Locavore In Training

Between my business trip and a nasty cold, I've been pretty much down and out. I managed to start a batch of homemade vanilla extract and make some fairly local potato soup, both things I'll share once I'm out of this sick fog!

Things I've bookmarked recently for future ideas...

• Peach-Basil Infused Vodka, inspired by Ashley English's method (love, love her), found on Punk Domestic (seriously, why are all of these things new to me?)
• No-cook tomato sauce for freezing. So appealing, since the thought of a steamy hot day in the kitchen cooking and canning tomato sauce is nearly enough to do me in.
• Roasted Salsa Verde. Must.Find.Tomatillos.
• Peach Galette. Yep, I admit I'm still smitten with peaches. I'd better get on it - Fall's on its way!
• Homemade Maraschino Cherries An important step on a more local ice cream sundae!

I can't explain why I bought so much fruit knowing that I'd be out of town half of this week. Way too much fruit! So, inspired by Food in Jar's Skillet Jam, I got to work!

I used basically the exact recipe, except I used 3 peaches and 1 pear to get 2 1/2 cups of chopped fruit and subbed mint leaves for lemon verbena leaves (wish I was cool enough to have that on hand, but I'm not). Local honey was used, and bam! Just over 1 pint of jam in 20 minutes.

Bam = cook on high heat, stirring often for about 10 minutes, until it's cooked down and has gelled into jam.

Can't taste the pear, or the mint... but it's still delicious! Will definitely use this method again - I love that it uses honey instead of sugar, and that you could use a water bath to make it shelf stable.

Next time around, I'd probably use less honey to fruit and add scrapings from a vanilla bean or cinnamon. Maybe both... mmmmmm.

As I mentioned, we lost every bit of our food due to the power outages from Hurricane Irene. Figured this was a pretty good time to get refocused in local food! Thus, my weekly shopping on Saturday went from one stop to three. First up was the Anne Arundel County Farmer's Market. I was clearly in good company with this plan- the traffic was crazy! But, I ended up with some good loot!

• Gala apples
• Asian pears
• Peaches
• These tiny fruits that seem like a cross between a plum and apricot - wish I'd written down the name! Plum cot?
• Blueberry jam
• Onions
• Garlic
• Green beans

I could have bought more but the crowds used up my patience!

My next stop was a new destination - My Butcher and More. How great is this:

Our meats are hormone, steroid, and antibiotic free at the time of harvest and come from independently owned farms where the animals are humanely raised. The animals are 100% grass fed or they are fed all natural non-animal by-product feeds.

I'd seen them on the listing for a local dairy, and figured it was worth the visit. Yes, it definitely was! Even though they were in the process of restocking due to Irene (popular task, apparently) they still had most everything I was looking for. They were closed almost a full week due to power outage, and told me they had lost over $8k worth of meat. So sad!

I tried to add ground pork to this list (for meatball making) but their machines were busy making their italian sausage. As a concession, they offered up the option to buy the sweet Italian sausage, fresh off the machine!

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (sliced in half, so I can pound for Gina's Chicken Rollatini - wonder if I'll ever find local prosciutto?) from New York
• 4 links house-made sweet Italian sausage (only 3 remain... so tasty!)
• 1 package pre-formed Bison burger patties from Gunpower Bison in Monkton, MD (Really excited to find a source for this that doesn't require a trip to the Downtown Annapolis Farmer's Market!)
• Quart of 2% milk Kilby Cream in Rising Sun, Maryland. (Ironically, this was not the dairy who lead me to My Butcher, but it was what they had in stock. They may have also had their ice cream, which I'll have to try at some point... but trying to remember the goal of local food consumption and at least weight maintenance!)
• 1 lb tub salted butter Kilby Cream

I rounded out the day at Safeway for some necessities like soda and flavored water. Also, bread and mayo, which yes I could make myself... but it wasn't on the agenda for this week. I ended up making some peach, pear skillet jam on Sunday, which I'll share soon!

Hello there, blog world! It's been an embarrassingly long time since we talked.

It's been hard to get back here, as I've spent most of the last year decidedly opposite of my goals of eating locally. I set off to lose weight in the Fall, and since I really didn't have any idea how to do that - I joined Weight Watchers. The program worked great, but the problem really was that my diet was consisting of frozen and/or boxed processed foods. Breakfast - frozen WW breakfast sandwich, Lunch - yet another "frozen delight." Afternoons would be fiber bars or popcorn. Dinners, I might do better - making meals from Fat free this and reduced fat that. Sure, I'd through in some fresh fruit or veggies throughout the day as a snack... but not very much in my diet that one might be able to purchase from a farmer's market or directly from a farm.

The last few months I've pulled more and more away from the land of processed and frozen. Still not quite getting back to the local goals, but still, closer to real food. But the scale's been showing the changes. I kept meaning to jump back into locally sourced, but just wasn't making it a top priority.

Well, Hurricane Irene came to town recently, and it looks like she's giving me a jump start. With the power out multiple days, by the time we found a generator, our food was long gone. Completely empty deep freezer, side by side freezer currently contains nuts and coffee. Even the fridge looks starkly empty: soda, beer, a few things that were shelf stable: bbq sauce, homemade strawberry jelly, and almond milk.

Since we're more or less starting with a clean slate, I'm challenging myself to carefully consider the items going back into the house. I haven't quite figured out how to make local, whole foods work in a diet situation either, so that's challenge #2.

I managed to acquire eggs from a coworker. She's raising Silkies and Americanas (so jealous!) so the eggs I'm buying from her are either teeny tiny or green. This batch is full green. I'd been buying several dozen at a time from Polyface, but this is much, much more local and nice to really know the person caring for the animals. Still hoping to raise my own, but that continues to be another story.

I talked (begged) Polyface into allowing me to order after their cutoff date, so today I'll be picking up some meat:

• 4 lbs ground beef
• 1 broiler chicken, cut up
• 1 lb bacon
• 1 whole Freedom Ranger (new breed of chicken they are "trying out" this year)

While I don't think this is enough to cover the next 5 weeks until the next Polyface delivery, my coworker had also given me a lead on a really local farm that produces beef, pork and chicken. I'd like to try them out too! I do love Polyface, but we don't care for their pork products, so it would be nice to find a source we prefer. Supporting a more local, small farm, definitely a bonus!

I'm a bit at a loss though for the main transition plan... The diet-friendly meals call for things like 99% fat free ground turkey breast and boneless, skinless thinly sliced chicken cutlets. Reduced fat cheese and fat free milk. Not something I'll solve today, so I suppose I should just try to work through it one step at a time. If anyone's still out there, I'd love thoughts on how you do it!