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August 29,
2005
Thank the fates,
I've found some answers! It would seem there is a co-op here in my
own neck of the woods that supports local farming of vegetables, meats
and dairy as well as carrying a whole line of organics. Nature's
Finest co-op was described to me over a homeschool list yesterday.
I checked them out and it was a one time fee if $20 to join. I've
been going through all of the stuff they offer and I think with shopping
with them and stocking up on our own; knowing I can run over to their
store for local farm milk and eggs as needed, I just might be able to
pull off working, homeschooling and still supporting local farming all
at the same time. Hooray!!
August 25,
2005
This week has
brought several changes to the house. I have been invited to go
back to work teaching music (harp: www.brittanygirl.com
) and I'm not sure how I can still continue on with the
experiment. It would be a shame to have to quit now that we've
come so far but I do most of the cooking. I've tried this week to
have the kids and hubby help but the meals are quite bland when I leave
them on their own. Will have to try to think of something.
August 15, 2005
Tomatoes are finally
here!!! I wish there was a festival for them here in
Michigan....there should be. After all, I don't know any
Midwesterner who doesn't crave the meaty, juicy reds from January to
June. Hot houses can't compare to what a fresh garden tomato
looks, smells and tastes like. Picking 6 from the garden, we
immediately ate 2, sliced with a breakfast of toast and eggs. For
lunch, we sliced more, slid hunks of farm cheese between them and
toasted it between thick bread for the worlds greatest sandwich (at
least in my opinion!)
For dinner, we sliced the
last two in half, making for sections. I drizzled oil, salt,
pepper and a splurge of some fresh garden garlic minced on the tender
insides. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes for what surely must be
something served in heaven!
August 6, 2005
Tomatoes are
coming out of our ears this week and there is so little time to
write. In my opinion, tomatoes are the "plastic" of the
food world because it seems they can do anything! From preserves,
to juice, sauce to a main course, these guys are just great for a family
who needs to stock up.
This week we've
cooked and frozen at least ten 5 gallon bags of ratatouille; a French
vegetable stew using tomato as a base and then adding zucchini and
eggplant to the sauce. Don't forget the garlic. In this
week, my only complaint would be that I still have yet to find a good
source for fresh milk that isn't so far to drive.
August 3, 2005
Leeks...
We lost our seedlings this
year when we had an unusual June frost. But I was fortunate enough
to find a local farmer who had gorgeous leeks (bunches and bunches of
them) for $2/bundle at the local farmer's market. When I asked her
for three bunches, she was overjoyed to find that I knew what they were
as well as how to cook them.
Being from a French family,
leeks are an important staple in the diet. We cook leeks with
potatoes and make leek and potato soup. We boil them until they
are tender and let them cool, then serve them with oil and vinegar as a
side or a light dinner main dish. If you are not a fan of vinaigrette,
pour a Hollandaise or white sauce over them and serve them hot or
cold.
Leeks are milder than onions
but are extremely aromatic. Libby chopped some up with some
tomatoes from the garden and made a minestrone.
This week, we made 10 gallons
of potato leek soup in my great grandmother's giant kettle. We
kept 5 gallons for us (2 we ate and 3 we froze), then gave a gallon to
my sister as she came over and helped pull weeds in the garden (fair is
fair) and finally the rest to my grandmother for her own freezer.
July 30, 2005
Last
night brought an interesting topic of isolationism to our table.
After hearing an interview on National Public Radio, discussion round
the table was a question of whether or not limiting our diet to only
Michigan, local products are we acting like the United States after
WWI? Are we isolating ourselves so much that we are cutting off
ourselves from making educated and helpful food choices?
This
lead me to spending a lot of time researching today.
July
27, 2005: Mom and Dad
Thus far, our biggest
frustration has been that the local dairy only has pasteurized and
homogenized milk along with a large array of ice cream. We've not
been able to find any milk that is strictly pasteurized or raw to aid in
the making of cheese or butter.
Furthermore, when we went
looking for rennet, the culture needed for making cheese, the local
health food store said they stopped carrying it.
Finally, today Michele (Mom)
found a grocery store that carried "natural milk" meaning it
was only pasteurized. It came in plain and chocolate, both which
arrived at our house.
Gabe (Dad) decided to try his
hand at butter making...modern style. Skimming the cream and some
of the milk off the top of the glass jug, he poured this into our
Kitchen Aid mixer and let it go for about 40 minutes in medium speed.
This first attempt yielded a
small bowl of unsalted butter and a very warm mixer. The pleasant
and unexpected part of it all was that we now also had butter milk.
As for the chocolate milk....
Well lets just say a visit by
our grandmother (kids' great grandmother) who NEVER drinks milk saw that
thick bottle of, well, heaven and even she wanted a glass.
Delicious! Something near Aztec cocoa and well, the very meaning
of delight. This stuff will be our biggest temptation as adults.
July 20, 2005: Libby's Log
My name is Libby and I am 11
years old. Finding food in Michigan is getting really annoying.
Especially stuff like breakfast food. We have found eggs but I'm a vegetarian
and I think its wrong to eat meat and eggs. Though sometimes I do eat
meat on occasion. The Farmers Market has been a great resource for food.
Some of the people that go there are a bit strange. Like this one lady
who wore an open jean shirt with a sports underneath it.
(twitches) Did I mention this lady was really old?? But a lot of
the people that sell things are really quite nice like the nice old man
that sells the great soap and the Mexican couple that sells crocheted
and knitted scarves and baby clothes.
I weeded my corner of the
garden and then jumped in the pool since its so hot today. We
picked four cucumbers and a cabbage out of the garden while we were at
it.
Mom shredded on of the
zucchini from last Saturday's trip to the Farmers Market. She made
a loaf of bread from the family recipe and froze two bags of shredded
zucchini for winter bread.
July
19, 2005: Mom's Log
I
noted in an entry last week that we have been eating the chickens from
the local farmer on occasion. It is my usual practice to cook one
with potatoes and carrots the first night and then make stew the
next. But it has been such a hot summer and stew as a leftover
meal has been unappetizing.
Recipe:
Thus,
I have found that chicken, cut up in small cubes along with chopped,
leftover carrots and potatoes are a nice base for a fresh chicken
salad. Pour over lettuce from the market or in my case, our city
garden. As a sauce, skip the store bought mayo. I make a
vinaigrette out of 2 parts corn oil to one part vinegar. Add salt, pepper
and fresh herbs in season of your choice.
Serve
with some homemade bread!
*Note:
it is best to make the salad with chicken, potatoes, carrots and sauce
the night before or first thing in the morning. Then, pour the
'marinated' base ingredients over the lettuce just before
serving.
July
16, 2005 Mom's Blog
Cook's
is the local dairy farm about 15 miles from our house. We went
there this afternoon in hopes of getting some fresh milk, cream and ice
cream.
Packing
up the kids, my husband and our Great Pyrenees 7 month old pup, Lulu, we
arrived at dusk. Wanting to see the roaming cows before the sun
had fully set, my daughter walked to the back of the pavilion with Lulu
in tow. Herding instinct kicking in, Lulu decided to make the acquaintance
of the grazing cow my daughter was already petting. Nose to nose,
cow and dog when suddenly, Lulu got more than she bargained for.
Apparently, the munching cow approved of the dog and decided to give her
a wet lick with her giant tongue! Lulu jumped back, face soggy
with cud and grass. She went from snowy white to grassy green in
minutes. Customers had a tremendous laugh at the pup's expense and
enjoyed mile high mounds of fresh ice cream heaped into waffle
cones.
Earning
her small vanilla scoop, Lulu enjoyed her vanilla in a dish while I
happily sampled the 'Holy Cow', Josh had a Chocolate cone, Libby enjoyed
a mint chocolate chip and my husband sampled the butter pecan.
Before leaving we picked up a couple of gallons of fresh farm
milk.
July
15, 2005: Mom's Log
Today
is Saturday and thus it's the big market day. What an adventured
we've had. This morning the kids went out and picked wild black
raspberries from the woods on our property. Some we froze whole in
freezer bags and others we ate in a fruit salad at
breakfast.
Next,
it was off to the Oakland County Farmer's Market. Having $30 with
me, I started with staples; kale, new potatoes, buck wheat flour,
barley, black beans, carrots, lettuce, onions and large, hothouse
zucchini for shredding and making bread and lastly green beans.
When the staples were done, I splurged on fruit. Blueberries are
in and I got half a gallon for $3.00. Early peaches are also in
season and I decided on half of a bushel. Total, I spent
$26.
The late morning was spent
blanching the green beans and putting them in gallon freezer bags.
The last 3 cups, I saved for tonight's dinner. Next, I froze
blueberries in 1 1/2 cup servings per bag. I ended up with several
bags and some left over for blueberry pancakes tomorrow. Peaches
were chopped up raw and put into freezer bags as well. Peaches are
great frozen for smoothies and when thawed taste very so much better
than any January trucked in peach.
Dinner was a chicken from a
local farmer roasted with potatoes and carrots from the market.
July 12, 2005: Josh's Blog
My name is Josh and I'm 12 soon to be 13 at the end of
the summer. This eating all from Michigan kind of sucks
actually. We can only eat out once a week and whoever complains
volunteers to make dinner for the whole family. Did I mention this
sucks? As for junk food, well there isn't any. Mom has
suggested popcorn...that's not real junk food.
I think if we're going to do this, we should have a
chicken farm or at least chickens in the back yard. Mom says no
because the subdivision behind our couple of acres would never allow
it. But I want eggs.
I love eggs. My favorite way to cook them is
soft boiled or three minute eggs. I saw a comedian on TV who said
people don't live their lives anymore, they're all pre-occupied with
living longer. I agree with him. Pass the eggs and butter!
One good thing I guess from this experience of eating
all from just Michigan gardens and farmers is that I feel inspired to
cook. I made French toast this morning. And yesterday, I
made blueberry pudding from a recipe I read in Gourmet Magazine.
Blueberries from the farmers market were great but they are nothing in
comparison to the huckleberries we had last summer from a friend up
north. Huckleberries are better than chocolate!
July 9, 2005: Michele's (Mom) Blog
Woke up this morning early to pick 4 quarts of wild
black raspberries out of the back yard as well as 2 quarts of red
currants from some bushes my uncle gave us a few years back. Put
all the berries in the freezer using ziplocks before breakfast. It
is my experience that the frozen whole berries will be lovely and
welcomed additions to the January table while grocery stores are selling
berries that taste like nothing.
Then we headed out to the farmer's market in Oakland
County, Michigan. This morning, we bought cups of freshly made
coffee from the gentleman at the corner booth.
The woman from Hapshire Farms had some wonderful
buckwheat organic flour and large bags of dried black turtle
beans. I bought a bag of each. Next, my husband spied some
fresh sour cherries that reminded him of his parents farm and the cherry
trees that grew there. Living in the suburbs now, he misses the
farm cherries and I couldn't help but buy 2 quarts. We'll freeze
one quart and with the other, I'll make some cobbler this weekend.
A young lady in a small booth has her award winning
onions for sale in bunches. They've won a blue ribbon at the state
fair for several years. I buy a bunch from her.
My daughter spotted a new booth inside of the market
building so we decided to check it out. It was an answer to many
requests from last year. A farmer from just north of Flint has her
organic beef, chicken and eggs for sale. No farmer with meat has
been at the market since we've been going for the last few years.
I am hosting a chess team picnic this week, so I bought a few pounds of
her angus ground beef to make hamburgers.
The next stop is a family farm who have some of the
best produce I've seen at the market. Much of our own garden
vegetables are late as we had to plant three times due to frost and snow
this past May. I happily buy 5 lbs. of red, white and purple new
potatoes, 2 large zucchini and a dozen eggs.
In total, I've spent $26.80.
Grilled lunch by Libby (age 11) Fill aluminum foil
packets full of sliced potatoes, zucchini, olive oil, salt and
pepper. Place them on the grill and cook the zucchini packets 10
minutes and the potatoes 20 minutes. The potatoes will turn out
tender on the inside with a creamy texture and crispy on the outside
with a golden brown texture. The zucchini will be tender and
delicious!
Dinner:
French onion grill
Peel whole onions and place on a large square of
aluminum foil. Hollow out the insides and fill with olive oil and
one small beef bouillon cube. Wrap up and completely cover with
foil. Grill for 40 minutes. The foil packet will act as a
small bowl where an lovely smoky onion soup awaits. Serve with
sliced hard crust bread and slices of cheddar or Swiss cheese.
Sour cherry cobbler
Pit and halve 1 quart of sour cherries and place in a
mixing bowl. Add in 1 cup sugar and three TBS of flour or corn
starch. One combined well, pour into a 9" round pie
pan. In a separate mixing bowl, combine 1
cup oats, 1/2 c sugar (brown or white) and 1 stick butter
(melted). Mix all ingredients with your fingers once butter is
slightly cooled. Top sour cherries and bake 45 minutes in a 350
oven. Serve warm. A side of home made vanilla ice cream or
whipped cream is always welcome.
For winter: This is our first week just starting
to put up stores for the winter months ahead. Some we will keep
for summer enjoyment, the rest is put up.
1 quart of sour cherries frozen for winter
2 lbs black turtle beans stored for winter
1 lb buckwheat flour for now and 1 was put in the
freezer for winter
2 lbs potatoes were halved and blanched and cooled,
then put in ziplock bags for winter. The remaining 1.5 pounds from
today are for the week ahead.
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