Keeping Up With K

Stocking Up on Local Food

2011-12-14T22:55:00.001-05:00

Despite a rather packed Saturday schedule, somewhere between swim lessons at the Community Center and a matinee of the Nutcracker the munchkin and I braved the cold to get to a winter Farmers Market, this time the Oakton Smart Markets. My first stop was to Heritage Farm & Kitchen to stock up on more dried kidney beans as well as other assorted beans, frozen chicken legs, eggs, lettuce, onions, maple syrup, sweet potatoes and Trickling Springs Creamery butter.

I picked out an assortment of apples—mostly honey crisps, nittany, and gala—from one vendor and a large bear of honey from Celestial Farms before rounding the trip out with 3 bottles of wine from Fabbioli Cellars. My head is filled with visions of what I could make with the chicken and red wine and I'm excited to add butter and not one but two sweeteners to my culinary possibilities.

I also had the good fortune of running into a friend from the neighborhood Sustainability movement and Local Foods Working Group. We took the time to catch up; I shared my commitment to eating local during the 5th annual Dark Days Challenge and she updated me on effort to bring a local grocer/storefront to our town. We also chatted over canning, preserving and fermenting endeavors recent and planned and after lamenting about the difficulties of canning large batches in a postage stamp apartment kitchen I was invited to “borrow” her kitchen the next time. I can get by with small batches just fine but I think I will have to take her up on her offer when tomatoes are back at the markets.

I plan to get to the local grocery near my work soon to as I hear they have Daisy flour and I would like to pick up a whole chicken for roasting so I can make some more stock before I run out.

Dark Days-Week 2

2011-12-12T19:34:00.001-05:00

So much for my early confidence, this is going to be harder than I though…especially if I don’t get to the market soon.

A quick rummage through my apple bin revealed a few local apples left so sliced them and mixed them with the last of my lettuces and some sliced carrots from the garden, and some of the white beans from Heritage Farm and Kitchen. Because I made this for lunch the night before, I used a splash of my daughters organic OJ to keep the apples from browning but no other dressing.

It was a simple preparation but the snap of the apples plus the amazing flavor of the beans made it substantial enough to hold its own. It would have been better with a bit of bread or a little meat but until I get to the farmers market or check out the Maple Street Market I’m running short on options. I will have to make shopping it a priority this next week.

Harvest Monday

2011-12-05T22:20:00.001-05:00

I find it a bit funny to start sharing my harvest Monday of the year this late in the season, especially now that we’ve entered December, Virginia has endured the first few frosts of winter and I have already done my first dark days post. After all, in previous years, despite being apartment bound I have always had something growing on the porch. But then, I started this year a little behind the curve.

At the end of July, a time when most gardens are in full swing and many a green thumb is looking forward to the slow days fall and winter, I was just breaking ground. I finally got off the community garden waiting list and received a well placed, healthy, but neglected plot. The whole thing was covered with weeds, nothing had been planted that season and though a previous owner had laid cloth and built up beautiful soil on top, the ground beneath was all clay and rocks. Aside from a large patch of mint and some pungent lemon herb the plot was gifted with three wood box frames that defined the beds.

Knowing that my new garden enthusiasm could fizzle in the dog days of August I assessed the soil condition (best closest to the entry) and decided to start working at the worst corner and work backwards, figuring that if/when I got tired I already had decent soil I could plant in. Every spare moment I headed to the garden to pull weeds, clear rocks, and begin double digging the beds. I ended up planting fall/winter crops in mid-late August. Below you can see the three beds (here shown with the high hoops installed but not covered).

Straight ahead I planted kale a row of turnips, lettuces, a salad greens mix, tatsoi, and pok choy. I had intended to put second and third to the right but never got back to it. In the far left, the worst rocky corner, I seeded a bunch of Austrian field peas as a cover crop. I will dig it in come spring to put some much needed nutrients back in. It’s a great little corner for a perennial. In the bed on the right are beets, carrots, celery, and onions. Cabbage and broccoli are in the bed on the right, though those have been mostly nibbled by insects.

Since September I have been harvesting a few leafs of lettuce, some kale, and accidentally pulled up a turnip but nothing substantial until today. 4 small carrots, a small turnip (not pictured) that had started to grow above ground where I needed to secure the row cover, a head of tatsoi, 2 big handfuls of lettuces, and 3 handfuls of kale. I was tempted to harvest more but I really want to stretch what little I have into the winter to see how things fare in the cold/snow to come.Not bad for a first winter harvest.

Dark Days-Week 1

2011-12-04T13:27:00.001-05:00

Dark Days indeed.

Trying to fit in my increased mileage meant that I either pushed it to run in the oncoming dusk, had to peel off to the gym for the treadmill, or switch to morning runs. This plus the the always busy work week meant that I failed to do any prep, shopping, planning or even thinking about the dark days challenge until this weekend. Normally not an issue but since I haven’t made it to the farmers market since Thanksgiving (and all that was used up in the big feast) my pantry was near bare (of SOLE food anyway, I’m almost embarrassed to share the amount of other junk that is in there). I could almost cry to think that I had fail before the challenge had started.

I did manage to stop by the garden plot to finish tucking in the greens, seeing how my row covers faired in the rain and winds of last week, and harvest a head of Pok Choy, 20 leaves of kale, a few baby celery leaves and some mint. I also started rooting around in my packed little freezer and found one last package of pork sausage produced locally.

Granted, the spices and beer used to flavor the sausage probably doesn’t grow around here but I know the pork did. When I can’t get locally grown I guess I will be settling for locally made. This still meets with my goal of supporting a locally based food economy. I then remembered that I still have a bag each of dried kidney and great northern beans from Heritage Farm and Kitchen, a Mennonite Co-Op in Pennsylvania. All was not lost!

I set the great northern beans to soaking overnight and started to search the internet for inspiration

This morning, after I returned from our 5k Run with Santa race, I cooked up the sausage and added in a quart of my home canned veggie stock (all local veg).

Next I shredded the kale leaves and added in about 2-3 cups of beans.

Though one bowl barely passes for a meal and wish I had some other seasonings, the veg broth was flavorful and extremely fragrant, the sausage added a nice bit and the beans were really high quality so after the first sip I forgot all about the missing salt. I hadn’t know it but this was just the thing I needed post run on a cold winters day and thanks to no planning, a last minute panic turned into the perfect –local—bowl.

Small steps

2011-11-28T21:50:00.001-05:00

Step 1. Stop feeling guilty about not exercising and eating poorly. Admit that you not perfect, your going to be lazy at times but that’s no excuse not to start again.

Step 2. Get up off the couch and run 3.1 miles (yup that’s a 5k) up and down slippery muddy slopes, across streams, through woods and back to the lake with a fun-loving run club Thanksgiving morning before cooking turkey, potatoes, and cranberry to put on sandwiches for the next week.

Step 3. Put 6 year old who’s too tired from running her own mile race into jog stroller and race to find/catch up with the runners/walkers who started 10 the club run 15 minutes earlier because you were to consumed with getting the kid dressed, fed and settled to make it on time. Proceed to run/walk 4 miles.

Step 4. Stop eating out. Make afore mentioned sandwiches with sprouts and mustard and pair with clementines, apples, carrots or salad. Pack lunch, snacks, fill bottle with water, and tea bags to take to work at any cost.

Step 5. Admit that you need support. Finally return the call of the new Health Counselor who has been patiently trying to reach you for 4 months and confess all your bad habits and slip ups. Get reminded by a total stranger that you haven’t failed, just taken a little (probably needed) break, you have already accomplished several goals including running a 5k (something that was once an impossible task and is now somewhat routine), finishing a 10k, dropping a dress size or two, and losing 15-20 pounds.

Step 6. Feel better. Make a plan to get active at least 2 days a week, pack lunch with health foods and drink more water. Go to bed excited to start working on your goals again.

Dark Days Challenge 2011-2012

2011-11-27T22:44:00.001-05:00

Nothing like the Dark Days Challenge to remind me to do what is best for me, my family, my health, the earth and the local economy. Yes it’s that time again. Time to face the cold and dark with delicious sustainable, local, organic and ethical (SOLE) food. As in past years I will again be joining with other local food enthusiasts to prepare at least one meal a week entirely prepared with foods grown, raised or created from ingredients available in my local food-shed. For me that is about 150 miles up and down the Potomac River, into the Lancaster region of PA and a little down the Blue Ridge Mountains except for salt, pepper, minimal amounts of oil, chocolate and mom’s home canned raspberry jam and tuna from CA (it is unthinkable to come home without a few jars of home preserved goodness in our family).

Got a quick look at my stored ingredients when I cleaned out the pantry before thanksgiving and even though I didn’t get much canning/preserving done this summer I think with a few trips to the farmers market I will have a good run at it. Still have canned potatoes, chicken stock, vegie stock, a salsa or two, peach butter, grape juice, and some other sauces. I’ll have to check the freezer but I know I have some oven-dried tomatoes, and some farmers market sausage. Also have some local wheat flour left Managed to get in a small crop of carrots, turnips, beets, celery, kale, cabbage, oriental greens and lettuces into the community garden plot at the end of July. The root vegies are all looking good and the greens are thriving under the row covers so I may even get to have some salads

Since I had originally planned to eat out for Thanksgiving until my daughter begged me to cook it, I didn’t end up with an entirely local meal like previous years but I made the best of it. I went to the Wednesday Reston Smart Market and stood out in the freezing cold (not quite but with the wind it was bitter) to purchase an 11 pound heritage breed turkey from Heritage Farm and Kitchen. It cooked up beautifully and went great with my 1/2 local mashed potatoes (the last of my self-harvested spuds from the Great Country Farms Potato Dig plus a Trader Joes assortment), pan gravy (pan drippings, local flour, my stock and a bottle of gifted non-local red wine) and cranberry mold (cranberries from whole foods that may have been right at the 150 mark, local honey, non-local orange/cranberry juice). Haven’t gone too fancy with the leftovers, mostly repeats and sandwiches. Local Saturday Farmers Markets were closed so hopefully I can get some more local food stuff or this weeks entry will be barebones (guess its time to make the turkey soup).

Season for Balance

2011-11-27T22:10:00.001-05:00

I’ve lost my balance. Since returning from my sisters wedding to be overwhelmed with work chaos and falling utterly behind in all things at home, it seems that I can only function in spurts. When I have the energy I pour my heart into the matter at hand and when that energy runs out it seems I just crash and become too worn out to tackle all the challenges that need addressing. Hitting that vicious cycle of cause and effect I have let my exercise motivation slip, my eating habits rely almost entirely on fast and prepared foods, my mental focus fade into survival mode only focusing on scraping together for the immediate needs and letting everything else take the back burner.

I need my balance. Lost in the clutter of my life and my home I’ve hit the point where I need to regain my balance in order to take care of my work and family obligations, not just to bring back my health and happiness. Being a Libra I crave that fine tipping point between the chaos and the order where thing flow freely and shift readily but always within bounds. With the bounds broken I’m left scrambling too much to catch everything and keep it from falling and the futility leads to letting it all go and that never works for long.

I will find my balance. The seasons are changing again. My friend autumn, with her blustery winds, chill air, and brief rich hues reminds me that I to can change again. It’s time to let the breeze sweep out the clutter, the air invigorate my motivation, and to refocus on what is important. More to follow.

4th Annual Dark Days Challenge—Week 1

2010-12-17T02:12:00.001-05:00

As in past 3 years, I will again participate in Urban Hennery’s Dark Days Challenge.

What is this Challenge? 4 meals a month focused on sustainable, organic, local, and ethical (SOLE) foods. For full details see this post. My definition varies from the posted standard in that I define local as 100 miles for food grown in the Chesapeake Bay region, up to 200 for the others. I plan to allow up to 10% to fall outside of that, with exceptions for certain things like salt, coffee, oil and a few spices as long as I can get them fair trade and organic. Also, organic doesn’t have to be certified, since most of the local farms are not, but it must represent the same or better in non-harmful and sustainable practices.

My first meal that met the challenge was a simple but tasty potato and beet hash with poached eggs from Cooking Light used up potatoes that I dug as part of the u-pick at the Great Country Farms CSA this fall as well as sweet potatoes that came in my box. Additionally I used beets, sage, onion, and brown eggs from the vendors at the Leesburg farmers market. I used non-local white vinegar even though I believe there may be a few local vinegar producers, because I have a large container of commercial vinegar that I got because I use it for cleaning and I the local apple cider and balsamic vinegar would provide too strong a taste to the delicate poached eggs. Additionally I used a little non-local oil and salt. This hash is so good that it has become my new standby for breakfast and diner and the leftovers go great as the centerpiece for my lunch at work. This picture doesn't do it justice.

My second meal was actually several variations of a smoothie using the frozen fruit which is how I preserved this summers extra CSA peaches, raspberries, cherries, blackberries, and strawberries. I used some local yogurt and apple cider from the farmers market and blended the heck out of it. I know it seems funny to feature frozen smoothies in winter just as most of the country is getting hit with heavy snows and record lows, and I will admit that I had to stop drinking these on my way out to my car this week when it was in the 20s with wind chills in the single digits. But it is the perfect way to enjoy those summer flavors and have some fun with the food. I found I especially liked the peaches with the tart cherries…go figure.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook

2010-09-05T23:58:00.001-04:00

FOR TODAY
Outside my window...crickets chirp, albeit a bit slower than usual as the Hurricane has brought some welcome cool days and even cooler nights
I am thinking...that I wish I could find more time to sew and that I was better at it so that I could sew faster
I am thankful for...K eating her hot dog, even if she didn’t want it to begin with and threw a gigantic tantrum which ended up in a time out and a lecture before she calmed down and enjoyed the toasted wheat bread makeshift bun with, for the first time ever, absolutely no ketchup in sight and the by-her-request double servings of cinnamon drenched applesauce
From the kitchen...3 pints of creamed corn canned, 2.5 quarts grape juice strained and resting, 1 bag green beans roasted, 1 tray of roma tomatoes slow roasting in a 180 oven overnight
I am wearing...my usual capri yoga pants and tank top, despite the chill temperature
I am creating...good smells from the kitchen
I am going...to bed, hopefully soon
I am reading...The Core, chapter on math
I am hoping...the cool weather continues all week long
I am hearing...my book on cd playing and occasionally skipping on the cd player, needs to be replaced soon and this time with something better than the cheapest thing on the shelf
Around the house...the floor is clean except for a cleverly designed Lego birds nest to mirror the one that k saw on our hike yesterday evening but was unable to replicate with colored pencil in her nature journal this morning which resulted in many tears and a stubborn insistence to see a real bird
One of my favorite things...a crispness to the air that makes me want to be crawling out of a tent in my pajamas with a bad case of bed head to find that I need a jacket and mittens in order to open the hot chocolate packet to mix with my first cup o’joe fresh off the Coleman stove
A few plans for the rest of the week: Herndon Labor Day Wine (and now some beer!) Festival, School Orientation, First Day of School, a completely new routine to get used too
Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Find more at The Simple Woman's Daybook. (http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/)

LiveJournal Tags: Simple Woman's Daybook,journal,thoughts

1st canning of 2010

2010-08-29T22:27:00.001-04:00

On a rainy Saturday I realized that with the garlic and sweet red peppers I had picked up at the farmers market and the tomatoes, peppers and onions I got in my CSA share I had the makings for some salsa. I had recently purchased the Ball Home Canning Discovery Kit, a pretty neon green plastic basket with handles meant to can small batches (3 jars) in regular old pots, so I set out to make the basic salsa recipes. I swapped out sweet red, red bell and a banana pepper for the spicier options in the recipes and used one roma that I had leftover from the store. It went quite quick with the help of my electric hot water kettle to boil water to remove the skins of the tomatoes and before I had imagined it I had 3 jars of salsa cooling on the counter. The measurements were precise, fitting in the three jars that came with the kit. I had forgotten to even taste how the salsa came out on canning day but I opened the first jar to serve with taco salad and it was perfect, sweet and mild like I like it.

While I was at it I diced up some of the over ripe peaches and mixed up 2 quarts of peach freezer jam that I intend to use as pie/tart filling in the fall.

LiveJournal Tags: canning,salsa,preserving,food,cooking,peach,tomato,freezer,Ball

Canning Citrus

2010-01-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

I've challenged myself to take my canning to the next level by participating in the Tigress' can jam run by Tigress in a Jam (more info the challenge here). The theme for January was Citrus.

The obvious choice would be either a citrus marmalade or canning sections of citrus but since I don't really like either of those I was at a lose. After spending may rainy, drizzly, sleety weekend afternoons browsing my canning books I came across a couple of recipes in the Ball Complete book of Home Preserving that seemed worth a try: Cranberry-Oragne Vinegar (p277) and Honey-Orange Slices (p163). With the vinegar recipes was also a recipe for using the vinegar as a poultry marinade. I could use up the cranberries that I froze at thanksgiving and the last of my large jar of local honey that was starting to crystallize.

When I checked my supplies I found that I had used up most of my jars on a pantry full of stocks, jams and canned single ingredients but I had several dozen 4oz half jelly jars empty. Since I was likely going to be using the vinegar for dressings and marinades it was the perfect combo to make a bunch of single serving jars. I luckily also had just enough regular lids to match my needs.

The recipes calls for reducing 3.5 cups of cranberries to make 1 cup of juice and then simmering the juice with white wine vinegar, sugar and a cinnamon/clove spice bag. Once the sugar is dissolved you add in a reserved .5 cup of whole berries.

I found that I needed far more water than called for to make sufficient juice but that was at least partially due to the dehydration caused by freezing the berries. I also ran out of white wine vinegar so had to substitute about 1 cup of apple cider vineger which I actually rather like.

At the end, to jar up, you place an orange slice and a few of the whole berries in the jar with the vinegar and process in the water bath for 10 minutes.

For the honey orange slices you start with 2+ lbs of oranges and slice them thinly. This goes a lot faster if you get a seedless variety.

Cover them with water and boil for 10 minutes, or until the peel is soft, and then drain and set aside. Meanwhile, bring 1.25 cups of honey and the same of sugar to boil with 3 tbsp lemon juice and an allspice/cinnamon/clove spice bag until the sugar is dissolved and it makes a nice glaze.

Add the drained oranges back and simmer until the oranges are nice and glazed. The smell is wonderful.

My only complaint is that the softened oranges started to fall apart if you stirred too strongly. I almost think the end product would be better without the pre-boiling but I don't know.

Anyway, you pack them up and if I had the time I might have actually arranged them nicely but as it is i just shoved them in, covered them with the syrup and processed them for 10 minutes.

Challenge months completed: 1 -- 2 recipes I would have never tried -- 14 jars (11 jars of vinegar and 3 jars of orange slices) on the shelf

Stocking-up, Dark Days Style

2009-11-22T22:08:00.001-05:00

My feet are killing me and my knees ache but it was well worth it for I am now fully “stock”-ed up with local, home-canned stock. I spent the better part of the last 2 days boiling, reducing, straining, de-fatting, and pressure canning 4 batches of liquid gold totaling 13 quarts of chicken stock, 6 quarts of vegetable stock, and 5 quarts of pumpkin chunks.

I made the chicken stock from 5 local, responsibly raised, raw chicken backs I picked up from the Purcellville Smart Markets and a some bones I froze after roasting whole birds from the farmers market. I also added 1 local yellow onion, a handful of yellow onion skins to add color, and a bunch of local, organic celery (the really dark green, pungent kind, not the pale, blanched, scent-less kind). I boiled it down in my large water bath canner, my biggest stock pot, to get it all cooked in one batch. It simmered and reduced over 5 hours before I strained out the bones and meat and did a little fat skimming on the first half. The second half went into the fridge overnight before canning to make the de-fatting easier. I put it in my pressure cooker at 10lbs for 25 minutes but I could only fit in up to 7 jars at a time. As it canned I pulled the little bits of meat from the remaining carcasses.

I needed more room in my freezer so in addition to pulling out most of the chicken bones I also pulled out the veggies. The vegetable stock was initially made last month and frozen, until today when I it was re-boiled and canned. I have been saving up what I call vegetable remnants, the bits of veggies that don’t get used for their original purpose but are otherwise perfectly good. Woody broccoli stocks that I didn’t use in stir-fry, onions ends chopped off to get a flat edge for slicing, the large white end at the base of a celery stock, mushroom stems leftover from a mushroom cap appetizer, and other bits and pieces all got tossed into several Ziploc bags in the freezer over the summer. I started building the base by sautéing local carrots, celery and onion and then dumped the frozen veggies along with any extra local veggies that were languishing in the fridge at the end of the CSA season (cabbage is the only one i can remember) and covered with water. I boiled it most of the day, reducing it by about half to concentrate the flavor. The smell of if it reheating was heaven.

While I had the pressure canner out and while the broth was cooking I skinned and chopped 3 small pie pumpkins. I have already made 10 quarts of pumpkin puree but that went into the freezer because, according to every respected food preservation reference, winter squash (pumpkin included) is too dense when pureed to allow for the necessary heat distribution for food safety and shelf storage. The chunks were covered with water and brought to a boil for 2 minutes before being hot packed into quart jars and pressure cooked at 10 lbs for 90 minutes.

3rd Annual Dark Days Challenge

2009-11-15T22:37:00.002-05:00

I’ve signed up to participate in this years Dark Days Challenge put on by (not so) Urban Hennery. It starts today and runs through March 2010. Essentially, the challenge is to cook one meal each week that is focused on sustainable, organic, local and/or ethical (SOLE) ingredients and blog about it. I find it easy to pull together simple meals with few frills and even less ingredients. This year I’d like to find some new sources for staples that I still get from the supermarket and make a better effort to prep more variety of meals with more ingredients.
My version of local is going to be within 100 miles if I can, up to 200 where I can’t and exempting salt, some spices, coffee beans (not the roasting), chocolate, and cooking oil. I’ll also be including things that are produced and finished locally but the base ingredients are produced elsewhere, if there is not an alternative that is entirely local. A perfect example is coffee; the northern Virginia hills are not known for their quality beans and I’m not even sure if they would even grow if planted here. I have, however, found a number of local roasters that take pride in their work, use care when selecting their sources, pay a fair price for quality ingredients and roast and package the final product nearby.

Retrospective

2009-11-15T21:55:00.001-05:00

On the last days of December 2007, a little under 2 years ago, I started sporadically posting to this blog . It was a year after K and I had moved to the northern Virginia area and though I had made time to explore the local farmers market scene, I had only just begun to research what CSA is and theoretically explore what impact it might have on our lives. Though I was philosophically onboard, I was still concerned by how I would achieve my objectives and plagued by questions like, what would I do with 5 lbs of Kale and could I really handle making meals out of whatever came in my box. I questioned my skill, know-how, energy and time. I wondered what place supporting local food endeavors would have in my career-focused life and how I would balance the mental split between what I saw as key to my life and happiness and what I had to do to get by and improve my long term employability.(Just Starting)

It’s almost hard to remember this time in my life when I wasn’t relying on my share to feed me through the summer and supplementing with food from the farmers markets all year long, especially in the winter. Don’t get me wrong, I eat out more than I’d like to admit, splurge on convenience food when I’m at the grocery store, and waste too much of the bounty I receive because I either don’t like it, i don’t know what to do with it, or are just to tired to cook it before it goes bad. But there is something important that happens when you consciously connect yourself to nature and the benefits extend well past the nutrition that ends up on your table. I’m luckier than most of my colleagues; I was raised in and around gardens and other sources of fresh food and I already new the childish pleasures of tasting fresh sun-ripened strawberries right from the plant. I knew, on an instinctual level that only comes from early childhood experiences, that taking the time to reconnect with my food sources was the right thing to do but I had forgotten how much you gain.

I have found that I look forward to the nuances of the seasons to bring a vast variety new flavors and smells unlike anything that comes in a box, can, or bag from the supermarket or can be chemically mimicked in a scented candle. The palate of colors is ever changing beginning with the red of spring strawberries, the blues and blacks of berries, moving through the yellows of summer peaches and corns, the oranges of fall pumpkins and squash and the only constant is green. It also means that I’m never stuck with anything for too long, with the exception of kale which is available for the better part of the year. I also lament this passage of time for it brings not only new foods but also signifies the end of them, some of my new favorite foods like asparagus and rhubarb are only available for that short window in the spring.(First Bite From Farm) Once they are gone I remember them fondly and look to their coming after the desperate days of the more barren winter as a signal of good times ahead. (End of the CSA Season)

On one hand, I'm almost ashamed to admit that I am no further along in many of my goals than I was on that cold day 2 years ago when I decided to try blogging as a catalog of my attempts at change and reminder of the things which I wish to explore or accomplish. On the other hand, thanks to the inspiration of many a blogger who is either an example that I strive to meet or fellow traveler on the path to finding happiness, I continue to grow and explore the path ahead. So, as a reminder, here is a list of things that I have changed, begun, restarted, found, grew, baked or did.

Found a CSA and became a member. I get a half-share, one box, for 20 weeks from spring to fall. We drive 45 minutes every weekend to pick up our share and also take advantage of the bonus u-pick (I really should calculate how much we get back for that bonus) and the free play space. K knows her fruits and veggies and where they come from, even if she doesn't eat them much. (CSA)
Found some of our favorite foods grown, produced and sold by the farmer at some great local Farmers Markets. Bacon, chibatta bread, apples, onions, garlic, pears, bell peppers, and ground beef are among the items that I only purchase at the markets, if they don’t come in our share. Many others things I try to get but may substitute based on toddler necessity and poor planning/timing on my part, like bread, chicken, beef, butter, and many other assorted veggies. (An Apple A Day)
Found a creamery that delivers our diary to our back porch. Milk, yogurt and cheese are our regular products all made from their dairy cows, but we also get all manner things like butter, cream, bread, granola, and this thanksgiving well try turkey that they source through local small farms and add to their deliveries. (We've Got Milk)
Began sewing more of Ks clothing and repairing things, eventually, so that they could be used again. (Thanks mom for fixing the machine and helping out for Halloween)
Started knitting again and found a circle of supportive women that I don’t spend enough time with, and yet the still say hi when we meet. I have completed scarves for everyone in the family but me (50% done), working on some hats and fingerless mittens, learning how to do socks and looking forward to more projects(Fiber and Needlework Update)
Learned to crochet and made a sampler scarf and am no longer afraid when a pattern calls for a crochet needle. (Yarn and Rhubarb)
Restarted old needlework patterns and began to relearn cross stitch. Nothing is completed yet but I hope to use this to embellish other projects soon
Started to try to bake more bread and other things. I’ve only been partially successful but I wont let that stop me (Honey Wheat Bread)
Relearned how to preserve food by freezing (perfected my freeze-drying technique) and canning. Put by all manner of cooked and raw veggies, raw fruits, chicken and vegetable stock, canned corn, canned jams, applesauce, peach halves and slices, bbq sauces and ketchup, salsas, and brandied apricots. (Summer Preservation)
Kept up with One Local Summer, making and posting an entirely local meal once a week, for twice as long as I did my first year, though still not the whole way (One Local Summer)
Participated in some of last years Dark Days Challenge but only blogged about the first few weeks. I’ll try to do better this round. (Dark Days Challenge)
Began gardening again. I thought it was near impossible to do any productive gardening, beyond a few tomato plants in 5 gallon buckets like back in college, with a poorly exposed porch, no access to water outside, a full time career and a toddler. I proved myself wrong by turning to self watering containers, intensive planting methods, dwarfed species and a lot of blind faith. What I got back was an intense satisfaction at growing something, my hands in the dirt again, a forest of tomato vines and a few precious tomatoes, lots of herbs, a little lettuce, flowers from March until November, fresh peas off the vine, lemon cucumbers, and green space all to myself. It was less about the output, which was way more than I expected but way less than is cost effective, and more about the pride of having a garden and sharing that experience with K even though we don’t have a yard.(Starting Seeds)

Now that I put in writing, it seems like a lot, given where I started from. I guess all I can hope for is to keep progressing.

One Local Summer Week 15

2009-09-13T17:30:00.003-04:00

This week I cooked up a local breakfast hash that was very yummy. I diced up a whole red bell pepper and half of a red onion and sauteed it with a bit of olive oil and a drop of bacon grease. Then I tossed in some diced up leftover home baked 4 potato (red, blue, yellow, white) oven fries coated with salt, pepper and paprika and chopped cooked bacon. The seasoning was just right and the salty bacon gave it a bright crunch. I served it with fried local eggs, sliced local apples and a cup of locally roasted coffee. This would be just as good in a scramble or a breakfast burrito. I think I've stumbled onto a new day-after trend.

Summer Preservation Activities

2009-09-13T17:30:00.000-04:00

One of the most rewarding parts of working so hard to pick what the summer has to offer is then getting to preserve it for use later. Nothing can beat the taste of fresh strawberries in January or peach pie in February. I also like the idea of replacing store bought condiments with ones of my own creation. Why buy franken-Heinz katsup when you can make your own so easily. So here is a review of what I've put by so far.

Peach Butter: I have canned peach slices and halves in the past and not only was the skinning part a huge pain but we also didn't eat many of them. I'm not a big fan of the syrup I used and K had trouble eating them when they were so slippery. Maybe now that I am baking more I would have more use for them but I was looking for something else. In an attempt to try to use up as many of those peaches as possible I decided to try butter.

I still had to contend with removing the skins and without a good food mill I resorted to a stick blender, which did the job but took a lot of time and wrist strength. I don't think I got it down to the right consistency for butter, it was still a little runny. Otherwise, it smelled and tasted great and I look forward to the possibilities; jam thumbprint cookies and layered cakes come to mind.

Freezer Cole Slaw: I was searching for a way to use up and preserve cabbage that didn't call for fermentation when I saw a recipe in my Preservation For Busy People book that calls for freezing.

It called for shredding up everything, boiling a brine, pouring it over the vegetables and then freezing. I used cabbage from my share, carrots from the market, peppers from my garden and vinegar and celery seeds from the conventional supermarket.

I'm not sure what to expect when I defrost it but I'm waiting for my folks to come and visit so that I'll have some other opinions of its character and some additional mouths to use it up if it is good.

Condiments: In addition to peach butter, I also experimented with a few other canning recipes from my Ball Complete book of Home Preserving this summer. First was a fruit katsup that was equal parts peach and tomatoes with some apple too. It turned out a little zesty thanks to the addition of cayenne pepper. It was very, very good and felt extremely gourmet with my fancy fries and primo burger. Then there was a peach BBQ sauce. It didn't yield as much as I wanted but I attribute that to having very thick peach skins and no food mill. It was also very good. Then I made both a tomatillo and a fruit based salsa. I haven't tried them yet so I don't know if I will make them again or try something else.

Grape Juice: Finally, I tried making grape juice from the handful of too tart for just eating concord-type grapes that I got from my farm share. I washed and picked each grape and then, using my new mini-masher, crushed the heck out of them. Next I boiled them over med heat and continued to periodically re-mash anything that looked the least bit solid. Once, it was done cooking I strained the resulting mash through a strainer and ended up with about 1 cup of concentrated grape liquid. It was still a little tart, though much better than eating them whole so I stirred in some local honey. I filled the rest of the glass with ice and a dash of water, mixed it up and enjoyed my first glass of real grape juice in almost 20 years.

Harvest Round-up Weeks 10-14

2009-09-13T12:05:00.001-04:00

Here is a round-up of what I have been harvesting from my little porch container garden:

Tomatoes are finally showing up in the week 10 harvest. I'm also enjoying a slow trickling of bell peppers and lemon cukes. The green onions are always plentiful.

In week 11 I brought in some chard and harvested more cilantro/coriander seeds.

In week 12, everything continued to produce about the same.

I picked all the remaining tomatoes in week 12 but there the lemon cukes made up for it in week 13.

Week 14 I harvested the bulk of the peppers. The plants are still going strong but it will be a little while before I have any more ripe.

One Local Summer Week 13

2009-09-13T11:48:00.002-04:00

This week was my favorite one local summer meal so far. I used some frozen caremelized onions from a few weeks ago and a dash of worshestershire sauce with local ground beef to make the patty. I made oven fries from the tri-colored potatoes with a dash of salt, pepper and paprika. I sliced a homegrown beefsteak and some peaches from the farm. The dip was the leftover katsup from my canning (more on that in a follow up post). All it was missing was a home baked bun but with all that good food, once it took the first bite the bun was really not needed nor missed.

Week 13 CSA

2009-09-13T11:40:00.000-04:00

Our farm share this week included more corn, lettuce, squash, tomatoes, cherry tomatos and of course, more peaches. It also delighted us with a cantaloup and some concord-type grapes. The grapes smelled wonderful I tried eating them but they were a little tart and had lots of seeds. I think that I'll try my hand at juice.
For the u-pick bonus there were even more peaches and some more edamame.

Confression of Produce Overload

2009-09-13T10:39:00.003-04:00

It is time for a confession...my fridge is suffering from produce overload. I want to show you but first a disclaimer. Please ignore the mess; produce fresh from the ground can be dirty and messy, not to mention the spills that a helpful toddler creates when trying to pour their own juice and mil. With the huge volume that overflows my fridge this time of year, it can be a little tricky to clean up, so I usually just avoid the task until the winter. Also, I am in desperate need of a long weekend where I can chop and slice and cook and can. Until then, I will continue to stuff things anywhere in the fridge or freezer that will allow the doors to close. And now for the proof.

Notice the numerous bowls spilling over with peaches, the tomatoes bursting over their baskets, and the apples lined up in what little space remains. The empty drawer is deceptive for lurking just outside of the picture frame is a unit of green apples waiting to infiltrate the only clean spot left.

And here is another angle where you can see the cheese drawer overflowing with creamery yogurts and cheeses; the door stacked with butters, milks, juices, and condiments.

And lest you think that I should just freeze something to make room, here you can clearly see that freezing is no longer an option. Assorted berries, fruits, herbs and shredded zucchini threaten to spill out of the door. Meats, pre-made dishes, and convenience food block your view of a whole host of other frozen vegetables, soups, ice creams and sorbets. If I could get the time to make chicken broth, I might make enough room to keep frozen zucchini breads and muffins.

I think I need help...or a big chest freezer...or a dehydrator.

Week 12 CSA

2009-09-13T10:35:00.001-04:00

This weeks CSA share included some incredibly delicious nectarines, more beautiful corn, some nice fresh lettuce and some big tomatoes.

I mean look at these things. They are definitely destined for some sauce or salsa or something canned.
The u-pick bonus this week included some more peaches and edamame. I don't know what I'm going to do with more peaches but I'll probably take the same path as the tomatoes...canned. I plan to keep the edamame till I get more next week and boil and freeze it for future stir fries.

At the Saturday market this week I was thrilled to pick up some peppers for salsa and the first small batch of what will be my fall fruit staple, apples. I also got some chicken to keep in the freezer for soups or something.

At the Sunday market I got more salsa ingredients, some potatoes and carrots, mushrooms and apples. It was quite a score.

One Local Summer Week 12

2009-09-13T10:23:00.003-04:00

My local meal this week was a light crisp salad. The greens came from my CSA share, the onions and bacon came from the farmers market, and the bell pepper and tomatos came from my garden. The onions were so sweet and the bacon and bell peppers so crispy.

Week 15 CSA

2009-09-13T10:18:00.004-04:00

This week we got what is probably the last of the corn. Amazingly we are still getting peaches. The chard, tomatoes and squash continue also. We were also lucky to get a bag of potatoes in addition to our u-pick.
Here is our pile of u-pick potatoes plus a small bag of very small potatoes that I purchased in addition. I hope to can up a some small ones as it is hard for me to keep potatoes as long as I'd like to given that I have no truly cool place in the apartment once we start using the heat.

This week at the Saturday farmers market I stocked up on Jonathan apples, the first showing of Asian pears (so good) and onions. I also grabbed some ground beef and butter and treated myself to McCutcheons sparkling cider.

Week 14 CSA

2009-09-13T10:17:00.010-04:00

This weeks share featured more tomatoes, a lovely watermelon, two banana peppers hiding under a generous handful of chard and, of course, more peaches.
This weekend was the potatoes and pancakes festival. We started with a pancake breakfast and then headed out to the potato fields where the tractor had already dug up most of the potatoes. All that we did was walk along the rows and pick up what ever size we wanted. I grabbed a mixture of sizes.

At the farmers market we stocked up on bell peppers and apples for snacking and added a few fun tomatoes to brighten up the salsa.

One Local Summer Week 11

2009-08-16T15:00:00.001-04:00

This week, thanks to finally getting tomatoes in both my share and my garden, I have enjoyed dishes that featured them prominently.
After my dd hurt her wrist I spent a long day going from doctors office to d0ctors office in the temperatures that crested in the high 90's. When we finally made it home I was in the mood for a simple, cool dinner. I sliced and toasted a local loaf of sandwich bread, rinsed some large leafs of butterhead lettuce from the farmers market, sliced up my 2nd purple russian tomato, cooked up some crisp slices of Baker's bacon, and even tried to make my own mayo.

The mayo didn't work out the way I planned so I substituted some I already had on hand but in the end what I had was the best local BLT.

Week 11 CSA

2009-08-16T14:59:00.005-04:00

After taking last week off from driving to the farm and picking, this week was another double share. It was also the Dog Days of August festival weekend at Great Country Farm, which means that peaches were in full swing and the there were doggies every where you looked. We picked a small bag of green beans and 6 peaches for our half share u-pick bonus.

The blackberries were also in the bonus but because of our late start K was to tired to stop at a third field. We fed the goats, grabbed some hamburgers and headed home. When we got home here is what we found in our box.

The tomatoes made their first appearance and should be in full swing for the rest of the season, until the fall frosts knock them out. Another nice summer debut (at least for us) was the watermelon, so dense that the second the knife pierced the skin the whole thing burst in half, happy to be free from the constraints of its rind. The corn is in full swing and the summer squash is still coming. I'm really enjoying the head of lettuce. The cilantro will be nice to use in salsa as mine has already gone to seed.

At the Leesburg Farmers Market I picked up my usual chibatta from South Street Under and a treat for K from Lola's. Then it was off to Potomack Vegetable Farms to get some leeks and onions. A lite market trip this week as we have lots of produce from the double farm share.

National Farmers Market Week

2009-08-09T22:15:00.002-04:00

Did you know that this last week (Aug 2-9) was National Farmers Market Week? Well, I did thanks to the heads up and encouragement from FoodieTots. Of course, we planned on being at at least one market anyway but in true Murphys Law fashion, the one week we should be at the market almost turned into the first week of the year where we did not even get to a single market.

I don't know how I forgot to swing by the Frying Pan Park Market on Wednesday when I planned my early lunch hour specifically to take advantage of it. Or how I managed to not leave with enough time to swing by the Reston Town Center market before I had to pick K up from preschool in order to make it to swim lessons. And then came Saturday, our usuall day of local food worship with planned stops at the Leesburg Farmers Market and/or the Purcelville Market along with u-pick and share pick-up at the farm. Surely, we'd be able to pick up our regular list of goodies and at this market I could take the time and get some good pictures of K for the Flicker pool.However, Saturday morning came and I woke up 3 hours late with a killer migrain and a whole host of other ailment that kept me in bed or immobilized most of the day.

Saturday night, with only one day left, I was just sitting up to re-write my list and plan a Sunday trip to the Cascades Farmers Market when K decided that no bedtime routine would be complete without some death-defying feat of acrobatics. The scream that emanated from her room was enough to get past my migraine and I bolted out of bed. No broken bones or abnormal swelling were immediately apparent but it was certain that she had at least sprained her right wrist and was intent on making her pain known to the whole world. She couldn't sit up, lay down, read books, drink water, move blankets, reach for a stuffed animal or go to the bathroom on her own and every few hours all night long, screamed bloody murder for my assistance. I was afraid that it might be worse than it looked or that we'd both be too tired to go anywhere, much less try to maneuver the crowded market.

But I had underestimated the power of fresh food, good people, and the sights and smells that only a Farmers Market can bring. All I had to do was ask "Do you want to go to the Farmers Market?" and my frail invalid was suddenly recovered enough to get dressed on her own, complete with arm sling, and head out to the car, albeit slower than usual, with the hope of getting not only her favorite market treat, a cookie, but also yummy food for the week ahead. My list was down to only the essentials as I had too much food to use up from overfilled shares and I was in a cooking rut and unable to make even a basic meal out of the food I had on hand but I planned to get bread, bacon, eggs, and potatoes. When we got there during the last hour of the market, K happily walked very slowly back and forth with my while I browsed for the best buys on my list. I ended up with my gold standards, Becky's Whole Wheat Bread, Bakers bacon, Red, Yellow and Blue potatoes from Onyx Hill Farm and a last minute find of eggs at Bigg Rigg's along with some of their bottled Awesome Sauce and a carton of Tomatillos. K also asked for some flowers so we got a bunch of zinnias from Medinas Produce. Last, but most importantly, K got her brownie bar from MeLoveCookies.

There is something magical about spending a few minutes at the market. The people, the sounds, the smells and the moments. I like, when K lets me, to just stop and take it all in. K likes the colors and shapes, the samplers and the dogs; I like the inspiration, the motivation and the feeling of community. Today she was really drawn to all the different tomatoes and how none of the looked like the purple ones we are growing at home. She picked out a bunch of tiny purple potatoes, tasted Bigg Rigg's Peach Jam on crackers, listened very shyly as the Banjo player sang Mary Had a Little Lamb just for her, was very intent on following a rather large shepard as he and his owner browsed for corn, and reluctantly let me hold her beloved flowers so that she could use her one good hand to pet the stuffed dog at Chase Your Tale Bakery.

On what started as a miserable day K returned with a smile on her face (and chocolate brownie too) and a story to tell her grandparents. And the market turned my day around too. When I got home, my headache and my cookers-block was gone and I effortlessly whipped up bunch of local dishes like BLTs, roasted cabbage colcannon and tri-potato mash, diced potato bakes, freezer coleslaw, roasted corn, peach medley and put by a bunch of cabbage, zucchini, peaches and onions with dreams of local produce in winter soups, breads, and pies.

One Local Summer Week 10

2009-08-06T16:22:00.000-04:00

In celebration of our first homegrown tomato and the bounty that is available here in Northern Virginia, K and I spend Monday evening washing, spinning, slicing, dicing, shredding, and throwing our very own local salad buffet party. Here is K holding the first of the Purple Russian tomato and one of the red bell peppers.

After harvesting the fresh tomato, bell pepper, spinach, chard, beet greens and nasturtium blossoms from the garden we pulled out the cucumber, green beans and peaches from our farm share and added the smoked ham and lettuce we got from the farmers market and the cheese that gets delivered, along with our milk, from South Mountain Creamery. Each got its own little bowl and once we sat down at the table we got to pick our own combination of fresh, local produce to make our party salad.

Here is what mine looked like.
And here is K adding the final touch to her creation: cheese, cheese, and mom can I have some more cheese?

Disclaimer: items pictured on this child's plate may or most likely may not have actually been eaten. This image has been provided to represent a sampling of likely edible objects. Each was tried, however not all passed the "I don't like it" test equally. The cheese, however, was delicious.

Fiber and Needlework Update

2009-08-06T16:18:00.004-04:00

After repeatedly blowing off a number of fiber and needle work projects that have gotten nowhere I have found that over the last few weeks I got my motivation and inspiration back. First I finally finished the scarf for my mom that was intended as last years X-mas gift but was only just started by that fateful day. Gives a new meaning to X-mas in July.

Next I finally gave in and washed, sorted and organized my stash of fabric and notions. I made plans for what fabrics needed to be made into what garments and by the time I was done I was overwhelmed so I decided to start with the simplest 2 projects first. That lead me to printing out the Lazy Days Skirt from Oliver+S and quickly whipping it up. The hardest part was deciding which ribbon to use.

As you can see I went with the solid purple. It looks vary cute and K loves it. I see more of them in our future.
Next project was created out of desperation. If I was going to get more motivated to complete/start other knitting projects and get ready for this X-mas I was going to need to make it easier to see at a glance what needles and notion I have and make it easy to take them with me. I already had a very large needle case that came with a set my grandmother gave me so what I really needed was something that could hold my double pointed needles, my crochet hooks and have plenty of room for future needles. After browsing some online patters and ready-mades I dove in to some miscellaneous fat quarter I had and came up with this. Not made particularly precise but I will do for now. Things I would have done differently would be to remember to attach the ties before sewing the whole thing, adding extra fabric to re-enforce the bottom, making a few smaller rows, adding a pocket for small notions, and making the whole thing in 2 pieces, the pockets and a separate cover to keep the stitches from showing on the outside. Here is another view of it with the flap down to prevent things from slipping out and partially rolled. The ties are a little awkward but I really like it and it works well.

Lastly, I have decided that I want to learn sock and this time I will keep at it until I do. My strategy for success includes leveraging the fact that i finally signed up for Ravelry, using the correct yarn, having the right dpns, and, most importantly, starting with kids socks (they are smaller and quicker to make progress on). In fact, in the time it took me to finishing composing this post, I have already done one. I don't want to put pictures up yet as they are a gift, but soon I'll show you all of them.

Week 9 CSA

2009-08-06T16:15:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that its already been 9 weeks. I'm so excited to see the first cobs of corn. I'm hoping to can up a bunch like I did last year because its such a treat to have your own corn in soups, on salads, and anywhere you would normally use canned corn all year round. These ears, however are destined to be enjoyed fresh. Green beans are also starting to appear in large quantities and will likely continue for the remainder of the season thanks to successive plantings.

We are starting to get the free stone peaches and I finally got a few precious donut peaches to try. I was afraid that I was going to miss the chance to try them. Another treat is the very first apple of the season! I can't wait until fall and the chance to make apple pie.

2 pints of blackberries were the u-pick bonus again along with 4 peaches but we spent our time picking an extra 2 pints of blackberries (not free) and there were some problems with the hayride so we skipped the peaches. Its OK, I think I have 6 bags of them slowly ripening and waiting to be sliced and frozen right now.

From the Leesburg Farmers Market I got more onions, garlic, and eggs from Potomac Vegetable Farm, a head of butter leaf lettuce from Endless Harvest and Boston Pork Butt from Bakers. Not sure what I'm going to do with the pork but I'm slowly restocking the fridge with both veggies and meat and the price was good so why not.

Week 7/8 CSA

2009-08-06T16:08:00.000-04:00

I took advantage of my farms vacation hold to take a much need break from all the driving and excess of vegetables on week 7. That means I can double my share on a future week, which I did for week 8. As my fridge was indeed very full for week 7, I went easy on the Farmers Market purchases, grabbing a new bag of organic, fair trade, locally roasted coffee from the Thursday Reston Farmers Market run by Smart Market, Inc. at Reston Town Center and stocked up on onions to dice and freeze from Potomac Vegetable Farm at the Saturday Reston Farmers Market in the Lake Anne Plaza. From there we enjoyed lunch al fresco at the little latin eatery that overlooks the edge of the lake before taking a long afternoon hike along the trails that circle around that part of Reston. We had a great casual Saturday that I hope to repeat more often as the temperatures return to a reasonable level in the fall.

For week 8 we returned to the farm and picked up double our usual share. Pictured below is only one of the two boxes (my usual half)
Also as this weeks u-pick bonus, we picked 2 pints from the very last few blackberries on the over-picked first field during the blackberry festival at the farm and managed to find 4 semi-ripe peaches.

Week 6 CSA

2009-08-06T16:04:00.001-04:00

Here is a quick snapshot of what came in my box for week 6.
And here are the green beans, plums and peaches that we picked (all but 2/3 of the peaches came as a u-pick share bonus--which means free)

Here is what I picked up this week at the Leesburg Farmers Market on our way to the farm. The smoked sliced ham and bacon is from Baker's.

Here is a close up of the delicious, indulgent chabatta bread from South Street. It was even better than I had imagined it.

At the Potomac Vegetable Farms booth I got onions, shallots, garlic scapes (probably the last until next year) and some rosemary.

At Bigg Riggs booth I stocked up on zucchini and potatoes and couldn't pass up a patty pan squash.

And for our sandwich and toasting pleasure (and because it's too hot or I'm just plain too lazy to bake my own bread right now) a nice wheat loaf from Becky's Pastries.

And i finally got around to shelling the two bags of peas that were waiting in the fridge. All it took was a good movie and a couple of hours and now I have 2 quarts of frozen blanched peas waiting for winter soups.

We've got milk!

2009-08-06T15:58:00.002-04:00

A year and a half ago, after living here for part of the winter, I began my search for local milk and cheese (see my post In Search of Milk). After some virtual searching, I found South Mountain Creamery in Middletown, MD and we went to visit. I liked what I saw and when we got home we enjoyed their products but at the time they were not doing home delivery to our area and it was too far to drive on a regular basis on top of the driving we were doing to the farm. So that idea was put on hold and if not forgotten about, at least put on the back burner. Fast forward to last month when for some reason I thought to check their website again and behold, they are now doing delivery to our town. Shout of excitement could be heard.

We've been getting deliveries every Friday for the past 3 weeks and it has been wonderful. I'm paying about what I'd pay at the grocery store for K's organic whole milk and I'm also getting their cheeses, some meats, and K loves their yogurt. The ordering mechanism on the website is phenomenal and I'm quite pleased with customer support. There was a minor delivery issue, one item that I ordered was not delivered, but it was cleared up quickly and courteously with the credit being applied to my next order. I just happened to be home when the first delivery was made and I got the chance to meet our "milk man". I was a little nervous about leaving the cooler in the apartment hallway where the neighborhood kids hang out so he said it would be no problem to leave it on the back porch. If anyone local is looking for a local source of milk, I have not problems recommending South Mountain Creamery.

Posting Blitz on the way

2009-08-06T15:55:00.000-04:00

I'm getting caught up on my posts. Here come a bunch of them.

Harvest Monday

2009-08-04T04:15:00.000-04:00

I forgot to hit the publish button so this is more like a harvest Thursday.

Here goes my first post to join in on Daphne’s Harvest Monday. This week I harvested lots of small things to make room for my fall plantings and plucked a few jewels too.

The prize this week goes to my first lemon cucumber. It’s a little on the small side but since it was growing on the outside of the fence where children like to run past and in full access to the pounding rains of summer thunderstorms I was worried about loosing it, so I picked it as soon as it looked ready. I’m looking forward to eating it raw or with a salad.

The carrots were about as wide as they were going to get but I knew that they were not going to get much more length being buried under the potato vines which had begun to lean their way so 14 little stub came out.

The beets, while always giving nice greens which were out-competing the chard, were beginning to push up out of the ground way too far and I could see that they too were never going do much so out they came. Speaking of chard, I trimmed off 5 large and 8 smaller leaves. I also brought in a handful of spinach from the next container over.

Next to be pulled were a middle row of onions that were being exposed by the constant drops of water running off the flower planter above them every time it rained or I watered. I found an article from Kiwi magazine about how to braid garlic and onions so these little orbs became my practice set.
I harvested 4 red and 2 yellow mini bell peppers. They are so sweet. I also pulled down all of the peas and beans along the trellis and harvested a few pods of dried half runner beans. None of the beans did too well in this strange weather and in the spots in the containers where I squeezed them in so by the end of the year I might have enough for a mixed bean soup or they may all just be saved for next years seeds.

Lastly, I trimmed all of the largest basil leaves, clipped 10 sprigs of thyme, and pulled up one dead cilantro plant for the dried coriander seeds. I washed, dried and froze the basil leaves whole. I am drying the thyme sprigs.

I’m already looking forward to next week when I should get my first purple tomato, another lemon cucumber, more herbs to dry, and lots more bell peppers.

One Local Summer Week 8

2009-08-02T19:34:00.008-04:00

It's been a trying week and with temperatures being as hot as they are I haven't felt like cooking a whole lot recently. Or when I have I haven't had the time. So when I did get the time to cook a full local dinner and inspired by Ree's beautifully photographed post, I turned to breakfast. That's right, breakfast by way of good old eggs and potatoes with a local twist. We, my daughter and I, harvested the first of our mini bell peppers. They only get to be a about 1-2.5" in diameter and are very sweet with none of the bitter after taste that I have detected in your average grocery store varieties. We also pulled up a bunch of our onions. The day before we made the potatoes. The peppers and the onions were diced and added to some diced potatoes from Bigg Riggs farmers market stand that were placed on foil squares. A dash of salt, pepper and paprika was sprinkled over each pile along with a generous spoon full of South Mountain Creamery butter. I then sealed up the foil packets and roasted in the oven. The next day I reheated a servings worth, cooked up fried eggs from Potomac Vegetable Farms and served with Becky's whole wheat toast with butter and home-canned blackberry jam made from berries we picked at Great Country Farms. All in all a very satisfying way to have a quick, local meal.

One Local Summer Week 6

2009-07-12T22:42:00.005-04:00

This week its all about the pizza, made with local flour and covered with local toppings, of course. After finally making the time to read Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day I mixed up a batch of dough for last weeks Caramelized Onion Rolls and it was so successful that the book stayed out and the remaining dough went into the fridge. Leaving books on my crowded kitchen counter usually results in one of three things: food gets spilled on them, they get buried under other things that get left on the counter or they get used again in a moment of "I have too much raw food and no meal in mind...oh, I think I'll look in here".

And that's how I randomly flipped to the page on pizza dough and realized that, yes, I could use the same whole wheat dough I had for the rolls to make a pizza crust. I mixed up the next batch using the lite whole wheat this afternoon and now, more than 5 pizza experiments later I will say while that having the proper equipment results in a little less chaos and better looking pizzas, you can make it work with what ever is on hand and though it may be irregularly shaped it will still taste great. From the time I got the idea to make pizza (dough already in fridge) to the time we were sitting down to eat was 40 minutes; 20 minutes to warm the oven and baking stone while I prepped the ingredients and taught K how to grate cheese, 5 minutes to roll out dough and cover with prepared toppings, 8-10 minutes to cook pizza, and another 5 to let it cool and do a little bit of cleanup prior to cutting the slices and sitting down to a very satisfying meal.

The wheat flours for the crust all came from Wade's Mill, stored in the big containers in the fridge shot above. I don't have any local yeast sources yet so I buy it in bulk. I had a great big jar of Bigg Riggs pasta sauce that I needed only half of for a pasta dish I'm planning for tomorrow so I used the other half of it as the basis for all but this one, where I splurged on a container of their fresh pesto at yesterday's market and if you look closely you can just see the hint of green underneath all the toppings.
Speaking of the toppings, because I'm lactose intolerant you won't find the beautifully melted local mozzarella (it's really good but I just can't) orbs or specialty cheeses that are readily available at the farmers markets. But, for my daughters sake, who probably ate more cheese while grating it than was left to go on all the pizzas combined, I did use some of the Colby that I ordered with my milk delivery from South Mountain Creamery (more on that soon) and a little bit of imported Parmesan, because it bothers me less and I really like the flavor. On the first pizza I made (not pictured due to severe deformity) I used the leftover caramelized onions from the rolls and it was so good that made some more with onions from Potomac Vegetable Farms and added it on every subsequent pie. Other toppings included diced cherry tomato's from I forget where, fresh basil leaves from my porch, home-canned raw-packed sweet corn from last years farm share, shredded leftover chicken that came from a whole bird I roasted with a home devised spice rub and had picked up frozen from a local vendor at the Percelville farmers market a while back.

The best part was that when we sat down to eat my normally picky daughter,who only eats cheese on her slices as I've been informed numerous times, asked for a big slice and ate it right up, onions and all.

One Local Summer Week 5

2009-07-04T09:22:00.003-04:00

Meals during week 5 have alternated between the incredibly simple but local type and the type where a local item is featured but you could hardly claim even half of the ingredients as local.

K and I participated in our own way in Kitchen Gardeners International's Food Independence Day this 4th of July. We started the day out with a simple eggs from Potomac Vegetable Farms, bacon from Baker Pork, whole wheat honey toast from a local bakery topped with butter from Blue Ridge Dairy and home canned strawberry jam from fruit picked in our u-pick share from Great Country Farms, and topped off with a fresh brewed cup of DogWatch Dark Blend from Black Dog Coffee, local coffee roaster, with a splash of non-local soy milk (lactose intolerant) for me and a tall glass of whole milk from Trickling Springs Creamery for K. We snacked on the first peaches and apricots of the season while enjoying some local cheese in the middle of the day.

For dinner (no pictures, I was too busy cooking and chatting with family) I baked caramelized onion buns made with farm share onions, whole wheat flour from Wade's Mill to hold broiled hamburgers made with ground beef from Millcreek Farms, served with a small side salad with farm share lettuce and cucumbers. This was followed by what I like to think of as baked berries with a little bit of cake. I used the recipe from The Kitchen Sink, only I used about double the berries and increased the pan size to 2 qt in order to spread out the surface area to accommodate. What resulted was so good that it didn't last long as I was snacking on it even before the burgers were out of the broiler. Altogether the only non-local ingredients were the vinegars, sugar, oil and vanilla. I call that a day worth celebrating

Another meal this week is closer to the second type but I think that I pulled it off. The chicken is from Whole Foods but the butcher assured me that the PA location sticker meant that the chickens were raised there not just processed. I have no local source of soy sauce or sesame oil and I am working my way through the my existing sources of vinegar before obtaining a local variety. Also the red bell pepper is not local, but is a sliver leftover from another dish earlier and the week and would have had to be thrown out if not used soon. Other than that everything is from our shares, the farmers market or my back porch.

I marinated the sliced chicken breast in soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, minced ginger, a dash of orange juice as I washed, sliced and assembled the rest of the ingredients. It always helps to have everything ready to go, all you have to do is wait a minute then dump another bowl of stuff in. The instructions called for lots of garlic but as I was using scapes I omitted it.

I heated the olive oil and a dash of toasted sesame seed oil then added the chicken to cook on all sides. It gained a nice golden hue from the marinade. Then I removed it from the pan and refreshed with another dash of the sesame oil before adding in the onions, garlic scape and more ginger.

After a minute or two I slowly added the remaining broccoli, bell pepper, peas and lastly sliced chard as I stirred. Once the chard had begun to wilt I added the chicken back in along with the reserved sauce and heated it through. I had too much liquid (by adding the OJ and having very hydrated meat and veggies) so I removed the solids to a serving plate and reduced the sauce significantly before pouring back over the dish.

I some how missed getting the final shot but I assure you that it was delicious.

CSA Week 5

2009-07-04T09:12:00.002-04:00

This week we went on Friday as I had the day off and the Farm would be closed for the 4th, our usual pick up day. The weather was alternately sunny and overcast but it was still nice and cool, particularly in the shade. We picked our #4 bag of shelling peas (not pictured) and then decided to pass on another half pint of black raspberries or paying for blueberries (not part of our bonus this week) as it was late and we still wanted to play. I was shocked to find the little bright orangish globes of the first of the seasons stonefruits and will enjoy them raw and savor what is soon to come.

One Local Summer Weeks 3 & 4

2009-06-30T06:17:00.003-04:00

This is late but better than never. I've been a bit over worked and simply forgot to post about all the yummy local food I have been eating. In both weeks 3 and 4 I have featured salads; the wholesome, chock-full-o-veggies kind but sadly I have no pictures...they were that good. In addition to some wonderful lettuces from my CSA box and the farmers market I have at times tossed in my own fresh snow peas, shelled peas from CSA, roasted market beets, CSA cucumbers, broccoli, onions, chard, zucchini, yellow squash, strawberries, blue berries, black raspberries, bacon from the market and have tried out a few herb infused vinaigrette as well as enjoyed them as they are.

Update: I found a picture of one of my salads hidden amongst some random garden shots. This salad featured sweet onion chibatta bread, bacon and lettuce from the leesburg farmers mareket, and my own peas, salad greens and nasturtium petals.

CSA Week 4

2009-06-27T09:01:00.001-04:00

Week 4 is another green week, albeit with greater variety. The peas are young enough to eat, not shell and the broccolii is plentiful. I'm planning a local stirfry later this week. I have no clue what I will do with all the collards as I dont particularly like them steamed or as any sort of side on their own.

We also picked a some more black raspberries, a lot of shelling peas, and large amount of blueberries (K picked almost a whole pint on her own).

We didn't make it to any markets this week and I didn't really need anything anyway.

At home, its been multiple rounds of the same story: picked fresh flowers, picked the half dozen ripe peas and pulled a few onions. We must have done this a good 8 times over the past few weeks. I really cant wait for some more stuff to come ready in the garden.

CSA Week 3

2009-06-20T08:02:00.003-04:00

A welcome variety of flavors, textures, colors and uses came in this weeks CSA share from Great Country Farm. It had been a steady downpour on our drive west and was threatening rain when we arrived in Bluemont but it looked like a significant break between fronts awaited us. Silly humans. No sooner had we checked in at the front desk, returned our boxes, got our instructions for what was available as a u-pick bonus and walked outside, just missing the hayride, when suddenly the skies opened up and buckets of water pelted the valley. I don't just mean a regular heavy drenching but a solid, unrelenting 15 minutes of pure dumpage (thats a word right). I now know what it feels like to be a tiny seedling under the onslaught of a water hose. Luckily we were able to duck onto the porch of the country store to wait it out and debate what we wanted to do. We quickly drove across the street and picked our half pint of black raspberries as the rain lighted and returned as the hayride of drenched strawberry pickers returned.

K was so excited for strawberries that despite my cautions she convinced me to go, even if it continued to rain. So we braved it and after the big dump of rain the fits and starts of summer showers didn't seem so bad. We both wore big hats and the rain mostly stayed off our face. We emerged completely soaked with our 2 pints of strawberries in hand. One nice thing about the rain is that it drove off the bugs and kept us cool on an otherwise hot and muggy day. Those berries were well earned.

Before we got to the farm we stopped at the market This week I made it back to the Leesburg Farmers Market and was lucky to find some lovely garlic scapes for 5 for $1. I picked up my customary breads, stocked up on ground beef and found some lovely red new potatoes. What isn't show here are the muffins, cookies and chocolate chip chibatta samples that were consumed in the car and never had a chance in the world to make it to photo time.

CSA Week 2

2009-06-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

Week 2 of our CSA share from Great Country Farms continues the beautiful green and red trend of early summer. In addition to more asparagus this week came with Chard instead of the spinach as it had wilted during a refrigeration meltdown. Fine with me. Chard made it into another Fritata and will sprinkle in many others. One strawberry pint came with the share while the other 3 were our u-pick bonus and the blue container is entirely filled with the bounty K picked for herself. K's are mostly squished or have little bites out of them and will make an excellent sauce for ice cream.

We left the farm just in time to make it to the very end of the Purcellville Farmers Market. High on my priority was a bag of salad and some coffee and in addition to some wonderful beets and turnips I picked up a whole frozen chicken and a bag of chicken backs to use for stock at some point. Here is a close up of the coffee bag. I got their darkest roast.

One Local Summer Week 2

2009-06-14T09:26:00.010-04:00

The first week of One Local Summer was fun but it took a little planning to make it work while on the go so for week 2 I took it easy and stuck with your basic frittata. Throwing in what ever is local and fresh takes a lot of the planning out of it and this one came out so good. I used onions, chard and asparagus from the first week of my CSA share, the eggs and butter are from the local farmers markets and only the salt/pepper and a little sprinkle of Parmesan were from the supermarket.

I began by preparing all the ingredients: slicing the asparagus into .5"-1" lengths on the diagonal, slicing the onions into rings, separating the chard leaves from the stem (to be used in something else) and chopping them thin, and scrambling the eggs with the salt, pepper, all but 1 tbsp cheese. I heated my smaller cast iron pan(though if your serving more than one and a mouse you might want to go for the big pan) over medium heat and let the butter melt. I love the smell and character of real butter compared to the commercial stuff; it cooks differently. First the onions and chard went into the pan at the same time, stirring constantly. It will reduce down by about half.

After about 5 minutes, when the onions were almost starting to caramelize I tossed in the asparagus and gave it a good mix. I let it go another 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, to let everything get cooked through without losing the bright green color. It was about now that I remembered to turn on the broiler. Then I added the eggs and gave everything a good quick stir to get the egg mixed in before it started to cook and stick.

It continued to cook on the stove top until the top was almost set. I use the giggle test--shake the pan and if the bits move it needs more time, if only the top most bits move it needs a very little bit more time and the second the top bits stop moving its ready to be moved--as the top of the egg should look moist even when it is nearly set. If you wait until the top starts to look dry or set then you'll likely get a little too much brown on the bottom. If you move it too soon you may get undercooked areas in the center and in between the vegis--eeewww.

Sprinkle with your cheese. I used Parmesan for flavor without lactose or lots of extra calories but I seem to remember that many cheeses go well. Next I placed the pan under the broiler for 3-4 minutes to get the top to cook, the cheese to melt and to get a beautiful golden brown color.

I served it with a slice of locally baked bread topped with more of the butter and a dollop of home canned strawberry jam. Yum.

CSA Week 1

2009-06-14T09:25:00.005-04:00

We collected the first week of farm shares from Great Country Farms and once we got home and opened the box we found precisely what we should have; lots of green with a bright spot of red. I had purchased the smaller handful of asparagus when we were in the farm store just in case but as it turned out, that would be totally unnecessary. We didn't make it to the farmers market this weekend but had plenty of food to enjoy. The asparagus made it into fritattas and sliced up in various ways for side dishes and the kale is destined for a bean soup.

One Local Summer Week 1

2009-06-04T19:31:00.009-04:00

This has been a good start to the One Local Summer challenge. I was camping locally over the weekend and brought enough local food to allow us a nice local breakfast al fresco under the canopy dripping from an overnight spring thunderstorm. We cooked up local bacon and scrambled local eggs on the camp stove and toasted the last slices of a local loaf on the cooling grill and spread the second to last jar of strawberry freezer jam from the 08 harvest. I've been very carefully dolling out the few containers of the jam, which is really more of a low sugar preserve, over the winter to make them stretch out until we had fresh ones again. K tried everything and begged for more jam.

The second meal, which I've had 2 times this week, has been a salad nearly entirely from what I've grown in the containers on my back porch. I harvested a variety of lettuces, mustard greens, spinach, a micro green mix, beet greens, kale, sliced green bunching onions, the first 6 snap peas, and a bright orange nasturtium blossom (all from the porch). I then picked most of the large basil leaves and blended up a vinaigrette that included the pureed basil leaves, a clove of local garlic (farmers market), local honey(farmers market), a little olive oil (not local) and some apple cider vinegar (also not local, though I'll be looking for an alternative once I run through the giant bottle I have on hand). The dressing was a bit strong but when reduced made a nice complement to the simple, fresh salad that traveled 5 yards from "field" to table. K gets a thrill out of the salad spinner and its her reward for helping to pick the lettuce (and not ripping all the leaves off my non-edible green plants) and trying at least 1 bite of it.

Yarn and Rhubarb

2009-05-24T20:30:00.004-04:00

It was a rather blah looking, too hot, too humid day so I scraped my plans for a second day of hiking with the wee one and we cooked and relaxed instead. This gave me some time to put in some serious mileage on several long outstanding needlecraft projects, ironically they were all winter or cold-weather projects.

First, I got as far as I am going to until it gets cooler on a pair of fleece pants and matching jumper dress for K. The elastic is in the the waistband but I'll hold of on sewing it until the fall so that I can size it properly; no need to sew it in now and then rip it out and fix it later if she grew over the summer. The dress is also on hold needing only bias tape in the armholes and potentially a button up the back to get it over her big head, again if she keeps growing. Next, I got one step away from finished sewing new liners for some of my lined baskets...with X-mas prints on the accent band. Yeah, I know, but now I'm ahead of the game for next year. These are to replace the current fall liners that they came with. If I start now I should be able to finish spring themed ones in time for 2010. I'm also trying to pickup cross stitching again, but I only have the yarns that came with my little how to book so I'm pretty limited in what I can make right now. I'm hoping to add some detail to K's cloths and also lettering on the basket liners.

Then I got in a few more rows of my crochet sampler stitch scarf in a variegated 'fiesta jewel' Red Heart yarn, that is turning out to be much better than I anticipated. I think that I might actually want to keep this one for me instead of donating it to the K dress up bin. That's pretty good considering that I only taught myself crochet a few weeks ago and this is my first crochet project. Last, but not least, I finally knit over the one third mark on Mom's X-mas scarf. I turned on Batman Begins and just dug in while K was napping and got another 6 inches which pushed me up over 1/3 of my intended final length. This is a nice washable wool in a deep heather blue with creamy white stripes at the tip. If I can figure out how, I'm also still considering adding pockets on the end but that depends on if I can get this done before next X-mas.

This evening K was a great helper in the kitchen. She rolled out her own pizza dough and picked the orange cheese while I formed the rest and topped them with feta, zucchini and pizza sauce with sweet peppers and onions. She washed strawberries while I cut the rhubarb. She mixed dry ingredients for muffins while I mixed them for cobbler biscuits. She dumped flour on the floor and all over her front while I chopped the strawberries and mixed them with the rhubarb and sugar. She cleaned up while I melted butter and poured the wet stuff for the muffins. She stirred the wet stuff while I mixed and kneaded the biscuit dough. She put muffin papers in the tin while I mixed up rhubarb into the batter and she held the tray as I spooned it in. She generously piled the tops with the cinnamon sugar and I put them in the oven. As I cut the biscuits and assembled the strawberry-rhubarb cobbler, she washed up and took her pizza to the table. She refused to eat said pizza but was nice about it and asked for a muffin instead. We both enjoyed the muffins, though she ate mostly just the tops, and are looking forward to cobbler with ice cream for dessert.

Market Haul-Memorial Weekend

2009-05-23T20:32:00.002-04:00

Not wanting to fight the crowds on the first day of strawberry picking we decided against heading out to our usual Farmers Market in Leesburg and instead made a round-about loop past the Smart Market Inc.'s Oakton location off of Hunter Mill Rd on our way to lunch al la picnic in Ellanor C. Lawrence historical park. The Oakton market is smaller, meaning less vendor competition, but it's also easier to get the good stuff and it starts and ends an hour later which is nice for those of us who are too unorganized to get an early start out the door on a Saturday Morning. My purchases were also affected said un-organization as I realized as we were pulling in that I had removed all of my insulated bags (the cooler-like bags that you can add ice to keep food cold) to make room for boxes in my trunk earlier in the week and had failed to return them. I was also only carrying one small ice pack to keep our lunch box cold and this would not be enough to support any meat, dairy or delicate greens. Darn.

I ended up with a loaf of some hearty bread and a cheddar beer bread round, 5 large stalks of rhubarb (never cooked it before), a few green and yellow zucchini, 2 large bundles of asparagus (get it while its good), and a basket of large but clearly early strawberries. I have ambitions of cooking up strawberry-rhubarb cobbler, rhubarb muffins, asparagus fritatas and a breakfast of local eggs/bacon/mushrooms/bread from past markets finds tomorrow morning but we'll just have to see. I did manage to saute the zucchinis with some local garlic and a dash of sea salt for my favorite no-brains required fresh side dish. It goes with most anything but in this case it was non-local hamburgers doctored with some diced local shallots and a healthy dose of Worcestershire all smothered in BBQ sauce. K, of course, smelled the squash and turned up her nose but did agree that the hamburger was good before deciding that she didn't actually want to eat any of it.

I'm a Winner!

2009-05-21T20:43:00.002-04:00

A special thanks to farm mom over at Children in the Corn and her enthusiastic children for pulling my name out of the hat for her 2 year blogiversary give away. I will soon be the proud owner of Joel Salatin's Holy Cows and Hog Heaven. I have been and admirer of his Polyface farm and activism for a few years and can't wait to begin reading my first adult book of the season.

One Local Summer

2009-05-21T19:39:00.003-04:00

Speaking of local food, Farm to Philly is once again hosting the One Local Summer Challenge. Registration is open until May 30th and it goes like this: cook up one meal each of 13 weeks during the challenge using locally grown ingredients (exceptions: oil, salt and pepper, and spices). Post about your meal on the blog. Regional Coordinators will compile the weeks meals and they roundup will be posted on Farm to Philly.

I plan on participating once again this year, except that I hope to actually be able to keep up on my posting. Last year I kinda blog faded, even though I was eating more local food than ever. This year I hope to be featuring some of my own home-grown meals or at least foods as well if all goes well in the garden.

First Bite from the Farm

2009-05-21T19:23:00.003-04:00

Now that I'm growing my own bounty on my very own porch and have had the pleasure of harvesting my own greens for simple salads for almost a month now, the first bite from the farm carries a little less pizazz than it used to but it is still a hallmark occasion for us. Over mothers day weekend (its been a while I know) we made our first trip of the year out to our CSA farm, Great Country Farms in Bluemont, VA, to tour the fields by hayride, play on the new playground equipment, enjoy the new chairs in the kids playground and pick up our first bonus vegi. It just so happened that they were over run with asparagus and were worried about it going to waste with the poor weather driving down turnout and the fact that now they are not starting the shares until June, well after the asparagus is gone. As a half share member we got a "large" handful to take home. This unexpected "freebie" (no additional cost to the share we have already purchased) had us very excited as we got to the farmers market too late to buy any and I was disappointed to wait another week to get my favorite spring seasonal food. Well I was excited any way...asparagus spears are just a little to alien for K right now. She was happy to wash them and use them as drumsticks but stopped just short of putting them in her mouth. I however thoroughly enjoyed them steamed and added to a local omelet topped with feta, sauteed with local butter and a dash of salt as a simple side, microwave steamed for lunch at the office, and served cold on my porch-grown salad.

No Suitable Title

2009-05-15T22:51:00.002-04:00

I've stopped blogging for a while, mostly because I was too tired/busy/lazy to come up with anything witty or worthwhile to say but also because I felt that in the pursuit of balance in my life I was actually becoming very polarized. I guess that when two primary facets of you life exist at odds with one another it is natural that you feel compelled to do one or the other. The easy fix for that is to put lots of time into both but as I've fount that is just exhausting.

Some things that have happened recently:
I've learned to do basic crochet. I can even crochet and walk a the same time though I found out the hard way that by keeping your arms out in front it increases the sun exposure to the tops of your arms and may lead to unexpected burns or tans (depending on skin color).
I have stuffed about as many containers and plants on to my patio as that small space and apartment regs allow and its starting to really get green out there. I am harvesting my own mixed greens salad every few days and with this next bit of warm I should have it near every day soon.
I don't start getting my csa share until next month but mothers day weekend we headed out to the farm for some play time and got a freebie handful (as much as you could fit) of fresh asparagus which has been going into local egg omelets and is also great just sauteed on its own with a little salt.
I'm going to try to do One Local Summer again this year but this time actually write up my participation. Hopefully I'll do better and making it till the end than I did with the Dark Days but we'll see. I'll post more about it later.
I'm playing a much larger role at work and have a fair amount of self direction that I didn't have before. I'm also trying to be much more deliberate and proactive in my new found freedom so that I can prepare to make the transition to management when the cards lay out right.
I got out the camping gear and saved money to make the purchases that I needed to round out my gear so that K and I can take our first camping trip. Now I just need the $$ pay for the gas, camp site fees and food. It will be interesting to see if I can keep up with K in the "wild". Luckily, on one of our trips to REI to look at new tents she showed and interest in playing inside the tent and no aptitude for being able to open the zippers on her own, so there is hope.

That all I can think of right now and I should be in bed so I better sign off. Buenos Noches.

Geek of all types

2009-03-29T07:49:00.004-04:00

I'm a geek. It's taken a while and much debate to admit this but now I don't try to deny it. First and foremost I'm a SciFi geek, thanks dad, and can easily fall into discussion on numerous alien/fantasy/dragon/space/robotic/futuristic topics. Next I'm a science geek. Of the handful of podcast I listen to 1/3rd are science related like the ones from US Geological Survey, National Science Federation and the Science Channel. I also grew up loving to read things like popular mechanic, popular science, and anything that described how things worked. I've also been accused of being a computer geek because I can do a little of my own programing, I know Microsoft office inside and out and I like to do most things in my life with at least a little tech assist if not online entirely.

This week I found out I'm another type of geeks--a garden geek. That's right, there is such a person; just ask the folks at http://myfolia.com/ . This is a wonderful site for those of us who spend too much time at the computer anyway. Instead of trying to remember many of the details and trying to calculate things like time to germination from poorly written pencil notes stained with soil and coffee, I use folia's easy interface to journal about my activities when I do them and it instantly tracks things like which seeds my plants came from, how many days since planting, I can upload pictures to associate with each plant and seed and of my garden in general. These I can share with others on the site and comment or ask questions about other peoples gardens. There is also a feature to facilitate seed and plant swaps. Its so tech-fun. Here is my garden: http://myfolia.com/gardens/5791-patio-container-garden. Now I can track the success or failure of my seeds, my plants, my techniques and also at the end of the year track seeds I have saved and tie them to next years plantings.

Now instead of blogging about my garden record I think I will just post to folia and let it do all the hard work for me.

Examples-in-Chief

2009-03-21T08:58:00.010-04:00

I have been following the campain at Eat the View and strongly support the call to plant food at the White House. I have done my part to talk to just about eveyone I meet about my plans to plant a small porch garden and about the importance of my weekly trips with K to the farm to pick and pick up our fresh fruits and vegies from our CSA. Now that spring is here and I am running into a lot of old friends the most common question I get asked after "How are you?" is "When do you start going back to the farm?" That makes me happy.

And you know what I learned last night? They did it! Our leading family took another step that I hope will be just the begining of a continuing trend to lead by example. They started a "kitchen garden" on the White House lawn. There is a form to submit a thank you note to the Obama's on Eat the View and here is a video of Michelle addressing the school children about her reasons for starting the garden and some footage of the initial ground breaking (thankfully not in the traditional style of golden shovel and then teams of professionals) with the kids "pitching" in.

CNN Video

From Snow to Spring (almost)

2009-03-06T17:51:00.003-05:00

From this:

To this:

In less than a week we went from 60's to 10's and then back up over 70 degrees this afternoon. I took this time to play in the snow, feed the birds and then come back inside to warm up, plant more seeds and dream of spring. Those are my thyme seedlings just beginning to poke though. Today I go the first tease of Spring when an early departure from work for a doctors appointment granted me the chance to enjoy a few minutes of basking in the sun and driving with the windows down (I normally start my commute with the sunrise and drive home as the sun is setting). It felt wonderful. I'm happy to say that I opened up the porch door for a few hours and got my peas, onions (bunching and yellow), leeks, and a bed of spinach in the containers that were freshly moistened from the snow melt.

I'm really looking forward tomorrow when I plan on opening the door in the early morning, leaving it open most of the day and appreciate the early touch of Spring.

Smile and go plant something

2009-03-04T20:10:00.003-05:00

While browsing through some of my long list of unread DC area foodie blogs drooling over restaurant dishes I can't afford, gourmet recipes that I couldn't hope to recreate and opinions of the finest this that and the other I ran across something that made me laugh, smile, think, dream and cry just a little. I wouldn't say that I'm much of a crier but the I have been known to weep at the occasional sappy romance movie, sob through the whole last 30 minutes of Marley and Me and I'm a sucker for sentient computer yarns like Wall-E and Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. That said it takes a rare moment for something like a gardening history lesson to move me. But a clip featured on metrocurean's blog got me thinking that it really is time to look back to our roots, as imperfect as they are, and make a change for the future. And who better to lead that change than our nations figurehead. Anyway, I'll get away from that soap box before I really go on a rant and just leave you this clip. I hope it makes you smile and then go plant something.

Snow Day!

2009-03-02T07:53:00.004-05:00

Yesterday began with a little snow and with the very light breeze only one corner of my patio had a light dusting. Nothing like what the rest of the north east states are getting. This was a very moist and sticky snow, not the dry, fluffy stuff that I could blow and sweep off my car with very little effort but it was only a little and not really coming down with any force. After breakfast we bundled up and ventured outside. K took great pride in climbing the play structure in her snow boots and taking the snow with her as she flew down the twisty slide and shoot off the end in a spectacular puff. The only thing that could top that was a snowman so we got to work. I started the 1st ball and showed K how to roll it; the sticky snow making easy work of the task. Soon enough we had 3 balls stacked up to Ks height. I'm glad we got out in the morning because by the afternoon the snow was melted.

The rest of my seeds arrived from Baker Creek and I contemplated going out and planting the cold loving seeds but I decided that I had better go finish my planning and make sure that I have room for everything I plan on starting indoors before I go crazy and end up with nothing but peas and spinach. Glad I did. I spend a wonderful evening dreaming of spring greens, summer flowers, and fall harvest. This should hold me through the not so light snow that piled on last night and this morning. Schools are closed and the streets look nasty, not to mention the long stretch of icy, snow piled stairs between my door and my car. So I made pancakes for breakfast instead of cold cereal on the run, enjoyed my coffee sitting down instead of while driving, baked banana bread muffins that just came out of the oven and thanked the season for giving me a few more days of real winter so that I have plenty of time to finish my planning for spring.

Garden Record-Spring 09

2009-02-28T19:17:00.010-05:00

My Garden Record-I'll update this post with a record of my garden activites (and probably some $ amounts) for the spring.

3/20
Every pea planted outside has germinated and is starting to peak above ground

3/19
Outside spinich is sprouting like crazy
Peppers have finally germinated 70% and look good
Purchased 2.8 cu ft Potting mix at Target

3/17
Ordered from Gardener's Supply: Self-Watering Planter (40), 2 Fabric Potato Bins (20), 2 Hanging Tomato/Herb Planters (40), Soil mixing Tub ( 16), White Fabric for Shade and Row Covers (10), 20qts Compost (14), White Button Mushroom Kit (30)

3/11-Coolish moist and overcast am, warm breezy afternoon
Sown Outside in planters
2 rows Daikon Radish, Forono Beet
3 rows Early Market Carrot
seeded .75 sq ft each of 5 different frost hardy lettuces, mustard greens

3/9-Sunny, warm, light breeze
1 pea and 1 spinach sprout noticed in outside planter
98% germination-Purple Tomatoes, Bunching Oinions, thyme, greek oregano, basil, chives
80% germiniation-steak sandwich tomatoes, yellow onions, sage
70% germination-cilantro, cumin, leeks
0% germination-all peppers-must try again next week

3/6-Sunny, slightly cool
Started Sugar Snap Peas (8)and Long Standing Bloomsdale broadcast (1.5 sq ft)outside

3/5-
Added light to seed starting shelf
Oredered more seeds from Bountiful Gardens (25.65);see Starting the Seeds Post for full list

3/2-Snow Day
Started 3 cells of each: Leeks, Bunching Oinion, Purple Russian Tomato, Steak Sandwich Tomato, Mini Red Bell Pepper, Yellow Stuffing Bell Pepper, Yellow Star Hot Pepper (Freebie from Baker Creek), Carnival Mix Sweet Pepper; 6 cells of Yellow Onion

2/28-
Started 2 of each: Basil, Greek Oregano, Chives, Cumin, Cilantro, Sage, Thyme seeds
Filled and hung out bird feeder

2/27
Set up seed starting flats, received 2 containers
Bought potting soil, hose, PVC pipe and supplies for strawberry retrofit, bird feeder and bird seed ($10/$17/$2/$11) from Home Depot
Started 1 Mediterranean Oregano and Strawberry seeds

2/25
Bought potting soil, seed starting trays, seed starting light, plant markers, misc stuff ($60) From Home Depot

2/22
Removed junk and X-mas tree needles from porch
Bought potting soil, fertilizer mix, shelf unit for seed starting from Target

2/20
Ordered Seeds from Baker Creek Heritage Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange ($44/$72.56); see Starting the Seeds Post for full list
Ordered 6 Self-Watering Containers, 3 S-W converters, 20Q soil mix, 3" pot transplant set from Gardeners Supply ($166/$40/$30/$20)

Starting the Seeds

2009-02-28T16:51:00.005-05:00

After explaining to my dd why mom was buying a huge shelf and moving her easel and the junk in the corner so that could be assembled, why mom was buying soil, and why we were cleaning the porch and setting up pots and planters in the freezing cold of February it was inevitable that she would want to plant seeds right now! Of course my seeds weren't here yet, I didn't have anything set up and the thought of mixing soil on a freezing blustery week vs. mixing it in my living room just to make her happy meant that we had lots of "talks" about patients and planning and the speed of the postal service. I finally made a trip to home depot to pick up more soil, a few seed packets, a few flats and plant markers and I spread out one of our waterproof mats and let K make multiple trips to the bathroom to fill her water canister so that she could water the soil pellets and watch them expand. This made her happy but it still wasn't enough.I only placed my seed orders last week and it was my own fault for introducing something before I was ready to have her involved in it but to a certain extent it was unavoidable as her curiosity would have led her to insist on answers only shortly after everything began to be set up.

Early this morning as she was about to start her whining to go somewhere and spend money on something to do we bundled up and headed outside with our garden gloves on to add soil to the 2 new self-watering planters and get them ready for the peas, leeks, spinach and kale. Next, inspired by this video from Finegardening.com , we emptied the existing soil from my terra cotta strawberry jar, drilled drain holes in 3 12" lengths of capped 1/2" PVC pipe and placed them back in the jar with the capped end down to encourage better water distribution so that this year I don't kill the herbs in the middle rows from lack of water. It felt good to get our gloves dirty

Later this morning the first half of my seeds arrived in the mail and as we walked to the mail room to go pick them up K's excitement grew. She couldn't wait to plant. First we pulled out the waterproof mat again and then I pulled down the smallest seed tray. She helped me open up the tops of the now fully expanded and moist soil disks and fluff up the top layer then she picked the seeds out of my hand and placed them in the designated spots. She did this so well, even the tiny thyme seeds. Lastly I placed the labels and moved the flat up to the dark shelf above her reach. Next we prepared the cheap strawberry all-in-one kit by filling the container with its baggie of soil and sprinkling the very few seeds that it came with. This went on the windowsill in front of the shelf. Now my herbs and strawberries are started and as soon as the rest of my seeds come I'll start the majority of my veggies indoors and a few of the cold hardy will go right into the planters. Were expecting snow showers over the next few days so it will probably be mid-week before anything more gets done.

Here is what I have ordered.
From Baker Creek Heritage Seeds:

Painted Lady Runner Beans (out of stock)
Blue Podded Peas (out of stock)
Sugar Snap Peas
State Half Runner Beans
Red Mini Bell Peppers
Sweet Yellow Stuffing Peppers (mini)
Lemon Cucumber
Yellow of Parma Onions
Bleu of Solais Leeks
Dwarf Siberian Kale
Puple Russian Tomato
Kabloona Calendulas
Sensation Mix Cosmos
Mexican Mint Marigolds (out of stock)
Dearf Jewel Mix Nasturtiums
Lilliput Mix Zennias

From Southern Exposure Seed Exchange:

Sweet Genovese Basil
Chives
Long Standing Cilantro/Coriander
Cumin
Greek Oregano
Summer Thyme
Sage
Jacob's Cattle (Trout) Bush Bean
Small Garden Sampler Garlic Mix-For delivery in the fall
Spring Mescalin Mix of 6 different lettuce/greens/spinach
Summer Mescalin Mix of 5 different lettuce/greens

From Bountiful Gardens:

Anasazi Bush Beans
Good Mother Stalllard Beans
Scarlet Emperor Bean
Forono Beet
Early Market Carrott
Rainbow Mix Chard
Tokinashi All Seasons Diakon Radish
Orange Jelly Turnips
Austrian Field Peas (for drying and green mulch)

Came with the Burpee Seed Starter Kit (haven't decided if I will grow these):

Carnival Hybrid Mix Sweet Pepper
Genovese Basil
Blue Lake 47 Bush Bean
Mediterranean Oregano
Steak Sandwich Hybrid Tomato
Fordhook Zucchini
Straight Eight Cucumber
Touchon Carrots

Came free with my Cooks Garden supply order:

Sweet Salad Mix Mesclun

And a stray Ferry Morse packet of Evergreen Bunching Onion picked up at Home Depot

Back with a plan

2009-02-24T19:56:00.003-05:00

So I have faded out for a while and now I'm back with a plan...a garden plan, that is. My reasons are complex so let me explain.

As the sunlight starts to creep in my window a little earlier I have started to get that urge to connect with the earth again. I grew up playing in a huge shared garden and had fruit trees intermingled in the redwood forest of my back yard. I grew tomatoes on my college apartment balcony in salvaged 5 gallon buckets atop old plastic milk crates. I even took responsibility for the lonely rose outside my office in the harsh, dry Baghdad summer; watering it with the leftover drops from our water bottles and nourishing it with our coffee grounds. For the past 2 years since moving to the DC metro area I have relied on our weekly share pickup trips to our CSA farm and the frequent u-pick bonuses to fulfill my longing to cultivate and harvest. And harvest we have. I have picked more green beans than I knew what to do with and all the strawberries I could carry; K has had the joy of picking and eating a fresh peach from atop my shoulders and digging with her bare hands in the northern Virginia dirt to fill her pail with potatoes and a few rocks. So its not that I am ever far removed from the earth and her bounty. But maybe I want to be even closer.

I live in an apartment and work full time (currently with a long commute too) and while I dedicate my Saturdays to good food and the farm life, sadly at some point I have to come home to earth that is not mine and a concrete patio. I have no yard to tend, no grass to mow, no big sunny windows for house plants and a 3 year old who might "re-pot" any indoor plants for the fun of it at the first chance she could get. So its not that I have space for a garden just calling my name, begging me to dig and plant. But maybe that's what challenges me.

I suppose you could say that with a half share of produce each week to use up for the majority of the spring and summer months and only one person to consume it (what K eats, when she eats hardly counts as another consumer except when we have berries) that we have access to plenty of fresh, local food. We also have a great year round farmers market where we can supplement any foods that don't come in our share. So its not that we are lacking access to fresh food. But even with the great choices our CSA grows and the many vendors at the market I still find that I can't get certain things that I want even when they are in season.

THIS is probably the biggest reason behind my garden plan. I want to put by some dried beans, savor a lemon cuke, have fresh herbs at my fingertips, relive my childhood though the favorite flowers of my memories and show my daughter the joy of sprouting a seed that turns into a plant whose fruit ends up on our plate or in a vase.

My patio does get good light, being almost South East facing and last year with the addition of a self-watering container I was able to keep some herbs from our share going until the first frost and in the case one over zealous chive almost until Christmas. So with renewed energy I have measured the patio, surveyed the light, plotted the space, researched container sizes, cut out little squares and rearranged everything until I got it all to fit, ordered the self watering containers, drooled over seed catalogues and finally placed my order. I set up a sturdy plastic utility shelf in front of the sunniest window where I plan to start my seeds and picked up some potting soil this week and now K and I are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our seeds. More to follow.

New Years Eve Fun?

2009-01-02T16:48:00.003-05:00

First off--Happy New Year! With family in town it was decided that it was better to take down the tree and decorations on the 31st while I still had the help of extra hands than to wait until after our short holiday in Baltimore and everyone flew home leaving just me... and K. The music was bopping, K was dancing and transporting ornaments from the tree to the table. The ornaments were off and I was almost finished putting them in boxes and the lights were down but not wrapped on their storage cards and we were probably 45 minutes away from searching the house for any last family belongings and packing everyone up to head to the hotel where my parents were staying. The plan was for K and I to stay here and hit the sack early while my parents took my car and drove themselves to the hotel. Neither of us had any big plans to ring in the new year, maybe just a little TV and then to bed so we could get an early start to Baltimore before any of the late nighters could even open their eyes. As I said...that was the plan.
No sooner had the last ornament box been closed than all the lights unceremoniously went out, power to the whole apartment complex gone. The only thing left running was the battery backup to the speakers we were using and the iPod's glow. The irony was that K's first New Year's Eve, when she was only months old, was spent at my parents home in California, without power. Then it was the after effects of a big drenching storm plus wind but we passed the time with friends having a generator enough to power the refrigerator and a stereo for music. This time I felt my way in the dark to my bedroom to retrieve my nightstand flashlight, and then began to gather a few other flashlights for my parents and K. K was getting pretty nervous at this point and really wanted the lights back on. When it became clear that this was not a temporary interruption I went for the camping box to pull out the battery lantern and the headlamps while we debated what to do. Not knowing how far the blackout extended nor how long the outage would last and knowing that without power there was no heater and it was going to be a very cold night we opted to bunk on the sofa bed at the hotel, come back in the morning. So instead of an early night and plenty of rest, I tossed and turned on the sofa bed and started the first day of the new year like many others, exhausted and in need of a Tylenol and more sleep.

New Kitchen Toy

2008-12-30T05:54:00.007-05:00

I'm the person in the family that likes to cook...not the only person...just the person who talks about it a lot. I tell extended friends and family about our trips to the CSA farm for U-pick in our Christmas letter. I relate the details of my latest meal to my parents when we chat and I tell co-workers (and occasionally bring proof to work to share) of my latest meal created from my CSA share or other exciting local food find. So it was no surprise that among the few gifts that we exchange for Christmas one of mine was food related. I was asked ahead of time if I would use a bread maker. My reply was that the real things that I would use are the mixing and kneading and that a stand mixer has attachments to do that plus it would allow me to purchase the pasta attachments to allow me to make my own pasta, another thing I have been telling everyone about. So come present time the last box was my very own Kitchen Aid Artisan Stand Mixer. Woohoo! I haven't had time to play with it yet, still entertaining guest, in fact taking one to the airport this early am. I am really looking forward to saving my joints and letting the mixer do some of the hard work for my next loaf of bread.

Dark Days Challenge Weeks 2-5

2008-12-30T05:23:00.002-05:00

Though I haven't found the time this winter to blog about it, I have been very successful adding local meals to our week.
Most recently I hosted my parents and sister to a thanksgiving-like Christmas dinner and a great post-present breakfast. My turkey was a frozen local 20 pounder from Elaine at Fields of Athenry that has been hogging my freezer since it was butchered at Thanksgiving. I am so glad to have that space back. I roasted it simply on a rack, stuffed with local apples and onions and rubbed with home dried herbs from my self-watering planter boxes (all I can do in an apartment) and local butter. I tossed a few bits of carrots, celery, and local onion underneath the rack to bake down with the juices for gravy. Next was a Food Network inspired roasted garlic mashed potatoes with local potatoes and 2 garlic heads from the farmers market and a dash of organic but not local heavy cream. I served my home canned whole berry jellied cranberry sauce. I canned up several jars at thanksgiving with the closest cranberries I could find, Orcranics from Buzzards Bay MA. With company's tastes to consider I opted for a store bought dressing mix but the best local dish was a butternut squash soup made with the last few squash left from my CSA and local honey.
Butternut Squash Soup
*Quarter 2 butternuts lengthwise, lay on foil covered pan and brush with 2 tbsp. butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
*Roast at 400 degrees till tender ~45 min. but depends on size of butternuts.
*When cool enough to handle remove flesh into soup pot and heat till just bubbling with 3 c. broth, 1/4 c. local honey, 1 tsp ginger (fresh or powder) then blend using immersion blender
*Remove from heat, add 1/2 c. heavy cream and dash of nutmeg, blend to distribute cream and serve
For Christmas Day breakfast I pulled together pumpkin pancakes with my frozen CSA pumpkin puree, local whole wheat flour, and local milk, local thick sliced bacon and local eggs fried to order.

Dark Days Challenge Week #1

2008-11-23T10:42:00.008-05:00

During week #1 I stocked up on winter root vegetables, dairy products, and some frozen poultry from the farmers market and flour from Wade's Mill but to complete a meal I made a trip to wander Whole Foods looking for local products. While they do an OK job of marking products they deem as local there is still not enough information provided or variety for me; 98% of the produce department came from California or Chili. What I walked away with was some fresh angel hair pasta from La Pasta in Silver Spring, MD, some yellow summer squash from Lady Moon Farms location in Chambersburg, PA, some Oak Barrel Stout from Old Dominion Brewing Co. bottled 1 month ago just down the road in Ashburn, VA, a glass bottle half-gallon of Trickling Springs Creamery Whole Milk for K's consumption, NJ IPA Ocean Spray Cranberries (the closest I've been able to find) and some locally made salsa and hummus for snacking.

Through out the week I have enjoyed many local items as part of other dishes but this is the only dish I was able to do to meet the Dark Days Challenge.I quartered a yellow squash and sauteed it with 1 minced clove non-local garlic and a dash of salt. Next i added some oven roasted tomatoes which had I picked very green the last week of my CSA and have been slowly ripening them in paper bags in my laundry room. I boiled the pasta and added it to the saute. I also prepared a small side salad of mixed lettuce, local mozzarella cheese, sliced pears and a local vinaigrette. I also enjoyed a bottle of the Stout. The squash with the pasta was a perfect with the tomatoes and the pear was just right.

Honey Wheat Bread

2008-11-22T09:47:00.004-05:00

The only thing better than making a delicious loaf of bread is being able to duplicate that success on subsequent loafs. I did it! This week I again tried making the honey wheat and it came out as good as the last loaf. The recipie calls for a half cup of honey and I have been using a local honey that I found to be a little bland compared to my favorite local lavendar honey which has already run out for the year. I plan on stocking up on next years flow if it has the same great flavor. But for this year there are still a few vendors at the farmers market who carry honey. I guess I better stock up if I plan to keep making this as my weekly bread.

Back on the Breadwagon

2008-11-18T11:47:00.009-05:00

Inspired by A Foothill Home Companion's Pumpkin Bagel post I surfed on over to the One Good Loaf blog and I must confess that I have decided to join the bandwagon. Or rather, that I'm already on the wagon and I'm ready to commit. For the past few months I have returned to baking and though not always successful I am improving. It all began with the fall influx of apples which necessitated a pie. After negotiation with my toddler we worked out a deal where she agreed to not burn herself on the stove while I tried to make a real crust, not a Pillsbury pre-made, and in return she could have ice cream and sprinkles on her slice. The edges were a little dry but the rest was quite good. Then came the inexplicable urge to bake bread again.

My very successful attempts at a Dutch Oven Crusty Bread gave me much needed confidence and so, after trolling some of my favorite mom blogs (I'm afraid I cant remember who now) I printed out a few of their favorite recipes and went to work. First was a very successful sweet potato bread made with leftover sweet potato mash and King Aurthur All Purpose flour followed immediately by a disastrous whole wheat version made on a very unexpectedly cold day during which the bread failed to rise well and I failed to judge the cooking times properly. Not to be dissuaded I switched to another well recommended honey wheat, this time with wondrous results. Even K was asking for another slice without the copious amounts of my homemade jam that is usually required on top of all bread.

Baking another loaf is on my to do list but since I ran out of time to start a yeast loaf last night and I have been needing to add a health but satisfying snack to my morning or afternoon routine I decided to give bran muffins a try. I had a small bag of Bob's Red Mill Wheat Bran sitting on the shelf with a molasses bran muffin recipe on it so with molasses, flour, home-made applesauce, and Bob's bran at hand I tried it out. What I got didn't taste bad but the tops were flat and it lacked something. I enjoyed my muffin but I didn't crave it. I think I will try again once these are gone. After all, in addition to my one local meal a week I will now also be trying to bake something each week.

Search for Local Flour

2008-11-16T16:52:00.007-05:00

One of the most difficult and frustrating things about starting to eat local is all the work involved in trying to find out what local products are available from who and especially searching out some of the staples that should be available but are not easily found. I figured that for the first week of the Dark Days Challenge I would focus on my most perplexing ingredient, local flour. The lack of small mills is not surprising in given the ease of quick, cheap world wide shipping. Mills generally operate on the principle of economy of scale. The more grain they can convert to flour and other milled products the less expensive it is for them to operate and the cheaper they can offer their products to consumers. Therefore it is natural for larger mills to locate closer to the mid-west's prime growing areas and near railways where the cheapest grain can be shipped in, converted and shipped out at the lowest cost. A few small operations continue to function but I have found that they are often historical mills which operate on a small scale mostly for demonstrations to tourists and not to produce enough quantity for locavore consumption. One disappointing feature of some of these smaller mills is that while the grinding is done locally, they may ship in the raw grain from other regions.

At first this realization made me sad. After all, northern Virginia was home to many of the agriculturally minded founding fathers and I distinctly remember the pride of this fact displayed prominently as I toured Washington's Mt. Vernon on the Potomac back in the 7th grade. Many of the historically minded locations in the DC region mention mills of old and describe the trials of taking grain to be milled. I found one example of this while flipping through some tourism material I have laying around as I prepare to host guests at Christmas. It is a map (link is to a pdf file) of the grounds at the the living history Claude Moore Colonial Farm and the closest mill is 3 days one way on foot. Still slightly disappointed I turned to google and began searching in earnest.

For those closer to PA there are several readily available options in the Lancaster area and I'm sure a few more that I didn't find because I wasn't looking up there. McGreary Organics' Daisy Flour brand fit my preferences as did the spelt wheat flours from Small Valley Milling but both are just at my 150 mile (driving distance not crow flight) limits. I continued my search for something closer, or at least in my own state and somewhere I might have a chance of visiting someday soon. I located a few more small mills in Maryland and Virginia that offered either limited quantity or not enough online information for me to justify a trip to try their flour. Just as I was giving up hope, I stumbled onto Wade's Mill, located in Raphine.

Wade's Mill has a nice website and even offers online ordering, in addition to a 1-800 number and its catalogue. They have a wide variety of milled grains, flours, baking mixes in addition to jams, syrups, hams and gift baskets. Family owned for a long time and now run my Jim and Georgina Young this mill, while still over my 100 mile preferred distance was worth making an exception at 163 miles. Not 1 day after I had decided to order some flour and give the mill a try I got my monthly email from the Virginia Tourism people and saw a picture of the Young's and a link to a video featuring them talking about their mill and their products. I was sold. I ordered a 30 lbs of flour and some maple syrup immediately. The box arrived quickly, was carefully packed and as I put each pack of flour away I smiled, knowing that I had achieved my goal and would soon be enjoying the fruits of local labor.

I've created a google map of the sources I found during my search: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=105998941988210614683.00045baf78e917bcac07a
I welcome comments and additions and will be updating if I find out any now information.

To Market, To Market

2008-11-15T11:23:00.009-05:00

Meat-$25

Vegetables-$18

Fruit-$15

Nuts-$4

Eggs-$4

Dairy-$4

$75 Dollars worth of responsibly produced, locally grown food and a morning chatting with my favorite local farmers market vendors- PRICELESS

Its been a few weeks since I've been able to get away and also afford to shop for food. We've been eating out of the pantry and freezer for the past month with only milk and cheese being added. I did this for two reasons: 1. I had plenty of stuff I've stocked away and it was time to rotate some out and reevaluate what was in there so I could stock up for the winter. 2. I wanted to use up some of the conventional and non-local things I had so that I could make room for local and organic alternatives in preparation for the Dark Days Challenge. So with $75 dollars in one pocket, my big purple market carry-all (and I do mean all) bag on my shoulder and K on my hip/holding my hand/running away from me as fast as she could while giggling I headed to the Leesburg Farmers Market.

So what did I get for my money? For fruit I stocked up on 1 peck of Jonagold apples from Bigg Riggs for $12/peck. It weighed in at 10.5 lbs so at a regular $2/lb I saved $9. For some variety I got 3 lbs Bosc pears from C.Hess Orchard & Produce at $1/lb. While I was at Hess's stand I also picked up 3.5 lbs sweet potatoes and almost 3 lbs of beautiful fresh turnips for $1.99/lb. Then I picked up a bag of the Loudon Lettuce Mix from Endless Summer Harvest for $5 for salads. Next came the 2 lbs of unshelled black walnuts for $4 from Onyx Hill Farm and a hefty 5 lb frozen whole chicken for $25 from Haskins that I plan on turning into both dinners and stock later this week. Finally, I took a quick detour to Millcreek Farm for eggs, passing on their delicious beef because I was now short on cash, and dolling out the last few dollars to Blue Ridge Dairy for their jersey cow whole milk honey yogurt for K and a splurge on their butter because I am too lazy/cheap to go get some local milk and make my own this weekend.

No clue what I'm going to do with this fall bounty but that's the rest of the fun.

Looking forward to Dark Days

2008-11-13T06:55:00.002-05:00

So its almost time to start Laura's Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. This Saturday, November 15th through March 15 I have agreed to blog about my attempts to cook one local (90% of ingredients) meal a week. My definition of local will be 100 miles except for hard to get items for which I have no problems extending the mileage a little as necessary. I have herbs which I grew and dried, lots of frozen pures, stocks, soups, and vegetables, a small amount of canned local fruits, and lots of my hand-picked self-canned berry jams. With several year-round farmers markets I expect to be able to source root vegetables, meats, eggs and some dairy throughout the challenge. One other exception I will be making will be to include anything given as a gift that came from the givers local food shed. This is primarily because my family is coming for the holidays and I fully expect to receive the canned fruits of their garden. And it would be rude to not taste them. The full Dark Days Rules are here.

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much I can do...a full meal with all the trimmings?...a full day of meals?... multiple meals during the week? I guess we will find out. I'm also hoping to find a few local dishes that K will eat. Perhaps that is the greater challenge.

Strange Morning

2008-11-02T08:57:00.006-05:00

Oldest equation in the book: A toddler fighting naps equals a stressed mom. A day with out naps means that by dinner time my K has turned into a two headed monster. On moment shes playing happily and is politely asking for a tissue but as soon as I say "OK, let me get it" she collapses on the floor screaming that she wants a tissue but refuses to take the one I'm holding for her. Poor kid. By 8 she passed out in my arms and I felt almost as bad as she did. With the time change it seemed like a good night for us to both turn in early. However, I woke up the next morning with no clear sense of time, order or orientation.
I wasn't hungry but K was so out came the frozen waffles and syrup with a glass of milk. Once in the kitchen I had an overwhelming desire to get things done but without needing to cook anything for K or myself I turned to food prep and preservation. Yesterday chopped, boiled, and stored 2 of our pumpkins, destined for frozen puree, but I hadn't done anything with the seeds. I pulled out my Roasted Vegetable Cookbook, my holy guide to oven roasting just about anything, and found the procedure for making pepitas. Mix seeds with oil, salt, and desired seasoning and roast single layered at 300 for 25-30 minutes. I did 2/3 with just salt and the last 3rd sprinkled with paprika. They are cooling in bowls right now and I cant wait to taste them.
Next on my list was to prepare the mix for my favorite fall/winter breakfast treat, pumpkin pancakes. With the pumpkin puree frozen I can pull out a cup at a time as I need it and enjoy this treat all the way 'till Easter, if I have the discipline. The total quantity of dry ingredients was too much to store in any of the glass jars I had on hand so I measured the basics and spices into Ziploc baggies.
Needing to use up the final remnants of my CSA share, a few leeks, potatoes, opinions, and a few little butternut squash, I pulled out my handy cooking magazines of seasons past, mainly last years fall and winter months of Cooking Light and Cooks Illustrated. A winter soup article caught my eye and in it was my answer: French Potage. A basic leek and potato soup that can support variation and manipulation and be on standby to go with other dishes throughout the week. I've started the chopping and peeling and hope to have the pot on the stove and ready for lunch.
The last of my pre-breakfast chores is to prepare and roast up the peanuts that I dug and, based on the quantity decide what to do with them. There are numerous online resources for my peanut endeavor but none take you from digging to final product. Most start with pre-bought raw peanuts from a producer. Now that the oven is free, we'll see how it goes.

Apple Update

2008-10-13T19:44:00.002-04:00

Well, almost half a month down and so far I've been able to keep up with the apple a day challenge. I finished up my apple crisp for dessert for the remainder of last week and thanks to a timely trip to Bigg Riggs booth at the Leesburg Farmers Market I have been enjoying my all time favorite apples Jonagolds strait from the fridge. I have always liked apples but have never really had a favorite until last year when, on a very, very cold day at the market I tasted each and every apple sample Bigg Riggs had out and bought several of each of my favorites to take home in its own labeled bag to finish the taste test. The crisp but mild sweetness of the very cold Jonagold stayed with me.

End of the CSA Season

2008-10-12T08:39:00.003-04:00

Change is hard but brings new opportunities along with the challenges. Next week is our last week of CSA shares from Great Country Farm and I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm a little excited that I wont be buying all that gas or having to do the long drives to the farm but that was my choice and sacrifice for the the fresh vegetables, fresh air, the chance to show my daughter where food comes from and the all around good fun of a half day picking and playing. I'm sad that I wont be getting an assortment of fresh vegies but that means that I can pick and choose what I want from the year round farmers market and not feel any guilt at trying out a local business resturaunt knowing that I have another 4 tons of tomatoes/kale/squash/... (fill in your most abundant vegi of the season) that I should be eating at home. It also means the opportunity to do other things on Saturdays, like explore some of the local living history parks and take advantage of all the wonderful holiday open houses.

I have been stocking up on the more hardy vegetables like apples, winter squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkins. I have been using the swap out option of my u-pack to get a double portion of apples or squash instead of the end of season, oversized tomatoes or less than storable tiny potatoes. I plan on making these last as long a possible and after halloween I want to can up the pumpkin mash for use throughout the year. Last year I froze most of my left over pumpkin cooked mash and enjoyed weekend pumpkin pancakes into the spring. But this year the freezer wont be an option.

This year, with my family joining me for Xmas I have decided to do the turkey then. I'm purchasing a fresh bird for Elaine @ Fields of Athenry when she does all her birds but putting it on ice to enjoy with the family. That will take up what little freezer space I have. Oh, how I long to have a big freezer...and a backup generator to go with it. Thus the other reason freezer is not an option,the fear of loosing all my hard work to a power outage. Last year I lost some fridge stuff but no freezer items to a brief power outage but it was a very, very mild winter and we were very lucky. Im not so hopeful this year and since I have the ability to can, why not.

I've also been spending alot of time searching around the net for other winter options including winter CSA shares, year round markets, stores that carry local products and growing my own winter greens. I just found that the newest farmers market group in town, Smart Markets Inc., will be running thier Oakton market as a year round. If I can find seeds I might start some winterable rutabegas or turnips or maybe kale for soups. I also hope to start baking more breads but first I must find a better source of grains than the supermarket.

The Greatest Birthday Gift

2008-10-12T07:47:00.004-04:00

Birthdays are tough but not for K. In K's world every day is a birthday complete with birthday cake and presents. It means coming home from daycare with goody bags filled with stuff I wouldn't normally let her have and lots of stickers. At 2 years old with her 3rd birthday less that a month away she doesn't understand the time concept of months let alone years and suffers from none of the other baggage that we, as adults, tie into our birthdays. And yet, for 2 days on my birthday weekend, she got it and what I got was the gift of Peace!

Saturdays during the summer and early fall mean Farm and Farmers Market Days. I decided to go do everything even though I am still suffering from an annoying cold and cough that I can't seem to kick completely. We get a hurried start out the door at 8:20 for our 35 minute drive to Leesburg to the year round Leesburg Farmers Market, which is only a .5 mile detour on our route to the Farm. Once the shopping and "sheep" petting (one vendor has pelts on display) is done we load back up, usually with a locally baked muffin, scone or even cookie, for the remainder of our drive out to Great Country Farms in Bluemont. We spend the morning picking up our CSA share, pick the u-pick bonus, bouncing on the pumpkin bounce, sliding down slides, playing in the play area, feeding the goats, petting the animals and generally running around. K sleeps the entire trip back while I drive. This leaves her refreshed as we arrive home but me exhausted.

Yesterday, I offered her a movie while I checked my email and tinkered with my blog reader and she picked Ice Age. Once it was on I decided to sneak into my room for a 5-10 minute nap; essentially however long it took for K to notice my absence and come jump on my back demanding I get up. In true form after 10 minutes she wandered into my room. My covers were pulled up in a fashion that caused her to not be sure if I was in bed or if it was just the blankets so she started patting down on them looking for me. She found my leg with a rather hard pat, leaned over, hugged my leg and said "good night mommy" then walked away. Deep sigh of relief. After another 15 minutes or so she came back in, this time climbing up on the bed. I thought my nap was over for good but all she did was place several of her favorite stuffed animals beside me, cover them with blankets, give me a kiss on the cheek and walk away.

Through my exhausted nappy slumber I could here her moving throughout the house sometimes laughing at the movie, sometimes in her room playing with her play kitchen, sometimes knocking down her blocks. The movie had ended a little time ago when I finally felt rested and got up. Looking at the clock I found she had let me rest for 2 hours! This peaceful time was just what I needed. Thanks for the early birthday present.

The Apple Week 2

2008-10-06T20:10:00.006-04:00

With fall in full swing I met the morning with my best shawl collared deep red sweater and a killer sore throat. That meant lots of tea, which meant getting out the local honey, which lead to a plate of golden delicious apple slices to dip is said honey. Work was agony but early to work equals early home so I had some extra time to tackle the pile of dishes, start the belated laundry cycle, move the old ill fitting clothing out of the closet and onto the to-be-donated mountain that is taking over one corner of my room. Except for one instance where she bolted behind the fish counter at Whole Foods, K has been mostly cooperative and a good sport with only minimal bribery. She whined a little about dinner but then settled for coloring at the table while I managed to not only cook whole wheat pasta (always takes longer) and reheat the chicken but also put together an impromptu apple crisp loosely based on a recipe in the Whole Foods coupon flyer I was browsing at stoplights on the drive home.

Starting with 3 of my CSA Red Rome apples sliced and lightly sugared covering the bottom of my favorite blue 9" square Pyrex I tossed in a couple of handfuls of frozen whole cranberries. Next I mixed 2 cups of some long forgotten Trader Joes blueberry muesli (which is nicely preseasoned with cinnamon) with 2/3 cup flour, drizzled with oil and honey (can be adjusted to taste but I used 6 and 4 tablespoons respectively) and tossed with 1/2 walnuts before pressing on top of the fruit. Baked covered w/ foil at 375 for 45 minutes and then another 20 uncovered produced a very nice impromptu crisp.

For both lunch and dinner I enjoyed a portion of the 4 boneless whole chicken breasts(not half breasts like you positioned in nice little lines on a tray at your grocery store) I picked up from Fields of Athenry at their booth at Great Country Farm on Saturday. I breaded and finished them with tomato sauce, but no cheese using the chicken Parmesan directions from the Cooks Illustrated 08 Cooking Light issue and I will never do breaded chicken any other way. The breading stayed on, cooked to a golden brown w/o burning and stayed crisp, not soggy even 2 days later. I cut a few bite size bits off to give to K as "chicken nuggets" and served them over the bed of whole wheat penne and more sauce. A delicious dinner that would have gone great with wine but alas it was water for me and apple juice for K.

An Apple A Day

2008-10-05T15:39:00.004-04:00

It seems that October is the wrong time for me to start challanges. For the past several years I have been aware of, inteded to be involved in, but unable to keep up with the various October Eat Local Challanges. Not for lack of trying but October is a bad month to scale back on anything. Yes, local produce is in abundance, the change of weather makes me yearn for homemade soups and my intentions are always the best. Then life gets in the way. Job changes, impending holiday expenses, unexpected medical bills, metal fatigue and a sudden onset of cooking apathy. What happens next is that I suddenly find myself at the end of October eating convenience food manufactured in hong kong and yearing for the fancy produce shipped in from a land far, far away even as the freshly picked local produce sits languishing in my refrigerator crisper or the bottom of my pantry.

This year was shaping up to be much the same. I was already in a no clean dishes when I need them equals no time to cook mood and had let several bunches of late summer spring onions dry out and get tossed when I ran across something that reinvigorated my will to source local and organic. It may not live up to the average Eat Local Challange participants standards but its a start and even something I know I could do. Eat an apple a day every day in October. Simple, right? Im too lazy to try to track down who started it but I crossed it on a Farm to Philly post late last night when I was too tired to be reading anything but to awake to be sleeping, the best time to aimlessly browse the internet. My take on this challenge will be to eat a local apple each day in some way shape or form without prejudice to the nutriousness of the dish; raw apple, last years canned applesauce and apple pie all being equal.

The frist thing I did with our first CSA provided crop of local Gala and Golden Delicious apples from Marker Miller Orchards and the Braburns from Bigg Riggs was to make the apple pandowdy from Cooks Illustrated. I used a mix of all the apples and I dont remember which I used or which worked best but they all were delicious. I had that for desert every night until Wednesday. Didn't eat any local (only the ones in the Starbucks pack) on Wednesday but Thursday, Friday, Saturday and today I finished off the Braburns in raw slices and whole. DD has been demanding the canned apple sauce from last years crop almost every day too.

I pack my own share from the CSA and with the new delivery of Red Rome apples I choose apples over my portion of potatoes (since I already have many), pears (not a big hit with DD) and green beans (had them continuously for a month) [note to self: next year blog about share w/ weight and totals]. Now I have of 20 green, red and golden apples packed into the crisper, some as small as 1/2 my fist others the size of almost 2 fists. I'm sure I'll be able to find many ways to use them and in a pinch a raw apple makes a healthy dessert.

Simple Eating

2008-02-16T14:38:00.004-05:00

I have had many meals over the past few weeks that have incorporated great local fruits, vegetables and meats. I have local fruits and vegetables that K and I picked last summer, canned and frozen, I have the last stores of apples, tubers and winter squash and I have great local farmers who butcher and deliver fresh meats to the farmers market. It is always difficult to eat local in the winter and I envy those in mild climates for their winter abundance. However, like many of my fellow locavores, the real crux of eating w/in our 100 miles, or however you definie local, is getting the things that take more than just a garden or land to obtain. Baking and cooking essentials like salt, baking soda, yeast, spices, coffee, some herbs and even flour are difficult to get local. It is possible but takes much more work and time than I have to spare right now. (I have been looking into grinding my own flour and making my own cheese but that will take some time to figure out).

These key ingreedients are often what keeps my dishes from being completely local. I have another problem becuase I like to try out new recipes and cooking techniques that often have me searching for ingredients that I have never used before or havent regularly kept stocked in my pantry. I have had to concede that in the winter in order to eat what can be obtained locally with little extra effort I have to learn to eat simple. Simple eating does not necessarily mean giving up good food or sacrificing taste but rather keeping the ingredients list short and letting the natural flavors do the work.

This morning I had my first "truely" local meal in a while. 3 local eggs (whites for me, yokes for K) and some home-canned local corn made a great simple omlet. My coffee was bought from a local framers market that locally roasts beans grown on a Hondouran coffee farm that emphasizes good growing practices, fair wages and great coffee. Simple and good. All that was lacking was some salt but I can easily do w/o. Im going to be looking at other simple dishes in the future.

Bread

2008-02-10T12:00:00.001-05:00

Another of my recent attempts to relearn the art of cooking and Im happy to report that it turned out great!

I have a short history with bread and most of it is unpleasant. Somehow, no matter what I did, I would end up with bread that was less than the perfect warm loaf I had imagined or seen in pictures and more in the vacinity of either a pile of steaming goo or a rock. I could never get it to rise, rarely get the inside cooked before the crust turned to concrete, and often ended up with part of it burnt. All this despite trying different yeats, ovens, sides of the country and amounts of patience. So what made me think that, with all of the things I had on my plate and K running around like a typical two year old demanding my time and attention every time I tried to do something constructive, I would be able to bake a noteworthy loaf now.

Enter a random copy of Mother Earth News pulled off the rack at Whole Foods in a weak moment of yearning. I normally shop with a list, especially at Whole Foods where even a single deviation can push you way over your budget, but with all of my introspection and soulsearching this blast from my childhood hit my weak spot and it was soon in my cloth bags and one its way home. It just so happened that this months Real Food article highlighted a way to cook a moist crusty loaf of bread in a dutch oven of all things with very little interference from the breadmakker. It seemed too good to be true but since I had been eyeing a new Le Creuset Dutch Oven and this seemed like the excuse I had been looking for. So after a stop at Williams and Sonoma and Harris Teeter for some fresh yeast I was on my way to trying this promised miracle recipe.

Yes it really was as easy as it touted and, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. K gobbled her first slice w/o waiting for me to spread on her butter.

Semi-Local Chili

2008-02-10T11:48:00.000-05:00

Last week I defrosted some local ground beef and canned tomatos and whipped up this delicious chili. It went perfect with the cool temperatures. The beans and some of the spices were organic and I topped it with local organic cheese and onions. What a great way to eat local. Now if only I could get some local salt and learn to make my own crackers....

Movie Time

2008-02-09T22:31:00.002-05:00

One of the treats that we got on our trip to the Co-Op was good old-fashioned popping corn. I'm a sucker for kettle corn and spent way too much on it last year since they cooked it fresh at the Farm and nothing beats the sweet-salty taste after a long morning of harvesting. But the next best thing to kettle corn is fresh popped corn. I've gotten tired of the artificially buttered packets that you nuke and almost always burn or are left with half of the kernals unpopped. So I splurged and got a large bag of multicolored popping corn kernals from the bulk bins. When we got home I got out my biggest pot and pored in a few handfulls with just a little canola oil and got to shaking. In no time at all it started popping and I began to wonder if I should have started with just one handful, as it seemed to be filling up the pot rather fast. The jiggling kept the popped corn rising and the unpopped kernals would fall to the bottom. Going by instinct I took it off the heat and let it sit for a few while I melted some the creamery butter. I thought it was delicious and K agreed. Amazingly not a single one was burnt and only two kernals were left unpopped.

In Search Of Milk

2008-02-09T21:47:00.000-05:00

K is small. She always has been. She was born late, practically had to do everything under the sun to prusuade her to come out w/o a c-section and even then she wasnt quite ready. Perfectly health but certainly petitie, we went out to the store on her third day to buy some premi clothes because she was just swimming in her newborn onesies. She has continued to develop ahead of her age and she is growing but just not a much as other children. It's not really a suprise since my sister and I were both small babies and kids. However, our pediatritian remains cautious and is working to rule out any other potential causes before he resigens himself to say that this is just the way she is going to be. I serve all of her food with butter, she still drinks whole milk and I take any chance I get to offer her healthy (but full fat) alternatives to your average toddler fare. We eat whole wheat bread with the crusts on, her dairy is organic (mine is soy), and the local year round farmers market is our first grocery stop. This is how I found myself on a small country pike in south-west Maryland looking for milk.

I have always paid the extra $ for commercial organic whole milk from the store. In California, it was abundant and since we moved to Virginia most of the main stores, and all of the specialties like Whole Foods and Trader Joes, care a few organic options in addition to their own store brand. In the end its worth it to pay more for organic milk than the standard commercial practices that I know they use for regular milk. But there is something about actually being able to see where your food comes from that brings true peace of mind. For some time now I have been looking for a local source of milk for K. We get local cheese and yogurt from the farmers market but milk is harder to find.

Thanks to the internet a few searches on creameries brough me several options. I limited my search to w/in 70 miles, this being the max distance that I would drive for a 1x month pickup. Ideally I would find someone that did home delivery. I found just such a place and it happened to be less than 10 miles from a co-op I was hoping to checkout. So a few saturdays ago when the ice and snow was off the roads we bunddled up and headed over the river. K slept for the entire drive and thanks to my iPod, archives of Geek.Farm.Life podcasts, and the idillic scenery it was quite enjoyable. We stoped at the co-op, stocked up on lots of good organic, natural, and local stuff (more on that later) and then headed out to find the creamery, give it a look and pick up some milk and butter to sample.

Thanks to my good navigational intuition I made it there w/o the map and we got out to look around. Went inside to thier little store and was pleased at the selection of dairy, meats, bread and ice cream products. K spotted a kitty outside and spent her time glued to the door watching it lounge on the patio. I picked out a gallon of whole, no hormons milk in a glass jar, a tub of butter, some rasin-walnut wheat bread and some cheese. The prices are comperable to other local milk producers. I found out that the dont have delivery available in our town yet but a few more people and they would add it. I put my name on the waiting list. When we got home K had a glass of the milk and didn't reject it so I guess thats something. Overall it was a fun trip and I enjoyed pointing out the cows and listening to K "moo" and giggle in the back seat.

Homework and Blogging

2008-02-09T21:25:00.000-05:00

I started to keep track of my daily meals and had a running list in a draft post for the better part of a week before I realized that I was having a hard enough time keeping up with K and all of my other responsibilies that trying to track every bite of every meal was unrealistic. My biggest conflict is computer time, or more accurately, getting distracted while I'm on the computer and not doing the things Im supposed to or being on the computer instead of doing something else. Let me explain:

I left college after 3 years and two associate degrees to join the military. Post military I took a civilian job that sent me overseas. When I began to contemplate my return to the states and started to look for a new job I knew that one of my biggest stumbling blocks was my lack of credentials. However, the few attempst at returning to school had always been interupted with moves and differing transfer policies.

I was still struggling with what to do from my computer in Iraq when I decided to research online options. I found a brick and mortar professional geared university that also offered a good selection of curriculum in an online, asynconous format. That way I was free to move and pursue wherever my job took me while still continuing to make progress on my degree. I started immediately, continued through my pregnancy and the first year when I stayed home with K and I'm currently taking the last few courses toward my bachelors degree. I have had to slow down my progress as I only have time for 1 course at a time...and even that is a streach some weeks. Eventually, within the next year, I should graduate but from here it still looks so far away.

Since all of my tests, lectures, discussion threads, and research are online and assignemnts are due each week, my first tasks should be to do homework and get it over with instead of checking email, blogs, searching the news, playing video games, and all of the other time-wasters that I participate in on a regular basis while avoiding the necessary. Unfortunately, this means that blogging is less of a priority and consequently, likely to get bumped due to my procrastination.

I'll try to sum up things in the next few posts.

Difficult week

2008-01-24T20:00:00.000-05:00

This week has been a difficult week for my diet. Last week I didn't go to the farmers market due to the weather and some other projects going on but I had my meals planned out and had everything I needed on hand. Since Tuesday I have found myself drained of energy as I drive home, feel so worn out but unable to fall asleep weather early or late, woken up the next morning more tired than I was the night before and that just makes for a miserable morning. Not to mention that I have had to be to work early 2 days and eat out 3 times and that threw off an already difficult schedule. So I have not eaten very much local or organic food and in my sleep deprived state I found it very hard to even keep eating healthy. I think that in the future I will need to have some frozen meals on hand to keep me from eating out when I feel like it rather than just when it is absolutely necessary. I also think that I have some sort of mental block against my cooking/freezing abilities which keeps me from craving my own home froze meals when I'm stressed; that's when I seem to want to eat out. I will post our food logs when the week is over.

Today I also got some mixed news about K. The Dr. called to say that her blood work looked fine but that because she was still failing to thrive and was having poor wt gain that we should visit a nutritionist to do some calorie counts and look closer at her diet. If that doesn't work than its time to see the specialists. Ks wt gain problem is at odds with my obesity and quest to eat lean. Its so hard for me to see her size as a problem when my sister and I were both extremely small, low wt babies and kids. I find myself wishing I had her problem. But I also try very not to project any negatives on her and her eating habits. I don't want to push food on her all the time or pressure her to do anything that she is not already inclined to do for fear of doing some harm or instilling habits in her that will not be helpful in the future. If I give her the idea that she has to eat a lot now, when she is skinny, she may carry that into her adult life, when there is not a wt problem, and that would not serve her well. I would rather teach her to eat at meal times if she is hungry.

Weather Report

2008-01-20T10:57:00.000-05:00

Last week we came off of the warmer, spring-like break in the winter weather and were hit with snow and ice all Thursday 4-6in. Friday morning things were still frozen and the intersections difficult but by afternoon the roads had cleared and were fine. Saturday was up to the 40s and but cloudy and just felt dreary. Last night temperatures dropped and it has remained in the teens though with the winds it feels like 0. It should warm up overnight and for the rest of the week we are expecting sunshine and little precipitation with high temperatures in the 30s.

Local Food in my Pantry and Dish #1

2008-01-19T22:58:00.001-05:00

In preperation for my participation in PTF's 100 FOOT Challange I decided to take stock of what local food I have in my pantry. Most of this would be stuff that I canned this summer or have gotten recently at the Leesburg Year Round Farmers Market. I have:

Pork Chops from Baker
Ground Beef patties from Mill Road
Chicken from Fields of Athenry
Strawberry Jam with fruit from Great Country Farms, home canned
Strawberry Jam with fruit from Great Country Farms, home froze
Creamed Corn entierly from Great Country Farms, home canned
Corn entierly from Great Country Farms, home canned
Apple Sauce with fruit entierly from Great Country Farms, home canned
Frozen blueberries, strawberries, peaches, and black raspberries from entierly from Great Country Farms, frozen
Bean soups with local stock and vegetables, frozen

Its not much but its a start and until it starts to thaw out here Im going to be heavily reliant on food I can purchase at the farmers market or other local producer. My biggest challange is going to be sourcing the spices, condiments and basic pantry items when the run out; all the things that I have taken for granted up. I buy most everything I can in organic form but still reach for the convenience item if an organic althernative is not redily available.

The good news is that I had my first local dish last night with out even realizing it. I sauted a cut of pork tenderloin I bought from one of the local farmers market regulars and did a rasberry port and balsamic vinigar reduction for the sauce. The port came from a near by vinyard, the vinager from a local business and the whole raspberries from this summers crop. It was quite delicious. I'm looking forward to grilling some local burgers and pulling out some of my soup and corn.

Found a path to follow

2008-01-19T22:13:00.000-05:00

It may seem odd, but the more I look at my life, the more I wish I was living another. Its not that I want to be skinny and fit and popular (Don't get me wrong, I do want those things) but more that I want to be living the life that my parents lived when I was growing up. I want grow my own garden, hang my clothes out to dry, I want to raise my own animals...I want to have the energy and freedom to things on my own and be at least a little self sufficient. I feel trapped in my modern role and unable to make peace with my ideals. I enjoy my work and the flashy, glamorous proximity to the heartbeat of the nation but for every yearning to make a difference on a national scale I am hit with an equal if not more powerful yearning to take off into the country and do my own thing. I desire to walk in the path of Jeanne Tetrault, author of Country Women, and homestead with confidence. I want K to experience the joy of munching on green tomatoes, digging funny looking carrots, eating raspberries off the bush, sunflowers towering over her head and having fond memories of bee hives and the pay off of hard work.

In my Internet wanderings I have come across many sites. I have read countless 100 mile blogs and organic movement pages and while I agree with and take something from each of them nothing has struck a cord quite like Path to Freedom (PTF)and their 100 FOOT challenge. "The challenge is simple. Beginning as soon as you can, prepare a meal at least once a week with only homegrown vegetables, fruit, herbs, eggs, dairy products or meat, using as few store bought ingredients as possible." Since I currently live in an apartment where are rather restrictive about the visible space (my patio) this challenge may impossible. However, their guidelines have some slack that fit my situation. "A meal must be comprised of food grown on your property or garden plot (literally or figuratively within “100 feet” of your front or back door). If non-homegrown ingredients are needed, then we suggest following these modified locavore guidelines: If not from BACKYARD, then Locally produced (PTF’s addition). If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic. If not ORGANIC, then Family farm. If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business. If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade." I had a strawberry pot of herbs last year that I hope to resurrect and I also wanted to do another pot of something to supplement what I get from our CSA and local producers at the Farmers market. And now I think that I have found a source of inspiration.

The good folks at PTF are living their own solution and are so successful. But more importantly they started with taking a step, or as they say,a step backward toward creating a better life for themselves. One step became two, two became three and three became many. Even as I find myself in despair, torn between two parts of myself this gives me comfort that others have found a path and that there may be one for me to where ever I am going.

Goals

2008-01-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

What do I hope to accomplish? Given that this is the beginning of the new year it is a natural time to reevaluate what hasn't been working over the past year and set some new goals for the new year. Although my weight is the first thing that I would like to change about myself this has not made it directly into my goals. What I hope to do is change other aspects of my life which will indirectly but cumulatively help me burn more calories, free up time and money, get out more, and get unhealthy concerns off my mind so that next year I will be ready to tackle my weight more directly.

A few months ago when I took a look at my work performance, behavior and appearance I realized that I had to get rid of my old ratty day planner binder and go for something a little less poor college undergrad and a little more multi-tasking professional. It just so happened that I would be running out of weekly planner pages at the end of the year and they were running a sale to give you $-off of a binder/planner/book combo. So with my new black leather binder I purchased a years worth of daily planner pages and an organization self-help CD designed by Julie Morgenstern. Over the last month I have used her CD to help me refine my goals and learn to focus on what had to be done.

My biggest problem with organization stems from K. I want to be responsive and attentive to her but as a single mom there is only one of me and some things have to get done in what little time I have at home and sometimes that outranks time with K. Not that I'm ignoring her but my attention has to be on something else even when I'm with her. So by setting long term goals, short term goals, defining activity areas where I need to focus, and listing tasks to complete those activities I hope to determine what is really important and what is just busy work that I do because I feel I have to do something when I have some time but that doesn't really accomplish anything.

I have initially divided up my goals into categories like Work, Family, Home, Knowledge, Self, and Financial. My Work actives are almost on autopilot since all I have to do is keep up on the daily tasks and remember to update my resume. My Family and Home activities are going to take much more conscious action. It involves setting and maintaining behaviors that will make our interactions much more meaningful, and also bring some order and sanity to our household schedule (or lack there of). I subdivided Knowledge into 3 sub-sections: Work-related, Formal Education, and Personal Interests. I have no problem exploring my personal interests but they often are more fun than the formal educational activities that I have to do to complete my degree. My main activities there centers on setting myself up for success my making the Formal Education a priority when I am home. This includes putting off my personal reading until after homework is done and reducing my Internet activity to school related until I feel ahead of the class. Obviously my family goals are necessary to support this effort.

I resisted setting any concrete activities for my Self, partly because I didn't want to start of the year failing at my most important goal and partly because of what I described at the start of this post. To start with I need to find a primary physician, want to keep my room and bathroom orderly and clean and make some (read at least 1) scheduled time for exercise. Finally, I put down that I want to spend time stretching with K.

I have done yoga on an off since I graduated from High School but I have never been extremely consistent in my practice. I decided that I want to teach K how to do some of the calming moves to help her deal with her frustration and that I probably need them as much as she does. Besides, stretching is a good first step to prep me for more activity and eventually more targeted exercise. So I told K that I was going to do some yoga and got her to help me to clear her toys off the floor. Then I showed her cat/cow--my back was aching so this was the only stretch I could think of that had a name she could remember, a pose that she could try and something that would work on my back. A few days later I added downward dog to the short routine. She can do the cat part and then giggles as I try to get her into down dog and she gets ticklish and collapses in a somersault. Since then she has repeatedly asked me to do "cat-dog" with her and is getting better at cow. She even sat through a video podcast of YOGAmazing so I could look for another pose to teach them and commented on the poses she knew. So far so good. I hope to keep this up this month.

Now that I have just finished writing that I didn't set any typical fitness or eating resolutions here is my two exceptions: make a weekly meal plan and go for 10 minute walks during lunch, regardless of weather or location.

Questions

2007-12-31T20:22:00.001-05:00

In my first blog I detailed how i stumbled onto a new direction. As with any new discovery, every question that gets answered leads to 10 new questions. How am I going to keep up with K focused me to what is the best way to get good food onto my table? This in turn lead me to question what could be done to fix my overall physical fitness, what did healthy eating really mean, where is my food coming from, what other things could I be doing to help the environment, why am I unhappy with myself and how do I cook 5 lbs of kale? So many issues and so many options. The more I looked into it, the more dissatisfied I became with my own choices and lack of action. So, after a year of floundering around, reading what I could in my spare time and feeling overwhelmed to the point of indecision I have decided that, for better or worse, I would start making some solid steps in a direction--hopefully the right direction-- and that the best way to keep myself accountable would be to blog about it. There are several categories and lots of little things that I would like to focus on and since I cant focus in enough to make that list manageable I will just post it here as it comes to me and I will add to it and elaborate more in future posts.

Physical Self
-Weight Gain
-Knee Injury
-Lack of energy
-Stamina to keep up with K
-Looking Good
-Poor Self Image
-Exercise

Nature
-Connection with the earth
-Environmental Impacts
-Sustainable Building
-Water shortage
-Rainwater catchment
-EcoVillage
-Pollution
-Alternative Energy Sources

Food
-Hormones
-Where does it come from
-Shipping food contributes to carbon footprint
-Sustainable growing methods
-Organic/Free-Range/Cage-Free/Humane Treatment
-Healthy eating
-Community Supported Agriculture
-Local Food

Just Starting

2007-12-30T17:40:00.001-05:00

One year ago K & I moved here to Northern Virginia not knowing the area or anybody here. I knew that this was going to be hard but it was the best way for me to make enough to provide for a good life for K and give me the career satisfaction that I had given up to stay at home for her 1st year. The scariest thing about this move was the though ow what I would have to give up in order to make things work for us. These fears included giving up on things like health eating when I worked long hours, a orderly house with an infant/toddler and no one else to help clean up, a rural setting as I choose a short commute in order to maximize the little time I would have at home, and a social life since I knew nobody within 3 states.

I had the good fortune to grow up in varying degrees of rural locals but always in proximity to a garden and the Pacific ocean and now I was willingly locating myself near neither of those things. So one of the first things I did when I was house hunting was scope out the local farmers market web pages . OK, so there are an abundance of local producers and several nearby farmers markets. This was good for my impending life as an overworked, single mom. Next I began to research the concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA, something I had only briefly heard of while browsing the stalls at my local Northern California Farmers Market but knew nothing about.

From http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ I learned that: "A CSA, (for Community Supported Agriculture) is a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce. By making a financial commitment to a farm, people become "members" (or "shareholders," or "subscribers") of the CSA. Most CSA farmers prefer that members pay for the season up-front, but some farmers will accept weekly or monthly payments. Some CSAs also require that members work a small number of hours on the farm during the growing season. "

Much to my surprise Northern Virgina, and good lands on the other side of the Potomac in Maryland, support a good number of CSA Farms. I found several different styles of CSA nearby. Some would deliver to your door at a scheduled day/time, others brought your share to a central location like a farmers market for your to pick up, and a few allowed you to pick up your share at the farm, usually offereing other activities there as well. While becoming a CSA shareholder did not seem immediately attracitve to my budget or my practical sensebilities, it appealed to my ideological side and seemed to be one answer to my dream of reclaiming my some sense of connection to nature and the land that I was lacking. My biggest fear was that I would receive all kinds of good produce but not have the time, skill, know-how or energy to use it all.