A Tough Start

It has been a really tough first week. Partially because of my previous "challenges" (I did a 30-day fitness challenge in July along with the starting from scratch challenge then followed that with a 21-day purification program in August) and partially because of lack of time/planning.

Luckily today I had some time to prepare a nice meal so I will have a bit of leftovers. The bread should last a few days. Also, I am making family dinner this week. I'm planning on making roasted chicken with stuffing (with some of the bread that I made today), roasted potatoes and carrots, some kind of tofu and whatever else I can come up with between now and Thursday.

For breakfast, I can have oatmeal with milk & honey or eggs & toast (I can top it off with homemade jelly that Kathy and Todd made from local fruits).

There are lots of possibilities...

Our Afternoon Feast

Kathy, Todd and I had a little feast this afternoon.

Here is the local menu:

Fresh baked whole wheat bread with butter. Here is the link to the recipe: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/simple-whole-wheat-bread/Detail.aspx

Roasted pepper chili with navy beans. I roasted a bunch of peppers with garlic and onion. In a separate pot, I cooked the tomatoes (fresh from the garden) with chives and corn (also fresh from the garden). I added in the navy beans (I first boiled them in water until they were soft). Once the peppers were finished roasting, I added the tomato mixture to the peppers.

Red potato and tomato salad. Here is the link to the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/red-potato-and-tomato-salad-recipe/index.html (I didn't use capers or olives though)

Sesame chicken. I sauteed chicken in sesame oil and added local honey and chives from the garden.

good morning,

It does seem as if it's going to be another beautiful day.

Yesterday, I made one of my old recipes for Indian Cake. from Food the Indians Gave Us.

It goes;

4 cups sifted cornmeal, 3 Tablespoons molasses (I used a wonderful honey from Heiden's Honey in Massillon that I found at the Shaker Square Market),2 teaspoons salt, and a rounded tablespoon of shortening (I used butter).

Mix ingredients and add boiling water until mixture is well-moistened. Pour into well-greased baking pan, smooth surface with a spoon and bake in hot oven until well-browned. (I put it in a 400 oven for 40 minutes.I'd probably try a hotter oven if I did it again.).

Well, it's reasonably edible. I toasted some this morning and ate it with butter and the lovely honey.

I did just look up the nutrients in cornmeal, and found an interesting service, Self-nutrition Data. Seems there're a fair amount of calories, alot of starch and a very little bit of vitamins and minerals, with iron, thiamin and magnesium leading the pack.

Yesterday I got to the Market in the middle of a downpour and forgot some things for the week...onions, maple syrup etc. Later, I'm going to see about Whole Foods local offerings.

Sharon, thanks for the thoughtful invitation. At the very least, I do look forward to meeting you at some point.

A Busy Morning

This morning I had a local food shopping adventure.

First I went to the Westside Market.

I shopped at the Basketeria and got local peppers, beets, carrots and red skin potatoes. I got peaches from another stand.

Then I headed over to Annemarie's Dairy and bought milk and butter from Hartzler Farms, eggs from Brunty Farms and Cleveland Tofu.

Then, I headed over to Crocker Park and got some more whole wheat flour (same stand as last week) and tomato basil chicken patties (I didn't get the name of the farm when I was there).

Then, I went to Nature's Bin and got Gerbers chicken breast & country breakfast sausage, blackberries, sweet banana peppers, honey rock melon, cucumbers and Stutzman Farms honey puffed corn.

Hi,

Maybe I'm consumed with my stomach. Maybe I always am, but giving up smoking has given everything an extra edge.

I wanted to say that, yesterday, after I went to the West side Market and found it closed, I stopped in at the Food Co-op in University Circle on my way home to see what might be happening. It's located on Euclid Ave., just at the side of the Institute of Art. They have a large sign about supporting local produce in the produce area. Most produce is organic, and there are signs for Ohio grown food, tho far from all comes from Ohio. They've local dairy, Middlefield cheese, and something (delicious) named, I think, Northeast Grassfed. I had a nice talk with a manager, who is interested in the Challenge, and in learning more about local suppliers, especially nuts, which I hope to get to next week. For future reference, they've organic ginger, filberts etc.

Happily, this morning the west Side Market was alive and well. As I'm allowing myself Ohio City Pasta, I spent some time there. I spoke with someone who had just begun working there. She said that they used local flour "when they could". Same with cheese; some is local, some not, and who knows what's where.T here is a new ravioli (delicious), white bean and rapini, with the rapini (if you like the taste) coming from a farm in Ohio City.

I bought some broccoli, non-organic, but from Medina, in the booth that Kathleen showed me.

Thinking of my stomach this morning (Kathleen, I'm a breakfast eater) with only a bit of a very lovely local melon in it, I thought of the Native American peoples, and the early farmers, creating tasty meals with what they had. I did some googling, but as I was hungry, tried not to dwell on thinking about the recipes. There's alot of stuff there that I'm going to try a little later on. maybe everyone will find more.

I do have some very basic recipes for Native American corn bread and johnnycakes that I'll send along as I try them. They use molasses, we'll see if maple syrup and honey will do.

This is all allowing me to feel closer to the earth.

wonderful canning blog

Good Morning,

This morning there was an interview on NPR with a woman who teaches canning outside of Washington, D.C.. She has a rich website, Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen. Fun to look at, but a little too tempting to read recipes for, say, avocado toast.

But, I'm happy to be a part of the challenge. Challenge is a good name for the endeavor, I think, but a gentle challenge.

Off to the West Side Market.

Welcome to September!

I'm not very good about eating breakfast... most days I skip over it but make up for it later in the day. So, today, I moved right to lunch.
I made myself this lovely pizza... using bread flour that Sharon found at the farmer's market, olive oil, wild garlic I had foraged for in our previous challenge, local onions I bought at the Tremont farmer's market last night, meunster cheese I bought there last week, and tomatoes from my garden. I used garlic and olive oil for the sauce, and then cut up onions and tomatoes, topped it with cheese, and stuck it in the oven.
I also used some of my homemade pasta sauce as dipping sauce for the crust when I ate it.
I found the recipe for the crust at http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pizza-dough-iii/Detail.aspx
Of course, the sugar (which I used sugar in the raw instead of white sugar), salt (I used Real Salt sea salt) and yeast (I used Hodgeson Mills) were not Ohio, but I felt like my responsible choices in product made up for that... and the bulk of the material was local...plus then I got to eat pizza. :o)
It was really great-- I ate about half the pizza for lunch-- and pretty easy to make.