I forgot to mention, we picked our own apples at Blue Jay Orchards. The Macouns were running!
Macouns (to me) are the perfect apple: crisp and juicy. It turns out they were invented in New York (like me) by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (not like me). They are a cross between a MacIntosh and a Jersey Black.
You can cook with them or simply eat them raw! You can only get them for a few weeks from the end of September to early November.
Making granola is one of the easiest things to prepare and it may even qualify as baking. Wonderful smells emanate from the kitchen. And it’s versatile: you can eat it right out of the bag, you can eat it like cereal, you can sprinkle it on yogurt or anything else that needs a crunch; the possibilites are nearly endless.
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup almonds
1/2 cup wheat germ
3/4 tsp salt
a sprinkle of cinnamon
1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp Maple syrup
3 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp water
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
Mix the dry ingredients.
Mix the wet ingredients.
Combine.
Let it rest for about 15 minutes.
Spread the mixture out on a cookie sheet.
Bake for about 45 -55 minutes, turning and stirring a few times in the middle.
It’s done when it’s golden brown and dry.
Cool completely.
You can add dried fruit at this point if you like.
Store in an airtight container.
I’ve been using this recipe since before and it needs to be localized. So far, only the water and the maple syrup are local. The water comes from my well, so that’s definitely local.
The maple syrup comes from the Sisters (the Community of the Holy Spirit, Bluestone Farm, Brewster, NY –20 driving miles from here). It is made with, as they say, nothing but sap, fire, and love.
Between Terri’s sprouts and my granola, I’m feeling a bit anachronistic. Think I’ll go to a peace rally!
Deciding to eat locally and sustainably does not (for me) preclude meat. I am an omnivore and make no apologies about it.
Meat gets a bad rap in the organic food community because of the methods used in raising animals and bringing them to market. For example, to quickly fatten cows (and increase profitability), conventional commercial operations feed them corn and grains and give them growth hormones. Corn and grain-fed cows gain about 5 pounds a day versus the 1.5-2 pounds a day a grass-fed cow gains. Since cows don’t naturally eat corn and grains and live in very tight quarters, they also need antibiotics, which get passed on to the consumer.
Since those cows are not eating grass (their natural diet), there are nutrients they aren’t getting and therefore, nutrients they aren’t producing. Grass-fed beef is higher in vitamin E and Omega-3 Fatty acids as well as beta-carotene and conjugated linoleic acids. It is also lower in calories and fat than conventional grain or corn-fed beef.
The question is, where can I find locally raised and humanely produced meat products?
In a previous post, I mentioned that a natural foods store carried locally raised beef from Stuart Family Farm in Bridgewater, CT. I bought some to perform some cooking and palate experiments.
The price was high (a rib eye steak was about $20 a pound). You can get it significantly cheaper by going to the farm yourself, but even then, it’s more expensive than supermarket beef. The high price is due to the additional land required to rotate grass fed beef and the quality of that land. Also, it takes seven months longer for a cow to come to weight naturally.
In the end, it comes down to taste. And as promised, I’m ready to share my results. We cooked the rib eye on the grill and the steak was fantastic! It was not gamey or strange tasting. There was less fat on the steak and it tasted less greasy. But it was tender and juicy. It was delicious. I would definitely do this again.
Now, where can I find chicken and pork?
Our second (deliberate) adventure in foraging brought us to New Morning Natural and Organic Store in Woodbury, CT., about 10 miles away.
It’s a fairly large store (as natural foods stores go), but they carry so many items, the place seems small. This is a good thing since they are building a new store with lots more space!
They have a wide variety of products: organic/local produce, dairy products, meat products, prepared foods, boxed and frozen foods, household items, hygiene and heath care products, baked goods, coffee, and more.
I thought the produce section was rather small (comparing it only to the size of the farmer’s market). And I wish their signs would have been more specific about the food origin–Connecticut Grown seems rather generic to me. For a small state, it’s pretty big. (Happily, the entire state fits into our 100-mile local radius.)
The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, answering all kinds of scientific and sociological questions about their products.
Among many other items, we bought some locally raised beef from Stuart Family Farm in Bridgewater, CT. This is an experiment. Long ago, I bought some free-range beef from elsewhere to check it out and found it to be tough, gamey, and generally not tasty. I feared my palate had been socialized into corruption over the (many) years of my life. This is another chance. I bought a rib-eye steak and some ground beef. I plan to do the steak up on the grill and to make my much-loved meatballs out of the ground beef. (I’m having visions of chasing free-range meatballs around the kitchen.) I promise more information on this beef once we cook and taste it.
We bought Hautboy Hill Farm creamline milk, but I can’t find a Web site to link to.
And finally, the sweet potatoes we bought were the sweetest sweet potatoes I have ever eaten.