Chunky Jerusalem Artichoke and Potato Mash

This picture isn't here just to brag about what is still available at my local farmer's market, though I must say I'm pretty tickled at the variety I can still obtain locally a week into November. And I swear I didn't take this picture as a way to celebrate one of the last two weeks that the market will remain open before going on winter hiatus.

I'm just trying to gain a little bit of perspective. I mean, does that look like $30 worth of food? It has been so long since I have bought produce at the supermarket that I honestly have no clue any longer as to whether I'm leading us straight into bankruptcy with my food-buying shenanigans or if possibly, just maybe, the fact that I don't buy processed foods counterbalances these expenditures. Most likely I'm simply making excuses.

See, I nerded up last week and started scrutinizing every last food purchase for the past six months. This wasn't the first time that I got a little obsessive and dug around in my financial tracking software in a mad effort to spell out exactly where my food dollars are going, but I was after a different statistic this go round, namely to check how much of an impact the farmer's market and Locally Grown were having on our bottom line, and to find out what percentage of my food budget went to local foods during the October Eat Local Challenge. The organic raw milk I purchase for the kids is less expensive than the organic big-company milk I had previously bought at the supermarket, so of course I was somehow hoping that everything would even out when it was all said and done.

Of course I was wrong.

Looking back, it was easy to see that the CSA we participate in from May through July is a better bargain than buying individual items through the farmer's markets, and the reasons are obvious enough to pinpoint without much need for critical thinking. The issue for us though is that the CSA only lasts for three months, and I tend to still be hungry during the other nine months of the year. Last year, I fell off the wagon quickly enough when the CSA ran out, but that was because I hadn't bothered to fully research the other local food options. Now that I am much more aware of just how much is out there, and that the bounty includes eggs, dairy, milled items and even meat for The Carnivore, well, it turns into a war of Ethics vs Budgets. It is no wonder advocating local foods is viewed by many to be an elitist activity.

So you see why my perspective seems a bit skewed to me, right? At the market early this morning, with Little Miss Piggy bundled up in her Yoda hat and tucked into her sling, I slunk through the stands battling a crisis of conscience while slurping down a bite-sized empanada that I bought for a dollar. One dollar for essentially two bites. I abhor frivolous spending, but I want so badly to support my local farmers, to feed my family a safe and healthy diet, and to enjoy the superior taste of local and organic foods.

I'm going to need therapy. Thank you for listening.

And honest to goodness, this is not what I came here to whine about. [Whoops - I meant to say 'discuss intelligently.'] What I did intend to do was to share a peerless recipe for Chunky Jerusalem Artichoke and Potato Mash that I think would be ideal for Thanksgiving (which, as you know, is, like, tomorrow or something), but I was unable to take an appetizing photograph of the dish and so I used this snapshot of my farmer's market finds and, well, one thing led to another and I ended up on this tangent again...

(Sigh)

Anyway, last week, shortly before I commenced this latest meltdown on the financial, environmental and ethical costs of food in today's world, I ordered some Jerusalem artichokes on a whim from Locally Grown. I had read about these tubers numerous times in food publications, but had, as far as I know, never actually run across one in real life. And I truly knew nothing about them when I placed my order, but was loathe to allow a little thing like ignorance stand in my way. So order them I did, though oddly enough under the circumstances, I have no memory of what I paid for them.

They aren't much to look at, and actually resemble ginger root so much that I suppose I may have mistaken one for the other in the produce section of the supermarket at some point and that might be why I assumed they were uncommon. Once I got them home, I gazed balefully at the little fellas for days, pushing them aside in the crisper drawer time after time before finally sitting down and searching for recipes.

'Twas more difficult than I expected to find a recipe that appealed to me. I came across soups that called for ingredients I didn't have on hand and countless recipes that had the odd and knobbly little root-thingies in the starring role with little more to support them than salt and lemon juice. I was too wary for those, instead hoping for more of a gradual introduction, so it was with some relief that I settled upon a Bon Appetit recipe for Chunky Jerusalem Artichoke and Potato Mash.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? Truly, the end result wasn't just merry, it was the life of the party. I fell deeply, madly in love with the dish, with it's rustic texture and it's earthy flavor. I'm telling you, this would be perfect for That Turkey Meal, just bitter enough to offset all those other cloyingly sweet side dishes, yet simultaneously interesting and unobtrusive. The Jerusalem artichokes add a delicately nutty flavor to the recipe and keep a firmer texture than the potatoes, lending a toothsome quality to each spoonful that saves the dish from being just another soft and mushy bowl of mashed potatoes. Best of all, at least as far as holiday meals go, the simplicity of the preparation make for a nearly effortless side dish that can be made ahead and reheated without compromise to either the flavor or the texture.

I really think you'll like it. Especially if you choose not to obsess over it.

*****

CHUNKY JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE AND POTATO MASH (adapted from a Deborah Madison recipe printed in Bon Appetit, serves 6)

• 1 lb Jerusalem artichokes, scrubbed clean and left unpeeled, cut into roughly 1-inch chunks
• 1 lb Yukon gold potatoes, left unpeeled (though you can peel them if you find potato peelings hinky), cut into roughly 2-inch pieces
• 1 Tbs coarse Kosher salt
• 3 Tbs unsalted butter

1. Combine Jerusalem artichoes, potatoes and salt in large pot and cover with cold water.
2. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 15 to 20 minutes until potatoes are tender.
3. Drain, reserving the cooking liquid.
4. Return vegetables to pot and mash coarsely, adding reserved cooking liquid 1/2 cup at a time, until chunky mixture forms.
5. Stir in butter, and add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Add more cooking liquid if needed to get the texture you like.

Today is Not about Food

The Boy Wonder took this photo of me as I checked the Google home page for the 97th time by about 10:00 this morning.

I am obsessed with this election. I have tried hard to not get caught up in the nonsense leading up to this day, and I even voted early so as to have a better excuse to ignore all the pollster's phone calls.

But now I can't get anything done. I keep going back to the computer to check, uh, I don't know what. It isn't like any results are getting posted yet. Obsessed, I tell you. Too obsessed to even think about food.

Well, that's not entirely true. I have eaten three pieces of dark chocolate poundcake already today. I guess I should share that recipe, now that I think about it.

After the election. I'll do it after the election. Honest.

Breaking the Fast

I woke up this morning and realized today was November 1st, that the month-long Eat Local Challenge was officially over, and that I could officially eat anything I wanted again. Other than the, ahem, handfuls of Halloween candy that I swiped from my son's stash though, I figured out quickly enough that today wasn't going to be the free-for-all that one might expect. Like ending a fast, it seems almost vulgar to go and get hog-wild now. (I have desperately missed homemade granola though, and plan to whip up a batch just as soon as I get a chance).

Spending an entire month being so completely mindful of every bite I consumed and most specifically it's provenance, even for someone who eats fairly locally to begin with, has firmly engendered a level of awareness in which it has become second nature to eat well. And eating well encompasses so much more than just healthfulness.

I would like to avoid stomping back up atop my soapbox, because if you've spent any time around me or just lurking about in my blog, then you have already heard enough of my preaching regarding eating locally, eating organically, eating sustainably, eating ethically. Let's just suffice to say that I want to make the world a better place for my children. I want to share with them values that include being conscious of our impact on the physical environment. I yearn for them to meet the farmers who provide their food and to be aware of exactly where food comes from, and I desperately want to protect them from harmful pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, mercury, lead and all the other truly scary non-foods that are showing up in the world's supposed food system.

But that's enough of that, right? We're all clear on where I stand on this issue. This blog is the journal of our family's exploits in eating, not a compendium of Sarah's sermons on moral repasts.

Oh, I know. I'm just kidding myself when I say that. Maybe I should change this blog's title, come to think of it, to Recipes for a Moral Repast. But then you guys might just commit me for good, and never try another of these recipes that I so excitedly bring here to share. So, you know, moving right along then...

I did break our fast today, but I did so in a gentle fashion. My sister-in-law and my nephews were coming over to watch football with The Carnivore, and black bean chile seemed like an ideal companion to their silly game. As far as I can tell, black beans cannot be sourced locally, and making my own corn tortillas in order to scratch up my own personal tortilla chips is far-fetched even for me, so I didn't plan this to be a strictly local meal. Prior to this past month though, I might have been content to reach into the pantry and grab cans of beans, diced tomatoes and corn to make this, but I found that the biggest lesson of the month, the one thing I am sure will stick long after the novelty of participating in the Eat Local Challenge has passed, is that I am capable of planning ahead and striving to make every meal as local as possible before then, and only then, supplementing with non-local items.

So yesterday, before committing to a set-in-stone menu for today, I surveyed what I had on hand. For the chile, I set dried beans to soaking. While the beans are far from local, dried beans have much less of an environmental impact than canned ones (and they are light years less expensive), so a little advance planning is worth the trouble. I also reached into the freezer and started defrosting some tomatoes that I had frozen during the summer and portioned into 14.5-oz servings (to be used as a direct substitute for cans). The onions, garlic and bell pepper were on hand already from jaunts to the farmer's market, as were green and red tomatoes, jalapenos and cilantro which I used to whip up a batch of salsa to serve with the chile.

Tortilla chips were purchased from the supermarket as was a bag of frozen organic corn to go into the chile. Every meal will not be 100% local, but we'll do what we can. My goal here is to be mindful. That has been a goal of mine for years, actually, in ways other than just eating and purchasing food, but works almost universally in conjunction with the way I want to live my life. Training myself to take the time to truly think about the things I do, the things I eat, and even the things I say (though that particular action is by far the most challenging) is how I keep from being overwhelmed by all that I can and cannot do to, dare I say it, change the world.

Fresh Pasta

I fear I may have gone off the deep end here. I blame the Eat Local Challenge, of course. In this perpetual quest to outdo myself, I have taken this opportunity to perfect homemade pizza crusts, to acquaint myself with an ice cream maker, and now, in my grandest leap yet, to spend an afternoon learning how to make fresh pasta.

That's right. I made my own pasta. Well, to be sure, I used some gadgets to make this happen; even though it is beginning to sound as if I would survive as a frontier gal, all of my newfound tricks involve electricity and machinery. That's a bit embarassing, actually. If the world were to come close to ending, and packaged foods were no longer available, but raw materials could still be found (along with the aforementioned electrical juice), I would most certainly survive.

That statement just doesn't have quite the same cache as if I were able to personally thresh my own wheat, milk my own cows, and do some proper kneading, now does it?

But let's focus on what's important: I MADE MY OWN PASTA today. I'm really quite proud, and I hope you don't mind if I preen a bit. It's just that my biggest fear in this month-long Eat Local Challenge was that I would die from lack of pasta. I am a carb-loader, you see, and a vegetarian. If you take away my pasta, I lose half my options for entrees. So it was that I spent a couple weeks researching pasta rollers and comparing prices and generally pulling out my hair while I tried to make a decision on whether I wanted to not only spring for one of these puppies, but whether I would ever actually get my money's worth out of it. Most of my kitchen gadgets came from yard sales (as did the $2 bread machine and the $5 ice cream maker), so I feel a little less than no guilt when those items collect the occasional smattering of dust. No one I know has ever actually run across pasta making implements at the thrift store though, so I was on my own with this one.

I did finally make a decision to purchase a pasta roller and cutter, and felt as if the hand of God had intervened when I discovered the exact model I wanted on Ebay for a whopping $50 cheaper than at any store in town. So I gritted my teeth, shook down my Paypal account, and then lay around in abject horror when the bloody thing took nearly two weeks to arrive.

I was starving by then, and almost too weak from carbohydrate-deficiency to read the directions.

Well, that, and I hate/loathe/abominate reading instruction manuals. I feared I would wither away without a fettucine fix though, and today was the perfect day for experimenting in the kitchen. The Carnivore was home all afternoon, Little Miss Piggy took a long, leisurely nap, and The Boy Wonder was happy to push his stepladder over to the counter and help mama make noodles.

The process was a bit nerve-wracking this first time around, especially because the manual seemed to have been written for members of Mensa, but when it was all said and done I was thrilled by the process. Thrilled and empowered, because as with most things that we all just assume are too complicated to tackle, there is such a confidence boost when you just jump in feet first and realize that nearly nothing is as difficult as it initially appeared.

All pasta-making really boils down to, with the proper equipment, is this: put flour, eggs, water, and salt in a mixer with a dough hook, allow to knead for a few minutes; remove dough from mixer and hand-knead for another couple minutes; divide dough into a few pieces and feed through a pasta roller a few times at progressively tighter settings until thin and pliable; then either cut by hand or feed through a pasta cutter.

It's that easy. Fresh pasta is cooked in boiling, salted water just as with dried pasta, but takes even less time to cook. I made a light wheat recipe and found it to be al dente within about three minutes. Then The Boy Wonder and I debated on whether we should just eat the noodles plain straight out of the colander because they were so flavorful on their own, we weren't even sure they needed a sauce. And we were snacking on the just-drained noodles at an alarming pace. They were just so darn good.

I flipped through some recipes and settled on a simple Mark Bittman recipe that we had tried sometime in late-summer when we were drowning in squash. This one looked perfect for the situation, and was light enough to allow the pasta itself to be the star of the show. The original recipe used zucchini, but I used my last pound of yellow summer squash instead and subbed in a hard, salty cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy (in the interest of staying local) for the Parmesan. Served with a salad of local greens, carrots, radishes, snow peas, onions and crumbled feta; and bruschetta from a fresh baguette picked up this morning at the farmer's market, we enjoyed a vibrant seasonal, local meal that was almost shocking in it's variety this late in the year.

*****

PASTA WITH SQUASH AND HERBS (adapted from Bitten, serves 6 or so)

• Salt
• 3 Tbs olive oil
• 1 lb. small summer squash, washed, trimmed, and cut into very thin slices (about 1/8-inch thick)
• Black pepper
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (divided) grated Parmesan, Pecorino-Romano, or other hard, salty cheese
• 1 lb spaghetti, linguine or fettucine
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh herbs, such as mint, parsley or basil (or a combination of the three)

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Add squash to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until very tender and lightly browned (about 10 to 15 minutes).
3. Season squash with salt and a lot of pepper.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and 1/2 cup of the cheese together.
5. Cook pasta in salted, boiling water until al dente.
6. When pasta is done, drain it, return it to the pot and immediately combine it with the egg and cheese mixture, tossing until egg is cooked.
7. Add squash to pasta, and toss again.
8. Taste for salt and pepper, and adjust if needed.
9. Toss in the herbs and serve immediately, passing extra cheese at the table.

Homemade Ice Cream

A perfect storm of events blew through my kitchen this week and I’ve just been dying to come and share it here. The long and short of it was that we learned how to make ice cream, you see, and I’m pretty sure it has changed our lives forever. Homemade ice cream is divine, as you know, and puts all those silly, over-decorated and cleverly-named little cartons at the supermarket to shame. The thing is though, the last time I had the pleasure of enjoying homemade ice cream, there was an absurd amount of work involved. And I just don’t have that kind of time.

My extended family used to spend a couple weeks in a large and gloriously un-fancy beach house at Nags Head every summer, and sometime during my teenage years, my great-uncle tooled up in his travel trailer complete with good cheer and a cumbersome, hand-cranked ice cream maker from which he served up the creamiest of ice creams. He chose peanut butter, of all flavors, to regale us with, and I’ve dreamed of that sublime substance often and much over the past two decades.

A few years back, once I had gained a bit of confidence in the kitchen and was going through a phase in which long cooking projects appealed to me greatly, I mentioned to my mother that I was in the market for my very own ice cream maker. She obliged, of course, and within a few weeks proudly bestowed upon me a Krups machine she had picked up, in its original packaging, at a yard sale for a mere $5.

She’s the bomb, my mother.

I on the other hand, ungrateful little wretch that I am, put the machine in the pantry and promptly forgot all about it.

Look, life happens. I have an embarrassingly long list of projects I want to tackle, new tricks I want to learn, and goals I dream of achieving. And the good Lord willing and the river don't rise, I will get around to each and every one of these things in their own time (like when I no longer have two demanding little monkeys dangling from my kneecaps).

All justifications aside, there the machine sat, directly beneath an industrial-sized roll of paper towels that never gets used, and slightly to the left of my field of vision when I’m lounging in the doorway to the pantry, until a couple weeks ago when Little Miss Piggy speed-crawled her way in there to set her usual wave of destruction into motion. A few crashes and a startled screech from her later, I leaned over to rescue her from a tangle of baking supplies when The Boy Wonder shot between my legs, grabbed a box from the floor and began shouting about ice cream.

Eureka. The whole family has been aching for dessert during this October Eat Local Challenge and I had thus far been utterly stumped. Brownies were clearly out of the question, as were most of my cookie recipes. Fudge was out, walnut brittle wasn’t an option. I’m telling you, the month was beginning to drag. Ice cream, which hadn’t even occurred to me before this moment, could be made almost entirely with local ingredients.

And I’ve got to tell you, we were in pretty dire straits, me and the kids. I had run slap out of creative activities that held interest for all of us simultaneously, and we were really starting to grate on each others nerves. Something had to give.

Like I said, Eureka.

As it turns out, ice cream making has gotten much simpler over the years. These electric models require no repetitive hand motions and call not for rock salt. Five pure ingredients later (all organic, three sourced from within 100 miles and one obtained from an adjoining state), we had a flavor that bested even Haagen-Dazs. Hands on, the whole project probably takes no more than about 20 minutes. There is a considerable amount of waiting involved: the canister must be frozen 24 hours in advance (which is why I have now leased our canister some permanent shelf-space in my freezer), and then there are a couple steps in which mixtures must be cooled to room temperature and then chilled for an hour or so, but the final step, the one in which the mixture is poured into the automatic ice cream maker and left alone to do its thing for 40 minutes is the most fascinating of all.

We were entranced, all three of us. I meant to set things in motion and then find something with which to distract The Boy Wonder, but we were happy to sit silently and watch the most fascinating science lesson that can occur in a kitchen. Matter of fact, I will keep this trick in my arsenal for when I need 40 minutes of peace and quiet. Anything that keeps the kids parked in one place for that long without invoking the evil gods inside the television can’t be wrong.

Oh my shooting stars, did I mention the end resulf of this little activity? My, my, my. Rich, creamy spoonfuls of velvet; flavor so truly vanilla that it actually captures the essence itself, and the most luxurious mouthfeel you can glean from such a humble dessert. Consider me converted.

And did you have any idea these things could be picked up for $30? Need another nudge? Revel in the simplicity of the following recipe.

*****

VANILLA ICE CREAM (adapted from the Krups La Glaciere instruction manual, serves about 8)

• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups cream
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Warm the milk in a small saucepan.
2. In a separate medium-sized bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar.
3. Still whisking, slowly add warm milk to egg mixture.
4. Pour mixture back into pan and heat slowly until thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow the mixture to boil.
5. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
6. Add cream and vanilla, stirring to combine.
7. Chill in refrigerator until good and cold.
8. Freeze in ice cream machine, according to manufacturer's instructions. In my machine, mixture is put into canister that had been frozen for 24 hours, then paddle and lid are attached, machine is plugged in and turned on, and then left alone to do its work for 20 to 40 minutes (until ice cream is desired consistency).

*****

Stay tuned for further recipes, of course. My girlfriend Beth, who joined us on ice cream day, said something about mint chocolate chip as she was leaving and I haven't been able to get that deliriously beautiful idea out of my head since then. Smart woman, that Beth.

Fried Chevre (or why the Eat Local Challenge doesn't hurt)

To anyone planning to embark on a month-long Eat Local Challenge, I would strongly encourage you to do some research ahead of time. Scope out your local farmer's market to get a feel for some of the seasonal produce you might normally eschew. Dig deep for recipes to use in your meal planning. Make a list of the items that might give you trouble (flour, meat, dairy, rice and pasta) and search around online for the closest sources of those items. Mercilessly rearrange your pantry and refrigerator to make sure you won't be tempted to scarf down half a bag of dark chocolate chips in a moment of weakness.

Naturally, I can't really speak from experience. I made a decision to join this year's ELC about six days before it began, and since I for some reason chose precisely that moment to get cocky, I did woefully little advance planning.

This is not at all like me. I have a business degree, for pity's sake, and I am annoyingly obsessive with routines, checklists and time management. My recipes are categorized in a large binder that I keep in my menu desk - which, in and of itself, speaks volumes. I mean, the fact that I have a menu desk at all, and a well-used one at that, should evoke some relatively realistic imagery of me perched on my rickety old barstool, with my silly little purple and yellow eyeglasses sliding down my nose, all my recipes spread before me, a beatific expression on my face... No? If you knew me well enough to have spent years rolling your eyes at my patently uncool nerdiness, then this wouldn't be much of a stretch.

It doesn't really matter how long you have putting up with my quirks though, since none of that actually happened (well, other than the silly specs sliding down my nose and the recipes spread hither and yon - that's a common occurence). See, I have gotten so accustomed to cooking from the hip, to using whatever I find in my CSA box, to picking up whatever looks good at the farmer's market, that, like I said, I got cocky. I did do a wee bit of research, ordering some brown rice from a neighboring state, lining up some local, grass-fed beef for The Carnivorous Husband, and spending an inordinate amount of time waffling about purchasing a pasta roller, but in a move utterly out of character for myself, I sat down to make my local co-op order the day before the challenge was to commence and I just blindly picked and chose dairy and produce until I hit my self-imposed budgetary limit. And then the very next day, I started scratching my head and trying to figure out what the heck we were going to eat.

Thus it was that I found myself with the usual items (potatoes, garlic, milk, squash, feta, grits, eggs) and a catterwonky grab bag of other things that, well, I just assumed would be somehow worked into our menus on the fly. Hence the sweet potatoes that became sweet potato chips, the butternut squash that turned into my favorite new pizza, the lone baguette, the errant log of goat cheese, and so on.

But then, in the most unexpected and serendipitous of moments, as I was flipping through an issue of Bon Appetit, I made to pass right by a recipe for a Composed Salad with Fig Vinaigrette. There was a photo, with ginormous and entirely unappealing slabs of prosciutto displayed prominently, and I almost couldn't turn the page fast enough, but then my gaze snapped back to attention when it registered that I had spied some perfect circles of fried chevre nestled rather impetuously atop the offending pork.

Oh, yeah. Fried rounds of goat cheese. If you've never lucked into these luscious and tangy slices of the most exclusive level of heaven, you've missed a lot in life. The Carnivore and I used to order these for an appetizer every single time we ate at the East West Bistro in our pre-parenthood days. They would arrive at the table temptingly warm, crisp and salty on the outside, rich and oozy on the inside. We practically fought over them, setting the medallions astride pieces of hot, crusty baguette and smearing them indelicately over the surface. The textures were just impossibly dichotomous, with the whole of the small and simple dish somehow managing to balance the normally almost overpowering tanginess of goat cheese.

Fried chevre had been one of the last frontiers for me. One of the last remaining restaurant dishes that I assumed was too difficult to be duplicated at home and would just have to be dreamt about.

I had no idea how bloody easy it was to fry cheese, ya'll. I almost didn't believe the recipe could be correct when I first read it, but since I was smack-dab in the middle of the first week of the ELC, and since I had the good fortune of being in possession of the requisite local eggs, goat cheese and baguete, I chalked it up to kismet and commenced to frying.

And it really was THAT easy. You slice the cheese, dip it in egg, coat it in breadcrumbs, chill it so that it retains its shape, and then pan-fry it in a little olive oil.

I'll be a fried chicken. We've been lied to, folks. And I'm not exactly sure who's been doing the lying, but I for one bought the whole shebang. All that stuff they do in restaurants? 'Tain't magic, after all.

*****

FRIED CHEVRE (adapted from Bon Appetit)

• 8 1/2-inch-thick rounds of soft fresh goat cheese, cut from a log
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup fine whole-wheat breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• crusty baguette, cut on an angle into 1/2-inch-thick slices
• garlic clove
• coarse salt

1. Dip cheese slices in egg and then coat in breadcrumbs.
2. Lay cheese on plate and put in fridge for at least 10 minutes.
3. Heat 1 Tbs oil in large cast-iron or other nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
4. Add goat cheese to skillet, a few at a time (without crowding them); cook until golden (about 1 to 2 minutes). Flip cheese and cook on other side until golden.
5. Transfer to paper towels. Sprinkle with coarse salt.
6. Meanwhile, broil baguette slices until golden. While still hot, rub the bread slices with garlic and then brush with remaining olive oil.
7. Serve hot, with extra olive oil for drizzling.

Eat Local Challenge: Progress Report

One of my favorite cooking tips is pictured above. I can't remember where I read it originally (I think it was Cook's Illustrated), but it has proven invaluable. To strip the kernels from a cob of corn without spraying the entire kitchen with errant kernels, stand the cob up in the center part of a bundt pan and then, using a small sharp knife, cut the kernels from the cob in long strips. The pan catches the kernels, the cob doesn't slip and wobble all over, and your young children will be entranced.

That tip is neither here nor there at the moment, as fresh corn has disappeared from my farmer's market, but my camera was apparently left at The Carnivore's shop in town, and I find myself separated from the stash of photos I had recently snapped. Pictures of my children on hay bales surrounded by pumpkins along with shots of my sweet potato chips and fried chevre, you know, food photography that would fit perfectly with this post.

Truly, if I sound a wee bit frustrated, 'tis because I am nine days into this month-long Eat Local Challenge and I'm finding it to be a bit more, um, challenging than I had hoped it would be. For the past couple of days, instead of focusing on the positives, like new recipes and intriguing new ingredients, I have rather been keeping a list of my complaints. For instance, in The Things I Miss Most List: homemade granola for breakfast, trail mix stashed in my bag for emergency on-the-go snacks, whole-wheat fettucine noodles, and tortilla chips.

If you noticed that Edy's Strawberry Fruit Bars were conspicuously absent from the above list, well, I'm sure it isn't at all because I completely broke down this week and bought a box (okay, four boxes) from the supermarket.

Wouldn't you rather think I was perfect and that I would be able to report that eating 100% locally was not only possible, but easy as well? Maybe full disclosure is not the best policy, after all. I'll never know. I am honest to a fault when it comes to my own shortcomings.

Don't get me wrong. It isn't all doom and gloom around here, and we certainly won't be starving to death anytime soon. I mean, sure, I do suppose this would have been easier in, say, July or August when everything was still going strong around here; when berries were in season and corn was aplently. When, let's be honest, it was too hot to eat anyway. But truth be told, I am heartened to have discovered local grits and local, grass-fed beef (for the husband's sake, at least), and I will never go back to commercial breads again. Fresh eggs are a godsend, and the local cheeses that I have procured have been life-changing in their purity of flavor.

I have had to add a few items to our list of exemptions though. While local feta and chevre will remain mainstays in our diet now, commercial hard cheeses cannot be replaced at a cost which we can comfortably afford on a long-term basis. I went out of my way last week to The Healthy Gourmet, a locally-owned gourmet boutique, and picked up two cheeses from Georgia's own Sweet Grass Dairy. They were serendipitous, those cheeses, easily two of the finest I've ever had the pleasure of tasting, and I will doubtlessly purchase them again, but they aren't exactly the kind of cheese I can throw in my husband's sandwiches without breaking out in a cold sweat and recalculating our monthly budget. And of course they would be wasted in a sandwich that sits in his truck all morning until he scarfs it down while driving between job sites. So I admitted a small bit of defeat earlier this week and quietly picked up couple blocks of organic white cheddar cheese from the supermarket.

I am also fairly sure I will be going to the store tomorrow to pick up a couple bags of organic yellow corn tortilla chips, if for no other reason than I think it sacrilege to not be able to make nachos on Sunday afternoons. What can I say? It is kind of a ritual around here, and you wouldn't believe the sadness on a four-year-old's face when he's told he has to go without his favorite snack while his mother performs her own version of a walkabout.

These new exceptions notwithstanding, I am most assuredly not giving up on my month of eating locally. We will press on, and I will continue to search out fun recipes for the produce that is currently in season. If you need me on Saturday mornings, I will be at the farmer's market; on Thursday afternoons, I can be found at the Locally Grown pick-up site. My new, revised goal is to pony up at least 75% of our food expenditures this month at those two places and I think we're on track.

Right now though, I have every intention of making out with a strawberry Edy's bar (or two) while I page through my cookbooks in search of just the right recipe for some acorn squash I picked up today. If anyone has any suggestions for their use, please let me know.

Butternut Squash Pizza

It is only Day Four of the 2008 Eat Local Challenge, and I've already tried three new recipes that will be added to heavy rotation at my house. Around here, eating locally during October (when the CSAs have ended their seasons and most everyone's personal gardens have gone to seed) entails much advance planning in that there aren't many available opportunities to actually purchase food grown locally. We have the Saturday farmer's markets in Athens and Watkinsville, and the Thursday pickups at Athens Locally Grown for the food that was ordered on Monday and Tuesday, but that's it. If I need eggs on Sunday, I'm out of luck. This is a sea change in a time of 24-hour supermarkets whose shelves are stocked with every imaginable foodstuff from around the world.

Maybe that's why they call this a challenge.

It is because of these purchasing limitations that I took some chances and picked up a few things we might not normally have bought. After all, I can't have us running out of food, now can I? And since a few of our usual fall-backs are currently off limits, most notably pasta, I'm finding myself willing to step out on a limb and get a little more creative with meal-planning. Frankly, this is right up my alley. I thrive on a good challenge.

My Carnivorous Husband generally tolerates more than supports my food purchasing proclivities so I had been more than a little concerned about how this local food pledge would affect him. One of my goals is to show my family why this is so important, not to teach them the virtues of self-denial. I want them to have as much fun as I am, to see this as an adventure, to be able to laugh at my missteps and foibles (and believe me, there have been more than a few), and to feel a sense of ownership and camaraderie when we do well.

Good thing my expectations aren't very high, hmm?

Amazingly, even when the odds have been stacked against us and time has been short and it would have been much easier to just open a box of pasta and toss it with one of the sauces I froze over the summer, my little family has thrown themselves behind me, transforming into my personal cheerleading squad, and cheerfully accepted one very late dinner and one less-than-satisfying dinner. And The Tolerant Carnivore who I had feared would roll his eyes at this whole undertaking? When the kids and I showed up at the Locally Grown pick-up point on Thursday, there he was, sitting on the steps in his work clothes, waiting to surprise us and to find out what the hubbub was all about.

I love my support squad. And I want so badly to make this worth their while.

So I have pulled down obscure cookbooks from high atop my shelves and I have picked up some ingredients we have very little (if any) experience with. The bread machine has earned a permanent home on my kitchen counter and I've scoured the internet looking for information on purchasing a pasta roller. I've learned how to make fried chevre, one of our long-time favorite restaurant items; I have finally mastered the art of making pizza crusts, thanks to my yard-sale bread machine; I have learned how to make sweet potato chips and succeeded in converting my husband from his former sweet potato spurning ways. Like I said, this is right up my alley. And I'm having more fun than is probably socially acceptable for a rural stay-at-home-mom just making dinner.

Butternut squash is in season right now and is aplenty at the farmer's markets. I had only tried cooking with it once before, and that particular recipe was a dismal failure, but with the summer squashes disappearing rapidly around here, I thought it high time that I learned how to make use of the butternut. It's a beautiful specimen, to be sure, and is slap-packed with nutrients. Full of optimism, but hedging my bets nonetheless, I snagged a few of these squashes and collected a handful of recipes for their use. To my complete amazement, we struck gold on the very first try. Using a recipe from Vegetarian Planet, adapted to make use of the ingredients I could source locally, I made a simple dinner of crumbled feta cheese, roasted slices of Vidalia onions and butternut squash atop a whole-wheat pizza crust (courtesy of that wondrous $2 bread machine). It was a revelation. The squash was velvety and richly flavored, the onions were soft and sweet, and the feta was just tangy enough to round it all out.

The whole family loved it (and continued the love with the leftovers for lunch the following day), but most surprising was that The Carnivore and I both kept stealing pieces of the roasted squash from the pan as I was trying to top the pizzas. A side dish could be made of the roasted vegetables alone. I can't wait to see what else we can do with this squash.

*****

BUTTERNUT SQUASH PIZZAS (serves four as an entree, adapted from Vegetarian Planet)

• 1 large Vidalia onion, sliced
• 1 medium (about 1 to 1-1/2 pounds) butternut squash, peeled, seeded and sliced very thin
• 1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
• coarse salt & freshly ground pepper
• 3 Tbs olive oil, divided
• 1 to 2 oz crumbled feta cheese
• 1/2 batch pizza dough (using whole-wheat flour in place of half of the called-for bread flour)
• 2 Tbs shredded sharp, hard cheese (optional)

1. In a large, rimmed cookie sheet (or a jelly-roll pan), toss the onion, squash, rosemary, salt & pepper with 2 Tbs olive oil.
2. Bake the vegetables at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until onion begins to caramelize and squash is tender.
3. On a floured surface, separate the pizza dough into 2 balls and roll each out to about 8 to 10 inches in diameter.
4. Prick the pizza dough rounds in several places with a fork and place on well-seasoned pizza stones or on baking sheets dusted with cornmeal.
5. Cook the dough at 450 degrees for about 5 minutes, until crispy and beginning to brown. Remove from oven.
6. Distribute the squash mixture atop the two pizza dough rounds and top each with 1/2 of the crumbled feta.
7. Bake the pizzas at 450 degrees for an additional 8 to 10 minutes, until crust is browned on edges.
8. Drizzle pizzas with remaining olive oil, sprinkle with a little additional coarse salt and the shredded sharp cheese, if desired.

The Breakfast Challenge

As with most things in life, the first couple days of the month-long Eat Local Challenge were easier than I thought they would be in some ways, and more difficult than expected in others. Most surprisingly, breakfast turned out to be the biggest issue. We were already accustomed to buying all of our produce locally, so suppers are almost always centered around fresh, seasonal vegetables from the farmer's market, our CSA, or the Locally Grown almost-co-op. Lunch has generally been when the kids and I polish off the previous night's leftovers, and for snacks we have lately been living off local apples and pears. So it was with some shock that I woke up on Wednesday to realize that breakfast was going to be the meal which would require the most planning. Who would have thought?

It's just that I've been making my own granola for a month or so now, and since none of those ingredients are local, I've given it up for the duration of this challenge. It's possible I'm just being legalistic. Locally-made granola is being sold at the our Farmer's Market and through Locally Grown, both of which strictly limit themselves to products grown or produced within 100 miles. The granola maker is obviously getting his raw materials from elsewhere, as is the bread baker and the coffee roaster. So since I am purchasing locally-made bread and locally-roasted coffee, why then am I sticking to the letter of the law on the granola issue?

I don't know. I'm just learning as I go here. For now, at least, I'm deeming granola off limits, even though all of us have become rather dependent upon it.

Thus it was that we found ourselves hungry yet flummoxed on Wednesday morning. Of all days to have begun this challenge too, since that is the only one out of the week when the kids and I leave the house by 9am, so a leisurely-cooked breakfast was out of the question. Granola would have been perfect, alas.

I did have some eggs from a local farmer, along with an absolutely stunning loaf of wheat sourdough bread from a local baker, so within a few minutes, I had thrown together fried egg sandwiches for all of us. The kids couldn't have been happier and though we were a couple minutes late getting to our appointment, and the baby arrived with a wee bit of egg in her ear, it turns out that those few extra minutes spent at the table together brought a little more laughter to our morning.

Today, with nowhere to be and nothing pressing to accomplish, I came to the abrupt and rather disconcerting revelation that I'm a little lazy at the onset of the day. While homemade granola sounds noble and industrious of me, the truth is that I was baking large batches of it in the evenings once a week so that it could be grabbed easily on bleary mornings. With a nursing baby in the house, all mornings, as it turns out, are a bit bleary.

I was not to be deterred though, least of all on Day Two, so I quickly cooked a ginormous batch of local stone-ground grits, and stirred in a couple pinches of local feta cheese. Both children ate like truck drivers until there was hardly any left for me.

Now that I've discovered the joys of long, languid mornings at the breakfast table, I'm looking forward to homemade cinnamon rolls, French toast with homemade syrup, and grits souffles. I think we might be onto something here.

My Eat Local Challenge

October is Eat Local Challenge month, so I have been spending a lot more time than usual trying to find new ways to source more of our foods locally. On a regular basis, I buy our produce, milk, honey, grits, cornmeal, whole-wheat flour, feta and chevre, bread and eggs from vendors within 100 miles of our home. And while this may seem like a lot, I've been chagrined to realize just how much of our groceries are still coming from far away.

I have signed us up for the challenge and following is my statement of participation:

1. I will define local as on a regional basis. Since I have already sought out local sources for the above-mentioned items, the remaining foodstuffs are quite a challenge. As such, I am including South Carolina, Georgia and Florida in my quests for things like hard cheeses, rice and sugar.

2. We are claiming some exemptions to this local thing. For general cooking purposes, I need olive oil, salt and pepper, yeast and butter. Since I cannot seem to find these locally, I will buy organic where possible. I am not positive we will be able to do without lemons and all-purpose flour, but I will try to find the closest-possible sources for those two items, even though they will almost certainly come from outside of the regional area I have defined. And, as the whole family is involved in this challenge, we are each claiming some personal exemptions as well. The 12-month-old has stated (in her own special way) that she will not live without garbanzo beans and toasted o-shaped cereal. The four-year-old is adamant about his need for Nutella, peanut butter and Yobaby yogurt, and I would never dream of denying him the snacks provided by parents following his soccer games. The carnivorous husband wants ham for his lunches and popping corn for stove-popping purposes. I am claiming soymilk as my personal exemption. Locally-roasted coffee gets blanket acceptance, no questions asked.

3. My goal is to dig a little deeper to find local sources for those items that we hadn't already found. Just since signing up for this challenge, I have talked The Carnivore into trying local beef, have ordered brown rice from Carolina Plantation, and have found a nearby retailer that carries cheddar cheese from Sweetgrass Dairy. With a mixed-taste, budget-conscious family of four, I don't expect us to turn into The Kingsolvers, but I think some time spent living a less-modern lifestyle will segue nicely with the values I am trying to instill in my children.

In the interest of full-disclosure though, I think it should be noted that by 2:00 am on this, the first day of the challenge, I got up to nurse the baby and ate a piece of chocolate before I realized I was going to have to give up my middle-of-the-night-treats as well. Truly, this is going to be a challenge.