Dark Days helped me realize how much we still rely on ingredients outside the farm for cooking. A reality check to my zero mile smugness. So, for this season too I'll be shooting for zero mile meals, though I'll be excluding grains again because I cannot source them locally. I planted my own quinoa this year though, along with oats and, soon, amaranth, so that stipulation may change come the dark days of this year.
This week we had a nearly zero mile meal: pasta salad with lettuce, radishes and green onions from our garden, topped with a balsamic vinaigrette, grilled baby pork tenderloin from one of our piglets, and homemade ciabatta bread. I'm working on making more of our pasta from scratch as well as trying my hand at cheese making now that we have our cow. I'll be confined to soft cheeses for a while until I get my cheese press, but I have a lot of basic learning to do before delving into artisinal cheeses.
6 comments:
Aren't you the overacheiver? The challenge just started today LOL. My meal won't be until this coming weekend.
I really thought it was a starting deadline. Maybe not?
I thought it was due today as well. I was cured of some smugness when we faced not having condiments. This is going to be so worthwhile. I can not believe that you made that pasta! It is perfectly spirally. Every time Gillen sees your Independence updates he says again that he wants to go see you. Me too. sigh. Next spring? Hopefully we'll be seeing you fall '09 too. :)
Oh gracious, no, Madeline. Those are store bought pastas, but the bread is homemade. I'll try to do better next time, promise. I can't believe you guys have potatoes already!
Please, please come visit. I'll learn to make wonderful ciabatta bread with spelt just for you. Or, at least I'll try.
I'll be following along with your grain planting. I just can't figure out how much you have to plant to get a decent yield.
What a wonderful dinner! I'm quite inspired. You must have a lovely garden.
We planted our first grain this year--just a teeny-tiny plot of corn and a couple of amaranth plants. Can't wait to see what comes up. A grand experiment, but ours is really not going to keep us fed....
Post a Comment