eating many new fruits and veggies, so the challenge will be to find local foods so I continue this journey of eating locally. Lately, I have been thinking about visiting a local farm for raw milk and milk products. This is challenging because few farms are located near a train station and the journey on a bicycle can be a bit tiring. I have also been looking around for sources of grain and flour that are not only local but come with minimal packaging. I will write about my results here on how lucky I get.

Anyway. This is the announcement of my new challenge. Here are the rules:

1. Each participant can set their own rules, but generally they are:
2. We have to cook one meal a week with at least 90% local ingredients
3. We have to write about it - the triumphs and the challenges
4. Local means a 200 mile radius for raw ingredients. For processed foods the company must be within 200 miles and committed to local sources.
5. Keep it up through the end of the year, and then re-evaluate on New Year’s Day
6. The challenge starts now, or whenever you sign up.