dinner

Tried to make more of a ritual out of my very-belated dinner tonight. Usually, when it's just me and it's late, I scrambled to just eat whatever. Tonight, something simple but comforting - sourdough toast with butter, halfed Bing cherries, Brie, and blueberry tea... Slicing, stirring, toasting, steeping - its nice to make an (easy) effort on yourself now and then. Not too much but satisfying altogether. A good end to a stressful day.



Last night I made chocolate-beet-cherry cupcakes. They are divine. Phew.

Let's corn some beef!

I made corned beef and cabbage for the our dinner last night, kind of a belated St. Patty’s Day dinner.  None of it was local, all was commercially produced, but still…it was mighty tasty.  As long as I didn’t stop to think about what mind actually be IN the corned beef… Ew.

So I started thinking…why can’t I get local corned beef?  Our co-op doesn’t offer it at the moment…  I could also check out Whole Foods to see if they at least offer a grass-fed version, but I’m guessing their price is more than I really want to pay…  Why can’t I corn the beef myself?  I suppose I could!  This website offers some insight into the corning process, as well as detailed instructions (perhaps a little TOO much information on the process of corning a tongue…).  Now all I need is a local brisket or other cut of meat and I can corn away.  Once the growing season kicks into high gear, we’ll be eating locally-produced corned beef and cabbage.  

A simple pleasure

I was sitting here, eating my scrambled eggs and warm sourdough bread (oh, how I miss crunchy toast), when it occurred to me that I'd actually met the chickens that produced these eggs I was enjoying.  Well, I didn't meet the chickens, but you know what I mean - I have been to the farm where those hens live.  These particular eggs came from the Kvam farm in Northeast Nebraska and ML and I visited it back in September.  Its a pretty cool feeling, to know exactly where you food has come from...

Happy Saturday everyone...

Sigh...it's a good first step, I guess

Ted Turner was in Omaha recently for the reopening and renaming of the local Ted’s restaurant (Ted’s Nebraska Grill, formerly Ted’s Montana Grill).  In an interview with the Omaha World Herald, he talks about the importance of sourcing local foods and reducing greenhouse gases…yet, his idea of local food seems to be factory-farmed beef and bison.  The restaurant has teamed up with Omaha Steaks, for Pete’s sake.  If he is such a proponent of Nebraska and local food, why isn’t he looking into grass-fed pastured-raised beef?  There is surely enough of it to source the Omaha restaurant at the very least!  And Ted, who owns the largest bison herd in the country (as well as the largest patch of ranchland), serves his customers the finest grain-fed bison meat from Great Range Brand (their website assures us they test daily for e coli and salmonella – that’s reassuring).  

 

OK, Ted – you can talk the talk.  Local food is important!  Now walk the walk and source real local food from farms and ranchers in Nebraska!

waste not

As part of this month’s co-op order, I picked up 10 lbs of baby potatoes, 5 lbs each of Yukon gold and red-skinned.  About two lbs into the bag of Yukons, I noticed that they were sprouting eyes…darnit!  I know that it’s safe to just cut the eyes off and eat them, but once the eyes have appeared, I have to worry that it won’t be too long before the potatoes start getting soft…the end is near.  What to do?  I spend an hour or so last night sorting, washing, skinning, and boiling the remainder of the potatoes before whipping them up with cream cheese, butter, sour cream and chives.  I froze the whipped potatoes in scoops on a cookie sheet, and then put the frozen clumps in freezer bags for storage.  Now whenever I want some yummy mashed potatoes, I just pull out a couple of chunks and nuk’em in the microwave.  Guess what I’m having for lunch today?

crunch crunch crunch

I’m eating the BEST apple right now.  It’s a Haralson, a variety I’d never heard of before, but is apparently a great sweet-tart dessert (eating) and pie (baking) apple that grows well in the Midwest.  It’s amazing what you can learn about apples on Wikipedia. J  I got a hankerin’ for fruit last night while at the grocery store, and happened upon a display of apples that said “Midwestern-grow”.  Hmmmm…that’s kind of local…better than Washington…far better than Argentina…  I figured being relatively-local, they probably wouldn’t taste all that great, but I was pleasantly surprised!  I plan to eat all the apples I can handle over the next month – braces will probably remove this particular food from my diet for a while… Mmmm… maybe I’ll make some apple crisp…oops, I’m drooling.

Of course, I’m eating this apple with complete disregard for all the produce-washing directions I learned yesterday in my food safety course.  I took half a day off of work to drive down to Lincoln for this free food safety course that the coop wants all its volunteers to take.  As boring as that sounds, it was absolutely fascinating.  I learned how to kill my family with botulism (feed them garlic-and-oil dressing left out of the fridge for a few days), how not to store raw fish (lower than other raw meats in your fridge – you don’t cook the fish long enough to kill off everything that could drip from other meat), and how much we don’t get off our hansd when we wash them (even thoroughly – eeewww).

The class didn’t take the entire afternoon, but driving back to work seemed like a waste of time – driving there would take longer than I would spend at my desk – so I headed home to finish painting my Reuse Me bags and hang out with the dog…  I also whipped out the “artsy clutch” bag from Amy Karol’s “Bend the Rules Sewing” book – I thought I’d better try one out before attempting perfected version to give my younger cousins as gifts.  It turned out pretty cute – I used the leg of a pair of jeans I cut up for a skirt last week and lined it with the crazy-print I used for a dress over the weekend.  I just need to find a button…and take a photo!

Last night, I met up with ML to see a play.  She suggested “Meet Me in St. Louis”, and because I loved loved loved that movie, I agreed and booked a reservation.  Uh, mistake.  It was not good.  It was at a new theatre for both of us, and as we sat down I got the feeling that we were about 50 years too early for this show.  It must have been Senior Night.  And man, those older folks don’t seem to get the concept of not talking out loud during the entire play.  Not that they could have ruined the show with their old-folk banter – the storey and acting took care of that by itself.  It was a comedy adapted from the musical, sans music and any possible comedic leanings.  As ML said, “So THIS is why people are afraid of community theatre!”  We are just extremely spoiled I guess – this was really the first bad theatre experience I’ve had – the quality of writing and acting at the Shelterbelt, Blue Barn and the other local theatres we frequent sets a pretty high standard…

Tonight should make up for last night’s show – the DH and I are making our annual trek to the Orpheum for The Nutcracker. This time they’re performing the Imperial Nutcracker, a version I haven’t seen before.  I can’t wait!

A double feature at FilmStreams

Last night I attended two movies at Film Streams, the first by my lonesome and the second with the DH and ML.

The first film was Ang Lee’s “Lust/Caution”, a spy thriller set in Japanese-occupied China during WWII. It was an excellent movie, full of suspense, drama, good sex schemes and plenty of violence. The only downside was that it only screened at 4 p.m., so no one else was able to go with me…

The second film was “King Corn”, a documentary about…well, corn. Two guys, Ian and Curt, decided to move from Boston to Iowa to grow an acre of corn and follow its fate. They learn all about live in the Corn Belt – farm folks, Iowa winters, government subsidies, and the horrifying fact that thousands of acres of corn are grown in this country that are inedible to humans. This corn cannot be eaten in its natural form, and must be processed into high-fructose corn syrup and other various forms that look nothing like corn and have basically no redeeming nutritional value. I thought this was an incredibly informative and educational film – these guys really did their research – as well as being highly entertaining. I was really happy that the DH went with me – he seemed to enjoy the movie and learn a lot. I have already done quite a bit of reading on the subject (even getting a little bit giddy when they interviewed Michael Pollen – I know, I’m a dork), and it was really cool to watch the movie with him and be able to converse with him about it later, rather than describing the movie to him and knowing he wouldn’t really care ‘cause he wouldn’t be familiar with the subject matter.

how to become a locavore

The folks over at Eat Local Challenge pointed out this list on the PBS website.  Not only did I find it a great explanation of the concept of eating local, I was also happy to note that I can officially claim locavore status – I’m doing or have done most everything on the list. J  For instance, I have:

1)       Visited a farmer’s market (or 5, actually).

3)   Chosen 5 foods that I can buy locally – I buy local beef, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese…bread, veggies, fruit, etc, as much as possible.

4)   Found a local CSA – ML and I are signing up this spring, so this one is technically only half-complete.

5)   Preserved a local food for the winter.  I spend some time this season canning tomato sauce, salsa, and jams (peach, plum, strawberry), as well as freezing tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, squash, etc.  I hope to do a LOT more of this next summer!

6)   Found restaurants in my area that support local farmers – not a huge number, but Omaha does have them.  Local schools buy local too – at the last Nebraska Food Co-op pickup, the chef from Creighton Prep High School stopped in to pick up a huge order for the school cafeteria.

7)   Planned to host a local Thanksgiving – our thanksgiving this year will be mostly-local.  We’re serving a locally-raised heirloom turkey, local pies, local bread, local carrots, local sweet potatoes, etc.  Since other family members are bringing food, too, it won’t be entirely local, but close.

8)   Bought from local vendors – as part of the Nebraska Food Co-op, I have access to locally-grown as well as locally-produced items, and I’m happy to support local dairies and bakeries.

10) Visited a local farm.   Just last weekend, ML and I visited Kvam Farm in West Point, NE for a tour.  Being part of the co-op gives us abundant opportunity for more tours in the future.

 

So, what’s left on the list?  I haven’t 2) lobbied my supermarket, or 9) asked about origins.  But there’s plenty of time for that during the dark winter days ahead.

 

happy little kitchen

Well, Monday night’s kitchen adventure didn’t turn out as well as I expected.  We did try the beet greens, sautéed with some bacon-wrapped pork chops.  They were pretty good – it was something new at least.  The beets themselves, though, didn’t quite pan out – there were far fewer beets in the bag that I expected, so I had to choose between the roasted beet salad and the “beetnik” cake.  I chose the cake, and set to work shredding the beets.  Or, at least trying to shred them.  They don’t shred easily. Not in my cheese grater, nor in the food processor.  Ugh.  I got about halfway through them before I had to leave for dance class.  I stuck them in the fridge and when I got back they’d turned from white and red (these were Chioggia beets – the bulls-eye variety) to an icky purple.  Kinda like apples or potatoes turn brown after being in the air too long.  Not appealing.  So I scrapped the beet ideas and started on the sweet potatoes.  This went much better.  I cooked and mashed all of them, then constructed two sweet potato pies to freeze.  One will go to work with me for our holiday potluck, and the other will be baked for Thanksgiving dinner.  This used up about a third of the sweet potato mash, so I stuck the rest in the fridge and last night assembled 6 Addictive Sweet Potato Burritos.  I’m trying one today for lunch.  Mmm…

 

I still have 3 summer squash in the fridge – a zucchini, I think, and a couple of pattypan.  I know we have some feta left, so tonight might be the night for Greek lamb burgers with cucumber sauce and feta-stuffed squash. Then a scary movie and passing out candy to the neighborhood ghouls and goblins…

 

Happy Halloween!

 

sourdough goodness

I had a craving for bread this weekend, so I picked up a loaf of Old Market Sourdough at the local Hyvee store.  I knew this was a local bread company, as we’d seen them at the farmer’s market, but I hadn’t tried it yet.  O. M. G.  It is heaven in a slice of bread.  Seriously, it is the best bread I’ve had in a good long while.  I slathered it with butter, but it didn’t need it.  I ate the whole loaf (20 ounces) in just under 2 days.  I think I shared one slice with ML.  It was hard to spare that much. J 

 

I need to spend part of my evening tonight doing more local-food-related business – mainly cooking up all the veggies I got from the co-op before they go bad!  I have beets and sweet potatoes to focus on, ‘cause I know the squash will hang on a little longer.  I looked up a few appealing recipes this morning.  These are the ones I’m focusing on:

v      Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos – recipe promised that they freeze well.

v      Beetnik Cake – one more attempt to get the folks at work to eat their veggies (covered in cream cheese frosting).

v      Braised Beet Greens and Pork Chops – that’ll be dinner tonight.

v      Sweet Potato Casserole – to be frozen for Thanksgiving dinner.

v      Roasted Beet and Feta Salad – if there are beets leftover, this will make a good lunch this week…

I’ve never had beet greens before, so I’m a little apprehensive about dinner tonight.  But I figure it’s worth a try – I have them, so better this than just tossing them out.  

another sleepy Monday

It’s Monday and I’m exhausted again. These busy weekends are hard on me…but I love them! This particular weekend included two plays, a farm tour, a Halloween party or two, a trail race, and a visit with my dad.

On Friday night, the DH and I met up with ML and our friend Amanda to see the Shelterbelt’s annual ShelterSkelter production. This year, they performed “The Duchess of Malfi.” I can’t say this was my favorite of their SS shows, but it was decent. Very dark and disturbing.

Saturday morning, the DH insisted that we sleep in…yeah, right. I woke up right at 5 a.m. I suffer from that weekend/summer vacation thing that causes you to not be able to sleep in on days you don’t have to work. Hmmm…

ML and I trekked out to the Kvam family farm in West Point, NE for a farm tour. We saw dairy cows, sheep, chickens, turkeys, a friendly dog and many cats, watched a vinegar cheese demonstration and took a hay rack ride. I learned about raw milk and how to distract a hen while collecting her eggs. J

Saturday night, the DH and I donned our “White Trash” Halloween costumes and headed downtown for the Haunted Vault party at ML’s building and then on to my friend Maurine’s annual bash. Everyone got a kick out of our getups and we won the costume contest, narrowly defeating a couple of Elf characters. I think the DH’s mullet was the clincher.

Sunday was spend helping with race-day registration at the YMCA Master’s Classic 15k/5k race, and then running the 5k. Since it was a “masters” race and I’m not old yet, I didn’t qualify for any of the prizes… My dad was in town to run the 15k. I should probably amend that statement to say “My insane dad”, since this was his second race of the day and third of the weekend. He’s running 3 races next weekend, too. Just crazy, I tell ya…

ML and I met up again in the evening to see Seascape at the Blue Barn Theatre. This was the better play of the weekend – very entertaining, a story of a couple nearing their twilight years sitting on the beach discussing their life…they are joined by a couple of lizards that have climbed from the sea to see what the world was all about. Weird, but good. J

more, more, more

Yes, I am a little bloggin' fiend today, but I skipped the last couple o' days and am now shaking a bit. :) Plus I finally took some pics of my scarf pumpkins and wanted to share. My what? Well, a few days ago, a girl on Wardrobe Refashion shared these little stuffed pumpkins she made from some old shirts and sweater. I thought, hey! I can do that! I took these scarves, purchased years ago at a thrift store...

...and some leftover green velvet, sewed 'em up, and stuffed them with batting from an old comforter the washing machine destroyed, and voila! Pumpkins. Kind of. I've only done these two, 'cause I get easily distracted, but I've still got plenty of fabric and a ton of stuffing, so a few more will appear when I get a spare moment...

I did forget to snap a pic of these awesome army men earrings I bought from the co-op this week. They are so cute! Recycled little green army men toys, made into earrings. Probably not work-appropriate. :) Last night I helped out at the co-op pickup again. Being my second time, I am now a "pro" and got to handle the cash box as well as run orders. I didn't order nearly as much as the first time, but this is a special order period in between the normal monthly orders - I'll buy a lot more in November I'm sure (we're hosting Thanksgiving). I stuck with mainly produce this time - beets, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, mesclan salad mix, and a few summer squash. Ooh, and eggs! I got blue and green Araucana chicken eggs. :)

After the co-op, I met up with ML at an "evils of factory farms" lecture hosted by the Sierra Club and Raven's Haven. A very very informative talk was presented by some very passionate local organic farmers and anti-CAFO activists, and we got to watch this cute little video. I felt a little ill afterwards...I think I am pretty much done with conventially-raised meat, at least at home. We shall see - I didn't do so well with the chocolate...

Sauce day

I took a sick day on Wednesday, but I can only sleep for so long...so I headed to the basement to see how my tomatoes were doing. A couple of weeks ago, I picked a few large bowls of green tomatoes from our garden, wrapped the best of them in newspaper and shelved them in the basement to ripen. Wednesday I brought up 6 POUNDS of ripe red tomatoes!

What to do with them? How 'bout tomato sauce? Even better, how about Garlic-Basil Tomato Sauce from my trusty Ball Blue Book? Mmmm... If I'd realized that 6 lbs of 'maters only yields roughly 2 1/2 lbs of sauce, I might not have fired up the canner, but what'd'ya do? Next time I'll freeze the stuff.

I only pulled up about 1/3 of the tomatoes from downstairs, so there is plenty of sauce left to make. Plus on Tuesday, the DH decided he'd had enough of looking at the messy late-fall garden and brought in the rest of the greenies! :) The vines have now been chopped down for the season and winter is on it's way...

Mmmm...chocolate

Because I firmly believe no one should go through life without at least trying my grandmother's chocolate sauce, I'm going to post the recipe. I don't know if this is hers originally, but that's where I got it! Thanks, Grandma!

Chocolate Sauce:
Melt 1/2 cup butter in small saucepan. Add 1 1/2 cups white sugar and 1/2 cup cocoa powder. Blend in 2/3 cups light cream or evaporated milk. Bring to a boil; boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Poor over ice cream or yellow cake. Store leftovers in the refrigerator and eat by the spoonful when the spirit hits you. :) Enjoy!

I got a hankering for this stuff tonight, and we just so happened to have most of the ingredients (I used milk instead of cream) and a box of Birthday Cake-flavored ice cream. That's what I call dinner!

This was definitely a better meal than the others I had this weekend. Friday night at the home and garden show, my salad and banana wore off and I gave in and bought a cheeseburger from the concession stand. Uck. The bun was hard on one side and who knows how long those condiments had been out. (Please don't tell me.) Saturday I indulged in a slice of Valentino's pizza, which was decent, but after the game we ate at Buffalo Wild Wings. I don't even know why I keep trying to find good food there. I should order fries and call it a night - it's pretty hard to screw up potatoes. A chicken wrap, however - that can be screwed up an infinite number of ways! It just wasn't good...

Food aside, the weekend was fun. I already went over Friday night, so we'll skip that. :) Saturday, the DH and I caravaned to Lincoln with his band buddy and girlfriend. The first quarter of the game got our hopes up a little too much, so the loss was just that much more painful. We left mid-fourth-quarter. We did get to see Tom Osbourne, though! I had hoped he'd be in the box behind our seats, 'cause that's where Steve Pederson had sat during the previous games. I bet it was kind of a shock to Larry the Cable Guy (next box over) that someone else was getting all the attention in the North Stadium for a change!

Hard to get a picture of Tom - he kept his back to the crowd:

After a beer with our road-trip pals, we headed back to Omaha to meet up with some neighbors at Scary Acres, a local haunted attraction. We made it through the House on the Hill and the Castle before we went home - the DH had to work early this morning. I didn't have to work, but I did get up early to pick up trash with the Omaha Running Club along the West Papio Trail and take a quick run. The rest of today has been dance practice and starting projects. Starting is the operative word here - I've basically just made a huge mess! All the better to end a pretty good weekend...

Here's some trash I picked up on the trail - an aereson can stuck in some brush:

Cake with raisins...Etc.

On the garden front, I'm feeling Crunchy Chicken's tomato pain. With my overabundance of green tomatoes, I decided to experiment a little. I found a yummy-looking recipe for green tomato cake and tried it out last night. Today I'm feeding it to my co-workers...but after the cantaloupe-bread incident (in which no one wanted to eat it 'cause it sounded "weird"), I decided not to tell anyone what it was. I just announced that there was cake with "cinnamon, raisins, walnuts, etc" in our office - come and get it! So far, no complaints - everyone loves it. :) Deceitful? Yes. Effective? Definitely! I better have some before it's all gone.

Local winos

The DH often calls me a “Wine Snob”.  I consider this a compliment.  There is nothing like a good vino buzz!  Most folks done think of Nebraska as wine country, but there are actually a lot of local vineyards.  The DH and I even got married at one last summer, Soaring Wings in Springfield, NE.  The Omaha World Herald today printed a list of local wineries.  Here are just a few – these are ones I’ve visited or at least had their wine:

v      Soaring Wings Vineyard, Springfield, NE

v      James Arthur Vineyards, Raymond, NE

v      Cedar Hills Vineyards and Gardens, Ravenna, NE

v      Mac’s Creek Vineyards and Winery, Lexington NE

v      Superior Estates Winery, Superior, NE

v      Whiskey Run Creek Vineyard and Winery, Brownville, NE

ML and I volunteered to help with the final grape harvest of the season at Soaring Wings.  The experience comes with lunch and a free bottle of vino.  I’m just hoping the first frost doesn’t fall on a football Saturday!

 

Lovin' the Co-op

As ML mentioned, we got our first order from the Nebraska Food Cooperative last night.  Having never participated in this type of organization before, I was a little apprehensive as I approved Jane’s Health Market to start my volunteer shift.  My fear was unfounded – it was great!  As the volunteer coordinator, Libby, showed me the ropes, I felt right at home amongst the coolers and order forms.  Demonstrating the process of gathering a customer’s order for pick-up, Libby just happened to choose the order form of another Diva to use as an example!  It turns out that Susie (aka Kaivalya), our fearless yoga guru, is on the Co-op Board and was involved with getting the Co-op started!  She stopped in later to pick-up her order.  It’s so cool when your little worlds collide like that.  

Seeing familiar faces at the Co-op was great; even more so was seeing new ones.  This girl Libby was fascinating – she’s one of the founders of the Co-op, plus she’s been heavily involved with the sustainable agriculture movement both in Nebraska and in other parts of the country.  She told me she has worked on family farms in Vermont (I think) and Washington state, and has traveled to Oklahoma and elsewhere to study other cooperatives in action.  

Observing the other folks at the Co-op made it very clear to me that I am indeed only “3/8s Hippy”, as I often tell the DH.  But I loved it and can see myself getting very involved in this effort.  And it’s all thanks to ML for the awesome b-day gift! ;)

Happy Meat and Twelve Dollar Apples

Today I pick up our first order from the Nebraska Food Co-op.  I can’t wait!  Steaks, ground beef, a whole chicken, a big tub of Quark (awesome cheese spread), mozzarella, bratwurst, breakfast sausage, etc.  Plus I put down a reservation for a heirloom turkey for Thanksgiving! J  I think my family was a little nervous about that – none of us has ever seen a bird that didn’t come in a Butterball wrapper…

To take full advantage of my birthday gift, I also signed up to volunteer with the co-op customer pick-up this afternoon.  I’m pretty excited about the volunteering part; not so much about trying to park in Benson in the afternoon…

So, on the not-so-local food front, the DH asked for “permission” to buy some apples at HyVee yesterday (not that he has to ask, but he knows how into the local-food thing I am).  He had sampled what he thought to be the “best apples EVER”.  Craving apples myself, I consented and arrived home to find a $12 bag of apples!  Holy crap!  That’s a lot for a little bag of apples, don’t you think?  Especially non-organic…  However, I have to agree that they are the best apples I’ve had in a long while…  And a welcome addition to my diet this fall.  ML and I were hoping to drive down to the Kimmel Orchard in Nebraska City for you-pick-‘em apples, but the effects of this year’s late spring freeze are still being felt into the apple season.  Almost all local fruit was affected.  I haven’t tried any of the local apples to be quite honest – ML bought some at one of the nearby farms, but I’m still working my way through my last farmer’s market haul, so I haven’t found the occasion to stop there yet…

The drummer missed the beet

Note to self:  should I in the future fail to finish a baked beet dinner, I should label the container before I put it in the fridge for lunch the next day.  The DH was poking around for a late-night snack, opened up my beets and nearly screamed.  He thought that the slightly shriveled purple veggie was old rotten summer sausage.  J  I’m like, “When was the last time we even had summer sausage???”  He said, “Exactly.”  Ew, ew, ew.  And for the record, I do clean out the fridge often enough that this would never happen!

 

 

It came from afar...

I’m eating pineapple.  Yeah, it’s definitely not local, but sometimes you just need foreign fruit.  I made myself ill eating peach crisp last week (in a good stuffed-like-its-Thanksgiving kind of way), and I spend the weekend slapping ginger-peach jam on slices of bread.  I needed a local-fruit break. J  Just a brief holiday, I swear.

So, I found a stick in the yard that the DH hadn’t got around to throwing out – yea!  A new compost bin stirrer!  J  The compost badly needed to be stirred…and it badly needs more “browns”.  It’s more than a little stinky – it’s gag-inducing bad right now.  Unfortunatley a lot of our paper waste is colored, and we don’t get the newspaper.  I’ll have to dig through the newspaper recycling bin at work for some black-and-white print…