Eat Local Challenge
redesigned

Ten months ago we embarked on our eat local challenge which was our own not too stringent version of the 100 mile diet. The main point of it was to learn about the food that comes from my area by trying to limit ourselves to what has been grown and/or produced locally. I wanted to see what it was like to get through the winter eating seasonally. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. It wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it would be either.

We know a lot now about the food that is produced (and not produced) in our area that we probably never would have known if we hadn't embarked on this adventure. Do you sense closure in my tone? Yes, I've been thinking about our challenge for the last month and seeing its meaning in the bigger picture of change. I've been assessing my needs versus the things that need to change for the earth to keep on spinning on its axis.

As our life has been restructuring (I'm working 3 days a week and spending the rest of the week looking for work etc.) its been getting more difficult to stick with our challenge. A lot of the things that make cooking healthy food quickly can't be bought (at reasonable prices) from local sources. Pasta, for example. Tofu. Rice. I haven't bought any of these things in 10 months. I've made pasta from scratch quite a lot but I just can't do it quickly and as a consequence we rely a lot on grilled cheese sandwiches for quick food.

I've gained more weight in the past year. It's true that that needn't have been the case if I wasn't a beer chugging cheese gulping freak without sense enough to stop at ONE beer and ONE thin slice of Tillamook. One doesn't have to turn to grilled cheese sandwiches whenever there's no time to make pasta from scratch. Yet we do because we love them (!!!) and they are satisfying. Since I can't get feta from local sources I eat everything with cheddar. I have no self control when it comes to cheddar. You get the picture.

I miss garbanzo beans. I haven't bought them in 10 months either.

So while I dripped rivers of sweat off my sun screened nose out in the great sweltering blueberry fields today I thought about all these things for the hundredth time this month. And I came to a decision. I have learned all I can learn from my challenge as it is. I've decided not to engage in any more "challenges" because just being me is challenging enough. The point of challenges is to stretch ourselves in new and positive directions. To find out our limitations and also to learn new things.

Rather than engage in more challenges with rules and time periods I am just going to commit to change. Steady change. It never happens over night. I've become not just enamored with the effort to eat local and shop local- I am committed to it in that my eyes are always open now to both the contents on labels but the origins of everything I buy. I don't buy anything without looking. That is change. I not only know the ingredients I know as much as a person can about where it came from. I will always choose local when I can.

I intend to buy more of my food in bulk to reduce overall packaging waste. I still won't buy much produce that isn't seasonal and doesn't come from within my general region. I may sometimes buy bananas for smoothies but I won't ever again buy apples from New Zealand or kiwis from out of state. I won't buy avocados but for very special occasions and the same goes for oranges and tangerines which do not grow here. I may buy some lemons and limes on special occasions but only until I grow my own (which will have to be protected in the winter).

I will buy feta cheese again but only until my new friend Sarah teaches me to make my own. I won't buy store bought ricotta because I learned how to make my own from scratch while on my local food challenge.

I will buy tofu again. My friend April has found locally made tofu in Portland but I've yet to find any here.

I will wait until things are in season here to buy them. Watermelons from Hermiston instead of from California or Mexico. Tomatoes from Bernards Farm or from my own yard.

The big picture is that there is life as a whole to make decisions about that impact everyone. It isn't just where your food comes from but what's in it and how much packaging or energy it took to get to you. You have to consider what you can afford and not surprisingly- buying in bulk and using u-pick options whenever you can will make your groceries cheaper. Learning to make things from scratch will bring you closer to your roots, to your familial food history, and is hugely satisfying. But being able to rely on dried staples that may not come from your region makes life a whole lot more comfortable.

How are you getting your groceries? Do you take four trips a week to the grocery store? Do you bring your own bags? Do you drive a giant SUV? Or do you ride your bike (I don't and need to!!)? These are all important things that go into the equation.

What all our problems boil down to is that we often don't live thoughtfully enough. We don't weigh our choices and make decisions with an equation that includes all these factors. We don't look at ourselves and the choices we're making and why enough. Taking on challenges helps us hone in on areas in our lives that we want to see change.

In a couple of more posts I'll go over more of what I've learned from my challenge and share with you the most pertinent and permanent changes we've made to our diet as a result. Then I'll move on to share the other changes that are on my mind. Things I'd like to accomplish, not as a part of a specific challenge but just in my ongoing quest to make good change.

Right now the kid is clamoring for a good old Bionicle battle at the top of the stairs. I'm tired from frying myself in the 100 degree heat. It's time for some beer (my mom bought us lots this week!!) and after a rousing game of Bionicle ball busting I intend to watch some Sponge Bob (or whatever Max wants) and pretend I'm not a giant cut of roast human.

Beautiful Food

After a winter of potatoes, dark leafy greens, and celeriac, the local farmer's market is a wonderful sight! Here's what I brought home: strawberries, broccoli, radishes, zucchini, fava beans, bread, and fresh basil.

It takes skill and a certain mindset to cook food based on what you have without always running to the market for that extra ingredient you need in order to make a very specific dish you had in mind...it takes a flexible and creative cook to look in the pantry, evaluate the produce on hand, and then come up with a menu that doesn't require extra trips to the store. Forgot to get fresh milk? Cook without it! I have lots of home canned tomatoes left on the pantry shelves, I've been so afraid to run out that I have been very frugal with my stash. Here we are in June and only a month left until fresh tomatoes start to trickle into the market.

Usually the basil shows up at the same time as the tomatoes but this year it's early. So what to do with a gorgeous bunch of basil? Tomato bread soup!! It's such a simple and quick soup to make. I just cooked an onion in some olive oil, added about a tablespoonful of pureed garlic (from cubes in the freezer), and then added one quart of home made tomato sauce and one quart of stewed tomatoes.

I splashed in a generous amount of white vinegar and then when the onions were soft I added a bunch of julienned fresh basil and after a couple of minutes I pureed the soup. I cubed six slices of stale sourdough wheat bread, added it to the soup with salt and pepper. Turn off the stove but let the bread soak up the juices for a few minutes. Done.

For an extra touch I also made a sauce of oil, fresh basil, and a handful of walnuts. Tomato bread soup is hearty yet summery. My version allowed me to make use of pantry goods which is a plus in the early summer season.

Foraged tea: the community garden had a decorative old wheelbarrow planted with sage and fully flowering chamomile that no one was going to harvest. I asked permission and harvested and dried it. They were covered in thrips so I had to wash the buds several times to ensure that I won't be eating (or serving anyone) reconstituted thrips.

On a quest for cheese making supplies my friend Lisa B. and I went to Kookoolan Farms where if you are very lucky you can get raw goat and cow's milk*. Yes, it is legal. I asked about the legal aspect of selling raw milk and found out that there are very stringent laws about selling it in Oregon: you must have a small number of livestock (there are specific numbers allowed) and you cannot advertise your product and you can only sell it direct to customers who come to pick it up at your farm personally.

Raw milk is only dangerous if the people milking the animals don't practice very clean and safe methods. Keeping your operation clean is the main safeguard against any dangerous organisms ending up in your product. This is why large farms aren't allowed to sell raw milk. The more animals you have, especially in confined spaces, the more chance of contaminating your milk.

Pasteurization, in my opinion, is just a way to allow large dairies to cover all manner of sins. As long as you heat the crap out of your product it doesn't really matter how much contamination enters the product during milking.

I don't actually drink milk. Plain milk grosses me out. I won't drink it. But I use it in cooking and now in cheese making. If I could always buy raw instead of pasteurized I would. I couldn't afford to anyway, so it's not a real issue. However, this is one of those things that is a no brainer for me: the less processed your food is when you bring it home, the better the quality.

At the farm I got to meet the three cows who provide my community with raw milk and they are so pretty, gentle, and sweet. I love cows, I always have, and these gals didn't disappoint in their beauty and soulful glances.

I also got to meet two baby goats who played with the kids like puppy dogs. I have always really liked goats as well. As everyone already knows I don't eat goat milk products or eat goat meat. I just like them for their curious ways. If there is any farm animal with a stronger personality I have yet to meet it. Even my hens don't have so much play in them and don't engage in frolic the way goats do. I would love to have a couple of them just for their lawn mowing ability. I was told that one of these little guys is going to be slaughtered for meat. I can't say that that rests easy with me yet it's all a part of our natural role in the food chain.

Have I mentioned recently how much I loath lawn? In California if you don't like lawn it's easy to kill: just don't water it. Dead within minutes. Here in the Pacific Northwest it grows no matter what. You can make it brown from not watering it all summer, but as soon as the rains come in the fall it springs back to life instantly. In the mean time it grows. And grows. Very tall, very fast. We hate lawn. Max is even mildly allergic to lawn so it's not like he's dying to roll around in it. We can never keep up with our lawn. I would like to remove it all and put down some crushed granite paths and turn the rest of the yard into garden beds.

We'll have to wait for that. The weather yesterday was gorgeous so Philip finished roofing the chicken run and I built another four by four raised bed and planted some herbs. I am so relieved to have gotten them in the ground at last. Growing herbs is, for me, one of the most important things I do, with very few ingredients and some fresh herbs you can make almost anything taste good. I planted: tarragon, winter savory, lemon verbena, thyme, parsley (the curly kind is my favorite), oregano, and marjoram. I need to plant a lot more thyme, oregano, and marjoram because all three dry exceptionally well and I use them A LOT.

It's been a great few days for beautiful food and I hope you all have had your share of it too!

*There are long waiting lists for the raw milk because it's so hard to get and is so desirable.

Strawberry Season
The Easiest Recipe In The World

It is finally strawberry season here in McMinnville. It's also rhubarb season. Obviously my mind is full of the possibilities...

Rhubarb/strawberry crisp
Vanilla custard topped with a compote of rhubarb and strawberries
Rhubarb/strawberry tart

I keep buying pints of strawberries, taking them home with the full intention of making something really fancy so I can post it here and have someone tell me I'm a genius (us humans really are pathetically fragile) and then I eat just one to see how good it is.

The insides are red, as strawberries should be, they are juicy, they are strongly perfumed, and the flavor bursts open like fireworks over a bank of snow. The flavor says the winter is truly behind us. The spring is nearly behind us as well. Straight ahead lies all the flavors and textures that make the summer so worth the wait!

Needless to say, before I know it the pint is empty, my fingers are red, and I still have rhubarb to use. I'm not ready to eat rhubarb without strawberries. I'm still vaguely suspicious of rhubarb, a vegetable that is still quite new to me.

We've been doing our version of the eat local challenge for six months now. Although there have been plenty of transgressions with items like condiments and Max's snack foods (I am having trouble not eating his packaged food when I'm really hungry and don't know what to make), we've really stuck to our guns with the produce which was the main goal anyway. Onions got scarce, garlic is nonexistent, and I haven't had salad at home for weeks. I still only get salad when I go out to eat (which is allowed in the rules of our making). No citrus but what was gifted to us. Not a lot of fruit for us this winter. Apples and home canned pears and peaches.

So the tangy sweetness and huge flavor of these small local strawberries (not the kind you can ship, they are very tender and exactly as a strawberry should be) is fulfilling a need for vitamin C foods. I feel thirsty for them like I haven't had water in months. When my body has been without fresh sources of vitamin C it feels dry and parched. I could eat a field of these berries. I am excited for the real season to begin- when I can go to the fields myself and gather u-pick strawberries to freeze and can. I didn't have my freezer in time last year to freeze any and all winter I wished I could chew on frozen chunks of strawberry or add them to muffins.

So for now, here is my recipe for enjoying the first local fresh strawberries of the season:

Rinse off the soil
Eat as many as you can at the kitchen sink

It doesn't get fresher or easier than that.*




*Unless you have a patch of them in your own garden...that is the ultimate way to eat them. Right in your garden with the dirt still clinging to them.

Spaghetti Sauce

A local challenge update

It is getting pretty bare bones when it comes to fresh produce around here. If I want anything I am going to have to get myself to the Hillsdale farmer's market. I don't know if anyone will have carrots. Or celery root. But hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on some spinach and collards. Lucky for me I have lots of stuff in the freezer still.

This is the beginning of month six of the local food challenge we took on in October. How's it going? So nice of you to ask. There have been a couple of changes. After a lot of deliberation I have put Gulden's mustard and store bought ketchup back on the exceptions list. I can't find enough information about mustards to make one I like enough to replace the store bought. There is a book about making mustards that might help me but I haven't bought it yet. There are some local gourmet mustards but none of them are in the stores in my town, and they are all pretty fancy. Also I bought mayonnaise which I wasn't going to do because I can make it myself- however, being in the middle of a move has made it very difficult to take on any cooking besides the most rudimentary. Plus, we've been eating out a lot.

Which is now coming to an end. I've got most of my kitchen moved in. I can start cooking again. The first thing I made was spaghetti sauce with local mushrooms, home canned tomato sauce, and onion. Quite delicious!

So aside from the condiments, what are we still insisting on buying locally? Well, pretty much everything we've been buying locally so far. Max's food is still an exception and since he's wanted baby carrots, I've been buying them for him. But for me and Philip I haven't bought one non-local bit of fresh produce since October. I'm still only buying grains from the local mill and I'm not buying the grains I know for a fact are shipped from all the way across the country. Polenta is coming not from the local mill but from a local farm that grew their corn, dried it, and then milled it themselves. There is a local-ish grain company called Shepherd's grains that, while out of my 100 mile range, only sells grains grown in Washington and Oregon. I am thinking of buying grains exclusively from them only because the other local mills I buy from get wheat from Montana which is farther afield than Washington.

Things I'm missing? I would really like to make some winter squash tofu curry soup that calls for coconut milk. While cleaning out my pantry to move I found one can of coconut milk and was so excited I almost peed my pants!!

Ha, just kidding. But I thought I'd make the winter squash soup with it until I realized that tofu is still on the unavailable to us list because there is no local producer for it. I'm also really missing ricotta and feta. I still plan to make some but learning to make cheese is going to have to wait a little bit longer. Soon though. I bought some super expensive ricotta from a local cheese maker at the last farmer's market I went to but at $7.00 per cup I may as well be buying myself gold ingots because they'll last longer.

I'm really trying hard not to buy fresh cilantro from California. I pass by it every time I go to the store and it's cheap and I can smell it long before I reach it and I want it want it want it. I want it so bad that sometimes I feel my hands reaching for it before I slap myself to wake from my cilantro haze. I am definitely going to plant some because it's time now, but I haven't had any pots to seed them in and the dirt around here is (in case you missed mention of it earlier) solid clay. With the continuous rain it is no time to be planting (for fear of compacting the clay). Anyway, my mom just gave me a few pretty pots and I will plant some cilantro in them this week.

With home cooking on hold during the move I snacked on some of Max's crackers, the ones going stale because they went out of his rotation. I felt very guilty about it*. But some guilt is good for us, right? I mean, I don't have any Catholic or Jewish family members living close enough to heap on any decent levels of guilt so I must do things occasionally to bring it on for myself. Sun chips are good. Love that MSG.

Once you start eating mostly local as a matter of course it becomes second nature. I don't really think about the local challenge all that much. I mean, I check the onions at the store every time I go and when the box is from a local source I buy extra onions. I cruise through the produce sections looking for signs that say "local" or I check the labels on the boxes the produce is in or I ask the grumpy over-perfumed produce guy where stuff is coming from. I cook with what I end up with in the fridge or the pantry. It's so easy to do, really. I know lots of people think it's impossible. You just eat a little differently but certainly not awfully.

Of course, I have lots of stuff in my pantry and in my freezer. But I think what I've depended on the most has been my canned tomatoes. Tomatoes and tomato sauce can brighten almost any meal. Greens have been major. I need greens and they were hard to get for a little while there. But over all you just get used to not buying the other stuff and a lot of the time the other stuff isn't that great in the winter anyway. You eat more potatoes and onions and eggs and pantry stuff.

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Do you know how happy I'm going to be when carrots reappear at the farmer's market? And lettuce. I will be so excited to see those things again. I think it's good to be without some things for a while, because it's so easy to take what we have for granted. Now when things I haven't eaten for five months show up on my local radar- it will be so much sweeter. That is one of the biggest benefits to eating more locally.

No I'm not perfect. Dang, it's a good thing I told you all that from the beginning. I'm not perfect and I don't do things in the extreme. I think when my challenge is over I may occasionally buy some tofu and coconut milk. I don't think I'll buy ready made pasta again though. It isn't hard to make and it's so much better fresh. I think I'll keep not eating Max's packaged food. Oh- dang- I also have eaten some Oreos. BAD ANGELINA.

My plan for dealing with the cookie thing is to make some really amazing home made cookies to have on hand. Max does like my home made cookies.

OK, time to go eat something and walk the damn dog. She's a houdini and is bored and can get out of the yard through very narrow spaces between planks so I must walk her to get some of her restlessness out. Off to the old house to keep packing stuff up. I think I'll take her with me. Double whammy.

*Shhhh. I didn't really feel very guilty about it. I am not particularly sensitive to feelings of guilt. I mean, not over things like eating non-local crackers. Why waste time feeling guilty when one is already making lots of effort to live well and thoughtfully...I'm not a saint for crying out loud. Jesus. I only pretend to feel guilty about things because it makes other people feel more comfortable with their own self imposed levels of guilt. Frankly I think guilt is a waste of time. If I find myself feeling guilty about something I examine why, consider my options for the next time I am in a similar situation, and decide that I will make better choices the next time. If someone else is involved then I apologize to them, end of guilt. Damn. Life is too short. Guilt is corrosive. All guilt tells us is that we have chosen to act unwisely in some way and gives us an opportunity for reflection and change. It should be a brief feeling that we let go of freely.

Saag Paneer Goes Local

(overcoming specificity)

I am a very specific person. In every way. In every facet of life. There is no corner in my brain that doesn't have very specific guidelines for existing, for processing thought, for storing memory, or for experiencing life. This is why you will never find the word "relaxed" as a descriptor of my personality. When I get an idea for something I want to cook, therefore, it is always very specific. I am often trying to reproduce in my kitchen fond memories of food I've had out in the world. I don't want something "similar", I want the real McCoy.

I have always loved Indian food, though I have taken very long breaks from it at times, and there are some dishes that every good Indian restaurant serves that I want to be able to make at home. Saag Paneer is one of them. Palak Paneer is another one. My friend Chelsea loves Indian food more than I do and is on a long journey of discovery with variations on many dishes in her own kitchen. Lately she's got me hankering for a little Indian food. In McMinnville, if you want something as exotic as this it is best to make it at home.

I have a great Madhur Jaffrey book that Chelsea gave me with a recipe for Saag Paneer. I happened to have a ton of fresh local gorgeous spinach that it would have been a food crime to waste. But being in the middle of a lot of change prevents me from getting my elbows whey deep in cheese making so where the hell could I come up with some Paneer which is a kind of farmer's cheese? No where, that's where. So I channeled my many resourceful friends' spirits for the answer. It was happily right under my nose at the Hillsdale farmer's market this week end. The price was high enough to scare the pants off of Vincent Price.

We'll call it a splurge. Fresh mozzarella. This stuff is amazing. It isn't like that really spongy wet stuff that floats in water. It's more like feta curds, a little salty, and tasting like the kind of slightly more aged mozzarella that is actually my preference*. It has the texture of a farmer's cheese. Voila! There was my answer.

The recipe also called for slightly more spinach than I had, dried fenugreek leaves, and a fresh chili none of which my kitchen could furnish. No fears! I just used a jar of my home canned diced tomatoes, more onion than the recipe called for, and left out the pepper. (I didn't feel like defrosting one of my roasted frozen ones.)

The other major issue is rice. Although I have a very small amount of rice left and could have used it for this recipe. I wanted to see what it would be like to go way off the Indian map and serve this dish on polenta.

It was superb! With a little cayenne and a lot of ginger it was warming (we've got a chill back in the air here) and filling. The cheese was perfect- it didn't melt but added the perfect mellow foil to the spicy spinach. The spinach was like butter and now I'm craving a bucket-full of this dish. I restrained myself to just one serving, but I could easily have inhaled the whole mess of it. I feel totally rewarded in my efforts to be less specific when it comes to recreating something that lives in my taste bud hall of fame.

Baby update: they are both doing quite well. Very spunky and now that Pippa is a whole week and a half older than she was when we got her- she's playing with Penny and watching them leap around on each other is so cute I could just cry. They are (sadly) still continuing to show more bald spots. Penny's stomach is still distended which worries me but not the vet.

We have moved them out of the tub and into our other bathroom. The problem with this is that now we open the door and they bolt out in hopes of exploring. Chick is often camped out at the bathroom door and sometimes lunges at it with snarls. Then licks her chops. So obviously I'm concerned about the eventual introduction of kittens to dog. Such meetings will obviously be heavily supervised for quite some time.

Here's something that makes every day a pleasure: every time Pippa sees me come in she cranks up her purr machine immediately.

These are some busy times for us. Cooking really good food when you're overloaded with things to take care of can seem impossible and yet there's never a time when it's more important to have home cooked food. I find it relaxing and soothing to cook. It stresses me out to not have any time to do it. I actually made some potatoes that would have been fabulous if it hadn't been for the fact that they got burnt due to my washing the kittens and not turning off the oven first. No worries though. Apparently Philip likes to eat burnt bits. I ate the good stuff. They were Greek potatoes with lemon juice, olive oil, and oregano. The lemon juice came from my friend in California. If we hadn't been able to eat those potatoes I would have been devastated by the waste of such a precious commodity.

We have lots of papers to sign, babies to care for, and a boy who's gotten his first note sent to the principle by his teacher. To be honest, I don't think this punishment is deserved for his crime which was one of blurting out something apparently shocking to the class. He didn't use swear words and I think it really boils down to the fact that us Williamsons lead a much less gentle existence than many other people do. What Max blurted out wasn't directed to anyone in the class and so I have a hard time understanding why it wasn't enough to punish him with one lost recess instead of a string of them.

In fact, my boy is feeling very out of place at school. He's been complaining of being made fun of for his name. He doesn't take teasing in stride. (I'm trying to use this fact to help him understand how others might feel when he teases them). This is the part I didn't think through when deciding to have a baby. That I would have to watch him go through all the stupid awful crap I went through as a kid. Misfits generally give birth to more misfits and it is awfully difficult for Max to really hear us when we tell him how it's often the misfits who achieve the most amazing things in life and end up having the best friends and that some day he'll be glad to be who he is.

Today I have to complete my Master Gardening final exam because tomorrow is the last class. My friend Nicole is putting together a local food group for our county and I'm going to a meeting for that tonight. So much to do! I also have to fill out papers to renew my passport because in May I'm going to go to my dad's wedding in Scotland! Right now I'm trying to think of what articles I might be able to pitch to magazines to make good use of the trip and what magazines?

I was thinking about doing a piece on eating vegetarian in Scotland. (Potatoes and beer is where it's at! Ha! Oh, but also the pub soups...often there is a meatless choice and I've had some excellent ones.) Scotland is my favorite place on earth besides Oregon. Not surprising since they are a lot alike. Especially climate wise. I've never been to Scotland in the spring, only the winter which is when I generally prefer to travel. Maybe I'll get to see some roses?!

Oh my god. I just realized that there must be some public access historical gardens I could see. OH what a dream that would be!!! Oooh, I wonder if there are any monastery gardens there to see? Clearly research is called for. But I don't have time for that yet. I also have to prepare my taxes and I don't even know where to begin with that this year. What a mess!

*The stuff being sold as "fresh" that's soft and spongy is not my favorite. Sometimes if it is stored in oil with herbs it can be delicious but generally I find fresh mozzarella to be lacking in flavor or character. This is why I will never be considered a true epicurean. That and the fact that I don't eat any goat or sheep's cheese.

Shush. I heard you gasp in the back row!!

Everything Good In One Post
(food, sex, secrets, sarcasm, self righteousness, and fresh mozzarella)

A very local meal: rosemary focaccia with homemade pesto (from the freezer) sauteed onion spinach and mushrooms...all crowned with some local mozzarella which is so good I almost ate an entire expensive container of it myself. This meal is not acceptable for my dieting efforts but is so good I am willing to eat gruel for the next two days to make up for it.

A big question with canning is always whether or not you will eat the things you make. These are a part of the growing collection of empty mason jars that were previously filled with all kinds of good fruits and pickles and jams. If you are not making a dent in your canned goods by this time in the winter then you either didn't can things you actually like to eat, you have no confidence in your canning abilities and are afraid of what's in the jars, or you canned so much that you are going to have to be my canning guru. There are big holes in my pantry now where there used to be tons of peaches, pickles, jam, and marinated two bean salad.

The piccalilli remains untouched as it is likely to do until the end of time. Or until I dump it all out and actually admit I'm never going to eat it because it scares the pants off me and not because I'm worried it isn't safe.

Since starting my local challenge I have had almost no mozzarella and it's kind of hurt. Being left out of mozzarella usage is very sad. We tried the only kind we could find which is made by Tillamook and I hate to report that mozzarella is not something they make well. In fact, it was awful.

These mozzarella curds taste just like the kind made by the "Precious" brand, only better. Fresher! I bought them at the Hillsdale farmer's market. I believe they were made with raw milk and there is a slight after taste that is a bit rangy, the same kind of after taste you might experience from goat cheese if you were me. Which you're not and are probably feeling pretty happy about.

Still no tender lettuce mixes at the farmer's market. Well, no lettuce mixes at all yet. There was one calling itself a "lettuce mix" but it was just baby winter greens like kale, chard, and beet greens. I was fooled into spending lots of money for that mix last time they had it and it was quite tough to chew. We got to the farmer's market early enough to snag some fabulous greens. I got two huge bunches of spinach and three bunches of collard greens. There were long lines at most of the produce stalls and even though it was reminding me of Eastern Europe in the eighties, it also made me excessively happy to see a market so well attended and supported.

I'm sure there is no farmer who would be sad to find themselves selling out of every green thing they grow within thirty minutes. As a farmer I'm thinking you always want to find the demand for what you do growing rather than diminishing.

One lady I waited in line with was asking me about my local eating challenge and raised her pert brows and said "So you're doing an eat local challenge and driving a long way to get your food? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?" Pert ho. Of course it doesn't defeat the purpose! I can drive 20 miles north to the only open farmer's market with a friend (car pooling is good) or I can go to the markets in my town and buy produce that has traveled anywhere from 600 miles to 3000 miles to get to me. That's not difficult math to do.

I'm getting really tired of people who seem to think that if you're trying to make any effort at all then you must make extreme sacrifices. All or nothing. C'mon people, every effort counts. Getting spinach from 20 miles away takes less gas and refrigeration than is used to bring me spinach from central or southern California over 600 miles away. That's 580 miles of gas use saved. (In case anyone had trouble with that math).

Can we please all stop worrying about being purists and just make some effort to make change? If a million people saved 580 miles of road travel buying one bunch of spinach we would collectively be saving 580 million miles of road travel. That's it in a simplified nutshell. You can go make it more complicated and pull this paragraph apart for it's flaws but people are living in this country by the millions, like busy little ants, and if every single one of us made some efforts, even "small" efforts, we could make a huge environmental change.

So all you pert hos and snarky pimps out there just waiting to pounce on anyone who is attempting to adjust their lives into being more thoughtful, I will bite you. (And that means YOU, anonymous commenter on Cindy's blog "Figs, Lavender, and Cheese". You really need to go sit on your own personal trash heap and ask yourself what you're doing to make change and stop heckling people about what they're doing.)

I need to take care of a couple of memes I've been tagged for. I'm not going to reprint the rules or anything like that. I'm very uncooperative that way. The first one is from my new blogging friend Cindy over at Figs, Lavender, and Cheese:

List Five Things About Yourself:

1. I really want to raise quails so I can cook tiny eggs but I'm afraid I won't actually like quail's eggs. But jesus! Have you seen how flippin cute quails are? I've seen a button quail come out of it's dime sized egg and almost passed out from the cuteness. I could have bought some quail's eggs at the farmer's market this week-end but didn't think of it until too late. Perhaps next time?

2. I think bone marrow smells like death. (Thanks, Chick, for giving me the gift of smelling raw bones which I would otherwise be oblivious of, being a life long vegetarian.)

3. The second Mr. Thornton loses his taste for beautiful wasp waisted females and develops a relish for tubby gals with blood shot eyes, my marriage will be in danger.

4. Something that makes me tremendously happy is having my house filled with flowers cut fresh from my own back yard. I get a special delight when most of them are strongly scented roses. The whole happy effect is enhanced even more when the walls of all the rooms in my house are painted the kinds of colors that set my cut flowers off to great advantage. If I could have cut flowers in my house every week of the year I would.

5. I love having philosophical discussions with my seven year old who thinks this whole "God" thing is a fairytale. (I never called it that, in case you were wondering and considering the merits of working up a good indignation about it.)


The second meme comes from my old blog friend Tracey from The Everyday Unitarian:

1. What's one thing you do every day?

Drink 3 cups of black coffee that is 2/3 decaf and 1/3 regular. I am only allowed one cup of caffeine per day because I am a delicate flower with heart palpitations. I've done the stress test for old people (for which you have to sign a form saying you understand that the test can cause a heart attack), I've been shoved in that claustrophobic imaging machine to take pictures of my heart, I've worn the 24 hour heart monitor, and I've seen my heart with ultrasound and while I came to the conclusion that one should never see their own heart under any circumstances, the doctors came to the conclusion that while my palpitations were vaguely worrying, there would be no real answer unless something really bad happened to it to give them more clues.

2. Name two things you wish you could learn.

To be silent once in a while when it really counts
To make my own cheese.

3. Name three things that remind you of your childhood:

Hearing Simon And Garfunkel.
Hearing married people bicker.
The smell of sun ripened blackberries.

4. Name four things you love to eat but rarely do:

donuts
marinated mushrooms
brie cheese
plums

5. Name five things/people that make you feel good:

my family (you knew I'd say that, huh?)
having a waistline (I don't have one right now, sadly)
baking bread and making soup on the same day
snow
my chickens

6. List six facts about yourself:

I love being a housewife.

If I had more kids I'd die.

I love winter best of all seasons even though I like the other three quite a lot too.

I have thousands of half written letters floating around in my head.

I have an unholy love for office supplies. I especially love green graph paper and Papermate "Flair" pens in black.

I am not at all kinky. Not even in my most private fantasies. In fact, I don't have sexual fantasies at all, I have romantic ones. I think this is because sex is a fact of life and it's practical and very nice but romance, to me, is the real elusive monkey. You know the last scene in "North and South", the one at the train station? That would never happen to me. Not only because I'm not a wasp waisted Victorian chick but because I'm very uncomfortable with romantic moments and even when they have come my way in real life I botch them up by making sarcastic comments or delivering a real hit of bathos to the moment. Because of this, romance holds a higher place in my fantasy life than sex does.



There you have it. Does it make me narcissistic that I love these kinds of memes? No, I don't think so (to answer my own question) because I adore it when other people do it too. My favorite of all time is reading people's "100 things" lists. Many of you have not yet done a "100 things" list and I think you should. Just for me. Just so I can sit down with my cup of coffee and hear you deny that you can come up with that many things and then see you totally do it.

Well, I'm off to get a little work done for my part time job. If I don't do some work it will become the no-time job in which I've greatly disappointed my good friend Angela and also failed to make enough money to cover all my garden purchases of roses and fruit. Have a great Tuesday everyone!

The Parsnip Lines Of Western Oregon

There's been all kinds of speculation around the local eating tables about the possibility that if everyone was to realize how important (and better) it is to eat locally grown food that small farmers will not be able to meet the demand for it. Land is expensive and there isn't a whole lot of it available anymore for agriculture.

Whenever I hear this I think about how people have thought the world is gonna end real soon for the last two thousand years.

Of course, it's true that there has been mass starvation in the world. You don't have to go far to find someone who remembers the dust bowl depression of the last century in our own country when many of our own great great relatives were starving. Hell, there are people in the United States who are starving right now. So I'm not going to dismiss the fact that finding food can be a serious business everywhere.

But an increased demand will always come before a surfeit of supplies. That's economics. In order to get our country to produce more of it's own food, to turn more of it's arable land to responsible crop production, there must be an uncomfortable demand for it. There's plenty of land not being used for food that could be. There's plenty of land being turned to the production of corn for fuel right now that could (and should) be used to grow more food. Instead we're trying to figure out how we can continue living exactly as we are, without any change in our comfort, without any alteration in our consumptive habits. Americans apparently think having cars is more important than eating.

Yesterday at the farmer's market in Hillsdale there were long lines for some of the vendors. We waited twenty minutes to buy freshly ground polenta and some very expensive parsnips and winter squash while the savoy cabbage I also wanted to buy sold out at the next stall over. Greens were in very short supply. As in: there were none except for cabbage. I said to my friend Nicole "This is like waiting in breadlines in Russia, except that we know we'll end up with some food at the end." Then I waited in line at another stall to buy one head of cabbage (the regular kind, the ONLY kind left at the whole market) and the guy behind me says "This is like waiting in line for food in Eastern Europe."

He then went on to predict that this very well may become more and more of a trend as food is harder to find here, more expensive, and everyone needs to depend on local growers. I told him not to be so dire. At the same time I thought "I just waited in line to buy some grain and some parsnips."

What to do? What to do...? (Lots of hand wringing ensues...)

Victory Gardens are the answer. Who has room for vegetables in their yards? Hmm. Let's see...according to this article there are 40 million acres of lawn planted in the US. That's 40 million acres that could be planted in edible crops and plants. That's a whole lot of room for extra food. Do you want to see a patch of perfectly coiffed green in front of your house or would you rather eat?

Perhaps all these predictions of shortages are a bunch of hyperbole. I, for one, don't believe the world is going to end anytime in the near future. I do believe that if every single one of us supplemented our produce supply by growing some of our own, as they did in World War II, we could all be taking part in our own destiny instead of waiting for someone else to come up with some painless solution that doesn't require us to do a lick of work.

During World War II the government was entreating all Americans to plant a victory garden to help ease the burden of demand for produce, to help ourselves from starving, to can our own food so that our supply of commercially canned goods could be shipped to our troops; they requested that all Americans start a victory garden in an act of patriotism.

I think it's time they reopened that campaign.

The biggest lesson I have learned with this eat local challenge is that in my region it's not too difficult to get your hands on root vegetables but if you want a steady supply of greens in winter you must grow your own. Which is why I will be establishing a ton of kale, chard, and collards for overwintering next year. In addition to that I am going to build two cold frames so that I can grow lettuce through much of the cold season.

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm getting my garden established now. I may have to wait in line to get some grains, but I won't have to wait in line to get some fruit, vegetables, or eggs.

Pasta Twists

When I go to the pasta isle at really good grocery stores I am enchanted with the many shapes in which you can buy it. All of them have their own name, history, and uses. I use my Kitchenaide pasta attachments all the time to make pasta but there comes a time when more spaghetti or fettuccine just isn't exciting enough*. I kind of think that if your name is Angelina you should be known for your stylish pasta, not for sharing your moniker with a husband stealer.

So witness the twists! Easy to make. Easy to eat. But this is just a slight variation on the bow tie pasta so I do believe I will need to play around for a while until I hit on something really cool and I promise that if I do I won't copyright or trademark it so you can make it to your heart's content and bring on your Louis Prima vibe!

*Total unabashed lie. I am NEVER tired of any kind of pasta.

Midwinter Eating

(Local Eating Challenge Update)

Apples at the Hillsdale Farmer's Market. They have a "Newtown Pippin" that I tried this week and it was amazing! I rarely munch an apple for a snack but fruit is pretty limited right now and I brought one to my Master Gardening class in an effort to avoid their evil "snack" table which is a nightmare of sugar goods. The apple was huge, juicy, crisp, tart, and flavorful. I also bought a couple "Black Twig" apples to try but I admit I'm afraid of finding out that I don't like them which would be a shame since they have such a great name.

There is a surprising amount of variety to be had at this winter farmer's market. Lots of onions, potatoes, sun-chokes, salsify (I am not attracted to anything that can be described has having an "oyster" flavor), turnips, cabbage, collards (I got some because I've never had them before), leeks, chard, apples, pears, cheese, mushrooms (way too expensive for me but they look wonderful!), fresh milled polenta made from locally grown antique corn varieties, and a few winter squashes. I'm a little alarmed by how little winter squash is left. I am going to try to grow a lot more on my own this year. I also plan to bake and freeze more squash in the early season.

Some vendors came with lettuce but most of that was sold out by the time we got to the market. I got a very expensive bag of "lettuce" mix which mostly consisted of tough baby winter greens like baby kale, chard, beet greens, radicchio, and very little actual lettuce. Soon I will be planting my own.

I am waiting for only a couple more seed packets now to complete my seed collection for planting this spring. I am especially excited to grow "Lazy Housewife" pole beans. I am now trying to come up with strategies for seed saving this year. I need a good reference book for seed saving and I think "Seed To Seed" is the one I will get. I have been intimidated by seed saving for years. You have to isolate many plants whose seeds you want to save to prevent cross pollination or you have to net the plant entirely. I'm considering asking some various people with property to let me plant specimen plants for seed saving on their property if they are not also growing what I am.

I am beginning to lean more on my freezer goods. Last night we had pesto pasta with a sauteed bag of mixed frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables will never be a favorite of mine but when it gets difficult to get my hands on broccoli and cauliflower I'm happy enough to be able to pull some from the freezer.

Speaking of the freezer though...I am still concerned by the use of so much plastic. I am beginning to experiment with glass jars but my soup didn't turn out (potato) which Lisa B. tells me isn't surprising since potatoes often don't freeze well. I would like a much larger proportion of my frozen goods to be frozen in glass rather than plastic. For things that really seem to need to be in plastic, if anyone knows of a safer (and biodegradable) vacuum seal bag product, please let me know. I'm concerned about the plastic contaminating our food. Lisa B. also mentioned the possibility of vacuum sealing jars for which there are attachments. I'm wondering if they make the vacuum seal lids for canning jars? These are things I must look into.

Mustard. I made some more mustard this week using mustard powder and I have to say that I'm not satisfied. It's too hot and I want something more similar to my standard Gulden's*. I don't like hot mustard and I don't like it to have that horse-radishy finish that Dijon usually has. It's funny because Gulden's calls itself a "spicy brown" mustard but I would call it mild and tangy. If I can't make a decent home version of Gulden's then I might be forced to re-examine my exceptions list and trade something out.

Mustard is really important when you are trying to prepare tasty foods using less fat. As boring as it is, I'm trying to cook food that isn't as fattening. Potato salad isn't too fattening if you don't use too much mayonnaise and add a lot more mustard.

The trick is finding the right mustard seeds. There are at least three different varieties commonly used in mustard making. I think a book on making mustards might be really useful at this point too since I seem to have exhausted my Internet resources for mustard making information.

Some things I will be pulling from the freezer this week: ratatouille, Brussels sprouts, green beans, hot peppers, zucchini fritters (just like latkes but with zucchini).




*I have just read that Gulden's is a ConAgra product. Even though the recipe is supposedly "140 years old", and it's nice to note that there is no crap in Gulden's mustard, I don't want to support ConAgra in any way if I can avoid it. So I really must work hard to become a great mustard maker. It isn't a difficult condiment to make, but it is certainly tricky getting the right seeds to start with.

Swiss Chard Egg Scramble

My breakfast comes with some dirt, snail trails, and random feathers, how about yours? I was so lucky to be able to harvest some chard from the garden two mornings ago and also lucky that my hens provided me with a few fresh laid eggs. It's possible that they didn't want me to have them because they were cleverly hidden in the hay. I put my garden findings in a bucket and took pictures of it because I love pictures of food. All food. Then I realized that this was what I was having for breakfast:

Sauteed chard and onion scrambled with eggs, sprinkled with an ounce of cheddar cheese, and laid on a slice of wheat toast with butter.

Swiss Chard Scrambled Eggs:

serves 1

4-5 large chard leaves
2 eggs, (separate the yolks of one)
1/2 onion, medium diced
1 oz cheese of your choice
1/4 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
1 slice wheat toast with butter

Put the oil in a medium or small sized skillet and turn the burner on to medium. After about a minute, when the oil is hot, add the onion. While the onion is sauteing, wash the chard and cut it up into small pieces, stems removed. (Don't shake the water off of the leaves or spin it in a spinner.) When the onion is soft, add the chard and immediately put a lid on the skillet to let the steam help wilt the chard. Make sure to stir the chard frequently until it is softened.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix 1 whole egg with one egg white, the milk, and salt and pepper together with a fork. Once the chard is softened, pour the eggs over the chard and onions. Stir the eggs frequently to prevent burning. When eggs are no longer disgustingly drippy wet, add the grated cheese to the top, turn off the burner, put the lid on the pan and let sit for a couple minutes while you make a slice of toast. When the toast is ready, put the eggs on top of it.

Then eat it. So good.

This whole deal will cost you 469 calories*. For such a balanced and healthy filling breakfast I think that's a caloric bargain. However, it would be easy to instantly reduce the calories by skipping the cheese and the toast. You should know that I only use a pat of butter on the toast.

Without cheese: 356 calories
Without cheese or toast: 285 calories



*For calorie reference I use "Laurel's Kitchen" which has nutrition tables in the back, and "The Most Complete Food Counter".

Nothing Green To Eat

(a local eating update)

As I've been running ass over tit through crystalized molasses to rectify the imbalance in my head that is now causing me to eyeball dried up Christmas trees with the kind of panic and aggressive suspicion I normally reserve for black widows, I have been thinking a lot about all the components it takes to live a good healthy life. And I just know that any day now I'm going to go on and on about it. But not tonight.

There are invisible weights on my whole body and brain that are preventing it from moving more than one inch an hour. If I was a mime this would be my coma skit.

I wrestled the dried up Christmas tree to get the lights off and came to this conclusion:

• Whoever put the lights on this year must never be allowed to put them on again.

• I am 99% sure that it was Philip and my mom who wrapped the string of lights with no end and no beginning all around that tree as though they planned to keep them on there for the rest of our natural lives.

• Apparently I have gotten so edgy now that wrestling with Christmas lights is the only thing that can make me say "Mother #%cker" (Normally I NEVER say it because I'm a gentle fairy-person)

In spite of my leaden limbs, I managed to make a wonderful mushroom soup tonight using some left over wild rice. All local. So good. Is there another word besides "earthy" that aptly describes the mushroom's innate mushroomy-ness?

So here's what fresh vegetables I have to work with this week:

3 leeks
1/2 rancid turnip
potatoes
onions
carrots
celeriac
mushrooms

(Of that list, only potatoes, onions, and mushrooms are in ready supply at stores.)

The Brussels sprouts I bought did not store well in the garage and I had to process and freeze what was left of them. We've eaten all the chard but never got to the kale before it went bad. I ought to have just blanched and frozen it right away. There is nothing green to buy that is local right now. I have my hopes pinned on the Hillsdale Farmer's market this coming week-end. Please let someone have chard, spinach, and lettuce!!!

Wait, I do have some winter squash.

Which isn't green, but at least it isn't an earthy beige hue.

The big debate is whether or not to start making real dents in the freezer stash. Is this the hardest part of the year to get through if you're only eating local produce or is the spring the hardest part? This is what I'm trying to figure out now, before I've eaten through my whole pantry.

I'm finding that having a constant supply of fresh green food in winter is pretty important to me. Which is why this year I will make sure to plant plenty of greens in the late summer so they'll be established and producing by winter.

In spite of the scarcity greens, this whole local thing really isn't a big hardship. In case anyone was wondering.

I can't tell if my chickens are trying to play games with me or not, but it would seem that the hens are stashing their eggs in the hay where they think I won't find them. Eggs are fairly scarce in the hen house these days, but I got five of them today. All of them hidden deep in the nest.

Before I put you all to sleep with the soporific rhythm of my dulcet voice, how about I sign off and fold laundry? I hope none of you have a passive aggressive dying Christmas tree to wrangle to the ground, and if you do? May the mother #@cking force be with you.

Amy Stewart Is Bored

(and it's our fault)

Amy Stewart is bored of people talking about eating local. She said so on NPR. She is tired of the tedium of discussing where we got this vegetable or that one. Worse than that, she thinks that we're all getting too precious and full of ourselves for making this insignificant contribution to global change. She thinks we are all (all of us who are excited about eating locally) ridiculously pleased with ourselves and self righteous and that this obsessing over food and where it came from is really annoying her.

This is a person who has been at least a little bit involved in spreading the locavore message in the past. At some point in time Amy thought eating local was interesting and important enough to talk about where our food is coming from. But now that it's become popular she's over it, like one of those people who can't bear to like anything once it becomes popular no matter how much it previously pleased her.

People who only think it's cool to like something when no one else does? I think it's very tedious. It makes me question their authenticity as a person. How can you love something and then not love it anymore just because other people began to share your appreciation? If you're whole enjoyment of something depends on it's place on the cultural popularity chart, then what you really care about is being perceived as different, as being ahead of the herd, and it doesn't really matter what you like or don't like, what really matters to you is to be separate. But why? If you're truly unique, if you are truly an individual who is separate from the herd, everyone will know it regardless of whether or not you like Britney Spears or are still wearing pale lipstick.

What's really sick about getting bored of talking about important issues is that it implies that these issues are just fads and that the people who have brought these issues to our attention were only bringing them up to stir things up for a while. What would you think of Al Gore if he announced "I'm bored of Global Warming. Can we stop talking about it at the dinner table? Now that everyone is talking about it it's become tedious. Shut up and take the trash out already!" If he suddenly got bored of such an important issue just because the media is FINALLY putting it on the daily radar, wouldn't you want to take back that Nobel Peace prize he was awarded for his environmental work?

Amy Stewart is a first class ass.

I am participating in an eat local challenge for a whole lot of reasons and none of them are so that I can congratulate myself on being better than anyone else. Making world change isn't some self important fad that you can either participate in or not. It isn't an elitist club, either, that only the cool people can join. Everyone is going to have to change their lives sooner or later and the sooner we all do it the easier the future will be for us.

For real change to happen, eating local, transportation issues, recycling, and all the other aspects of our lives that need examining will have to go hugely mainstream. So if you are only participating in change to be ahead of everyone, to be able to say "I've been there, done that", if global issues going mainstream means you're going to be bored of them once everyone else is finally interested? Then you are as big an ass as Amy Stewart is.

Incidentally, she brings up the question of how eating and buying local will affect all the indigenous people we're currently supporting through fair trade in places like Kenya. What will happen to them? So now we're supposed to feel guilty for supporting our own local indigenous people? It's almost as though people just want to make this as hard as they can for us. Americans should start being responsible for their own dirt, their own people, their own crashing economy, their own dangerous fundamentalists, and if we are ever going to undo the world wide damage we've done then we will have to return to the place where our problems began: right here in our own back yard.

I am not concerned about supporting poor farmers in Kenya. I'm concerned about supporting poor farmers in the United States. I am not concerned about holding other countries up out of the mud because mine is in the excruciatingly slow process of imploding on itself. So if anyone can argue that the United States is responsible for other countries state of welfare, then it can be equally argued that unless we turn ourselves inward and improve our own welfare, then we will be in no condition to help anyone else.

Perhaps my viewpoint isn't fair. I don't experience boredom with good ideas, with good food, good people, or at all. I've loved David Bowie since I was thirteen years old and I still love him even though millions of other people also love him. It pleases me that so many people can see that Bowie is such an amazing musician. I love food and it's one of my favorite topics, as well as gardening, politics, religion, parenting, and art. Boredom is for teens. Boredom is to impress others with your cool ennui.

My interest in life is such that I don't understand boredom and the strength of my interests does not rely on those interests being off the mainstream radar. The more people who get interested in the things I'm interested in, the more people I can enjoy talking to about those same things.

I checked out Amy Stewart's blog called "Garden Rant" a year ago and at first I was really excited to find a place where the main topic was gardening. I stopped reading fairly quickly because Amy Stewart seemed pretty arrogant to me at the time and trying to take part in discussions there felt like trying to gain admittance to an elite club of gardeners. Nothing can make a person feel smaller faster than not belonging with the elite. I have been happy not reading that blog since then.

I hope Michael Pollan never gets bored. I hope he keeps bringing to his writing the geeky excitement of a kid doing garden and food experiments who may explode his parents stove at any moment. His writing is engaging because he himself is so engaged in the things he's exploring and I love that. He brings humor to serious subjects and can write a twelve page piece about growing poppies that makes you wonder how an hour just pissed by in a flash. I hope that Pollan isn't arrogant in person. I hope he isn't an ass, because he's one of my favorite writers of all time. I hope he isn't getting bored of food and global issues.

Broken Rice Salad

I am not normally a fan of wild rice. It's chewy and reminds me of brown rice which I'm also not normally fond of. Brown rice reminds me of eating raw tofu. Which isn't unlike eating chalk. But local grains are hard to come by and I really felt I should try the local wild rice I found here. It comes in two varieties: regular and broken pieces. The broken pieces are less expensive so I bought some of those, also thinking that they might cook up more tender if already broken.

I was not disappointed. I still prefer white Basmati rice to all other rice, but I won't be buying more of that for a long time. (I still have about a cup of it left in the pantry which I'm saving for a rainy day.)

Due to my very circumspect approach to my blog which prevents me from telling you every little detail about me, you probably think I'm a real skinny minnie and have no clue that I am trying to mend some serious cheese inhaling habits which have caused me to expand in the middle quite a bit. You will probably be shocked to know that I am trying to cook some foods that have a slightly lower caloric punch than grilled cheese sandwiches. (Look, just play along, would you?)

This warm salad is what I made for dinner last night and it was both delicious and satisfying, so I'm going to give you the recipe too. You can use unbroken wild rice as a substitute, but then you can't call it "broken" rice salad.

Broken Rice Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked broken wild rice*
4 large carrots chopped
10 Brussels sprouts cleaned and halved
2 med. Yukon gold (or similar) potatoes diced
2tbsp vinaigrette
bottle of favorite dressing**

Steam all the vegetables until tender. Most of them take about five minutes. Test them with a fork to see if they are ready. Put them in a large bowl together and pour the two tablespoons of plain vinaigrette over them. Stir them up to coat with the dressing. The point of the plain vinaigrette is to keep your vegetables from getting dry if you don't eat all the portions of this meal right away.

Add the two cups of cooked broken rice to the bowl and stir well.

Divide into four portions. In each bowl add two tablespoons of your favorite bottled or home made dressing and stir gently. Eat. So good.

Serves 4.
336 calories per serving.
7.5 points per serving.

To reduce the calories or points even further you can try using only one tablespoon dressing on your individual serving. Personally I think that would be madness, but you must be the judge.


Also, if anyone else who is struggling to shed some pounds needs some moral support, please come join me and some friends at our new blog "The Fat Ass Water Cooler" where we are going to try to inspire each other to meet our goals. The main topic of that blog will obviously be weight loss, being fat, and how to change our unhealthy habits into healthy ones. So if you find that talk tedious, don't visit.



*To cook my wild rice I heated a tablespoon of butter in a big sauce pan, then put 12 oz of the rice in the pan and stirred it often for about five minutes on medium high heat until my kitchen smelled like cooking hay, then I added 36 oz water to the pan, turned up the heat to high until the water was boiling. At that point I turned the heat down to medium low and with the lid on the pan let the rice simmer until done which took about 30 minutes. The rice is done when the hulls open up and the rice is tenderish. Let's be honest, wild rice never gets truly tender.

**I used "Riverhouse" Feta dressing that is made by a local company and is a creamy vinaigrette with herbs, feta, and kalamata olives. You can use a plain vinaigrette on this recipe and chop up a little bit of feta and olives if you can't find a similar bottled dressing. But be careful how much you use if you are hoping to keep the caloric value the same.