Low Mileage Food

One of our favorite meals around here is tacos.  We eat tacos up to as often as once a week (and would probably eat them more, but Jeff’s mom isn’t as enamored with them as we are.)  Last night’s tacos were our Dark Days meal for the week:

- Rocking F Farm beef (Climax), organic taco spice mix

- Sweetwater Valley Farms Cheese (Tennessee)

- hot house tomatoes raised in Pleasant Garden (Mendenhill Farms)

- homemade yogurt instead of sour cream (organic starter, Homeland Creamery [Julian]milk)

- green beans canned by my mom

- homemade tortillas from Southern Biscuit flour and organic oil

- local, organic potato (not entirely sure from where, the MIL grabbed them)

Dinner was very tasty, and everyone was feeling happy and well fed last night.

There’s a variety of beliefs in my family, all the way from the ardently religious to the not so much.  Christmas is, of course, an important religious for many in my family, but it’s also a huge family and cultural and food day for the rest of us.

Christmas is my dad’s family’s holiday (growing up, it was always spent with his family, and Thanksgiving, most years, with my mom’s up in Baltimore).  We live in an area populated by his family (when I started teaching at the local community college, I had to call to get one of my accounts set up.  They asked for my last name, and I chuckled and gave it to them.  They responded with ‘The Er, there’s 14 of you in there.  What’s your first name?’  It’s not quite of the Smith and Jones variety, but around here, it’s close.)

Christmas lunch is at my great-aunts’ house, and dinner is usually at my parents’, but this year, we rotated to an aunt and uncle’s house who just moved home after four decades elsewhere; they say they have some hosting to make up for.  Both meals are huge potluck affairs, and family occasions are one of those times when I put aside my food sensibilities in favor of being grateful for what my family is sharing with us.

That being said, our contributions are mainly local and organic, and I wanted to share what I’m cooking up for family meals this week are our Dark Days entry for the week.

For lunch, we brought:

• a cheese ball:  local cheddar, organic walnuts, organic spices purchased at the co-op (non-organic cream cheese; the co-op only carries it in tubs, and I don’t like buying multiple plastic tubs of it around holiday time.  Target only had non-organic cream cheese.  At some point, you have to weigh the environmental cost of the gas to go hit another store for one thing versus the non-organic item.  If I’d been thinking, I’d have gotten the cream cheese early in the week); non-organic cream cheese.  [This didn't get eaten very much; because of the Worchestershire sauce and the white cheddar, it ended up a grayish color, and I think folks just couldn't identify it.  Next year, I either label things, or make more readily identifiable food.]
• mashed potatoes & gravy: organic potatoes, organic butter, local flour (for the roux), organic broth, local milk [I made the potatoes the day before, and they just didn't hold up well to a night in the fridge; they were tasty, but not very mashed, even with reheating.]
• monkey bread:  local flour, organic sugar and salt, non-local yeast, organic butter [Noms.]
• pumpkin bread:  organic pumpkin, local flour, organic butter, organic sugar, organic spices [I liked this, but only about half the loaf got taken, and I have another loaf which has gone into our freezer,]

For dinner, we’ll be bringing:

• cheese enchiladas, based loosely on this recipe:  local cheese, homemade tortillas (local flour, co-op purchased oil, local milk), non-local sauce [2/3 of the pan got eaten at dinner, which was impressive with the other food out; we killed the rest with dinner last night.]
• sausage balls:  local cheese, local sausage, local milk, local flour [These vanished, as they always do.]
• cheese crackers:  local cheese, local flour, local milk [I ended up not baking these up; we had enough food already.  The dough is still in the fridge, so we'll have to bake these up today.]

There was a definite cheese theme this year.

Merry Christmas to those that do, in whatever form, and merry days to those that don’t!

The first of many.

The stairs to the basement in our house were ‘paneled’ in this cheap, crappy, particleboard paneling that was already ripping off when we moved into the house.  We took a look at it and said ‘Oh, hey.  We could put shelves in the studs for pantry space.’

So Jeff started working on that today while I’ve been cooking away for tomorrow.  We’re trying to figure out how to work storage into every inch of this house we can, and this is a great start.

We just got our first snow of the year.  (I say first as if we’re going to get more.  Winter in North Carolina is unpredictable.  Some years we get no winter weather at all.  Some years, we get quite a bit.  This may be all we get this year.  But 3 to 4 inches mid-December is pretty unusual, and I’m guessing we haven’t seen the last of winter weather around here for the season.)  It started Friday afternoon, and continued through mid-day yesterday.  It was cold, and wet, and we mostly did what smart people in this part of the state do when it snows:  stayed home.  We did venture out to the Homeland Creamery Store – we were out of eggs, the roads had started to clear, it’s nearby (just a few minutes, in good weather) and we have snow tires.  (We obtained two dozen eggs, 3 pounds of sausage (there are sausage balls in our future for Christmas, noms), 3 pounds of cheese (and we’ll have cheese straws too), a half gallon of chocolate milk, and a half gallon of eggnog.  Damage was 39.30.  Local food, for the win.)

Anyhow, we made it out and back in one piece.  That was in for our snowy adventures, however.  (I know this is heresy, but I hate snow.  Living for a winter in Utah ruined me for winter forever.  Working for an educational institution where we have to make up snow days has done it too. I prefer spring break to snow days.  Right now, we’re on holiday break, so I didn’t grouse much.  )

So, last night, we were in the mood for something warm and filling.  I put together a pork stew, and made a quarter batch of my favorite rolls (they’re dead easy, and really good.  But I got 12 yesterday out of a quarter recipe, so be warned, it makes a ton.)  Ingredient breakdown as follows:

Stew:

• pork chops:  Rocking F Farm, purchased at the Farmer’s Market (farm is 6.6 miles from the house, though they went into town to sell it and we went into town to buy it)
• flour to coat the pork with:   self-rising, from Midstate Mills (Southern Biscuit brand), probably purchased at Food Lion or Harris Teeter (105 miles)
• tomatoes:  bought local or grown by my dad (hard to know at this point), canned by my mom (3 miles, if home grown)
• beef broth:  organic, Harris Teeter brand (bob knows)
• spices:  bought in bulk at the co-op (ditto)
• cheese:  Sweetwater Valley Farm, purchased from the Homeland Creamery store  (350 miles)

Rolls:

• flour:  regular old Gold Medal bread flour, because I need to restock on non-self-rising AP
• yeast:  purchased in bulk at Earthfare
• salt:  purchased in bulk at the co-op
• milk:  Homeland Creamery, purchased at the farmer’s market (4 miles)
• sugar:  organic, purchased in bulk at the co-op
• oil:  purchased at the co-op

So, mostly local, mostly organic, mostly purchased in a sustainable way, and all very tasty.

(Oh, and leftovers rolls?  Work nicely the next morning with a couple of soft-boiled local eggs [Ward's Happy Chickens, up in McLeansville, purchased from Homeland Creamery], and some local sausage [Phillips Brothers Country Ham, down in Asheboro.)

I don’t know if we’ll start blogging regularly again – Jeff keeps making noises about it – but I’ve signed us up for the Dark Days Challenge, so posts will start appearing about that. Also, Jeff’s mom moved in with us last year – did we ever mention that? – and we bought a house this week. It’s lovely, 5 minutes from my parents’, on an acre of land, with cows for neighbors and way out from the city. It needs some work and we want a garden and maybe some chickens, and this space seems a likely place to document those efforts.

So. Hi.

Our take last week and this week looked pretty similar. This week, we came home with eggs, cucumbers, peaches, cheese, lettuce (one head of red and one head of green), some gorgeous ground beef, bulk pork sausage, a beautiful chunk of cube steak, yellow squash, and some of the first tomatoes of the season out of a field, as opposed to out of a hothouse. I’ve been grateful for our local hothouse tomatoes this winter, but they’re nothing compared to summer’s.

Meals this week (subject to change, of course):

Saturday: I had a party to go; I sent Jeff and his mom, who is in for a visit, out to Moe’s Tacos, where we had buy-one-get-one coupons
Sunday: beef stew; homemade rolls (yes, I realize the absurdity in making beef stew when it’s 95 degrees outside. It’s what the household wants to eat)
Monday: salad. cold, cold salad.
Tuesday: out at a locally owned Mexican joint for Jeff’s 40th birthday
Wednesday: bbq beef sandwiches
Thursday: falling apart roast
Friday: leftovers