The Beet goes on!

On the 4th of September & I woke up thinking about how good last night's dinner was! Obviously I had to redo it for breakfast. Preceded by my morning tea.

Beans in the solar oven

The Tuscan Beans, Polenta, tomatoes & pesto were just as heavenly as they were last night. If you have never made Tuscan Beans, it is the easiest recipe ever:

Tuscan Beans
2 c. Dry beans (Pinto, Yellow Eye, Cannellini, Calico...)
water
20 leaves fresh sage
lots of sliced garlic (to taste, but not less than 3 big cloves!)
Olive oil
salt & freshly ground pepper

Soak the beans overnite. Next day add garlic, about 1 Tblsp. Olive oil and the garlic and bring to boil. Simmer until just tender, then add salt & pepper. Cook another 1/2 hour or so. Serve drizzled with a bit more olive oil.

We cook them here in the solar oven.


The Beet & beet green gratin is another surprisingly delectable recipe. Chard can be substituted for beet greens.
Find the recipe here: Don't that Beet All...

With Cypress Grove, Loleta Cheese Company & Rumiano cheeses, countless amazing beers & wines, grass fed local beef, Humboldt Creamery, Clendenen's Cider, the Tofu Shop, Shakefork Farm and all the other amazing farmers of the local Farmers' Markets it's simple to eat locally produced food. Add to this wild Blackberries, one's own garden produce and eggs, homemade vinegar, yogurt and other condiments, and I find we eat very, very well.

Time flies in Harvest Season!

Holy Cow! It's September 12 already!
It's been so busy around here I just haven't found time to write. To catch up here's my  daily menu:

Tuesday 9/4 - Having to use up the local bacon is such a pain! I start the day with bacon and an egg, with slices of fresh tomato on the side. Tea of course, and water. Just assume I am having a cup of tea every morning whether I write it down or not!
Snacks these days are generally grazing on snap peas, cherry tomatoes, peaches or Asian Pears, depending if I'm in the garden or orchard.
For lunch a fried pepper, pesto, cucumber and Cypress Grove Fromage Blanc sandwich on the bread I baked from Shakefork flour. This is very good.
Dinner an oriental style stir fry incorporating chicken hearts from the meat birds we butchered earlier this year. Vagrant ingredients were peanut oil, soy sauce and ginger root. I have grown ginger root in the past, and you see it in town, mostly as an ornamental, but this one is an import from??? I'll have to find out.
I am mainly drinking water, but I do have some apple cider & apple cider / cranberry mix we put up and add in now and then. The apples are from our or our daughter's trees and the cranberries came from some folks who were at the Arcata farmer's market last fall.

Wed 9/5 - Breakfast was an Asian vegie scramble (i.e.- leftovers scrambled with eggs). with some homemade yogurt with blackberries and peaches. Eating hearty as I will be in town the rest of the day and going to a birthday pizza part likely to be full of non-local ingredients. Had a small bottle of Clendenen's wonderful cider, too, when I got to town.
Lunched at the Eureka Natural Foods Deli, spinach salad and chicken salad, both of which I was assured were made from mainly local ingredients (I have my doubts about the pine nuts & feta cheese!).
Pizza was at Tom's Sourdough in Fortuna. I know they house make their sourdough crust. Didn't get to ask as to the source of the ingredients, but - Hey! I'm the Grandma and I am not going to spoil the party. And the exquisitely delectable chocolate birthday cake from Ramone's bakery counts as local - doesn't it?!?

In the marinade

Thursday 9/6 - Did a brunch rerun of the rest of the leftover Tuscan Beans with grated Loleta cheddar. That held me nicely until an unbelievable tasty dinner of grilled vegetables: zuchinni, crookneck, eggplant, peppers and corn on the cob. I slice and marinate all but the corn in olive oil, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, a bit of oregano & basil and some of my homemade red wine vinegar for at least 1/2 hour, then grill them up. YUM! Topped this meal off with a nice glass of Coates vineyard Syrah. Yeah, this local food challenge is tough...!

You have no idea how incredible this is!

Friday 9/7 - vegie scramble w/leftover grilled vegies for breakfast, fried pepper, tomato & cuke sandwich for lunch. I am a big fan of fried peppers & grow special Italian Frying Peppers every year just for this. Seed & split the pepper & fry in a dry pan until soft and w/ brown spots on both sides. Have to hold it down with the spatula in the beginning until the soften a bit. De-lish!
Back in town overnight at a friend's, I brought vegies Dinner was sauteed vegies & corn on the cob with bread and Cypress Grove cheeses on the side & some wonderful wine from Briceland winery

Sat. 9/8 - In town for the Natural Fiber Fair, Breakfasted on Loleta Bakery 9-grain Toast with local Zimmerman BlackRaspberry jam & a dollop of Organic valley cottage Cheese. Some of our local Humboldt dairys do send milk to Organic Valley so, hopefully, this wasn't to big of a stretch.
At the Fiber fair were the most wonderful catered delights in the kitchen. I had a lovely local salad & focaccia with caramalized onions.
Once home I supped on Loleta Cheese cheddar and toast with a lovely cup of tea.

Sunday 9/9 - Tea, a vegie/egg scramble to start the day
Another variation on my fried pepper sandwich with pesto, tomato and chevre  for lunch. These are all amazingly delicious! Even my visiting granddaughters think so.

Fresh tomato/zucchini sauce simmering

With the help of the girls we made spaghetti from scratch. Organic flour from Guisto's and our farm fresh eggs for the noodles. tomatoes, onion, garlic, zuchinni & fresh herbs for the sauce and also a bit of fresh basil pesto, made with almonds from near Chico. With a fresh cucumber and tomato salad on the side, dressed with oilve oil and my homemade red wine vinegar, it was a fabulous company feast.

Monday 9/10 - Tea! Lovely Shakefore hot cracked oat cereal with Humboldt creamery butter, honey from Carlotta, & sliced Asian Pear from our tree. Yum!
Lunch was our favorite blackberries with yogurt in a 1/2 cantaloupe bowl. The bowl, of course, is delicious!
Baked a new bread of Shakefork wheat, oat, rye and barley flours, and snacked on fresh bread and Cypress Grove chevre (plain, from a section of chevre log).
A very special dinner tonight of local salmon, steamed fresh green beans, crookneck squash and corn on the cob with a glass of the Coates Syrah. Ahhh local luxury indeed!

Beet Gratin

Tuesday 9/11 - Tea! A fried pepper and egg sandwich with a bit of Loleta cheddar for breakfast. Have I mentioned how much I love fried peppers?
A light lunch of toast and Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog
Dinner was a solar baked Beet Gratin. This amazing all local ingredient dish is easy to make:
On the side I had an artichoke our plant unseasonably produced, corn on the cob and leftover cucumber salad.

Wed. 9/12 - The Beet gratin makes a wonderful breakfast, too, with a slice of melon on the side.
Lunch was another variation on a fried pepper sandwich, with tomato, cucumber and chevre.
I was craving grilled vegies, so dinner was a heaping plate of marinated and grilled zucchini, onion, pepper and eggplant. A glass of the Coates Syrah and a dessert of grilled apple slices with a dash of Humboldt Creamery 1/2 and 1/2. Yeah!

We're really 'suffering' with all this local goodness - Oh my!

It has begun...

Humboldt Abundance

 And so it begins, a month of a strictly local foods based diet.
I consider this more of a celebration than a challenge. I can't imagine many places having a more diverse variety of good food grown and produced in such a small area.

Being right in the middle of our garden harvest season, we are surrounded by wonderful choices from fruit to squash, onions to herbs.
My plan this year is to make all the main foods be locally grown or produced, but allowing myself my tea (locally roasted coffee fits the bill, but no one produces black tea), salt spices & things like baking powder, yeast.

To get in the spirit of things and prepare I baked a loaf of bread using grains from Shakefork Community farm in Carlotta. I now use a bread machine, as I only need one loaf at a time, and came up with a whole wheat, rye & buckwheat flour bread. Other ingredients are local honey, sea salt, yeast & gluten.

Yummy combo - mmmm...

After starting the challenge with a favorite breakfast of Shakefork cracked (not rolled) oat cereal with honey and some of the first fruit from our young Asian Pear tree, we devoted the whole Labor Day weekend to food, canning beans, pickles, tomatillos, & mixed vegetables with barley for soup.

We eat a lot of soup in the winter, and I love to have a lot in the pantry. It's a great way to put by food when you don't have a lot of any one thing & the best use of extra summer squash I know. Tossing a tablespoon of raw barley in the bottom of the jar before adding the vegetables & processing it adds a lot to the finished soup in flavor and texture.

Menu Sept 1 - Tea, Humboldt Creamery 1/2+1/2, Shakefork Cracked Oats with Humboldt butter, honey & our Asian Pear
Baked whole wheat/rye/buckwheat bread from Shakefork grain (recipe)
Dinner was fried pepper, cucumber & tomato sandwich, cucumber salad
treat - blackberries, peaches & cream

Menu Sept 2 - Tea, egg & mixed vegie scramble with Loleta Cheese's pepper jack
Snack - gravenstein apple, hard boiled egg
Dinner, steamed green beans & Crooknecks & fresh corn on the cob, toast with Humboldt Fog from Cypress Grove.

Menu Sept 3 - Tea, Local and locally cured bacon from Hatfield's Meats in Mad River, egg and toast.

Making fresh linguini!

Lunch was homemade pasta with fresh pesto and chopped heirloom tomatoes. The pasta was made with Lundberg flour from the central valley, I'm not sure if it's grown quite within our 250 mile radius, but it could be. But my daughter and granddaughter were here making pesto with me and there was no way we were NOT going to have some noodles to try it out!
Snacking on Asian Pears
Dinner - Oh my! Tuscan beans made with my favorite Yellow Eye beans from Warren Creek Farm in the Arcata Bottoms, soft polenta from Shakefork corn, with a dollop of fresh pesto and chopped fresh tomato. I cannot tell you how delicious this was. Hooray for leftovers!

I think we're off to a good start.

We're Baaaack!

I've signed up again!
Rebel Localvore that I am, I created my own category - 'Extreme lifestyle'. My plan is to eat local foods for every meal with the exception of a very few ingredients: salt, spices, tea,  baking powder & yeast. If possible I will try to create meals that forgo much of those as well.

Again, I will chronicle my journey through the amazing bounty of our area. It all starts September 1.
To learn more, click here.

Some of our local bounty

An Exciting Week... not just the food

Life goes on. To continue from last post, things were normal enough. I have been harvesting and canning the garden bounty as well as applesauce and drying some tomatoes. To learn more about food preservation and being a more hard-core localvore, do read our posts from 2009. But I digress! We begin here on Tuesday, September 20th, a work day in the Simmons Soap shop. Our local meal was Breakfast - fresh eggs and Loleta Bakery sourdough toast with our first ripe melon from our lower greenhouse.

9/21 - Lunch was my summer favorite sandwich - Cucumber, tomato and Loleta Pepper Jack on Loleta Bakery sourdough. I used our home made mayonnaise for this.

9/22 - Lunch - The amazing, ultimate salad! Not just lettuce & tomato & carrot & red cabbage from the garden, but sliced steamed beets and grated Loleta Cheddar and home canned local caught Albacore. Vinagarette of our herbed red wine vinegar. 

9/23 - this is the day things got exciting! I do volunteer Emergency Medical Dispatching. I'm usually on call one weekend a month. This was NOT my weekend. However, at around 1 in the afternoon a wildfire started up in Ruth and the dispatcher who was to be on call was evacuated!

I had planned to can Ancho peppers and had picked the peppers, which we grow in containers in a greenhouse. Anchos are fabulous big blocky peppers with an occasional bit of heat. We have been using them instead of Anaheim chilies for years. I can them for future chile rellenos - much like the canned Ortega Chilies you buy in the store (which are Anaheims). 

While I often roast them over a charcoal fire, we did it on the gas grill this time. Slower, but just as efficient. The aroma of the roasting chiles is amazing, and we got them all done with visions of a dinner of Chile rellenos dancing in our head - and that's when the phone rang!

For the next 6 hours I pretty much was on the phone helping coordinate information for the fire. From Sheriffs to Red Cross, Forest Service, Cal Fire, Volunteer Fire Departments, EMS personnel, road closures, evacuation centers and more, the beginning of a wildfire in an inhabited area is a mass of organization and controlled chaos!
Did we have dinner? I don't remember. I did have a breakfast of eggs and toast, so that was covered...
I somehow managed to get my peppers peeled and in the refrigerator to finish processing manana!
9/24 - Well, tonight is a benefit dinner and the official Ruth Fire USFS meeting. No rellenos tonight, but we got the peppers into jars, setting some aside for tomorrow's dinner. Our Localvore meal was Lunch - Quesadillas with Bien Padre tortillas, Loleta Pepper jack, chopped peppers and fresh tomato salsa from the garden.
9/25 - Yippee! Dinner - Chile Rellenos! A very special treat. 
Stuff the roasted, peeled, seeded Ancho peppers with a piece of Loleta jack cheese and dredge in flour. I used some Shakefork Farm barley flour to keep it local. Then I separate eggs (I used 3) and beat the whites until stiff. Now I mix a little salt (exception alert!) in the flour & fold the flour into the egg whites. Lastly I fold the egg yolks into the beaten whites.
I use a small 6" cast iron frying pan and put (exception alert!) about 3/4 inch vegetable oil in it (I'm using safflower)(I know they grow safflower as close as Davis, Ca.). I heat it until a drop of the egg mix sizzles immediately and browns fairly quickly. Then, carefully, dip the floured, stuffed chiles in the egg mix and add to the hot oil. 2 fit nicely in the pan. turn as soon as they brown on one side. When brown on both sides remove from oil onto a cooling rack over paper over a plate or pan. I use newspaper. It's just to catch the drips. Adjust the heat as needed to keep the rellenos cooking quickly, but not too fast. You'll get the hang of it in short order.
We had these with fresh tomato salsa and our homemade hot sauce, corn on the cob, and watermelon grown by a friend in nearby Larabee Valley. FEAST!
9/26 - I neglected to photograph the dinner before we ate it (sorry) but Breakfast - leftover relleno (heated in a microwave) with watermelon and scrambled eggs with some leftver corn cut from the cob & stirred in. Fresh salsa and hot sauce on top and Oh Boy! This is livin'.
9/27 - Poached egg on toast for breakfast with another melon, Honeydew, from the garden.
9/28 - Last Wed. of the month and our local Book Group chat & chew. I brought the delicious Zuchinni Curry and Cucumber Raita. There were local apples and grilled eggplant and tomato on ciabatta and many more delectable treats including a wine made by a group of folks who get together to make wine in Hayfork (Trinity County).
9/29 - Breakfast was scrambled egg with chopped garden vegetables: onion, bell pepper, summer squash... topped with fresh chopped tomato.
Tomorrow is the last day of the Eat Local Challenge and I have been saving for another special treat. I will be making the Eggplant Parmesan I came up with in 2009, last time we took the Challenge

Continuing Menu of Local Delights...

Oh I am lazy this year!
I confess our breakfasts are virtually all 100% local based (having chickens doesn't hurt), and often, that is the meal I count for my 1-Local-Meal-a-Day.

So, from where we left off:
9/10 - Breakfast: The delectable poached fresh eggs on Brio bread with grated Loleta Cheese

9/11 - Dinner: The wonderful Beet & Beet green Gratin! A solar cooked delight, see the recipe on our earlier blog post: Garden Delights: Don't that Beet All! With this we had a garden green salad with Napa Olive Oil and our homemade herbed red wine vinegar. We love solar cooking, and use the Sun Oven as often as possible, all year round.

9/12 - Breakfast: Leftover Beet Gratin with eggs on the side

9/13 - Breakfast: Our favorite Huevos, Simmons Style. Eggs poached in home canned Zesty Salsa, on Bien Padre tortilla with grated Loleta pepper jack!

9/14 - They had Cod Cheeks in town! We LOVE these local fishery tidbits. Sorta like faux scallops and inexpensive to boot. Dinner: Cod cheeks sauteed with my fish herb seasoning, fresh corn on the cob, and marinated cucumbers from the garden.

9/15 - Lunch: Green salad with home canned local caught Albacore

9/16 - Breakfast: Simmons 'Eggerito' Scrambled eggs in a Bien Padre tortilla with a bit of grated Loleta cheese and homemade hot sauce on top.

9/17 - A lovely picnic lunch on Arcata Plaza in the middle of the North Country Fair! We had Brio bread, Cypress grove chevres and Humboldt Fog, locally made bear/venison/pork salami, BBQ Humboldt Bay oysters from one of the food booths, fruit from the Farmer's Market and some Coates vinyard wine. What's not to like!

9/18 - Home again for a romantic dinner of grilled local beef, fresh corn on the cob and steamed carrots

9/19 -  Dinner: grilled local salmon, zucchini curry (many non-local spices in this - added up to maybe 1 tablespoon - but it had to be!) and Raita made with our cucumbers, cilantro and home made yogurt YUM!!!

Picked more cucmbers today, as well as peppers and squash and tomatoes... & will be canning applesauce and mixed vegetables for soup. This time of year is full-on abundance in the garden.
The Autumnal Equinox is this coming Friday, we need to enjoy what is left of this summer season.

2011 - Officially Localvorious again!

Well, we thought we'd sign up 'Officially' to the NorthCoast Co-op's Eat Local Challenge again this year.
 We eat local origin food as much as possible anyway, especially during the end of summer harvest, when dinner often is what came out of the garden that day. On top of this our freezer has a supply of local beef from a neighbor, chicken from birds we raised here, and locally caught fish, as well as canned local tuna in the pantry.

Of the levels available, I inadvertently chose 'Lifestyle Localvore' -

Lifestyle Localvore
For at least one meal per day, eat only locally grown,
raised, and/or produced foods with a few exceptions.
Exceptions may include: non-local spices, cooking
oils, vinegar, and spirits.

part of our 'garden salad bar'

I generally choose a more rigid level, but the type was small and the evening late and the link finicky. Ah well.
But I am content with my choice. If 2011 has been as intense for you as it has been for us, you will appreciate my accepting a lesser challenge.

Part of our inspiration was finally making it to the top of the wait list for ShakeFork Farm's grain share CSA (Community Supported Agriculture - learn more). We have always admired and wanted to support the CSAs in our area, but we give away flowers, herbs, & vegetables, not buy them... But the chance to get locally produced oats, wheat, barley, & more was perfect for our needs.

To accommodate the challenge, I need to make some yogurt, sour cream, and mayonnaise. Other than that, we're good to go, I think. Stay tuned!

So, let us begin.
One meal a day up to now:
Sept. 1: Breakfast - eggs from our hens, poached, on Loleta Bakery Sourdough with Loleta Cheese Pepper Jack

Sept. 2: Dinner at a friend's in town - Local wild caught Salmon, Brio Bakery bread, Arcata Farmers Market broccoli

Sept. 3: Breakfast ( at friend's. In town for Blues on the Bay) - Our eggs, Brio Bakery multi grain bread (Yum)

Sept. 4: Breakfast - same. We're sorry Humboldt Hot Dogs were not at Blue on the Bay this year

Sept. 5: Home again! Picked up some local Cod Cheeks at Eureka Natural Foods on the way home. Wonderful dinner of sauteed Cod Cheeks with my Fish Herb Blend (for which we grow lemon Basil & Lemon Thyme), garden salad & Brio Bakery Bread

Sept. 6: Lunch was a garden salad (literally) with home-canned local albacore tuna and dressing made from Napa olive oil (an exception) and my home made herbed red wine vinegar (see below).

Sept. 7: Just canned our favorite "Zesty Salsa" recipe from the Ball Blue Book, and used the leftovers for Breakfast - Huevos Rancheros of our eggs poached in Fiesta Salsa, over Loleta Pepper Jack on a Bien Padre corn tortilla. YUM!!!

Got Cukes?

Sept. 8: Lunch - Garden classic: Tomato & Cucumber sandwich on Loleta Bakery Sourdough. My all time summer favorite (when I don't have frying peppers).

Sept. 9: Brunch - cleaning out the fridge salad with canned tuna. Loleta Bakery bread on the side (end of loaf )

So far, so good. I should note that we generally drink water with meals. I do have tea in the morning, but not wioth breakfast and always with Humboldt Creamery 1/2 & 1/2 :^) Snacks here often consist of raw peppers or cucumbers or tomatoes, at least THIS time of year.
---

Herbs & Garlic drying on the back porch

We have made red wine vinegar for many years. Nothing to it. Pour a bottle of inexpensive red wine into a clean glass jar. I use a gallon or 1/2 gallon jar, depending on what's brewing at the time. Add 1/4 c. Mother of red wine vinegar, cover the jar with a fine mesh cloth so it can breathe, but not big enough to let the fruit (vinegar) flies in. Keep in a warm, dark place. Occasionally add leftover red wine. In about 6 weeks you have rustic wine vinegar. I am happy to share Mother of vinegar (e mail me via Simmons Natural Bodycare), but you can use 1/2 cup of raw cider vinegar instead. Shake well before measuring or, better yet, just use the dregs in the bottom of the bottle. Bragg raw cider vinegar is perfect. For more information on making your own wine vinegar, see the 'Gang of Pour'.

We have many herbal vinegar blends that we make for cooking. I thought I'd pass one along here - a favorite base for salad dressing. We even made a gallon of this to use at the reception dinner for our daughter's wedding.
Again, the important thing is to use enough herbs when you are making the flavored vinegar - 1/2 cup dried mixed herbs to 2 cups of vinegar.

Recipe: For this blend use red wine vinegar with the addition of basil, oregano, garlic and black peppercorns. We use about 12 peppercorns and 6 cloves of garlic per 2 cups of vinegar. Let the mixture steep in a dark place and shake occasionally to mix. Taste after a week and, if it is not strong enough, let sit another 2 or 3 weeks. When it tastes right, strain and store in clean, tightly capped bottles.
To make the salad dressing, mix 1/3 herb vinegar with 2/3 good olive oil or a mix of olive and other salad oil, as you prefer. Enjoy!

Last Day

Hard to believe September has come to an end. Indeed, it is a frosty morning. Down to 30 degrees last night, so far it does not look as though it killed anything.

As I will be in town tomorrow we are shipping orders today. I start with a breakfast of left over leftover chili (that recipe really made a lot!) with egg and cheese. Melon and cider to round it out. Book group tonight, I will see what local fare the gals bring. I am taking a bottle of Briceland "Champagne" to celebrate.

A busy day - no lunch. Grazed a bit on apples (they are close enough - we will be borrowing a neighbor's cider press this weekend), peppers, tomatoes.

Only food harvest work was picking dinner ingredients and adding some trays of tomatoes to the dehydrator.

Made a ratatouille to take. There is a recipe in the Localvore handout, but I used another. I cannot believe I did not make this all along! The perfect harvest season fare - with zukes, onion, eggplant, peppers - a garden medley of the best kind. That, Champagne & a bottle of the Elk Prairie in hand I joined my friends in a chat 'n chew around books about Julia Child.

How apropos!

There was local salad, a chili relleno casserole with local peppers, Orzo salad with local vegetables, homemade pickles, pasta with homemade sauce. It was tough, but I stuck to these and the ratatouille, with the rather large loophole of the other ingredients involved. I did not eat cornbread and several other delectables with only out of area ingredients... but waived mightily on the carrot cake. They could have been local carrots... not!

I stuck to the Elk Prairie - and we never did get around to the champagne.

I'll write a summation of what I learned later in the week. It really has been an interesting journey, with much the same and some new. I was, perhaps, more lax that I should have been, but I know I will be having many more localvore meals every day.

28 down, 2 to go

Monday, work day, paperwork, phone and orders.
I start with Brio toast with a thin slice of Loleta cheddar cheese,a fine butter substitute, to accompany my tea.

We want to make the most of this decidedly cooler (some 30 degrees cooler than yesterday!)  but sunny day. Throw some tarps over things, put others away... batten down the hatches for impending change in the weather.

Break time means a Monday brunch. We make omelets filled with chopped crookneck squash, onion, bell pepper, parsley, burger, & Loleta jack cheese. I season mine with our "Thaibasco" sauce. There is cider to drink and honeydew melon on the side.  The honeydew is perfectly ripe - a sign of more to come. We grow these melons in containers in a greenhouse.
 Before going back to work I put together a dish of solar Spanish Rice (see recipe here) while we still have sun. To make it more local based, I leave out the cumin or Mexican seasoning and add some of my ground chilis (sparingly) and chopped cilantro. This way I'll have a ready made rice dish for some busy evening, rain or shine.
While it cooks I go back to work.
Finally done (work & rice both), we get out to harvest, put away, and cover up anything that needs to stay dry. If the change in temperature wasn't enough to remind us of the season we hear a distant clamor... First Geese! The migration is in progress - two large "V's" high in the sky heading SE. Very cool.

Day done. We dine on local line-caught rock cod, cooked in olive oil with my fish seasoning. With it a pile of steamed crookneck squash and sliced beets w/sour cream. We love beets. I will pull up a bunch of them and steam them ( these were steamed yesterday) and put them in the fridge to use on salads or whenever. This dish, usually made with butter and salt & pepper, was just fine with the beets heated in a tiny bit of olive oil and then steamed with about a Tablespoon of water. Just before serving I stirred in the last of our homemade sour cream. A perfectly local dinner. Except for the olive oil all from Humboldt county - again!
I have my evening tea and put the dried pears into jars to seal. We begin to refill the dehydrator with more tomatoes. It is during weather changes that the dehydrator is most valuable. Might be no more placing the trays outside for a while.

Back on the computer I find a message in my e mail - Arcata did not make the Top 20 Best Farmer's Markets in the US!! As good as that market is, and as computer savvy as Arcatans are, I really thought they might get out the vote.
Sponsored by  American Farmland Trust , "...committed to protecting the nation's best farm and ranch land and improving the economic viability of agriculture." They held an online contest to find the most liked farmer's markets in 3 size categories.
Maybe next year...

Working it through the week

Thursday and Friday - trying to balance work and harvest. It is beginning to feel like over-abundance!

Thursday begins with pears & tea and off to work. Today Dennis makes soap while I ship orders. We have a late lunch of vegie boogaloo with sausage, with fizzy apple cider. Our gift of Clendenen's cider was unrefrigerated the day before we got it, all it takes to accelerate the fermentation process!
I break to water the greenhouses and pick the few peaches in the top of our cling peach tree... A surprise! Hidden in the leaves were a whole basket of lovely ripe peaches! Wahoo!! Fruit that is SO not pears!
We celebrate later with a snack of a peach strawberry smoothie using the yogurt I made and the handful of berries that was in the strawberry bed. Bliss.

Dinner is local tortellini I got at Eureka Co-op. The label does not give the origin, but it is the fresh pasta you see at both co-ops. There was a sign by it saying it was locally made, but I did not write down the producer. At any rate it is delicious with the pesto we made, a cucumber & tomato salad with basil and Tehama olive oil & our homemade red wine vinegar dressing, and a glass of the Elk Prairie Pinot. As a very special treat I heat some peach slices with honey until soft and hot and we drizzle some Humboldt Creamery cream over it for dessert. Now, THAT is delicious.

My last effort of the day is to fill our dehydrator with pear slices to dry. This leaves only a very full single layer in a lug box. The end of the pears is in sight at last.

Friday this time of year is a minimal business and maximum food preservation day. Really, when the harvest season is full on, if I am not putting away food one way or the other every day it will rot, explode into zillions of fruit flies - and I will miss the opportunity.
This Friday is salsa and corn. My favorite canning partners, Amber and Lila are coming over to can this morning.
We start the day with tea and pear and grazing on cherry tomatoes and peppers and some melon (our first this year) from a honeydew that actually exploded open. I guess that one's ripe!
When the girls get here we go out and harvest ingredients for salsa before the day gets too hot. After, I play with Lila while Amber preps to make Zesty Salsa (Blue Book again). After which she and Lila lay down for a nap.
I lunch on a vegie scramble and some melon, then pick the remainder of our 3rd batch of corn (we plant corn to ripen at 65, 75, 85 and 100 days to extend our season). By then the girls are up and had their lunch. Amber resumes the salsa making and Lila and I husk corn.
There are quite a few corn earworms this year and Lila is very excited about this. She took this picture of a green worm all by herself!

Speaking about excited. I am still very excited about the peaches. During this Challenge I have been wanting to make an egg custard - eggs and milk being two great local products and eggs in abundance right now. But the flavoring aspect, sans vanilla, was baffling me. But I can see that peaches could be the perfect sweet-tart note to add, with some sort of base.
Using the Lundberg Rice loophole and some solar cooked rice from the other day I made a peach rice pudding with 1 c. milk, 2 eggs, about 1/3 c. honey beaten together mixed with a few chopped peaches and maybe 3 c. cooked rice. This cooked up lovely in the solar oven.

Salsa done, and after eating some grapes from a friend in Trinity county, Lila and her mom went home.
Time to can the corn...
I wanted a more serious beverage to end a long, busy day, but felt guilty about my gin & tonic last Monday. So as an apertif, while cutting the kernels off the ears of corn, I had a cocktail of a dash of homemade Limoncello and a shot of sour cherry liqueur over ice - with several of the cherries in it.
A friend in Arcata make the Limoncello, a lemon flavored liqueur. I make the cherry. When our sour (pie) cherry tree has been robbed by the birds, leaving too few cherries for pie, I layer the cherries with organic sugar in a glass jar about 2/3 full and fill the jar with vodka. Wait at least 3 months, stirring occasionally, and the cherries turn pale and the liquid rose and the flavor - quite nice. A dessert, really. Not bad over fruit, ice cream or, in this case, ice. Be warned - the vodka soaked cherries are potent!
While the pints of corn were in the pressure canner, Dennis and I dined on grilled local beef steak, corn on the cob, and a salad with lettuce, cabbage, radishes, and steamed beets from the garden. Our condiments included Fred's Horseradish with our home made sour cream and the buttermilk salad dressing. Of course some Elk Prairie Pinot to accompany this. No salt, no pepper and no butter - but all good. And made all the more locally wonderful by our peachy rice pudding dessert!

Wednesday - only one week left...

We are now full on into the harvest. It's mid- food season here. A great time for the Challenge, but if I do not preserve some type of food every day I get hopelessly behind. Firewood to stack as well. Getting ready for winter.

We start the day with vegie scramble with some of the Premiere Chicken Apple sausage. We have to finish it soon - as it will not keep much longer.
Computer work, paperwork - but a fairly open day and we manage to stack a couple loads of wood somehow as well.

Lunch is salad with home canned local tuna, and a quesadilla made with Loleta jack cheese, fried pepper and Rita's whole wheat tortillas.
After lunch I can some Italian vegetables. This recipe is from a Co-op handout I picked up in 1983 (? or 85?). I generally do several vegetable medleys. They are a quick, delicious soup come colder weather. It takes a pressure canner, and the rule of thumb is use the canning time for the vegetable with the longer processing time. The Blue Book has a chart.

Italian Style Vegetables
9 c. eggplant, peeled & cubed
6 c. small head cabbage, shredded
3 c. tomatoes, peeled, seeded, cubed
1 lb summer squash, cubed
2 c. large onions chopped
2 c. med bell peppers, chopped
2 c. water
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tblsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper

In large pot combine all ingredients, cover and bring to boil. Boil 5 to 7 min. stirring once.
Pack hot vegetables into clean hot jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. If needed, add hot liquid to cover vegetables. Wipe rims, seal, and process in process in pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure 40 minutes for pints (50 minutes for quarts).

We actually made more - based on the amount of eggplant I had. We made a batch & 1/2, for 4 quarts and 8 pints.
Dinner was a Salisbury steak (bunless burger), corn, cucumber, pepper, & tomato salad and some of Henry's olives on the side. Oil and my red wine vinegar or the buttermilk Dressing.
Tomorrow we ship orders again and I am off to bed...

The Equinox - Happy Fall

And the continuing harvest season...
Today we do the work the pears superceded on Monday - in a bit of a sleep deprived stupor.
Breakfast is yogurt with pears and home made jam.
Lunch is  a sandwich of egg, pepper Loleta pepper jack cheese, the last of the Brio & our home made mayo.
Early dinner of local line caught Rock cod pan fried in olive oil with a spice rub I make,  steamed crookneck sq, and green salad with the buttermilk dressing.

Autumn is here with beautiful days and a heat wave to boot!
Shameless self promo: To celebrate we are having a Sale! 5% off any Simmons 4oz bar soap through September 30. Use coupon code SEP22 at checkout.
(I told you it was a business day!)

The Last Weekend of Summer

The weather is heating up as the season ends. I am missing the North Country Fair in Arcata for the first time in many years as I am on call. It really was the only weekend I could do it.
Ah well, it is nice to be home for a change.

Saturday I start the day with tea and a pear. The pears are all smelling delicious and ripe - uh-oh! I have to get to them pronto. This holds me until our official late Saturday breakfast accompanied by "Wait, Wait - Don't Tell Me" on KHSU.
We have a Premier chicken apple sausage enhanced vegie boogaloo. I should re-clarify - "Boogaloo" is whatever we have mixed with leftover rice and scrambled eggs.  A vegie scramble is more or less the same - without the rice. Right now vegies consist of any of the following: Summer squash (zukes, patty pan or crookneck), onions, cabbage, tomatoes, chard, kale, cukes, green beans, garlic, corn, lettuce, radishes, carrots, broccoli (side shoots), beets. This is what is available right now in our garden. Only things we are still waiting for is melons, of which there are several not quite ripe, and winter squash.

Lunch is a simple green salad with a sliced boiled egg.
Yesterday I cooked some Warren Creek dry beans in our solar oven and today we solar cooked the Chili con Carne recipe in the Eat Local Resources Packet. With some alterations, that is. I tamper with everything. My changes were olive oil rather than butter, a couple roasted ancho peppers leftover from canning last week along with various bell and jalapeno peppers. In addition to oregano I added some dried basil and mixed ground (well, more like pepper flakes, really) chili peppers I made last year.
This came out really hot! Hmmmmm... I wonder what chiles I put in that dried pepper mix? I know the jalapenos are not that hot. SO now we have a LOT of HOT Chili con Carne.
To temper it we serve it with grated Loleta Cheddar and the homemade sour cream. Now that is truly delicious. Corn on the cob on the side and pears for dessert. Water to put out any residual fire from the chili.

On Sunday we repeat the Huevos Rancheros using the chili instead of refritos. Good this way, too, if a tad warmer. We are not adding and salsa to this meal!
Much of the afternoon is taken up by a STAR call, but we manage a berry peach smoothie made with our fruit and the home made yogurt for lunch. Luckily I had put dinner in the solar oven before the call came in and we have a Solar Buffalo Stew using some of the meat we got in Lake County. It had onions, garlic, carrots and some chopped zucchini in it and the last of our Warren Creek potaoes on the side.

The only project that got done was drying some more cherry and Principe Borghese tomatoes. I learned about the Principe Borghese reading "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" by Barbara Kingsolver. They are like tiny paste tomatoes and dry marvelously. We do not buy tomatoes at the store. Ever. So we dry and can tomatoes for winter and spring use and only get to eat fresh tomatoes now. The result of this is we almost never cook them fresh. For many meals we have a bowl of chopped or sliced fresh tomatoes on the table to add to our food.
Being on call meant we never got around to canning pears. Uh-oh. We will see if they are stiull good to can or if all 5 lugs are overripe by the time I get to them.

How time flies - a week goes by like lightning!

So much for keeping up... But I am keeping track, some days harder than others. I am loathe to bake with my non-local flour, despite it being my norm, so we are eating local bakery products more than ever. Strangely, the result is to actually eat more bread than usual! Here's the rundown:
Sunday 9/13
Some of our fresh yogurt w/ apricot jam I made a year ago.
A pear or two for snacks
Lunch is a fried pepper & egg sandwich with some Loleta Cheese ( I have never eaten so many sandwiches!).
Dinner is the Warren creek beans we cooked in the solar oven yesterday. Good thing as it rained today! We made them into refritos burritos w/ sour cream, fresh salsa, Loleta cheese & leftover cole slaw from the potluck.  A glass of Vinatura Heyseus to top it off.

Its a Monday... And work day.
We start with my "exception" Tea and Pear. The pears are about perfect, it won't last long.
Lunch is the best yet. We make amazing Huevos Rancheros. Eggs poached in some of my canned Zesty Salsa (see the Ball Blue Book again. All ingredients from our garden except the salt). We put some of the leftover warmed refritos on a Bien Padre corn tortilla, topped with the egg/salsa mix, grated Loleta cheese, fresh salsa, & some of the homemade sour cream. WOW! This was fabulous.
pear snack (a must!)
Late dinner of leftover beans & beef roast mixed together as burrito filling. Long day - we're bushed!

Tuesday - Boy the days are changing. This time of year it gets darker noticably earlier each night! I have Tai Chi class Tuesday evenings, so less time to cook.
it gts light so much earlier now. It really seems like it changes fast at this point.
Breakfast is yet another pear, brio toast w/ chevre & tea. We are using a chevre log as cream cheese.
We make solar rice while working so we will have brown rice on hand, and lunch is a
vegie-rice-egg boogaloo with grated Loleta cheese and fresh salsa. We are not keeping up with tomatoes, pears OR summer squash at this point. Hmmm...
A treat - dinner of local ling cod seasoned with my fish herb blend, rice w/ vegies, and corn on the cob.

Town again?!? Yup, Wednesday has become town day every week lately. Too many appointments.
We breakfast on vegie-rice- egg boogaloo & finish the Co-op Bakery apple berry pie our guests brought last Sunday.
We meet our son for lunch at Kyoto. OK, I'm NOT going to pass this up. They note right on their menu that they use local products whenever possible, so I am not worried about the chard or cabbage or at least some of the unbelievably delicious Sushi ingredients.
We pick up a few items at the co-op - notably Pastrami and chicken Apple sausage from Premiere Meats of Shasta. My husband, the carnivore, is very pleased.
I notice the Arcata Co-op meat Dept. has a sign listing many local restaurants that serve local Eel Valley beef (see below). I haven't even heard of some of these restaurants!
On the way home we stop at Eureka Natural Foods for a couple things (though I forgot the Coates wine I wanted). At the deli I am told that they use local greens when available, so we get a spinach salad & grilled tofu. Once home we have our daily pear. Loooong Day!

Restaurants that serve Eel Valley Grass-fed Beef:
Cutten Inn, Catch Cafe. Three Foods Cafe, Abruzzi, Jambalaya, Big Pete's, Big Blue Cafe, Golden Harvest, La Trattoria, Brio Cafe, Arcata Pizza Deli, Lost Coast Brew, Humboldt Brew, Angelo's, Las Casuelas, The Peg House, Gallagher's, Japhy's Soup Kitchen, Live From New York, & Amelia's.
What a great list.

Party Potluck

Today we went to an anniversary party for some friends. It was held at Pamplin Grove County Park, truly one of the gems of the county in the Redwoods along Highway 36. A potluck - I was interested to see what I could find there that fit my Loophole Localvore parameters. But that was not until late afternoon - so more on that later.

"To everything there is a season" and for us in is now the season of Pears. They are getting riper daily and need eating now. So the breakfast of choice is, or includes, pears. Today pears with my cup of tea was all I needed.

I have been wanting yogurt and saw my opportunity this morning to get some started. We enjoy watching the show "Good Eats" on the Food Network, and just recently saw one on... making yogurt! The technique was almost the same as mine, with the addition of honey and using a heating pad to incubate the yogurt until firm.
I incubated the yogurt in a recycled styrofoam container used to ship perishable medicine. I lined it with aluminum foil and set it aside. I could fit 2 wide mouth quart canning jars into the container, so I decided to make 1/2 gallon of yogurt, recipe as follows:
7 cups 2% milk
1 cup plain organic yogurt with live cultures (Nancy's)
1 cup organic powdered milk (Organic Valley)
2 Tblsp local clover honey
First I set a teakettle of water on to boil.
In a stainless steel pan I heated the milk gently, so as not to scorch or scald, to 120 degrees.
While it was heating I blended in the powdered milk and honey with a whisk.
After removing the milk from the heat, I scalded the 2 clean glass canning jars and their lids with the boiling water and set them aside. I filled a third jar with boiling water and placed it in my styrofoam incubator to preheat it, covering it to keep the heat in.
I put the 1 cup of yogurt into a 2 c. measuring cup and stirred in about 1/2 cup of the hot milk. I then stirred the thinned yogurt back into the rest of the milk with it all ending up at 115 degrees. Once blended together, I poured the milk into the 2 jars, put on the lids and seals and, removing the water jar, placed them in the box folding the foil over the top and putting the lid on. The show noted that incubating your yogurt for 6 hours gives you soft yogurt, 9 hours for firm. We wanted firm, so would wait to take it out until after we get home in the evening.
Lunch was a vegie scramble. Sauteed vegetables from the garden with fresh eggs addes and some Loleta cheddar cheese and fresh salsa on top.


For the party I decided to take a big basket of fresh ripe red Bartlett pears and bowl of coleslaw made with the last of the mayonnaise. We also took along a bottle of the Vinatura Heyseus, just in case...
One there we had a fabulous time surrounded with generations of friends - and a park table over laden with food. I realized it was impossible to determine who made each dish and ask them the source of the ingredients (they probably already think I'm a fanatic!), so I decide to eat what definitely looks like garden stuff - tomato basil salad, vegie dish w/zucchini, deviled egg, plus my cole slaw.  All those beautiful dishes are like forbidden fruit - foreign delights, but I manage to resist them. And all the wine is from out of our bio region, so I am glad to have my Vinatura. I have a glass and leave the rest for everyone to share. There is fine local beer, but I am not a beer drinker. Dennis holds down that job.

Later that evening, when we have been home a spell, it is time to take the yogurt out. It looks great. Surprisingly firm for home made - at least in my experience. It had a different texture than I'm used to - rather like honey! Maybe I will leave that out next time.

Second Day on The Bay

Today dawned clear and dry, just perfect for the second day of Blues By The Bay. 

We rested rather than rushing off to make the first performer, I had brought fresh eggs with us from home so we were able to share a local breakfast at our friend's where we stayed overnight. We had toasted Brio multi grain bread with homemade blackberry jam (YUM!), eggs and fresh melon from the Farmer's Market. Water to drink.

The festival was well attended for this fine Sunday line up, with a flotilla of boats and kayaks with folks watching and listening from the water. We found a spot to sit & enjoy the show. Of course, we spent as much time standing and dancing and wandering.  A snack of Ramones iced Latte (it was so good yesterday!) and pastry kept me fortified. When lunchtime rolled around I was delighted to discover Pachanga's booth had a tofu taco with our local Tofu Shop's tofu. Pachanga restaurant is known to use local produce when available and also to make their own tortillas, so I felt fairly confident this was a mostly local taco, even though they were too busy to ask all the questions at the time.

By the time the show was almost over we were bushed. Between sun, great music, dance, and going back to the car to give the puppy a play break (she was in her crate where we parked in the shade of the Samoa Bridge), the 1 1/2 hour drive home was looking pretty daunting. We decided to eat and head out and listen to the last set over the radio so we could get home & unpacked before dark. We finished the festival with one last Humboldt Hot Dog, local to the core, and headed out.

Now I am wondering about which local restaurants serve locally harvested and produced food. I know a lot of them do. We have local foods to be proud of! But I would like to see a list. 

Pachanga comes to mind, as does Oberon and Los Bagels, but I'm not well versed in restaurants and would love to hear some other suggestions.

Blues By The Bay - Day 1

With some trepidation we prepare to leave for Eureka and Blues By The Bay. Not just because of my concern that finding something local to eat will be difficult, but because as the morning dawns it does so with precipitation. Hmmm... If it is showers inland, what will be happening on the coast?

We cover the things we forgot the previous eve (car windows?! How did we forget that?) and eat a hearty breakfast of a garden vegie scramble with eggs (cooked in olive oil) and Clendenen's apple slices. Thus fortified we head out, somewhat late, but on the road at last, umbrellas & rain gear in tow.

As we go down the hill we listen to the great performers we are missing on KHUM's live broadcast. Hey! The skies are clearing and things are drying out.

Once settled in, I toured the tempting crafts & started scanning the food booths around the edges of the Festival area. There were actually a few local offerings but one in particular stood out. More on that later.
This is a great area for microbrew. Someday I may learn to enjoy beer, but this was fine news for Dennis. Samurai, no longer a restaurant, has a food booth serving BBQ oysters and sushi, I don't know about the sushi, but I bet the oysters are local. There is an assortment of Mexican, Polish dogs, a local to Nevada burger booth with everything from buffalo to elk to ostrich burgers from a ranch in Wyoming, & more. There are several crafts booths with clothes, jewelry, local to Forks of the Salmon herb & spice blends (of Localvore interest), soap, pottery and misc.

We settled in to enjoy the music after getting an iced Latte from the Ramones booth, which also had local pastries.

The day was great, the music & entertainment pretty darn fabulous. I love our mountain community musicians, but it is sweet to hear these professional performers that are so clean and tight and talented. No to mention we love the Blues.

But the day is long, ultimately it was time to eat. What did I do? I had a hot dog!
My first hot dog in quite a while, this was a hot dog like no other! It was a Humboldt Hot Dog! Eel River organic grass-fed beef made into hot dog form in Shasta Co., on a whole wheat North Coast Co-op Bakery bun!!! I love it!
I did cheat a bit - with non-local mustard and about 2 tablespoons of sauerkraut, but this was as local a food booth as you can get. It shows I don't live in Arcata, where this Hot Dog stand makes a regular
appearance on the Plaza. Now I know.

We spent Saturday night in town. Dinner was at Plaza Grill. The wine was decidedly within our region, a Husch Chardonnay from Mendocino, bread was locally baked. But my salad and Snapper with rice & vegies? The fish is wild caught from the Pacific ocean, which I will stretch into a local context (Hey - isn't that the Pacific right there?) even though not from local fishermen. I was told that Plaza Grill gets organic and local produce whenever possible and, while the broccoli was known to be local & the waitress could have kept bothering the cooks as to the origin of each item, I do have a limit to what kind of pest I am willing to be when someone is busy working.

Back at our friend's where we spent the night we enjoyed some wonderful Elk Prairie Pinot Noir. Not only delectable, not only local to Humboldt County, but the grapes were grown on Fruitland Ridge in the area where Dennis and I first met long, long ago. A sweet celebration.

We look forward to another day of music and sun.

Origins

I know we have a completely different take on this experiment, living in the rural part of the county, with a big garden, hens, home canned local food, and rancher neighbors. Sometimes I think we may have an advantage - but then I think of all that is grown at lower elevations such as Willow Creek and Orleans, Shively and other coastal areas, that comes to the Farmer's markets and I think, perhaps, those in town have the advantage.

I do have a passion for growing, preserving, and making our basic foodstuffs. From applesauce to vinegar, I love to experiment with food in a way that this challenge allows me to indulge.

The original Humboldt Localvore challenger was Megan Blodgett.
She challenged herself in a much stricter way than I am, with my "Loophole" level.

Read the excellent BLOG of her 2007 challenge eating only Humboldt county foods: My Month of Local Food.