Category Archives: Eat Local Challenge

Eat Local Challenge, foraging, locavore

Local Meal of the Week (#13)

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This week’s Dark Days Eat Local Challenge meal was pork chops with apples and acorn squash. The sweet and the heat together in this dish are really awesome.

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  • Pork chops from Ox Hollow Farm
  • Cortland apple and apple cider from Silverman’s Farm
  • acorn squash from Waldingfield Farm
  • shallots and red pepper from Cherry Grove in Newtown
  • garlic and maple syrup from Bluestone Farm
  • rosemary from the window sill
  • dried sage from our garden last summer
  • olive oil from Italy
  • dark rum from Jamaica

The hot pepper from Cherry Grove was this cayenne pepper I dried:

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I crushed it with my own fingers.

cayenne02

If you do that too, do not rub your eyes, even if you rinsed your hands. I speak from experience.

Another dish I made this week was tandoori chicken with chickpea curry and basmati rice. Most of the ingredients were from away out there (almost sounded like a kiddie pool with all the shouts of Marco Polo) but I really wanted something different. Nonetheless, the chicken did come from Ox Hollow Farm,  the yogurt from Trinity in Enfield, the garlic from Bluestone Farm, and the onion from Cherry Grove. Additionally, the paprika came from Amy LeBlanc’s Whitehill Farm in East Wilton, Maine. (I came upon Amy and her paprika by attending a workshop of hers at the NOFA conference over the summer.)

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Community query

I’m about out of usable onions. I will soon need more garlic. Anyone know anyone local who’s still selling these?

Eat Local Challenge, locavore, NOFA

Final October 2008 Eat Local Challenge Post

The October 2008 Eat Local Challenge is coming to an end and I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t have a slew of gourmet local meals to share here. I’m disappointed that I actually ate more “away” meals this month than the month before simply because that’s the way the calendar played out with social events and food prep and storage activities. I found it rather ironic that with the business of storing up for the winter, I ate cheese and apples for dinner quite a bit this month! It was a great month for apples, though.

I am still happy to be a locavore and am not imagining all the exotic foods I can return to on Saturday. In fact, I’ll be going to CT NOFA’s 2008 Organic Harvest Celebration & Annual Meeting.

Some dinner highlights since the last post included a beef short rib ragout (beef from Stuarts) with homemade fettuccine (Wild Hive whole wheat flour from local wheat. Really!)

Another dinner included a sampling of squashes I have never tried before. Here’s my current squash collection:

I cooked the Cinderella squash and a Turban squash. Since I’d never tasted either of these before, I left them plain to experience their natural flavors. I did half of each in the microwave and roasted the other halves in the oven.

The Cinderella squash had a mild chestnut like flavor. We had this with a ham steak from Ox Hollow Farm and I found that the flavor of the ham overpowered the squash. Eaten by itself, the squash had plenty of flavor of its own.

The Turban squash didn’t have much flavor at all–in fact it tasted like the outdoors (leaves, acorns, that sort of thing). I ended up stir-frying roasted cubes in the ham steak pan, deglazing the pan with apple cider (from Park Lane Cider Mill,  in New Milford, CT) and sprinkling a bit of cinnamon. Quite tasty after that.

As you can tell, we’ve quite a bit more squash to consume and I suspect we’ll get more!

Thanks to Jen for organizing this challenge!

Eat Local Challenge, locavore

October 2008 Eat Local Challenge, Week 3

Here’s my food log for Week 3 of the October 2008 Eat Local Challenge.

Monday, October 13:

Breakfast (Default):

  • Coffee (with raw milk, from Foxfire Dairy)
  • Macoun apple (from one of the local orchards:  Blue Jay Orchards, Glastonbury via Shortts Farm, Silverman’s, or Missy’s)
  • Yogurt (usually my own, made from raw milk from Stonewall Dairy) with a dollop of mixed berry jam (discovered at Dutton Farm in Manchester, VT) but today’s was ready-made by Beaver Brook.

Lunch:

  • Leftover oven-roasted butternut squash from last night’s dinner (using this recipe)
  • Ricotta (from Beaver Brook) with fig jam from (Stoneledge farm in Southbury, CT).
  • Hard-boiled egg (from Stoneridge Farm, Bethlehem, CT or Holbrook Farm–I hard-boiled a mix)

Dinner:

Tuesday, October 14:

Breakfast:

  • Coffee (with raw milk, from Foxfire Dairy)
  • Macoun apple (from High Hill Orchard)
  • Ricotta (from Beaver Brook) with fig jam from (Stoneledge farm in Southbury, CT)

Lunch: Brought in for us at work for a long meeting; exceptions apply (although they claim it was local pizza).

Dinner:Noshed while processing 50 lbs of tomatoes.

  • Hard-boiled egg
  • Pleasant Sun cheese (from Beaver Brook)
  • Macoun apple (from High Hill Orchard)
  • Biblical Bosco (tall glass of ice cold raw milk with a tablespoon of honey stirred in)
Wednesday, October 15:

Breakfast: Coffee and a Macoun apple.

Lunch:

Dinner:

  • Macoun apples
  • Cheese
  • bread
Thursday, October 16:

Breakfast: Coffee, apple, cheese

Lunch:

  • salad lettuce (from Waldingfield), leftover veal, and my northeast dressing
  • Roasted red peppers (from Missy’s), local garlic
  • Whole wheat bread from the Brooklyn guy at the Brewster Farmers Market

Dinner:

Friday, October 17:

Breakfast: Coffee, apple, cheese

Lunch:Leftovers from dinner last night, exactly the same menu.

Dinner:

  • Beef short rib ragout (made from short ribs from Stuarts, onions and shallots from Cherry Grove, garlic is local, carrots from Missy’s, wine from McLaughlin Vineyards, tomato sauce–home made starting with Vaszauskas Farm plum tomatoes)
  • Whole wheat fettuccine (made from whole wheat flour from Wild Hive farm and an egg from Holbrook Farm)

And that’s all she wrote…I apologize that I am a miserable food logger. I have my excuses reasons: The calendar is over-populated (as it generally gets this time of year) and we’re trying to use our spare time for foraging and putting by. Sometimes, it comes down to a choice between eating and blogging about it. Guess what I’m picking?!

Anyway, I’ll at least try to post some pictures of some of our better local meals.

Since someone asked–I do not drink only one cup of coffee a day–not hardly at all. I drink between five and seven cups (yes, all with raw milk). I only listed one each day with breakfast to avoid tiresome repetition.

On the topic of tireless repetition…I don’t mind repeating the number of apples I consume in a day, especially when they’re Macoun apples. Since becoming a locavore last year, I won’t eat apples from anywhere else–I consider them my flagship local food (I live in the northeast and we can do apples!). I missed them big time last winter, spring, and summer and will eat as many this fall as I can possibly stand!

Eat Local Challenge, foraging, locavore

October 2008 Eat Local Challenge, Week 2

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Here’s my food log for Week 2 of the October 2008 Eat Local Challenge.

Monday, October 6:

Breakfast (Default):

  • Coffee (with raw milk, Stonewall Dairy)
  • Apple from High Hill Orchard in Meriden, CT
  • Yogurt (my own, made from raw milk from Stonewall Dairy) with a dollop of mixed berry jam (discovered at Dutton Farm in Manchester, VT)

Lunch:

Dinner: I had a meeting after work, so dinner was light.

Tuesday, October 7:

Breakfast: Default (see above)

Lunch:

Dinner:

Wednesday, October 8:

Breakfast: Default (see above).

Lunch:

Dinner:

  • Kale and acorn squash soup (both from Waldingfield), including olive oil (from out there), a red onion (from a local farm–sorry, they’re all co-mingled in the bin), salt (from Maine), and pepper (from out there).
  • Sliced mozzarella (from Calabro) and tomatoes (from Waldingfield) and basil (from Shortt’s Farm).
  • Bread (from Wave Hill Breads)
Thursday, October 9:

Breakfast: Default (see above)

Except today’s yogurt was Seven Stars (from PA, organic but not local). Today’s Macoun apples are from Missy’s Greenhouse Farm, Goshen, NY.

Lunch:

Dinner:

While canning tomato sauce, vacuum sealing paste tomatoes, and making yogurt, I just grazed on easy foods: plums (from Maple Bank Farm that I dried last month), an apple, some cheese (from Beaver Brook), pears (from High Hill Orchard that we dried, umm, recently), and raw carrots (from Missy’s Greenhouse Farm in Goshen, NY).

Friday, October 10:

Breakfast:

  • Coffee (with raw milk, Foxfire Dairy)
  • Apple from High Hill Orchard in Meriden, CT
  • Ricotta cheese (from Calabro, a local producer sourcing milk from VT)

Lunch:

Dinner:

A casserole of veal sausage (from Beaver Brook), white eggplant (from Missy’s Greenhouse), tomato sauce (that I made from Don Taylors tomatoes–recipe and process coming soon), potatoes and tomatoes (from Waldingfield), and onions and garlic (local, but co-mingled in our pantry).

Saturday, October 11:

Breakfast: Default (see above)

Lunch & Dinner: I was out at a social event–all bets off; all exceptions apply.

Sunday, October 12:

Breakfast: Default (see above) except the apple could have been from High Hill, Missy’s, or Shortt’s they are all co-mingled at this point, and no, I cannot tell the difference. They are all Macouns.

Lunch: Cheese and apples, lots of apples (I went apple picking with my niece and nephew this afternoon at Blue Jay Orchards!).

Dinner:

  • Pan roasted veal chop (from Beaver Brook)
  • Sauteéd onions (from Cherry Grove farm in Newtown) and miatake mushrooms (from Beaver Brook)
  • Oven-roasted butternut squash (from Waldingfield), following this recipe. (Excellent recipe, by the way—a keeper for the collection.)

And that’s the week!