Although I hated to send Kira off to school today without a mommy-made lunch, she had a great learning experience going through the lunch line and made the choice of an apple as her side dish! Make mommy proud, honey!
While we are talking about choices, I've been prepping myself for my week-long local food challenge. I was hoping to start this weekend, but with a weekend breakfast gathering and my 8th wedding anniversary on Tuesday, I'm opting to start next week. Hopefully bypassing the first week of evening dance class shuttle will keep me better on track, too.
This week, I made a goal of myself to see what items I was having the most trouble replacing with local foods. According to the challenge, you can have 5 wild cards to use within reason. It wasn't too hard for me to see what mine would be after the week: coffee (I do use fair trade coffee), Parmesan cheese, nuts, olive oil and butter. I had really hoped to have mozzarella cheese as my 5th, but I had trouble with the butter. I'm not the only one, either. My friend who is writing the blog for the local paper was also challenged by this. I had a few scounts out and about, and no one could find a good, easily accessible and also organic butter. Yes, there is a (by definition) local farm that could have possibly been a source, but the amount of travel required didn't justify the purpose of buying local foods to me. So, off with the mozzarella and on with the butter. Also, I am allowing myself locally made pasta, even if I can't source the ingredients.
If you can leave me a comment here or on my FB page, I'd love to hear what items YOU would choose as wold cards. Remember, spices don't count (they are freebies!) as the cost to transport is minimal. Most people I've talked to are choosing things like chocolate (I like chocolate, but I'll be just fine for a week!), coffee (a must for me!), citrus fruits, and sugar. I use small amounts of citrus in cooking, but at the amount I use, I call it a flavoring and lump it with spices. And if you want to know how I'll manage without sugar, you should know that I haven't used any sugar in cooking or baking in the past several months. I go through honey by the pint and maple syrup by the half-gallon, but one small bag of sugar lasts forever in my pantry now. What about my coffee? If you haven't ever sweetened coffee with maple syrup, you should really give it a try!
Honestly, I won't be making too many changes, although every day I manage to sneak a few non-local goodies onto my plate. This challenge is really helping me see how much we take our foods for granted. But, I am finding that I can still eat great food and have the variety that my family and I enjoy.
For example, I cooked scrumptious new pasta dish tonight full of veggies, but with a twist. I won't take the credit for this fabulous dinner. I got the recipe from our CSA farmer, Nancy Grove on our newsletter this week. Farfalle with Gorgonzola, Broccoli, and Cherry Tomatoes. I don't know what 5 items you would choose if you had to eat only local foods with the exception of 5 wild cards, but pasta tops my list. Although I usually buy locally made pasta, I haven't tracked the source of the ingredients. I took a pound of cooked farfalle tonight and tossed it with 4 cloves fresh minced garlic, 2 cups lightly steamed broccoli, and 1 cup mixed cherry tomatoes. Top that and toss with a slowly heated blend of 1 cup milk and/or cream (I used half of each) and 1 cup of gorgonzola cheese. I used some kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste, and topped with sprinkles of fresh grated Parmesan cheese (another of my wild cards...I LOVE Parmesan cheese!). Everyone loved it and again had second helpings! :) My only cheat here was the gorgonzola (although I am sure any semi soft cheese would be delish, I had gorgonzola on hand). It was super fast to assemble, and all the veggies came from my garden or from Old Path and Walking Clover Farms. Mmmmmmmm!
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave me your wild cards if you can!
No comments:
Post a Comment