Eating Locally grown/ raised food

Our farmers market opened this weekend. We enjoyed browsing the booths and making well thought out purchases. One of our goals for many years has been to "eat local". So many people benefit when you buy directly from farmers. Of course, the farmer benefits by selling his/her produce and our family benefits by eating food that was often organically grown on a small, sustainable scale (we always ask before buying - I like to know how our food was grown/ raised). In addition, because the food is not transported across the country or even across borders, everyone benefits just a little by reduced fuel consumption and pollution.

We bought zucchini and yellow squash as well as tomatoes, black berries, cucumbers and homemade blueberry jam. We even found a source of pastured chicken (they were sold out by the time we arrived. We will be there at the opening bell next market!).

Before we moved here a little over a year ago, we used to buy a lot of our food directly from a wonderful sustainable farm. This wonderful farm sold us in-season veggies as well as eggs, pastured chickens, tillapia and beef. We missed them so much when we moved. It was hard at first to get used to buying our meat at the store and not knowing who raised it.

Since moving here, we've only found pastured eggs and now the chickens. But I am so excited about the chickens :o) Our goal for the next few weeks will be to eat at least one complete meal each week made from completely local foods. I'll post about it the plan in detail on Monday for Menu Plan Monday. I'm hoping that as the summer progresses we can increase from one to many local meals each week.

Here's what we made for lunch with our farmer's market finds. We had a grilled veggie panini (the bread was homemade, but not with local wheat). We oven grilled the thinly sliced zucchini, and squash in olive oil and salt/ pepper then we piled it on the split loaf (it looked like a french bread loaf). We sliced the tomato and put that on top of the grilled veggies and topped it with cheese (not local) and put it under the broiler to melt. We drizzled olive oil and red wine vinegar and the put the top on and sliced it into individual sandwiches. Yummy! We had our berries for desert. The cucumber we saved for snacking today. That was yummy, too.

Make it Yourself Monday - Lemon Berry Slush (Sonic)

We love Lemon-berry Slush from Sonic. Strawberries in lemonade slush - yummy! After some experimenting we've figured out how to make a close approximation at home.

Start with a simple syrup (1 cup sugar and 1 cup water heated until the two are combined). Add to this a cup of lemon juice then add a cup of frozen sweetened strawberries, thawed slightly. Dilute with 3-4 cups of water (to your taste) then freeze for a few hours. To serve, thaw at room temp until it softens then take it for a spin in the blender to get it all good and slushy. Serve in your prettiest glasses.

Check out Thrifty Florida Mom for more Make It Yourself Monday ideas.

Math Games?

I think my kiddos pick up more math from games than all of the lessons and worksheets I foist upon them. And don't think they'll let me get away with sneaking lessons in disguised as fun games. They can sniff out "educational" games quicker than Piccolo (our cat) can spot a bird. This morning, A & I played Uno and I was once again reminded how much they pick up just having fun. A is getting ready for Kindergarten this coming year, so we are still working on number recognition. Not surprising, Uno is perfect for practice. What did surprise me was that our next game, Clue, Jr. also offered number recognition practice (as well as counting practice and reasoning skills). It was a pleasure watching him working to recognize his numbers because he had a need to know them.

I think I'll teach him solitaire next ;o)

Menu Plan Monday, June 2

Here is our menu for this week. Its a little different than the menu I usually plan. I'm trying something new. I've planned breakfast, lunches, snacks and dinners, but have not assigned days for the menus. I'm going to see how that goes and report next Monday.

Breakfasts:

Baked Oatmeal
Pumpkin Pancakes
Waffles
Eggs and grits
Yogurt and granola

Lunch:

Hot Dogs
Chicken Salad Sandwhices
Grilled Cheese
PB & J or honey
Turkey Wraps


Snacks:

Strawberries and cherries
Veggie tray and dip
Homemade Bread
Banana Nut Bread
Oatmeal Cookies
hummus and pita

Dinner:

Oriental Chicken Salad, Breadsticks
Burgers, tots, carrot sticks
Meatloaf, oven roasted asparagus, corn
Baked chicken, pesto over spiral pasta, squash, cheddar biscuits
Pan Fried Tilapia, black beans and brown rice, broccoli

For more menus, check out I'm an Organizing Junkie and Menu Plan Monday.

We have a winner!

Congratulations to commentor #4, Wendy! You won Fairy Cooking and Pirate Things to Make and Do! Please check your email and reply with your mailing address so that I can get your prize out to you! Thanks to all who participated - this was fun and I plan to do it again in a few weeks, so check back often.

Frugal and Good for the Earth

Visit Biblical Womanhood for lots of Frugal Friday tips.

Over the last 6 months or so, we've slowly started doing things in our home that are both frugal and not wasteful. Here is a list of some of those things.

1. Reusable shopping bags - We've slowly been acquiring these from our local stores that offer them. We currently have 6 and I think that will be enough. These bags hold a lot and as of yet, we've never had need to use all 6 in a single shopping trip. I love that we are not bringing tons of plastic bags into our home each week. Even when we were finding other uses for them or bringing them back to the store for recycling, it still felt very wasteful. In addition to cutting out our need for these plastic bags, our reusable shopping bags also save us 5 cents each at on of our stores. I know that 5 cents isn't much, but over time, this discount means that the bags (which we paid up to $1 each to acquire) will pay for themselves. Nice :o)

2. Driving less - I think gas prices have finally reached the point that it is a factor in the amount of driving we do. Actually, I'm glad to have finally felt the need to consider the amount of driving we do. Just a few months ago, we would have thought nothing of hopping in the car and driving an hour for a joy ride or to run a single errand or even just to relieve boredom. We are much more careful now, making sure we combine errands and we stay home most days now. We're trying to be home most days and have only one day that we are out of the house. We combine our errands, classes and even a visit to the park all on one day. It makes for a long day, but it feels good to exercise control over that part of our budget. And even though gas prices are going up, the last few months have seen our fuel bill go down.

3. Eating out less - As a natural consequence of driving less, we find that we are eating out less. This benefits our budget (its about $35 for our family of 4 to eat at a moderately priced restaurant and $25 for fast food). , our health and I think its also ecologically smart. When we do eat out, we try to choose a locally owned restaurant that employs cooks to prepare the food, instead of just opening packages and nuking the contents or dumping it into a fryer. We feel good about this choice. We're eating real food and helping to support a family business.

4. Learning to garden - This is the second year we plant a square foot garden. Its been a great learning experience for dh & I as well as the children. Plus, we know how our food was grown. Its very comforting to know what water was used to water our spinach plants (something you can't know when you depend upon the agricultural supply chain for your food). And there is something very soul satisfying to walk out to the garden at 4:00 pm to harvest supper.

5. Hang the laundry to dry - Dh has asthma that is particularly affected by pollen (especially grass pollens), so an out door clothes line is not practical for most of our laundry drying needs. Instead, we have an indoor clothes line (shower curtain rod) where we hang our clothes (on hangers, that way they are ready for the closet as soon as they are dry). Our dryer is only used for towels and bedding.

6. Raise the thermostat - It was easier than I thought to get used to keeping the thermostat raised a few degrees (we live in the deep, deep south - its been over 90 deg during the day for several weeks here). As the summer progresses, we're going to keep experimenting and raising the thermostat until it becomes too uncomfortable for us, then we'll lower it back down to the last comfortable setting. I'm hoping this will help keep our electric bill from going up too much this year.

I'm interested in knowing what you are doing. Please share in the comments.

Also, please be sure to check out my bloggy giveaway. The drawing will be held Monday morning, June 2, 2008.

Thrifty Thursday - Homemade Salad Dressing

With the summer heat blazing in some parts of the country, thoughts are turning towards dinners that don't require heating up the kitchen (well, at least that's happening at my house, here in the deep south). Salads are an easy and filling supper and keep the kitchen cool at the same time. Here is a link to a great website with a wonderful "tutorial" for making your own salad dressings. It took me a few months to actually get up the courage to try making my own, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how easy it is to do. I find that making small batches works well for us and I store them in a mason jar in the fridge so that we have a few choices at any given time. Yummy, easy and thrifty :o)

Tonight, we had left over chicken, shredded, over a bed of greens, topped with pitted cherries, sliced nectarines and walnuts. The dressing we used is called Sweet Sherry and Cherry Vinaigrette (found it in the CVS magazine we received about a week ago). Basically, you blend 1/4 lb pitted cherries, 1/4 cup sweet sherry vinegar, 1/4 tsp dijon mustard, 1 shallot in a blender then drizzle in one cup of EVOO. Salt and pepper to taste. I liked it alot, but I think the EVOO is a little strong and competes with the cherries too much. Next time I'm going to try it with light Olive Oil instead to see if the milder flavor works better for our taste.

Be sure to check out my bloggy giveaway - free kids books!