One Size Fits All

Last night I made a fava bean dip first seen on Green Bean’s blog. I was too lazy to make it into a finely ground paste. I mashed it and quickly stuffed myself with it. I made pita chips to go with it. Also called pizza crust chips because the recipe I use to make pita and a pizza crust is the same. The flour, salt, pepper and olive oil is not local.

 

Today I made quiche. After seeing Heather’s post of a crustless quiche, I was inspired enough to make one. But then I thought I would  like a quiche better with a crust. So I made one with a crust. I used this recipe but I modified it a bit. I added half a cup of chickpea flour to the crust because I’m trying to finish up my chickpea flour. I added mushrooms, because Heather did and made my mouth water. I cooked the mushrooms and onions in butter (all local) before adding it on top of the eggs (which I had mixed with sour cream and local basil). The flours and sour cream are not local.

 

 

This week’s edition of One Local Summer includes stir fried noodles. Local ingredients include peas, carrots and brocolli. I’m going to make an allowance regarding local ingredients. That is, I will not purchase local noodles even though its available because of the cost. I am not willing (or ready) to part with money to buy local bread-y ingredients like pasta.

 

The string beans and mushroom dish here are leftovers from a week ago which is why they look a bit sad. However, they taste much better than they did when I first made them. I guess its like kim-chi…tastes better the longer it lies around. The recipe I used is from Vegan with a Vengence.
I’ve been trying to get my husband to quit buying tomato juice and it seems like the concoction I put together here worked well. I blended tomatoes, cilantro, raspberries together and added a bit of red chilli powder and lemon juice. The cilantro and lemon was not local. Husband liked it well enough to agree that he wouldn’t drink the store bought stuff anymore. So a win here.  

 

After seeing a picture of Melinda’s pancakes yesterday I knew I had to make it for breakfast this morning.

I was too impatient to wait for bubbles, but the pancakes still turned out to have the melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness!  I used honey instead of sugar so the meal is 100% local.

The picture is from the cookbook: Vegetarian Cooking. The dish can be easily veganized by using margarine instead of butter and soy milk instead of cream.

I was catching up on all my blog reading this morning and noticed that very few of the meals featured in the One Local Summer challenge were vegan meals. There was one stir fry with seitan and I think one featuring lentil burgers. But the main focus of many of the meals was on meat. So I thought of cooking some something that is either vegan or could be easily veganized with the summer bounty. The result was the Beet, Wild Mushroom and Potato Casserole.

I don’t know how other people shop at the farmer’s market, but I’m like a shopaholic at the mall. Any new vegetable (either new in season or new to me) gets me very excited. I don’t think for one second about what I could do with the vegetable, instead, I immediately buy it. This year I’m a little bit better in that I remember the name of the item I am purchasing. Last year I would spend hours online trying to figure out what the heck I had wound up purchasing since I was too shy to just ask the farmer what I was getting.

So today’s mystery ingredient were beets. I grew up eating beets and the only reason I ate it is because I loved the color of beets. I don’t care for the taste too much. But since I bought it I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I thought of tossing it in a blender with tomatoes and cilantro and making some sort of health drink but decided against it. I didn’t want it in a salad. So I was happy when I found this dish in Vegetarian Cooking by Linda Fraser. The result was a bit blah. The taste isn’t bad, but it doesn’t feel filling since I thought that’s what casseroles were supposed to do. Still..if anyone really wants the recipe, leave a comment, and I’ll post it since I was not able to find it online.

Today’s breakfast: Homemade yogurt with strawberry syrup (strawberries and honey with a teaspoon of lime juice that is organic but not local) and local chicken and apple sausages with toast and butter. Bread is store bought with organic not local ingredients. I don’t have a toaster so I toast bread in the oven with the broil setting. I could make it with my cast iron pan…but didn’t.

 

This week’s dish for is matar paneer. I used this recipe, but I didn’t follow the directions. I fried the garlic stems, onions then added tomatoes then the spices. Then water and finally the peas. When the peas were cooking, I fried the paneer and then added it to the dish. The cilantro is from my cilantro plant. I also added some mushrooms because they were being neglected and I didn’t want them to go bad.

 

I used butter to do all the frying so except for the spices and the lemon juice used to make paneer the dish is 100% local. I served it with brown rice that I bought last week which is not local.  

Today I spent $40 on the following produce:Garlic stems, cherry tomatoes, beets, raddish, strawberries, peas, bok choy, mushrooms, string beans and cucumbers. Zucchini season has begun…but I didn’t get any. No new plastic entered the house with the purchase. Picture below:

This year I’m trying to reduce how much money I spend at the market. I don’t have a set number in mind, but I want to get the cheapest of whatever I’m getting. One way I am doing this is by taking a walk through the market and checking out the prices and doing a mental comparison before I buy anything.

Yesterday I bought 80 oz of honey for $20 and milk, cheese (goat and cow), butter, kale, potatoes, onions for $32.77. The cheese alone was $18.80. I will be making yogurt and paneer with the milk. I get the milk from the farmstand because I can return the bottle for my bottle deposit. And the bottle is made of glass.