The title pretty much says it all. Rosmarino from Salumi, Beecher’s cheese curds, and homemade cornichons. Some weeks are hectic enough that blogging is low on my priority list if it makes it at all, and this was definitely one of them. One photo and a couple of sentences about lunch took more than a week to post. So it goes.
Beets, ready for roasting, when it was late summer and the light was still good.
The start of Dark Days snuck up on me this year, and it was looking like I was going to be starting the challenge with a snack (the quince “paste” that never quite set right and Yarmuth Farm “Dylan” cheese below – quince from an orchard on Guemes Island, I think, but now I can’t find the name of the place for the life of me) instead of a full dinner, but once again my freezer came to the rescue. (more…)
Bok choy is one of my very favorite greens. Anytime I’ve had too much rich food, or just not enough vegetables, I start craving bok choy like crazy. I’ve tried to grow it, without a lot of luck, but luckily I can get it pretty easily – at Uwajimaya, in my Full Circle box, even at the QFC near my house, and for a few weeks in the summer, from the single farmer at my “farmer market”. (more…)
Well. I never intended to let more than two months pass between posts. It has been a busy couple of months (kind of a lame excuse – are there ever months that aren’t busy?!?), and I definitely let myself go down the self-pity road a little further than could possibly be healthy while on my [not really all that restricted] restricted diet – both factors that added up to days, then weeks, then months going by without writing anything here. But now I’m back, at least for today (though I have a few things I want to tell you about, so maybe I won’t stay away as long this time). (more…)
Backpacking "burritos" sans dairy and wheat
So, it turns out that food limitations are really hard. I’m sure that will come as a surprise. Ha. I knew going in to this that it wasn’t going to be easy, but I don’t think I fully grasped just how much more complicated eating becomes when you have to avoid some of the basic building blocks of the food we commonly eat in this country. Coupled with my insanely busy schedule this time of year and a maybe not so great attitude about these limitations and I’ve not had a lot to share here. That’s not to say we haven’t been eating, but popcorn has turned into dinner on more nights than I care to admit and there have been tears on more than one occasion. (more…)
When I signed up to participate in Dark Days last fall, I wasn’t sure how it would go. Now that we’ve reached the end, I’m really happy I decided to participate. I haven’t always posted on time, but I’ve managed to make at least one local meal each week and eventually write about it. Twenty weeks of paying closer attention to where our food comes from have resulted in some permanent changes. (more…)
I’ve had limited success with past attempts at braising game meat. It doesn’t have the same kind of fat marbling as beef or pork and has a tendency to get dried out if cooked too long. (more…)
Forgot to take a picture before we sat down to eat, and the crappy iPhone photo I took while eating really doesn’t help, though there’s probably pretty much no way to make this one look appetizing. You’ll have to trust that it was much tastier than it looks. The last few delicata squash in the basement were threatening to get soft and I knew I was in a use-it-or-lose-it position. The best way to use five small squash all at once? Squash soup, heavy emphasis on the squash. (more…)
We haven’t been eating much meat lately, for a variety of reasons. We completely gave up meat for a little more than a month, but now that we’re eating some meat again, it’s a rare week when meat shows up for dinner more than once in a week. There are a lot of reasons to eat less meat, and our reasons are all the common ones – health, environmental impact, quality of meat – but we still have a freezer full of elk and we’re not going to let it go to waste. (more…)
Yes, those are decidedly non-local lemons in the picture above. A busy week, with a serious dearth of creativity and time. After agonizing over skipping the lemons for the sake of the challenge and sacrificing what we’ve decided is our perfect way to cook salmon, I decided there wasn’t a lot of point in making a less-than-ideal dinner just for the sake of self-imposed rules. I don’t think we’re likely to get lemons to grow here, and I’ll just have to live with that. The whole point of this is to discover ingredients that ARE available locally.
So, dinner: salmon my husband caught from the Bogachiel River, sunchokes from Full Circle Farm, garlic from my in-laws, and non-local salt, pepper, lemons, and olive oil. Hopefully more creativity and time next week.
