Thursday, December 6, 2007

Yeah a Local Meal again

I have not been able to make a mostly local meal for a while. Not sure why. Tonight we had an oven-roasted local chicken (a heafty 8.6 pounder), roasted local organic potatoes, a salad made from local organic kale. The salad included a homemade dressing (olive oil and umeboshi plum vinegar with some dill), my very last fresh local organic red pepper, organic pumpkin seeds (maybe I'll try and save a bunch of seeds next year), and organic dried cranberries. Yummy and lots of left overs. Tonight the large crockpot is brewing some chicken stock which I store in my freezer for future uses.

I am finding a lot of inspiration from my newest read: Omnivore's Dilemma. I made it through the corn/conventional agribusiness section and am into the second section. Now I really have to think about anything purchased from the Safeway. I mean I really don't buy all that much, but I still have to think about better options. For example today I went to the store and purchased bread (yes I make tons of bread but my spouse wants soft bread for sandwiches at work), hot dog buns, multigrain organic cereal, organic avacado (request from daughter), organic bananas (I know they come from Costa Rica, but we really love them), lunchmeat for those sandwiches, and organic cheese for the same. I am ok with the avacados and bananas right now because we are not able to get much in the way of local fruit being winter and all and the limits placed by the Feingold diet. The sandwich stuff - well dear spouse really wants meat in his lunch and this satisfies him., Its not about me. But the hot dog buns bug me. There must be a yummy alternative out there somewhere.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Thanksgiving Recovery

It has been surprisingly hard to get back into focussing on local food after travelling for the Thanksgiving holiday. Our holiday host did have a local Thanksgiving turkey, but might have been all. When we returned home, we ordered our staple foods from Neshaminy Valley Natural Food Distributer. We also went again to Good Fortune Farm to get our local, free range turkey - all 39 pounds of him! Thank goodness it is cut up into small pieces and frozen; it is our meat supply for many months. Today I made pizzettes using some of the last sprig of fresh basil. I ordered organic citrus already from Hickory Tree Grove. No organic grapefruits for us this year though (sold out already). I know, the citrus is not local, but I am supporting a small family-owned farm and it is way better than buying from the grocery store.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Local Food Research

I spent time today researching local farms - getting names and a list of places to visit or call. I used
(a) the Southern Maryland Harvest Farm Directory put out by the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission - a 2002/3 copy though
(b) Southern Maryland, So Good Farm Guide 2007/8
and I made a list of places on this blog. Check it out! I only got through Charles County today.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Regular Wednesday Dinner

Our wednesday dinner for a while has been Bionature pasta with tomato sauce (organic ground beef added) and a salad (carrots for kids). The salad normally is made from organic mesclun mix from our friends at Next Step Produce, pumpkin seeds, and raisins or dried cranberries. To make it more local, we are now using our homemade tomato sauce (made from a mix of heirloom, roma, and regular tomaotes - all organic). Sometimes we will also have homemade bread with some olive oil and spices for dipping. Simple but yummy!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Local Poultry and Dairy

Today Son and I visited our old friend - Good Fortune Farm. We went intending to pick up 4 frozen local, pasture-fed, chemical-free chickens. We came home with a bounty! Besides those 4 chickens, we got 3 dozen organic, free-range, chemical-free eggs, fresh homemade butter and buttermilk. The butter on warm homemade sourdough bread was just fabulous with our dinner.