Week 1 Done

We had some successes this week and we had some laziness too. Our meals at home were all local, but we ended up eating out 3 times, which isn't normal for us. The kids and I had a pizza dinner out Friday, the next day we went to a mid-afternoon Birthday party and no one felt like eating come supper time, and then last night we went out again to celebrate the awards the kids received at school and their awesome report cards. Tonight we buckled down again.


We had this guy over for dinner:

Beer Belly Chicken

He came to us from just down the highway. He spent last summer in a big open yard, doing all kinds of fun chickeny things.  Tonight, I gave him a nice herbal massage and then he spent an hour and a half in the tanning bed with a can of beer. He's one lucky duck...I mean chicken! 


We ate him with Blezzard potatoes and Dalew broccoli.


Looking forward to finishing off the leftovers on a salad made with fresh Dalew lettuce and green onions tomorrow night....our first CSA delivery of the season! Yeah!!

Shannon A.

Locavore Dinner 3 & 4

Quick dinner of Dalew bacon and omelettes last night, featuring Thornloe cheese, Dalew eggs and chives from my garden. Simple and delicious.

Who knew the chive blossoms were so yummy?

Now it's Friday, Cameron graduated from Kindergarten this morning, I found out Sydney is going to receive an award at next week's year end assembly at school, Keith is on night shift....so I'm treating the kids to an outing of pizza and a movie. 

Shannon A.

Zucchini Frittata

    I've been wanting to shake things up in the kitchen lately, this is  a new dish for us, although we've had it in restaurants, this is my first homemade frittata. And I am very pleased, very pleased indeed..

Zucchini Frittata, yummy and fun to say!

Here's my adapted recipe:

* ingredients italicized are not local

1 very large frozen zucchini 

Pristine Gourmet Canola Oil

7 eggs

3 egg whites

1/2 cup of 1% Farquhar's milk

1 cup feta 

oregano

garlic

salt and pepper

Thornloe Cheddar

Dalew Smoked Ham

Preheat Broiler (mine is default to 550C)     

In a bowl whisk together 7 eggs, 3 egg whites, milk, and feta.

Heat oil in oven safe skillet, add zucchini, cook until tender. I drained some of the liquid off because it seemed like far too much, perhaps because I had coined my zucchini, instead of shredding, before I froze it, which also meant seeds in the dish.  Add finely chopped garlic and oregano to skillet and cook for 1 minute.

Add the egg mixture, allow to cook for approximately 5 minutes, using a spatula to lift the mixture from the sides and bottom, letting the liquid slip behind and under the cooked egg. 

Remove from heat while still liquidy on top, sprinkle cheese on top and finely chopped smoked ham. Put in the oven at least 6 inches from broiler cook for 5 minutes or until  puffy and golden. 

Serve with your favourite salad, we did a not so local Caesar, and TADA!! 

My tip:  put your oven mitt over the skillet handle, so you don't grab it and burn yourself like I did, YOWSA!!

This makes quite a lot, lovely leftovers for breakfast and lunch.

What's even better is the source from this adapted recipe; the book below The Gourmet Cookbook which I picked up for fifty cents at my local library. It's huge, over 1000 recipes and full of Chef's tips and other useful information. I would never have bought this book on my own or at full price, but now that I have it, it's quickly becoming a go to cookbook.

 

Locavore Dinner 2

Pork Chops, Spelt Pasta and Peas

I had a side dish panic attack tonight. I planned for the pork chops and took those out of the freezer this morning, but didn't give a second thought to what we would eat with them! 4:30 arrived and it was still pouring rain, so grilling the chops with potatoes was out of the question, and since we had fries last night, I wasn't really in the mood for them anyways. Of course, rice doesn't grow around here, and I haven't been to Eat Local Sudbury to see if they have any grains in stock. The only local product I could find in the cupboard was a bag of Spelt Flour from Grass Roots Organics of Desboro, ON. That's just over 400kms away, but since we lost our supplier from New Liskeard last summer, this has been one of our only choices for flour. I found a recipe for spelt pasta online and went to work.


It turned out great! I served it simply with butter, Thornloe Asiago cheese and pepper. I pulled out a jar of plum sauce I canned last summer for the pork chops and some peas from the freezer to round out the meal. The kids gobbled it down, which is better than any compliment!

Shannon A.

Summer Sliders!

     Dinner's Ready!

Next time the buns will be local.

       This time of year is the storm before the calm, garden planting and end of school excitement keep this house hopping.  Last night I was out, so my husband made classic grill cheese for dinner. Tonight it was sliders, quick and delicious.

       I have fallen quite badly for Jamie Oliver. He's so lovely and clever.  I received Jamie At Home for Christmas and have been swooning over him ever since. What I love about him is how he describes how he cooks food. Given the rain tonight I pan fried the sliders, using this advice.

      I've been using canola oil I purchased at Eat Local Sudbury Co-op. It is from The Pristine Gourmet and for the most part I love it, it is too heavy for a salad dressing but excellent everywhere else.


The sliders were super easy, Burt's Farms beef is so flavourful, so delicious, it will ruin you for all other beef.


Lean Ground Beef (Burt's Farms)
1 egg (Dalew)
bread crumbs 


Pristine Gourmet oil for the pan.
Topped with Thornloe 1 Year Old Cheddar




Enjoy Locavores!!


 Shannon D.

Locavore Dinner 1

Fish, Chips and Asparagus ~ 800kms

So for fun I thought we'd do a comparison of our meal and a grocery store equivalent meal.


Locavore Meal
Ontario Asparagus: let's say these came from Simcoe, ON 500kms
Pickerel: from Kirkland Lake, ON 300kms (and this travelled with us)
Potatoes: Blezard Valley, ON 5kms
Total = 805kms


Typical Grocery Store Meal
McCain Fries: Florenceville, NB 1400kms
Asparagus: Mexico 4000kms
Captain Highliner Fish Sticks: Lunenburg, Nova Scotia 2000kms
Total = 7400kms


The McCain and Captain Highliner numbers are just estimates because I can only find processing locations, not where they source their products, so the numbers are likely higher!


Food for thought, eh?

Shannon A.

It's That Time Again!!

   Locavore Summer 2 is on and I am feeling much more confident than I was last year, despite the fact that we haven't started receiving our CSA veggies yet! The cupboard in the basement is still full of applesauce, peaches, pickles, beets, flavoured oils and sauces. I have two bags of frozen strawberries left, shredded zucchini, green and yellow beans, broccoli, brustle sprouts and a few jars of freezer jam. The freezer is also well stocked with Dalew pork and beef, moose, duck, fish, venison, chicken and even a giant turkey from my Father In Law's neighbours. I've had the canner out already, processing 16lbs of rhubarb in to savoury jam, sweet jam, BBQ sauce and juice and there is still some left in the freezer. There should still be Ontario asparagus and fiddle heads at the grocery store, and lucky for us, mushrooms, and hot house cucumbers that are grown in southern Ontario all year round. We won't go hungry, even though the first few weeks are going to be a little meat heavy/veggie light, as I ration out last year's left overs. I think this summer is going to be a piece of cake!


   I haven't been in to Eat Local Sudbury since Christmas but I'm really looking forward to renewing my weekly trips there once the Dalew CSA starts up again, hopefully next week. I'm craving Burt's Cheddar Smokies in the worst way! I bought cheese sausages at the grocery store a few weeks ago, hoping I would get my fix, but they were a huge disappointment! We also got word that Dalew's are offering hot dogs now, much to Shannon D's delight. She's already picked up 4 packs and gave great reviews! They have also found a new source for local flour, which, when I heard that they had lost their last supplier, I feared would be the downfall of our project. Now we are good to go again!


   My garden is in and doing pretty well. We decided to focus more on freezing/canning vegetables and herbs this year rather than fresh eating... things like shelling peas, beans, carrots, spinach, golden beets, pickling cukes, peppers and a pretty good variety of herbs. We get so much from Dalew's for day to day eating, so we thought this might be a good plan to try. I also planted radishes between my rows. I don't really love radishes but I've been wanting to try them roasted à la Shannon D., so I thought I'd give them a try. I only planted 3 brandywine tomatoes and 1 cherry tomato, which was a huge cut back from last year. I decided that for the amount of space they take up in my small gardens, relative to yield, I'd rather take up the space with smaller plants, and just buy a bushel of tomatoes in the late summer. The added benefit is that I can process them all at once, rather than a few here and there. I hope I don't regret this decision!


   So, for our Locavore 2.0 Kick Off Meal tonight, we will be having fish and chips fried in our backyard, featuring pickerel Keith and I caught on our last trip home, local potatoes and steamed green and yellow beans. Yummo!!

My 2011 Garden of Eatin'

Shannon A.

Ready, Set, Go!

  So happy to be back! 


     This winter was a reasonable success for us. We've continued our weekly trip to Eat Local Sudbury throughout the winter. I buy all my meat and a bag of Farquar's 1% milk at ELS every week. I fill in any gaps with Farquar's from my local grocer during the week in order to support both. I can say, with confidence, that the dairy and meat in this house are consistently local. The habits formed last summer were cemented into our lives and I look forward to stretching further this summer.  
    
   I have two goals for this summer; to freeze significantly more fruits and vegetables to carry this family through the long winter months and to find a solution to my local bread problem.


     The gardens are planted, I am pleased to report that most of the tomato plants were grown from seed BY ME (a remarkable personal achievement). The others were intended as back up plants, they were purchased at the ELS plant sale and Sudbury's Garden Festival from a local gardener.  Feeling ambitious, my husband revived an abandoned patch to plant some strawberry plants, corn and potatoes. We have planted a lot this year,  two vegetable gardens, two perennial beds, and containers on every level surface.

Strawberry Patch

Corn and Potatoes at the far end.

MINE!! I SAW IT FIRST!

Circle Garden, name it, I planted some...

Flower Garden, Welcome Bees!

Lettuce 

More lettuce and some peppers

    We've also gone halvsies with a friend for Dalew's  CSA program. I had my own share a few years back, but found it to be too much with my own garden's produce. It is my hope that between the two I'll have enough frozen vegetables to last well into the winter.


    I have also managed to secure a place on Dalew's egg share and will not, therefore, be whining about lack of local eggs this summer. 


    Fortunately, Dalew has also begun carrying flour from Poschaven Farms. I bought a 4kg bag and once school's out, it is my dream to begin making my own "as local as possible" bread products. Here's my plan; once a month I'll spend a glorious day making bread, buns, pizza dough, bagels to last all month, then freeze and use. It's a fanciful dream, but I believe I can do it.   Of course, if I find a bakery that uses local ingredients, I will probably just buy it.


     Here's to a great summer!! Shannon D.