Easter

I went all out on Easter. I actually broke my fast the night before. We went out to dinner with some friends and I had salmon, brussle sprouts, roasted garlic mashed potatoes and chocolate! Yum. It was tasty, but the best part was going out! This was my first meal in a restaurant in a long long time (besides the time we went out with a group of folks and I brought my own food with me -the waitress loved me - I left her a big tip and she didn't have to do anything but bring me a local beer).
Easter morning I had a SCONE for breakfast - warm and buttery. It was so good! That night for dinner we had pasta with olives. All very delicious. But honestly, most of what I was eating before was totally delcious too. I think that as the end of Lent drew close the thing that I noticed the most was the isolation I felt. I think I really was eating quite well still. Wonderful salads and creative soups, casseroles, even pizza, but not many people wanted the challenge of having me over for dinner. We had house guests the last week and they were a little scared of my diet and tended to eat out a lot (we had a lot of discussion about wheather you could call something a pizza if it had a cornbread crust). I loved everything about this experience, but I think the one improvement would be a community of people who were eating the same way I was eating. I guess that is something worth working towards.

Lardy Lardy

I made LARD! When I was a kid growing up in Chapel Hill in the 80's I remember hearing about lard for the first time. I think it had something to do with a biscuit recipe. I was totally grossed out when I understood that LARD was PIG FAT. I'm pretty sure I found a different recipe for biscuits, because I couldn't imagine pig parts in my biscuit. I became a vegetarian when I was 14. Having been squeamish about meat since I was a young child, I decided as a young teenager that I just wouldn't eat it anymore. I was a vegetarian for 17 years. I won't go into my reasons (long and boring) for starting to eat meat at this point in my life. Suffice it to say that I decided a couple of years ago to eat meat if I knew where it came from, and I knew it had had a good life. So, all this is an explanation of the significance of ME of all people making lard.

When I first started this local diet I had a little difficulty figuring out what kind of fat to use in my baking and cooking. I couldn't use any kind of oil - even if the corn were grown locally there is no processing facility to make corn oil in this region. As a matter of fact there is no local source for vegetable oils of any kind that I have heard of. That left me with animal fats. I got into the habit of frying up a little sausage or bacon if I wanted some fat for things like sauteing greens or roasting potatoes. It was yummy, but it was an extra step in the cooking process that I didn't always have time for.
I had some leftover pig fat in my freezer that I had trimmed off a pork shoulder....why not make LARD? It is amazingly easy. I cut up the fat into small pieces and cooked them in my cast iron skillet (this has the duel purpose of seasoning the hell out of your skillet) for about an hour on very low heat. Then you pour the liquid fat through a coffee filter and ta da you have LARD. You also have some crispy things left in the coffee filter called "cracklins." Cracklins are deep fried fat. They are the little pieces of flesh and fat that don't cook down - so they fry instead. This is not a treat for the faint of heart.
We were lucky enough to have our friends David and Noah in town the day that I made lard. Both of them grew up in the south and they know how to appreciate some fried fat. I salted the cracklins and toasted them in the oven and they were even more outrageously crackly. I have to admit, however, that I can't quite get used to the flavor and texture of fried fat - I think all those years of being a veg ruined me for ever fully indulging in cracklins. Now lard is a different story. It has so many uses. It is basically flavorless. It can be used in any way that vegetable oil would be used and it does a much better job at certain things - like greasing pans, for example. Potatoes roasted in lard are unbelievably good. I am happy to say that I no longer turn up my nose at this local source of fat and flavor.

Cornbread PB&J

I just made a batch of the sweet potato cornbread and I left the sweet potato out altogether. It is great. It's still really moist and holds together really well, and it's even easier to throw together. Today I made my first peanut butter and jelly on cornbread. I do love a good PB &J. I found some local raw peanuts at the farmers market. I roasted them and then put 'em in the blender with salt and honey to make a toasty peanut butter concoction. Then I slathered it on my cornbread with some plum preserves (which I believe came from our friends Charlie and Debby). It was pretty good, but I have to admit it wasn't quite as good as a PB&J on whole wheat bread UNTIL.... I stuck the whole sandwich in the oven (I was at work so the oven was on anyway). THEN it was a kick ass warm ooey gooey toasty PB&J that was as good as any I've ever had!

Sweet potato

The other night, at dinner, Reid and I had a laugh when we realized what we were eating. We had baked sweet potatoes, sweet potato cornbread, and a salad that prominently featured grated sweet potato. I later found out that February is National Sweet Potato Month. It seems appropriate. Sweet potatoes are good keepers and obviously very versatile. I suppose that February is traditionally the time when the larder starts to empty out and what is left in the bottom of the bins are the things that keep the best. I feel so lucky to live in a place where sweet potatoes are plentiful in the "hungry" month of February. I am so glad I don't have to eat yucca root or something bland and dry like that. Sweet potato feels like a gift from the gods.
Here is my recipe for sweet potato cornbread. It is moist and yummy. It holds together very well, so it can be used to make a sandwich. It makes excellent toast with honey or jam(or plain). The amount of honey used can vary depending on how sweet you like your bread. More can be added and the batter turned into muffins or cakes. I have omitted the honey altogether and there is still a hint of sweetness from the sweet potato, but the bread goes nicely with sharp cheeses and rich stew.

Sweet Potato Cornbread
2 cups milk
2 cups cornmeal
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons honey
3 eggs
1 large baked sweet potato - peeled and mashed (about 1 cup mashed)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
-soak the cornmeal in the milk for 24 hours. If this is not possible you can heat the milk almost to boiling and stir it into the cornmeal - then allow this mixture to cool.
-add the remaining ingredients to the cornmeal and wisk together to combine thoroughly
-pour into a buttered 9x9 pan ( or some similar size)
-bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes or until done in the center
-make sure you eat a piece right out of the oven - cause it is sooo good when it is warm

Not so Trashy

I noticed something today. I noticed that I haven't taken out our kitchen trash in almost 2 weeks. Luckily our house is pretty cold and it hadn't started to smell yet. Unless we are out of town we empty that trash can at least once a week. On Monday when the trash went to the street I started to grab the bag and realized that it was only about half full. I thought it was kinda weird, but I was in a hurry to get to work, so I just passed it over with out a second thought. Today it finally got to the top of the can. As I was taking it out I looked in the recycling bin - and it was completely empty! This is UNHEARD of in our household. I have to admit Reid and I have been feeling a little under the weather - there would normally be at least one wine bottle in the recycling. Still, it made me pause.
I can only attribute this phenomenon to the local food thing. Produce is bought in bulk or comes from the garden. There are no milk or soy milk containers to recycle or throw away - I return my glass milk jars every week. Yogurt I make in glass jars that I wash out and re-use. There is no packaging of leftovers from restaurants - it's hard to find one that has all local food. There are no olive oil canisters to recycle ( I do find this fact a bit sad). Not much trash. An unexpected benefit.

It's all soup in the end

I am finally finding ways to save time and not spend my life cooking for myself. Last week Reid and I made a huge batch of Roasted Veggies - sweet potato, butternut, turnips, and potato. I also made a huge batch of polenta. I sauted up some of our Barese style sausage and served that on top of the polenta with roasted veggies on the side. This became the basis for several other meals. The next day I made soup with some of the polenta and leftover venison curry. Then I used the roasted veggies and leftover sausage to make a frittata with goat cheese and sauted chard. I also used roasted veggies on tops of two salads along with some hard boiled egg and homemade queso cheese with yogurt dressing. I made polenta cakes and used dried shittaki mushrooms and sausage to make a reduction sauce that I poured over the cakes and topped with Yellowbranch farmstead cheese. Then I made another soup with collards, venison stock, and roasted veggies. Last night I pulled some eggplant tomato sauce that I made last summer out of the freezer and used the last of the polenta to make broiled cakes topped with eggplant tomato sauce and cheese. Belive it or not I still have a few roasted veggies in the fridge. I will eat them today no doubt!

What am I eating?

I was at a bar the other night (yes I was drinking a locally made beer) and my lenten resolution came up. One of the women I was with asked me what a typical day of meals looked like for me. I thought that was a great question... 'cause I always love to hear what other people are cooking and eating. Here is what I ate yesterday:
Breakfast
A big bowl of grits with crumbled sausage and farmstead cheese

Lunch
Sweet potato, kale, sausage, green onion, and yukon gold potato soup made with venison broth/ Cornbread on the side

Dinner
Venison Curry served over polenta/ A side salad of greens from my garden (and Lewis's) grated sweet potato, homemade queso cheese and a yogurt dressing.

The food is good! I think the most challenging thing so far is the preparation time. I am finding plenty of abundant variety in my food, but all of it takes time to prepare. After all these years of eating most of my meals at the bakery I have gotten used to the convienence of grabbing a muffin or a bowl of soup when I feel the blood sugar getting low. I am finding that I am like so many other people who swing into the drive thru at the fast food joint when they need something to eat RIGHT NOW! The only difference is - I have had the good fortune to be able to grab something pretty healthy when the urge strikes me. This is definately a lesson in humility. It is also a lesson in the craft of food preparation. I am doing all kinds of things that I rarely take the time for - like making cheese and yogurt. In the process I am learning a LOT (I have made yogurt 4 times in the past week and it has turned out different each time). I feel like doing the same recipe over and over again is something I usually turn my nose up at (cause I always want to put a new spin on things), but with more limited ingredients to draw on I am getting the chance to perfect a single technique. When I have made yogurt a dozen more times hopefully I will be able to share a fool proof technique.