Entries categorized as ‘Eating Locally’
My friend Aaron was recently interviewed by a local news organization. The interview is below.
His new book, A Nation of Farmers, is coming out very soon.
Interview originally appeared here.
I can’t get the interview button to embed here so follow the link over and listen to what he has to say.
Categories: Books · Eating Locally · Global action
I mentioned back in my New Year’s resolutions that I had some local food initiatives that I was working, and things are starting to fall into place. A lot of details are being hashed out still, but here is the general outline.
1.) The CSA farmer that I delivered excess produce for last year wants to do it again. This great, especially because we learned that she doesn’t actually end up getting a tax deduction for this, like we thought. (What kind of screwed up tax code do we have?) I just have to find some drivers to rotate around so that one person (me) isn’t doing all the deliveries, but delivering the food even without the tax break is a great thing!
2.) I’m working with another group (Local Foods Connection) who is going to purchase two CSA shares from a local CSA farmer (different than #1 above) and we’re going to distribute those shares to the low income flood ravaged areas of town; either free or at a very low cost to the people. Additionally this farmer is going to attempt to raise one more share via small donations from her customers to bring to our central location. While the food is there we are going to let people pick what they need (instead of a whole huge box) and also use that opportunity to do some education about how to prepare that item, talk about eating healthy and hopefully ways they can make their dollars stretch (among other things). You should check out the Local Foods Connection website to see what they are up to, and make a donation if you wish.
3.) Additionally, the farmer from #1 and I are going to attempt to set up two new farmer’s markets in the city for young farmers and focus the markets on the areas of town where people have difficulty accessing fresh produce, as well as trouble getting to the existing markets because of transportation issues.
I’m also working with another group to devote some resources to setting up small raised beds in the yards of interested parties, as well as education about raising their own produce and, most exciting, infilling the demolished lots from flood damaged homes with community gardens and orchards. This coming summer is the summer of fresh local foods!
I gotta tell ya, this summer is going to be busy and exciting!
Categories: Eating Locally · Local action
December 3, 2008 · 1 Comment
If your a parent I’m sure you’ve heard that before. But you have to use them right? I’ve found a million ways to use up leftovers and not have them labeled as leftovers. Somedays though, we do have leftovers. (We call them Mustgo. Everything in the fridge must go. HA!)
Tonight, for example, I took some beef-vegetable soup, thickened it and dumped it into a pie shell. I covered the top with mashed potatoes to make a sort of cottage pie. Turns out the pie shell didn’t get cooked, but it was still good. I didn’t hear a chorus of cries about having soup again because I modified it’s appearance slightly. Not to mention that it was a quick and easy way to use up both the leftover soup and the leftover mashed potatoes, and it was much easier than making cottage pie from scratch, which I’ve done and it takes a while.
Other times I’ll make up extra to remake into things. Potatoes are of course good for this. I always make a ton of mashed potatoes when I make them because then I’ll fy them as potatoe pancakes for breakfast. Same thing when I cook a pot roast in the crock pot. I load it up with carrots and potatoes. Then since they are already cooked they can make a quick hash for breakfast, or I can mash the potatoes and pan fry them as a side dish, and they take no time to cook.
Another thing I cook to use up leftovers is a frittata. All the little bits of leftover veggies can be dumped into the skillet, covered with eggs and cheese and they take on a new life. Nothing like it! Of course you can keep a bag in the freezer to add these bits of vegetables to so you can make vegetable soup with them.
For me though, a stir fry has to be the best way to use up different bits and pieces. The kids love it. I love it. It takes great and it’s flexible enough to take practically any leftover I might have in the fridge and repurpose it.
Anyway, what creative ways do you have to use up leftovers?
Categories: Cooking · Eating Locally
Tagged: using leftovers for meals
I just came back from the market and someone had sweet potatoes! I thought I was going to have to go without them this year. Or maybe buy them at the store.
But I was saved on the second to last market of the year. I’m probably more excited about this then is really normal. I only bought 20 of them and now I’m wondering if I should have bought more. Well maybe they’ll have more next week. I can’t stomach taking these kids back to the market again today to try for more.
I got some brussel sprouts to try too. We’ll see how that goes.
Categories: Eating Locally
Admit it, you thought I was going to talk about the chickens didn’t you? HA! Not this time. This time it’s kids. We eat veggie meals in our house maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Tonight we had nothing but veggies. I boiled some new potatoes (about the size of a large egg) and steamed some corn on the cob. I also served some canteloupe and tomatoes from the garden. The kids didn’t think this was enough for them so I also made them 1 slice of bread with PB&J on it.
And they ate it up. Amazing how many veggies kids can eat when they want to. My oldest had two bowlfuls of cantaloupe, 1 ear of sweet corn, his PB&J and 2 potatoes. The youngest had 2 ears of corn, a shitload of tomatoes, 2 potatoes, PB&J and 1 bowl of cantaloupe. I’d say they easily got 4 servings of veggies/fruit in just this meal.
In other news I had this conversation with my youngest when I was picking tomatoes, or trying to pick tomatoes.
Ethan: Ever wonder why there aren’t any tomatoes on the plant?
Dad: Well I figured there was a tomato monster eating them. Do you know what happened to them? (I know he’s been eating them)
Ethan: There is. I saw him. It was me. I’m a tomato monster. Grrr. (Then he grins) I sometimes eat the green ones but they don’t taste as good as the orange ones. Now I wait for them to get orange. (They’re Sungold tomatoes)
If you knew his grin you’d probably laugh about this. He looks like a Cheshire cat, only he’s got an ornery glint in his eyes.
Categories: Cooking · Eating Locally · Family · Gardening
For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why people would spend their hot Augusts in the kitchen making tomato sauce. Why not just can the tomatoes and make sauce this winter? Well, after processing 36 lbs this morning into sauce in less than 2 hours I get it now.
Last year I bought 40 lbs of tomatoes and canned them in quarters. It took about 6 or 8 hours to clean them, remove the skins, get them in the jars, canned and then downstairs. Perhaps more time.
This morning I put 36 lbs of quartered tomatoes through the Victorio and juiced them in less than two hours. In fact, it is just now 2.5 hours since I started and I’ve already cleaned it all up. The sauce is in the oven cooking down right now so that doesn’t really count as time spent canning. Once the sauce is ready I’ll have to can them, but that doesn’t take a whole lot of time either.
So by juicing them and making sauce instead of canning the whole tomato I saved myself at least 4 hours, even with the canning still to come.
Now I get it.
Categories: Cooking · Eating Locally · Food Preservation
Tagged: making tomato sauce
The dang ol’ chickens got out again. Only this time it was dark. I was going out to put them up for the night and there they were, chirping away outside the fence. I have to wonder if they are like chicken versions of Houdini, or maybe David Copperfield or David Blaine. I was able to work the flashlight and herd them to the queen chicken wrangler who snagged them and deposited them back in their home. Their wings are clipped. Other than roofing the run I’m not sure what else I can do at this point to keep them in.
I made a bang up cabbage recipe tonight (here), even if it is August and this turned out kind of like a stoup. I used sweet italian sausage (what I had) along with a red onion and a small head of cabbage from my garden. Also put in some fingerling potatoes (garden), carrots (garden) and parsnips (garden). I was quite pleased to be using up miscellaneous items from the produce drawer. I did use a can of the cheese soup though, along with a store bought can of tomatoes (I’m out for now) and beef broth (haven’t made any since the cow came home) so I had some help from non local ingredients. The soup was very good. Boy #1 had two servings and boy #2 had 3 servings, and got in trouble for drinking it from his bowl. And I had enough left for a full meal when I pull it out of the freezer sometime. Even better, it sat in the crock pot all day so it was virtually no work.
Tuesday nights are normally a tough night for dinner because I go to the farm on Tuesday nights to get the produce from the farmer for the soup kitchens. She didn’t have anything tonight though so it was a night off.
If you have any doubt about the future direction of the Dow (in my opinion) this story with the below picture in it should help you make up your mind.

That’s a pretty damn scary picture. And the charts in the story for housing prices are even more scary, although they’ve already seen some of their declines.
That site, Automattic Earth, is a fantastic daily round up site for all the world’s financial news. I’ve seen so much incredible information on that site.
Categories: Chickens · Cooking · Eating Locally · Investing