Summer to Fall...

My plans to write daily evade me this adventurous summer, 10 days already past since last post. Ah well.

I hate these posts to be so long and, thus, more tedious... but time is valuable as summer wanes and tasks seem to add up rather than get checked off the list. So I find myself having to play catch-up here.

Ready to pick!

This being mid-harvest it is our joy to have to eat all these fresh vegetables. A truly local, sustainable diet in a temperate climate limits the fresh vegetables that are available year-round, and I don't buy things out of season. The result of this is absolute bliss when eating these wonderful foods when they are in their prime. Corn, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers grace nearly every meal to our unadulterated delight!

Starting where we left off, Thurs 9/13. Starting with my daily Tea with some Humboldt Creamery 1/2 & 1/2, I had a Vege scramble to start the day. Lunch was Shakefork grain toast, with Cypress Grove Fromage Blanc, now one of my new favorites! Snacking on fresh cherry tomatoes and snap peas from the garden while a dinner of local grain fed beef stewed with Warren Creek potatoes and our own celery and carrots in the solar oven for dinner. I am delighted to have grown celery successfully for the first time! This dinner was rounded out with a cuke salad.

I have been home alone for a few days, but our hens refuse to slow down on egg production. This inspired me to boil up a bunch of eggs for quick meals or snacks. Therefore
Friday began with a simple boiled egg and Asian pear. Have I mentioned how lovely Asian Pears are? Pear flavor but always crisp and refreshing. Our young tree had its first real crop this year and we have been enjoying themn as a regular snack.
Lunch was my now favorite fried pepper, chevre, tomato and sliced cuke sandwich, using fresh pesto instead of mayonaisse on the bread. Decadently good.

Asian Pears

Ending this day with more of the wonderful grilled vegetables that are the ultimate harvest dinner.
 
Saturday, September 15 I was going off to the North Country Fair in Arcata. Did the many chores and cleaned up the leftover stew and beet gratin for breakfast. 
Finding local fair food is always a challenge. As in restaurants, the folks running the booth often do not know where the food is from. I didn't want one of the local Humboldt Hot Dogs (Sausages from Premiere meats), but found the Fish Tacos featured Local rock cod. Everything else in them could have been local (cilantro, cabbage, tomato, tortilla), so I went with that. At a friend's we dined on veggies & corn I had brought from home and sauteed local chicken breast.


Sunday in town we started with a toasted Los bagels Whole wheat bagel w/ Zimmerman black raspberry jam. Yum. I will have to make Blackcap jam next year, too!
One of the most reliable places in Arcata to find locally sourced ingredients is Brio Cafe, and there I lunched on a wonderful Chicken Pot Pie and salad.
After arriving home that evening we had a dinner of steamed vegies and poached local rock cod.
Monday breakfast was Egg & toast, lunch a cuke and tomato sandwich, then back to town where I grabbed Wildberries deli chicken kabob, marinated grilled tofu & Vegies. assured these were all from local sources. Went to a fabulous concert at HSU that night - Crosby, Stills & Nash. We are so lucky!
Tuesday I woke up in town & had simply Brio bread toast to start the day, but a filling lunch at Eureka Los Bagels - a toasted bagel w/ Cypress Grove fromage blanc & Fish Brothers smoked salmon. This was the first restaurant I went to where the person behind the counter knew what they had that was locally sourced, but was doing the Eat Local Challenge herself! 

Fresh canned Albacore

One of my tasks in town was going by the Marina and buying some fresh Albacore from the fishermen there. Every few years I get tuna to can. I put it up in 1/2 pints in a variety of 'flavors', some plain, some with Tamari soy sauce, Lemon-infused Olive Oil, jalapeno peppers, or herbs. I am sure the tuna can be caught more than 250 miles from our coast, but the Pacific Ocean is right here and here is where these fishing boats are based and I consider it local eats. 
That said, I had a truly fantastic dinner of grilled vegetables and tuna. I was lucky I remembered to save some before i put it all in jars!

Wednesday started with tea and scrambled egg with Humboldt Creamery cottage cheese, a little chives sprinkled on top and an apple on the side. I lunched on simple toast from my Shakefork grain bread and chevre. Dinner, however, was special. As it was a homecoming mealfor my husband, who had been on a camping trip with our son. In honor of this we had grilled local grass-fed beef steaks along with grilled vegetables and some Elk Prarie Pinot Noir. A festive way to end the day.

Wild blackberry snacks!

Thursday was simpler fare, Bacon, egg and toast for breakfast, a fried pepper, tomato and chever sandwich for lunch. Dinner was the sage-seasoned Tuscan beans with Shakefork corn polenta, chopped fresh tomato, and fresh pesto. Another glass of the Pinot made it elegant.

Friday was tea Bacon and egg with polenta on the side and some of our own apple cider. Another classic fried pepper, chevre and tomato sandwich for lunch, and a company dinner of grilled local salmon, cuke salad, and corn on the cob.

Saturday, Sept. 22 began with a 'boogaloo' of solar cooked Lundberg rice (grown within 250 miles, but their office is out of the area), vegetables and egg, cider and an Asian pear.
Our company brought a loaf of Loleta bakery Tyrolean 9-grain bread, so our fried pepper sandwich featured that, along with garden fresh cucumber and tomato and Loleta Cheese roasted Garlic jack. MMMmmmm...
Another company dinner of a grilled locally raised pork roast, corn on the cob and the grilled summer squash, eggplant, peppers and onion, that I just cannot seem to get enough of.
This brings us to today!
Along with my daily tea we had a late Sunday breakfast of an egg and fried pepper sandwich on the Loleta bakery bread. A light lunch of corn fritters using the leftover corn cut from the cob, our eggs and a bit of Shakefork flour, salt and baking powder.
One more night with company and I will be making Chile Rellenos with Loleta Cheese Jack, Ancho peppers from our garden and eggs from our hencoop. With this is solar cooked Spanish rice, fresh salsa and corn on the cob (Which we will be having every night for a while!)


Ah yes, it is easy to celebrate the delicious abundance of local foods in our area, especially when you garden. Bon appetit!

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

Tweaked Tuesday

The rain did not arrive last night as predicted - but the cold did. 40 degrees this morning. Sun & mixed clouds and a prediction for frost the next couple of nights. Ah well - the seasons do change.

Our young hens have started laying, the occasional small "beginner" egg has been showing up. But today there was a very special one - a blue egg from one of the 2 Auracana hens. Having these young hens starting now will assure us eggs in the winter months when the older hens take a break.

From the get go, this day was full of interruptions. Late to get tea - was lucky to get in a brunch of egg and fried pepper and Loleta cheddar sandwich with cider. Snacked on cherry tomatoes and little sweet peppers.

Frost predicted tonight, and I don't need the weatherman... quite cool all day and in the 40's before 9pm. After work we picked all the soon-to-be-ripening tomatoes, summer squash, good looking zinnias and the rest of the corn. Then we put a hoop and plastic cold frame arrangement over the summer and winter squash and crossed our fingers over the tomatoes.

Lastly, we closed the ends of the greenhouses that house our peppers, basil, eggplant and melons as well a few extra tomatoes. This could be the end of fresh summer vegetable abundance. We will see. And even if... there is chard and winter cole coming on and lots of already harvested food in the house both fresh & preserved.

We were wrapping this up right up until I had to leave for Tai Chi class. The end result was a very late dinner of leftover Localvore Chili con Carne that I had put in the freezer to keep. On the side we had the solar Spanish Rice cooked yesterday and the last of the sweet corn. Cider was the beverage of choice. Slices of honeydew melon for dessert.

I end the day trying to print shipping labels (Grrrr - the USPS website is being uncooperative) and admiring the many vases of zinnias! I may have overdone it, but Zinnias do not handle frost well - and it is only 38 degrees out now.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Challenge. I have been thinking about what has been different, what I have learned. I look forward to writing a summary of the experience. But now, *YAWN*, I must go sleep on it.

The Last Weekend

Wow, the month is coming to a close. It has been an interesting culinary journey.

After a tea, pear and melon breakfast a leisurely Saturday begins.
We are having a heat wave. 100+ yesterday, definitely today is headed there as well. We watered and did some harvesting earlier and are staying in the cooler house.

I checked the dehydrator and all but 1 tray's worth of the pears are done. We pack these in canning jars and vacuum pack them, using the seal a meal (FoodSaver) jar attachment. This is one of the neater gizmos we have ever bought. I use it to vacuum pack jars of dried fruit, dried tomatoes, almonds, tea, coffee, even bulk vegetable oil. We initially got the machine for packing meat to freeze, but make much more use of it for glass jars of dry goods.
At any rate, I core and slice the remaining pears to dry - leaving only 7 pears to eat. The end of the Bartlett pears! This makes me very happy. Our winter pears won't be ripe for a few more weeks.

Yesterday I baked bread for the first time this month. Ordinarily we bake most of our bread. We have a bread machine - as I am generally lazy to knead and do all the work for only one loaf of bread. Since there has only been the two of us at home we have gotten a bread machine which lets me control the ingredients without doing the work. But we did not go to town last week and what bread we did not eat became chicken food due to dehydration or mold.
At any rate, the bread allows us to have our favorite carnivorous sandwich - a mock Reuben. With Premiere Meats pastrami, Loleta Cheese Monterey Jack, home made mayonnaise, Fred's Horseradish mustard and our home canned sauerkraut (last year's, the new batch is not ready yet) a local delectable deli style lunch. This with the last of the now lightly alcoholic cider and last of the exploded melon.

We have our oldest daughter, 2 granddaughter's, and a friend coming for the weekend and will probably be breaking the Challenge temporarily for dinner. We are attending a spaghetti dinner benefit for the Two Rivers Community Care Group, a wonderful organization which got a write up in Thursdays Times Standard. The importance of supporting Lauri Rose and the other volunteers' efforts in our community trumps the Eat Local Challenge for this one meal.
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(As it turns out, several of the sauces and a side dish of mixed garden vegetables and bowl of cherry tomatoes are completely local.)
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Sunday is a family girl's day on the farm (Dennis stays in the background). We share local food all day, on the plate, in the canner and to take home.
Our daughter brought up another (cold!) gallon of Clendenen's cider, a couple loaves of Brio bread and Humboldt Creamery 1/2 & 1/2 (hooray!), some Loleta Cheddar as well as potatoes and cauliflower from a friend's farm in Ferndale. We packed it all away last night.

We start the day with a Sunday brunch of poached farm fresh eggs (the little girls LOVE getting the eggs) on our home baked bread with grated Loleta cheese. A poor man's Eggs Benedict. On the side we have the cider and the first of our intact melons. A Galia honeydew/muskmelon cross - yum!

Amber brings Lila over to spend the day with her cousins (and get a break) and we big girls can a vegetable medley of onions, garlic, summer squash, peppers, green beans, cabbage, herbs and tomatoes for soup. Vegetable medleys are a handy way to put away small amounts of several varieties of vegies at once. Requiring pressure canning, you process for  the longest time of the individual vegetables included. In this case, summer squash. I always throw in some of my herbed vinegar to bring up the acidity (and flavor) as well.

We snacked on pears, peaches, plums and peppers as well as the leftover rice pudding.
An early dinner so the gang can drive home to the coast - an all-American localvore burger on Brio bread with Loleta Cheese, homemade mayo and catsup, lettuce and tomato from the garden. With corn on the cob and potato salad made with homemade mayo, farm eggs, onion, parsley, homemade sweet pickles and vinegar and apple cider on the side it is the perfect end of the warm weather feast.
We send the girls back home with summer squash and tomatoes as well as jars of vegetables for the pantry.

And we mean end of the warm weather. Although in the 100's today, we hear a cold snap will be here in the next couple of days - time to put out the cold frame over the winter squash and batten down the hatches.

Ah well. So I end this day with a glass of Riverbend Cellars Cabernet downloading tomorrow's orders and updating this blog. And toast to the last few days of the challenge.

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...

Food, Glorious Food...

Today, Friday, I have set aside to work with food all day! My daughter and granddaughter will be coming over to make pesto, using up the copious amount of basil we have growing in our greenhouse. This is 2 year old Lila helping to "cut" basil.

I start early, with yogurt & berries and pear for breakfast. I picked some "exploding" cabbage yesterday evening and want to get them taken care of before the girls get here. Once the heads have cracked several layers deep they won't keep, so I am making sauerkraut. This first step is relatively quick and easy. Then it sits and ferments for several weeks before I have to can it.
This requires bowls, a crock, a cabbage shredder or mandolin (not the musical kind) and knife. I think some people use a food processor, but I have never had one, so don't know.
I trim the outer leaves off the cabbage. The chickens will enjoy these - and the bugs that come with them.Here is the process:

Shred the cabbage fine. The trick to sauerkraut is fairly uniform size pieces, so everything will ferment uniformly as well. I take any larger chunks and cut them smaller with a knife.
Weigh the cabbage. To every 5 pounds of shredded cabbage, mix in 3 Tblsp. salt. I use sea salt. I am probably one of the few people who buys salt in 50 lb. bags. It keeps forever and takes me several years to use up.

Now press the salted, shredded cabbage into the clean crock as firmly as possible. I scald the crock with boiling water right before I do this.
Press it as hard as you can. I use my fists with my entire weight behind it. It will begin to get juicy almost immediately. Add more cabbage in layers until you are done (up to within 3 or 4 inches of top of crock maximum), pressing until the liquid covers the surface. Cover the top with a layer of cheesecloth and weigh it down. This time I am using a plate over the cheesecloth with a gallon jar of water as a weight. The point is to keep the cabbage submerged. You can use a plastic bag filled with water (placed inside another bag) to be a weight that also entirely seals the surface preventing contact with air, yeasts or molds.

Now you let it set for 5 to 6 weeks, until it is the desired "sourness". You can add a bit of water if the liquid evaporates below the level of the cabbage. When done you skim off the top layer, which may be soft. Place the kraut in a stock pot and heat to a simmer. Pack hot into hot clean jars, cover with the hot juice to within 1/2 inch of top, seal and process in a boiling water bath, 15 minutes for pints and 20 minutes for quarts.

There are also recipes that let you make sauerkraut directly into wide mouth quart jars. This has never worked for me, but I have friends who have great success with it.

This done, we lunch on a egg and vegie scramble with some of the Premiere Meats chicken apple sausage chopped into it.
By now Amber and Lila are here and we go pick 3 big baskets of basil. I have a lot of sweet basil (Genoa, Ruffled, Mammoth, and Globe), plus purple and Thai basil that we will be using. We set some aside on the stems to hand to dry, and pick the leaves off of the stems of the rest, keeping the different type separate. We then peel a lot of garlic. The prep takes all the time. Once that is done and we line up all the other ingredients it goes very quickly.

Basil Pesto:
olive oil
nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, or almonds)
garlic
basil
In a blender, to each 1 c. olive oil, add 1/4 c. garlic cloves and 1/2 c. nuts. Blend thoroughly. Now add basil until you cannot convince the mixture to take any more. Pack into 1/2 pint jars or those plastic deli containers you could not bring yourself to throw away (who, me?), label and date and freeze. I used to put parmesean cheese in the pesto when I made it, but now just add it to the food at the time we eat it.
We make a couple special pestos - one with the purple basil (more black when done) and 2 with the Thai basil, one the same as regular, and one a sort of Asian paste with peanut oil, Thai chili, garlic and the basil. That will be interesting, I bet!
In the middle of this we go off to a short but sweet surprise baby shower for a friend. Snacks there include piles of Sungold Cherry tomatoes and sliced garden vegies with a homemade yogurt dip. Apple cake and carrot cake and tofu filled empanadas. I think I will cheat and drink some pomegranate Italian soda - but I manage to spill it all over myself instead! It is my subconscious protecting me from this non-local, non-tea beverage!!
Most of this time we have been drinking only water, but that is our main beverage here anyway. We have a very good spring and our tap water is delicious.

In the past I have also made pesto with lemon basil and dried tomatoes and other variations.

Once all is done, kitchen cleaned up, and Amber and Lila headed for home with containers of pesto, garden produce and eggs, we settle in for dinner. Pesto, of course - with local raviolis, garden green salad with the buttermilk dressing (recipe in the "Take the Challenge" handout from the Co-op), garlic bread (Brio with olive oil, garlic, chopped basil and parmesan cheese).

A good food day, all in all.

Thursday - my "Friday"- night

I do volunteer Emergency Medical Dispatching for Southern Trinity Area Rescue (S.T.A.R.) one weekend a month and will be on call starting tomorrow at 5pm. So we tend to make pre-call Thursday our "Friday" night for R&R.
The day starts with the now common tea, pears, and Brio toast with chevre. I am jealous of you coffee drinkers as I have no loophole, only an exception, that lets me have my morning brew!

It's a work day, of course, but we get the orders out and shop work done by 1pm. So we get to work outdoors after trying out the Premiere chicken apple sausage for lunch, split and fried and in a sandwich w/ fried pepper Casa Lindah mustard. Yum.

We water and harvest and do remedial repair (literally baling twine and duct tape) on the broken branches of an apple tree. Hopefully the fruit will ripen, then we can prune the branches as properly needs to be done. Too many apples and too much wind is a bad combination for a young tree.
I also whip up another batch of mayonnaise. I am still amazed how quick that is! I may never go back to buying it.

Dinner is a local (Hydesville) lamb chop that we got from Eureka natural Foods. We grill it and serve it with w/ peach salsa made with a slightly under ripe peach from one of our trees, grilled vegies (see photo) and Brio bread. We toast to life with Elk Prairie Pinot.

Grilled vegetables are another of our favorites of summer. We serve them in big slices, as we did tonight, or cubed on skewers over rice or couscous. I marinate them sliced, in oil and vinegar (our home made red wine vinegar), minced garlic and rosemary, basil and oregano. Usually I add salt & black pepper, but I am still trying to stay away from non-local salt as much as possible, and black pepper altogether, for the month. There is nothing as wonderful as grilled eggplant. Absolutely the best way to eat it.

The peach salsa was peach, onion, garlic and green pepper, chopped small. To this I added 1 minced jalapeno, chopped parsley and a splash of my vinegar (where I would have used lime juice). Came out just fine.

Even without restricting it intentionally, most of what we have been eating has come from within Humboldt County only. We are blessed with a rich variety of local foodstuffs.

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.

Town again - and beyond...

I can barely believe this challenge has occurred in a month where we are away from home so often.  It definitely makes this more of a challenge. I am getting knowing "oh it's one of those" looks when I start asking about the ingredients in everything - and not meaning "one of those folks taking the Co-op's Eat Local Challenge". Oh well.

The morning dawns clear and warm. I walk the puppy, have my tea and breakfast on one of our lovely red pears. It is wonderful these pears are so delicious, as we must eat a lot of them for a while!
Today we have a bit of business and an appointment on the coast, then off to another bit of work in Mendocino and Lake counties. Thankfully they are both in our bio-region. It is a two day excursion and I pack pears, cider, coleslaw and leftover eggplant to take along.

Off to town, where we go to lunch at the Eureka Golden Harvest on Broadway. I feel like they will have some local fare, but not so. They figure the produce, etc. they get comes from Redding - and I realize that the key here will be to contact the distributor/trucking company and find out where the produce the carry comes from. It very well could originate within our region, but often the restaurant folk do not have any idea. And I need to learn to ask if they know "where it comes from" rather than if it is "local". No one knows the definition of that term -: Humboldt County? Eureka? California? Explaining the bio-region is a tad to complicated in a busy restaurant.
I decide to get something which easily COULD come from our region and end up with a vegie sandwich.

These complications in mind, we do some shopping at Eureka Natural Foods before heading out of town in the afternoon. I find some wonderful food to take with us. There are local ready-made burritos from both Casa Lindra and Rita's. I an assortment of three of those, a bottle of Orleans Coates Zin (on sale ($9.99), fresh salsa from Oxaca Grill in Eureka and local pistacio delmonicos for a treat. OK, pistachios are a stretch, but it is a local bakery. I tossed the label before I wrote it down. So I cannot recommend them directly, but just say they were delicious.

We pulled in fairly late to our room in Ukiah and taking advantage of the microwave, heated our burrito dinner. With the salsa, coleslaw and the wine to drink, we were set for the evening. I can see we will have to always pack road food for the duration of the challenge. Without knowledge of what is available in a given area and not enough time to really explore it, one's ability to determine what is local is very difficult.

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.