Still Behind...

To be honest, I quit blogging because I thought that nobody was reading the blog. But I've come to find it's getting a very wee bit of traffic. Which means that hopefully the blog is having a positive impact on at least 455 of you!

So we are now in full summer produce mode, and this weekend was vegetable preparation/consumption madness! I spent the better part of the weekend eating, cooking and eating, and cooking and freezing produce. Here's a smattering of dishes:

- Butternut squash, lentil, carrot and apple puree for Evan
- blackberry and apple puree for Evan
- eggplant parmesean and homemade tomato sauce
- local pasta with squash from the garden, topped with local cheese
- caprese salad with tomatoes from the garden, local mozzarella and a friend's basil

All this produce is awesome, however, the fruit flies that I can not get rid of are not awesome. I hate fruit flies because they signify dirty, and I am not a dirty person. So while cooking and eating produce all weekend, I also set fruit fly traps and was cleaning like a crazy lady to deter the fruit flies. They may have won this battle, but I will win the war!!

Falling Behind...

Do not take my lack of blogging recently as a signal that we've quit the 100-mile diet. In fact, we're going stronger than ever! Here are some of our recent dinners, all which featured ingredients from within 100 miles:
- Pulled pork, corn on the cob, red skin potatoes, green beans
- Frittata with zucchini, squash, goat cheese, onions, basil and chives
- Chicken patties over salad and on the grill
- Vegetable grill extravaganza - if I can grill it, we can eat it!

Lunch and breakfast also continue to be going well. And I just polished off a pint of Geauga Maple Walnut ice cream from Mitchell's.

The baby is getting more mobile and summer means more projects. The garden also is going gang busters.

I promise I'll keep blogging. That's all for now though!

Do you know where your food comes from?

* Mom, you may not want to read this blog entry. I'm going to talk about food sources. Consider yourself warned.

My mom is the type of person who doesn't want to connect the dots between a hamburger and ... a cow. There, I said it. Hamburgers come from cows. I'm sorry but it's true. I used to be one of these types of people as well. When I bought chicken in a Styrofoam container from the grocery store, all I wanted to see was a clean, skinless trimmed piece of meat. I didn't want to consider where the meat came from.

The reason behind this fear was that I didn't want to know about the animals that were feeding me. Fast forward to today. I've learned a great deal about industrial meat sources and local meat sources. I know what I'm getting when I purchase either. I know that the generic beef I buy in a grocery store comes from a corn-fed cow that was on antibiotics and lived a short life in miserable conditions. I know that the grass-fed beef I buy from my herd share comes from a cow that grew up on pasture (which by the way, cows are physically supposed to eat grass and not corn - they can't tolerate corn, which is why they're given antibiotics) and was treated humanely. It also was part of a much larger farming system in which all the animals helped close the farming loop - the chickens come in to clean the fields and spread manure after the cows are done grazing, etc.

Before I started the 100-mile diet I had seriously considered becoming a vegetarian. But now that I know the meat I'm eating comes from animals who were healthy and happy, I feel better about consuming meat. Maybe some day I'll stop eating meat. But for now I'm happy being educated about that which I am consuming.

The Problem with Industrial Organic

I've always intended to read Omnivore's Dilemna, but I could never quite find the motivation to get me into such an informationally dense read. However, now that we're fully participating in the 100 mile diet, the Omnivore's Dilemna has provided much thought-provoking fodder.

Before embarking on the 100 mile diet, I was - like many of us - "greenwashed" into thinking that smacking the word Organic onto a product meant that it was in some way far healthier and much more sustainable than its commercial counterpart. However, I've come to learn that the industrial organic industry is just that...an industry. While many of the organic brands we've come to know by name today, such as Cascadian Farm, EarthBound Farm and Horizon, were once small, local businesses that were separate from industry, today they are unfortunately part of the organic industry. These companies started small, but then to keep up with demand, were forced to go big. But unfortunately we as consumers need to be educated on what industrial organic means.

In Omnivore's Dilemna, Pollan says that it takes 57 fuel calories to put 1 food calorie of EarthBound farms' baby greens on a table in Boston, Mass. The lettuce is grown organically in California but processed commercially and shipped across the country. Much energy is wasted in the transportation and packaging process. Similarly but different, much of the commercial organic milk we consume comes from cows who are treated no differently than non-organic-milk producing cows except for that they are given organic hay.

So what's a consumer to do? For starters, don't be greenwashed. Do your research. Find out where companies get their ingredients, and how organic those ingredients really are Second, consider purchasing local as frequently as possible. Local gives you an opportunity to get to know your farmers and products, and significantly diminishes the energy needed to transfer the products from farm to table.

The Berry Trifecta (aka cheap berries)

I like to embark upon what I call "The Berry Trifecta" each summer. The Berry Trifecta comprises picking strawberries, blueberries and raspberries in that order each summer. For strawberries I always head out to Red Wagon Farm, blueberries are from Martin Blueberries or a couple farms in Vermillion, OH, and red raspberries are from Rosby's Berry Farm.

Berries are delicious. And they are full of antioxidants and other nutrients that make them good for you. They also can be very expensive.

At the farmers market, I've seen berries for about $5-6 a quart. And in the grocery store, blueberries and raspberries will sometimes run you as much as $4 a pint.

Picking berries on your own, however, is rediculously cheap. This weekend I picked 5 pounds of blueberries for $12.50. I picked 6 quarts of strawberries for $10 earlier this summer. Berries also freeze very well, so there's no need to worry about them going bad if you don't eat them all fresh (which let's be honest is never a problem for me).

How do you find pick your own farms in your part of the country? My favorite site is http://www.pickyourown.org/index.htm. Check it out, and get out there to pick berries while the pickins' good!

Refrigerator Pickles

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I have been told that my refrigerator pickles are on par with the best commercial pickles on the market. (My friend Kelly is one of my biggest pickle fans, and I take it as a HUGE compliment as she is quite the aficionado of sauces and crispiness of food!)

The best part about my refrigerator pickles is that they are so easy to make. I just made my first batch this morning. I picked the pickling cucumbers from my garden, the dill from my herb garden, and had some garlic from the CSA. I personally love refrigerator pickles over traditional canned pickles because you can make them in small batches and there's no need for boiling and canning.

The hardest part about refrigerator pickles is waiting the 7 days for them to cure!

Here's the recipe:

Refrigerator Dill Pickles
3 cups water
6 tablespoons vinegar
3 tablespoons canning salt
Cucumbers, cut into spears
Garlic cloves
Fresh dill sprigs
Dried red pepper flakes

Combine water, vinegar and salt; stir until salt is completely dissolved.

Cut cucumbers as desired (spears, chips, etc.)

Place 1 clove garlic, 1 spring dill and dried red pepper flakes (to your liking) in each jar. Fill jar full of cucumber pieces. Pour brine into the jar, making sure all cucumber pieces are covered. Cap and refrigerate for 5-7 days before eating.

It's that easy. Enjoy!

CSA vs. a la Carte? A Win, Win.

Is it more economical to purchase local items from a CSA or a la carte? First, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. The farmer offers “shares” to member consumers, aka a weekly bag of seasonal produce.

Last year we were members of City Fresh; this year we’re members of the Fresh Fork Market CSA. I LOVE the Fresh Fork Market CSA because we’re getting not only fruits and vegetables but meats, cheese and grains. Plus there’s the option of buying extra items a la carte at pick-up (kind of like grocery shopping off the back of the truck!)

So back to my original question – is it more economical to purchase local items from a CSA or a la carte? Based on straight cost, the CSA is the way to go. The CSA has the advantage of purchasing from the farmer in bulk and therefore can sell items to its consumers at a cheaper price. However, the downside to the CSA is that you don’t get to customize your order. From week to week you can’t be exactly certain what items you’ll receive (you can do a pretty good job guessing though based on the month and what’s in season – e.g., you’re never going to get asparagus in August but probably will get tomatoes and corn).

However, I also like to purchase items a la carte from the farmers market and the back of the Fresh Fork truck. My trick is to take a sneak peak at what’s in store in the CSA each Tuesday (by checking out Fresh Fork’s online newsletter), and then purchase any filler items at the farmers market on Wednesday, at CSA pick up on Thursday, at the herdshare on Monday or at the grocery store throughout the week.

I can honestly say that eating local has been much easier than I first anticipated. It’s not nearly as costly as I thought it would be, and obtaining products has been a breeze. It does take a bit of time, but it’s definitely worth the effort!