A Local Feast

Today's local menu included:

• Homemade granola (with a few adjusments to that recipe based on what we had on hand) and strawberries from mom & dad's garden in Olympia with Yami vanilla yogurt (Auburn, WA)
• Grilled cheese with homemade wheat bread (made with Stone Buhr Northwest-grown whole wheat flour and local honey), Tillamook pepper-jack and cheddar cheese (Tillamook, OR), and green onions from our deck

and on tap for tonight:

• Pizza with a Tillamook cheese sauce and local beets, sausage, and green onions.  The dough we make using the recipe for focaccia bread I discovered last summer in the cookbook Simply in Season and mentioned in this post, except with half the yeast, which makes a fabulous pizza dough.

Here's one of our pizzas with similar ingredients from a few weeks ago - YUM!!!

… And we’re back!!

The decision has been made: Pam and I will once again be eating exclusively local this summer! Our official start date is June 5 (aka, the day Mike is finished with AMT…), but we’re doing some gearing up to get ready for it.  I’ve gotten much better at making bread since last summer, as evidenced by the rosemary garlic French bread (modified from this recipe that my dad directed me to) that I made today – delicious!!  I’ve now got some of our frozen strawberries and rhubarb from last summer thawing out so I can make a big batch of jam with some local honey to hold us over until berries are ready this summer to make more.  Some seeds have been planted and a few seedlings are sprouted, mostly herbs thus far, and Pam has plans to make pasta next week as well, so we’re definitely on our way!

We learned a lot last summer about what sorts of foods are available locally and fun alternatives for others that aren’t, and we were introduced to many new things, so we’re looking forward to continuing all of that this summer.  We’d love to have you all follow along and experiment with us, and be sure to let us know if you find any new local favorites so we can be sure to try them!  Stay tuned for more updates as we jump back into this!

Local Eating Summer Recap

Well, clearly we slacked off on the blogging towards the end of the summer... but, to be fair, we were both extremely busy!!  But, enough about that, back to the point of this blog.  Our official end date, as stated at the start of our experiment, was September 1, so I wanted to give a little bit of a recap now.  We are by no means done eating local food; we're still getting our CSA box weekly, and other things we discovered will remain mainstays in the future, but some other things will also be creeping back in!

Overall, it has been a really cool experience, and, really, not as difficult as we expected.  There's just a lot of good, local food out there, especially in the summer!  Certainly it took some effort and we missed some things, but we ate pretty darn well and found some fun new foods and local alternatives to others, as well as some great new recipes.  So here's a little summary of our summer local eating experiment:

Favorite New Food

• Mike: Turnips and radishes - specifically when they are baked, because they become sort of sweet, like the way onions do, and they are a really fun addition to lots of dishes!
• Pam: Turnips - I would never have tried them but they have a fun and unique taste I love! Especially baked!

Least Favorite New Food

• Mike: Rapini - honestly, it's just kind of pointless.  Other greens are tastier, and if I wanted broccoli, I would just eat broccoli!
• Pam: There wasn't anything I would have spit out...

Favorite New Recipe/Dish

• Mike: German Potato Salad - It's just so ridiculously delicious!  I mean, really, check out the recipe and tell me that wouldn't be outrageously good.  I dare you.  Now I need to try making my college roommate's mom's recipe for it...
• Pam: Root veggie bake & homemade/invented hamburger helper - my own invented recipe that of course includes turnips!

Most Missed

• Mike: Avocados - oh my goodness, I missed them soooo much.  On sandwiches, in the form of guacamole, or even just plain.  They're just too good!!
• Pam: Juice, especially orange juice!

Best Local Alternative (These are things that we previously ate but for which were able to find new local sources)

• Mike: Sausage from Fischer Meats in Issaquah - this sausage is to die for, oh my goodness.  They have some many amazing flavors, but my favorite would have to be the cranberry walnut.  Yeah.  Out of this world.
• Pam: CB's Peanut Butter = Amazing!!  Will continue to eat it always!  (Available in bulk, grind-your-own at the Everett Co-op!  Also at PCC)

And now, about the alcohol (written by Pam)

Even though we already drank pretty locally, we were still able to find some fun new northwest brews and wines that have become go-to favorites for us.  It was fun to find some additions to our favorites list.

Beer:

• Fire Station 5 Brewing Company (IPA = Pam's fav!) - Available at Fred Meyer, try the 12-pack variety pack, all 4 beers in it (IPA, Blonde, Amber, Hef) are delicious!

• Fish Brewing Company - Ok, this one's not exactly new, I've always loved them, but I recently bought one of their 1-gallon growlers that I can get filled up at their brewpubs, including their new Everett location!  LOVE IT!

Wine:

• Chateau St. Michelle Riesling - Great summer wine, goes well with the German Potato Salad.

So, we're definitely looking forward to some things re-entering our diet (juice, pasta, cereal, rice, avocados, etc.), but some other things have definitely found their way into our normal diet, which is pretty cool.  One of the most encouraging things, I think, was finding out how easy it really is to eat locally.  Even if you don't eat 100% locally (and, don't want to shock you, but I'm afraid we didn't quite...), the more food you can get locally, the better.

Thanks for following along on our journey, now go out and support your local farmers and enjoy the most delicious, fresh food you'll ever eat!  Sounds like a win-win to me!

Garden Update!!

Ok, I know it's been a while.  Sorry....  Things have been very busy, and we've definitely been enjoying our local food of late.  One of the highlights was definitely the fresh Dungeness crab pulled out of the ocean not an hour before it was cooked last week when we were over near Port Ludlow at the house of a good friend of Pam's parents.  Soooo yummy!  We also made pizza, which we've been wanting to do for a while now, and it turned out quite well for our first attempt!  Homemade mint-basil-spinach pesto for the sauce, fresh spinach, sauteed onions and chicken, topped with pepper jack cheese - delicious!

Anywho, as you can tell, we're certainly not starving.  And here's some fun news - we're finally getting to harvest from our garden!  Well, I don't know if you can call it harvesting, but so far we've eaten about 20 of our peas, with other things on the way!  Yay!  Here's an update on the garden in pictures:

PEAS!!!  YUM!

The rhubarb transplants have taken quite well, much to Pam's delight!

Pole beans starting to climb

Can't wait to start eating beets... need to plant the next succession as well!

Cucumbers finally sprouted!

Them peas just keep right on growing

Our garden is definitely bringing us great joy, and we can't wait to start sharing the bounties with everybody!  But for now, we will hoard our 20 peas all to ourselves.

Fun with Strawberries!

Over the past couple weeks, Pam and I have been obsessively checking the website for Remlinger Farms out in Carnation (east of Sammamish), waiting for one announcement: the start of strawberry U-pick!!  Finally, this past week, we got our wish, so we headed out to the farm to get our share of the strawberries!

We got there and discovered that the strawberries were going for $1.50/pound, which works out to a little over $1 per pint, which is fantastic considering a pint will cost you $4 at most farmers markets, plus the fresh picked berries are just that much better!  So, needless to say, we decided to stock up.

When all was said and done and we weighed in, we had picked nearly 13 pounds of strawberries!  BOO-YAH!  We had some big plans for these strawberries too, so we headed home to start enacting those plans.

First step was to wash and hull all of the strawberries.  That took a while.  We immediately froze one big gallon bag of strawberries (to go with another we’d gotten in the freezer the week before), to be used throughout the year for smoothies and waffle toppings and things like that.

The next project was one that we were very excited about; making jam!  There’s just nothing quite like homemade strawberry preserves, so we knew we had to make some.  In keeping with our local commitment, however, we didn’t want to use things like added pectin or sugar.  The sugar was easy to substitute with honey, and after a little more research I found out something pretty cool.  The pectin is basically to help the jam set up properly, and it is naturally occurring in some fruits.  Strawberries, when ripe, are very low in pectin, which is why people generally add it in.  However, thanks to this blog, I found out that unripe strawberries that have some green left on the tip actually are higher in pectin, and a handful of them in your preserves mixture is enough to help it set up properly!  Yay!

            Strawberry Preserves

           

            4 cups sliced strawberries (including a handful of unripe berries)

1-1½ cups honey

Mash berries to desired consistency (some people like more berry chunks, some less), add in the honey.  Heat on the stove to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil for 10-15 minutes til thickened.  Remove from heat, let cool, then can or freeze for future use!

Since freezing is easier than canning, that’s what we opted with, but I’d like to can some in the future, because then you don’t need to use up freezer space.  Here are some step-by-step pictures of the process:

Sliced strawberries, ready to mash

Mashed up, with the honey mixed in

Boiling away!

Into the fridge to cool

YUMMY!!  It turned out super well, way to go us!

So yeah, the jam turned out really well, and we plan to make more!  Not only is it super delicious, but the bottom line is pretty awesome - compared to the cheapest local jam (typically at least $6 for a 16-oz jar) our jam cost only $0.14/ounce, or $2.27 per 16-ounces!  About 1/3 of the price we'd pay at the store - Win!

Another fun project was making strawberry vinaigrette, which turned out absolutely delicious.  I adapted the recipe from this website:

            1 cup sliced strawberries

            ⅓ cup olive oil

            ⅓ cup balsamic vinegar

            1 tbsp honey

½ tsp thyme

½ tsp lemongrass

salt and pepper

Finely chop herbs, place all ingredients in blender/food processor and blend until well mixed and smooth.

The thyme and lemongrass came from our herb garden, and the result was a delicious vinaigrette for a salad we took to my aunt and uncles for 4^th of July!

Lastly, who could resist making a strawberry rhubarb pie??  Certainly not Pam!!  Yummy!  We’ve still got a few berries left for munching as well, so all in all, a very successful harvest!  I encourage everyone to go pick some strawberries now while they’re in season, you’ll never find them juicier or cheaper!

Too Many Great Meals!

Ok.  I have to give you a little update on what we’ve been eating.  The past couple of weeks, now that Pam and I actually have time to cook, have been full of some of the most delicious, fun, experimental food we’ve ever created!  Yay!  I would love to take the time to elaborate on each and every one of these, but there's just too much good stuff!  If you have any questions about a specific recipe or anything else, just let us know.  Enjoy the following pictures/recipes!

Winter vegetable bake with garlic and rosemary, along with cheddar cheese biscuits and salad

Making homemade pasta!

Adding the spinach garlic ricotta filling for our ravioli.

Ravioli!!

Rosemary fettuccine!

Bok choy sauteed with garlic, chicken, and hazelnuts to go with our ravioli topped with a cheese sauce

Basil garlic cheddar focaccia bread (recipe from my favorite cookbook, Simply In Season)

Our rosemary fettuccine with a recipe (Lemon Asparagus Pasta) locally adapted also from Simply in Season

Strawberry rhubarb crumble

Homemade potato chips with olive oil, salt, and pepper

They turned out pretty well!

German Potato Salad - adapted from this recipe (I substituted honey for sugar, and Chateau Ste. Michelle Gewurztraminer for the vinegar)

Fresh bing cherry pie

And the newest addition to our garden - a soaker hose!!

Homemade Granola is Amazing. Period.

Several years ago I decided that I liked granola.  It was one of those things where I’d probably had some crappy store-bought granola at one point and was just like, hmm, nope.  But then I had my dad’s homemade maple apricot granola (my cousin’s recipe) with some Yami vanilla yogurt (my personal favorite, and also local!) and some fresh fruit and I was like, YES!!!  Store-bought granola just cannot compare!  Last year when I was taking care of my parents’ house I made my own batch of that granola and fell even more in love with it.  So, needless to say, I was very keen on finding enough local ingredients to make some this summer, as was Pam, so we started doing some research.

At some of the local farmers markets there is actually a company that sells locally sourced and produced granola, but it was always so expensive – almost $10/pound!  There was no way we were paying that much for granola, when I knew we could make it for way cheaper.  But, it was nice to know that the ingredients necessary for the granola would be available locally.

First, the most important ingredient; the rolled oats.  No Quaker oats for us, thank you!  After a little bit of looking we found that Bob’s Red Mill (which produces a lot of specialty flours and other grains and things) had some rolled oats that they mill that are grown right in Oregon.  Not all of their products are sourced locally, but they often say on the package if they are, and these were, so yay!  Then the trick was to search around and see where they were sold.  I did an afternoon of calling and found them at PCC and some other specialty stores, but then, the big surprise was finding them at Fred Meyer!  Not only that, but in bulk!  Everywhere else only had the 1 lb bags, which were going for somewhere around $2.69 or so, but good old Fred Meyer had them in bulk for $0.89/lb!  SUCCESS!

Ok, so here’s the rest of the recipe, along with where we got it for the local ingredients (remember, spices and olive oil are a couple of our exceptions…)

6 cups old-fashioned oats (Bob’s Red Mill; Fred Meyer)

1 ½ cups chopped hazelnuts (CB’s Nuts; Whole Foods)

½ cup hulled sunflower seeds (Kettle Foods; Fred Meyer)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

⅓ cup olive oil

⅓ cup honey (Mech Apiaries; Pike Place Market)

⅓ cup lemongrass, minced finely (our herb garden!)

1 cup dried pears, finely chopped (my parents fruit trees; their pantry!)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Stir together oats, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, salt, cinnamon, lemongrass, oil, and honey in large bowl.  Spread mixture evenly in 2 large shallow baking pans (~1 inch deep) and bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, stirring and switching position of pans halfway through baking, until golden brown, ~30 minutes total.  Cool granola completely in pans on racks, then stir in dried pears.

With all our local ingredients in hand, we set out to make our granola!

mixing the initial ingredients

chopping the hazelnuts (ours were already roasted so we added them at the end) and pears

baking!!

getting ready to store it, we'll eat a lot now but also freeze some for later.

the finished product!  SOOOOOO yummy!

Making your own granola is really not very difficult and it tastes so much better than what you typically find in the grocery store.  Oh, and another bonus?  You know how that farmers market local stuff is about $10/pound?  Ours was about $3/pound, and $1 of that was just the hazelnuts (gotta find those cheaper...)!  Win, us!!