Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

OK, so I achieved my goal for one week, and all of the food I bought was local. How was it? Did it feel great, was it easier than I thought? Well, it was fun and not too difficult to do the shopping. Cooking was fine, too. The only problem was that Jeff and I were SO HUNGRY all week. SO hungry. All of our food was local and organic, but there was so little of it! We had some very good dinners, and J got to take some of those for lunches, but there wasn't much to nibble on in between. We don't eat huge meals, so we are often hungry throughout the day, and J eats a lot of toast. What about when a loaf of bread costs twice as much as usual? I am not big on starch, but local meats and cheeses are the biggest expenses on the shopping list. We pulled through the week, but it was pretty discouraging. I went straight to TJs and bought several loaves of bread to put in the freezer, and stockpiled inexpensive, imported chocolate and California cheese. Sigh.
Moderation is not something that comes naturally for me, but I am learning that idealism can really bite you in the butt! I am ready to try again, and will work to be smarter about it, selling out only where it is most efficient, and enables me to enjoy the rest of the disciplined part.
In the mean time, I bought 20 lbs. of tomatoes for 50 cents per pound, and canned them-- fun!

Accidental Cheese Making

A couple of days ago, I was making raw milk kefir, looking for a place warm enough to leave it to culture. Since our stove is electric and therefore cold when not in use, I just turned it on as low as I could and put the jar of milk in there overnight. I guess that 150' is the coolest it goes when it's on, and so the milk had curdled and separated pretty dramatically. It seemed ruined to me, but I decided to see if I could salvage it.
I should have taken more pictures, but I didn't expect any results worth sharing. I strained the curds and saved the whey for other uses. I put the curds in a dish towel, squeezed them and left them hanging over the sink overnight to drain. In the morning, there was a pretty firm but springy ball of cheese, so I pressed that with a stack of cookbooks in thicker dish towel for the better part of the day. Suprisingly, the cheese that resulted was very good. It reminded me a lot of haloumi cheese-- it had a little sharpness to it, but the mellow milky flavor of mozzarella. Plus, when I used it in a grilled cheese sandwich, it didn't melt but it got soft and creamy. The only thing I would have done differently is salt the curds after I strained them, although putting ham in the grilled cheese fixed that. Good outcome to a mistake, but I'm not sure I'd use another 1/2 gallon of expensive milk to make 6-8 ounces of cheese on purpose!

Weekly Shopping Report

I'd like to start tracking what I am spending where. The chart on the sidebar is not up to date, but I plan to work on it in the next couple of days. To start with, I will put a photo of what my money bought me this week, and from where. This was a significant week, because this is the first one that I haven't shopped at Trader Joe's!

From the farm, I got a bag of produce that included fresh herbs, pears, cabbage, assorted peppers, a small winter squash, tomatoes, beets with greens, corn and leeks. I also ordered 1 1/2 gallons of raw cow's milk and a dozen eggs from pastured hens. The bill was $35.

I went to a local grocery that sells a lot of local and organic produce, and bought a loaf of locally made sourdough como bread, spaghetti squash, limes (not local, but cheaper than the non-local lemons that were available,) and quite a few red peppers to roast and pickle for future use. The bill was $11. That sourdough bread was almost $4, which seems pretty expensive-- but the bread is super good. We usually buy two each week, but I didn't buy the second one, with the hopes of baking a loaf myself this week.

Next stop was our local co-op, to find some things I usually buy at TJs, plus some staples. I found some good organic, local butter and cream for a bit more than the organic ones that I usually buy. I also bought organic garbanzo beans, flour (for breadmaking,) mung beans and quinoa. The most disappointing part was looking for chocolate. I usually buy a couple of good-sized bars of dark chocolate each week, never for more than $2 each. There were a lot of organic, fair-trade chocolates available, but were VERY expensive, and the only local ones were EXTREMELY expensive-- $3.69 for a very small bar. I bought one, and then another also smallish bar that was made in WA, also for over $3. I really doubt these will last me the week! My bill at the co-op was $30.

So I spent $77, which leaves me with $23 for the week. I would still like to buy some bacon from our local meat place, Otto's. We also usually buy a bottle of wine each week, but the local ones at the co-op were mostly over $10 each (sad face.) I'll keep looking. I didn't buy any meat this week because I had previously ordered a couple of whole chickens from the farm, and have one left, plus a roast from Jeff's mom. We'll probably need the extra money I didn't spend to order a couple more chickens next week. Also, we are buying part of a free-range, organic steer that was recently harvested-- we are going in on that with Jeff's family, and I don't know yet how much our portion will cost.

Overall, I think this week was pretty successful, but I have yet to cook the meals and see how far these groceries will carry us! I will keep you posted on that.

Fall Soup

Heidi asked about some vegetable soups that are easy on the stomach, and that inspired me to make a winter squash soup last night. I'm not sure what kind of squash it was exactly-- not quite a pumpkin, but a pumpkin or kabocha or any other would work well too.
To make it, I sauteed a couple of leeks (just the white and very light green parts, cut in thin rings) in butter. I peeled the squash and cut it into big chunks, and added it to the leeks once they were looking cooked. I added about four cups of chicken stock, salt and pepper, and some fresh sage and thyme. I let this simmer for about half an hour, and once the vegetables were tender, removed the sage and thyme. I used my immersion blender to get it really smooth, then added some cultured cream-- maybe 1/2 cup. It turned out really nicely, and was fairly simple. I like it when you can really taste the main ingredient-- rather than adding too many seasonings and covering up the subtle flavors.
To make this soup more digestible if you have dairy issues, you could either omit the cream at the end (although if you kefir culture the cream, that helps) or season the soup with plenty of ginger and some cinnamon, or garam masala.
You can use this basic recipe with lots of different vegetables, broccoli or red bell peppers or sweet potatoes come to mind!

Storing Summer's Produce

Eating seasonally, there are some dramatic ebbs and flows to the types and amounts of produce that come our way throughout the year. We support a local farm, and for $20 a week, get a big paper bag full of produce. For the last month, we have gotten a lot of tomatoes each week, and I actually requested that they stop sending pounds of summer squash! This week, I decided I needed to do something with all of the tomatoes and peppers we've been getting, so I had an afternoon of food prep.
I made roasted salsa with onions, tomatoes, chili peppers, limes and cilantro. I put the onions, tomatoes and peppers under the broiler until they had blackened a bit. Then I took the skins off of about half of the tomatoes and the seeds out of the peppers. The remaining charred bits gave the salsa a nice smokey flavor. It turned out really good. I am trying something a little different, and am lacto-fermenting the salsa. Why? It helps preserve foods longer, and enhances the nutritional benefits of the ingredients.





I still had a lot of cherry and grape tomatoes left, as well as fresh herbs, so I made a batch of sweet tomato sauce. I didn't bother to peel the tomatoes, I just used an immersion blender at the end to chop up the bits. I didn't make enough to store, but it was enough to use for a couple of meals this week. I simmered onions, tomatoes, garlic, red wine, thyme, and basil for about an hour, then threw in a little parsley at the end.

While I was at it, I also made a batch of saurkraut with a head of purple cabbage. To make it, just chop up the cabbage, add salt and any seasoning (I added fresh caraway from the farm-- it came looking like seed flowers, and I just crumbled the seeds off of the stems when they dried). Mash it up until you get quite a bit of juice. Pack it into a jar, making sure there's at least an inch of space at the mouth, and add some whey.


If you don't know how to make whey, it's really easy. Make some yogurt (just ask if you don't know how-- also very easy!) and then strain it through cheesecloth or a kitchen towel and catch the drips. This results in two products-- yogurt cheese and whey. You can use they whey to preserve foods or as a soaking enzyme for beans, grains and flours to make them more digestible. The yogurt cheese can be used like cream cheese, and make really good dips or spreads. To learn more about using whey to add nutrition to your food, the Nourshing Traditions cookbook is a great resource-- it is based on ancient traditions of food preparation that promote outstanding health.

For Starters...

I'm a bit late in reporting about buying food for the first week of September. I'll just make it for the first two weeks. I've decided that I am going to buy whatever foods I can from farms FIRST, then fill in the gaps with other sources afterwards-- if I do it the other way around, my money mysteriously disappears before I can buy from farmers!
I am doing a weekly order with Geercrest Farm, and they also coordinate with other farmers so they can provide a wider range of products at once.
I have a picture below of what my first week's order looked like-- for $40. It included two gallons of fresh, raw cows milk, a bag of produce (tomatoes, pears, summer squash, cucumbers, carrots, kale, pears, garlic, green beans, nasturtiums, chilis) and lots of fresh herbs, and a dozen eggs. This weeks was about the same, only two dozen eggs this time, and a little variation on the kinds of vegetables.

I found out after buying goats milk for two months at $15/ gallon (!!!) that not only can they supply cows' milk, which I would drink as well as Amelia, but it is only $8/ gallon. I can't believe I spent so much more money before, but at least I can afford to buy things like cream and eggs as well now.

Luxuries

As I went shopping at Trader Joe's this week, I had a new awareness of which foods that I buy regularly are NOT from local sources. Although most products don't have an origin label (they give a TJ hub address instead,) many were no-brainers. Some foods that we eat regularly just don't even grow in Oregon, as far as I know: avocados, bananas, coconut, olives, to name just a few. Then there are all of the regular, non-exotic foods that I just don't know the source for: canned tomatoes, meats, cheeses, bread (some I do know are from nearby,) crackers, canned beans, and on and on. I've pretty much always just shopped at TJ's and the local farmer's market, so I am not as aware of other sources for these item that are actually local and affordable. One big plus is that Bob's Red Mill is located very close by, and we can get any dry grains or beans from them(although not all are grown locally, they are processed here, and I'll take it!) As far as weekly shopping goes... I still plan to go to Trader Joes, but will consider the exotic foods luxuries, and look for OR alternatives. I also need to do a bit more legwork on other basics to see what my options are.

Ethics of Eating

I wanted to share with you an inspiring interview on PRI. It is with Barbara Kingsolver, author of a new book: Animal Vegetable, Miracle-- a reflection on the year that her family moved to a farm and grew most of the food they ate. So much of what she said about how we live and eat resonated with me. One comment that I especially appreciated was about how, in our culture, many of us sit down to an incredible meal with the idea that we are doing something "sinful" by indulging in good food that has been wonderfully prepared for our benefit. I love the reverent and grateful attitude she holds toward traditional ways of producing what we eat. I'm about to order the book!

Thanks to H. Shack for the recommendation.

Foraging

Hands down, the best way to get local fresh produce is by finding it in your neighborhhood. Here is a picture of what I came home with after a couple of walks this weekend: pears, apples (braeburn and granny smith) and walnuts. Not pictured are the many, many blackberries I ate along the way, as well as a couple of cherries and a plum. There were more apples and walnuts than I wanted. The funny thing is, I couldn't find apples at the farmer's market this week. By the way, does anyone know about harvesting walnuts? I could bring home a whole bag of the green fruit, if I wanted, but I wasn't sure what would be next. I remember getting the hard shelled nuts out of their black dry skins in our yard growing up-- so do I put these in the sun, or what? I guess could look it up, but I prefer the community- friendly sharing of knowledge!

The Whats and Whys

A couple of months before Jeff and I moved up to Oregon, we sat down and made a "dream life" list-- things that we would like to have in our life, since we are kind of starting anew as we resettle. On the top of the list was being able to live as sustainably as possible, mainly by eating primarily local food. Now that we are here and getting ready to move into our house, I am beginning to think about how to actually make this happen. Portland is a great place to try to do this, since the culture is very supportive of local, organic, self-sustainable businesses and lifestyles that respect the environment. There are farmers markets every day of the week that I can go to. I think that the hardest part about eating locally produced food will be keeping within my $400 per month food budget-- it's already a challenge, since Jeff and I love to eat and drink well, and I love to feed other people, too. That's where the blog comes in, since I think that a lot of people believe it's impossible to be frugal and support these kinds of values. I am hoping that this blog will (a) keep me on track (b) encourage others that it is actually doable (c) generate support and helpful information for others who would like to live with less impact on the environment.

Beyond benefiting the environment there are many great reasons to "eat local". Here are just a few:
Locally produced food is freshest, and therefore tastes better and has more vitamins.
Eating locally also means eating only foods that are in season-- which is not only beneficial for the body, but uses less resources and requires less fertilizers and pesticides, since these plants grow easily in their natural seasons.
By buying from the growers, we develop community relationships, learn more about our food and connect to the food itself.
Food grown on huge factory farms is subsidized by the government and may cost less at the grocery store, but organic produce grown by ethical farmers does not-- it may cost more, but we are supporting these farmers and showing appreciation for choosing to grow quality food for us.

In September (with a fresh budget) I will really begin these efforts, and will let you know how it goes. For the rest of this month, I think I will be doing (and sharing) as much planning and research as I can on how to eat locally, yet inexpensively. I definitely look forward to any insight and or information you readers have to offer!