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!