Eating locally on a budget...the dollars and sense

With all this talk about eating locally, I thought I should touch on the dollars and sense of it all.

The other day, while at the gym working out on the elliptical machine, I caught the last half of an Oprah re-run. It was about kids and obesity.* One thing a mom of one of the kids said really got me thinking. She said they were on food stamps and that it was not always easy to pick the healthier option when on a tight budget. Really? While I can see how that is for some things, I am having a hard time believe that as a blanket statement.**

So I've started to do a little research on the subject of eating healthfully on a budget AND eating locally. I hit the grocery stores, co-ops and the farmers' markets. I won't bore you with all of the prices, but I will sum it up with you will, on average, spend less on locally produced food when comparing like foods (organic to organic and conventional to conventional).

First, if you have anywhere to plant anything edible...do it! Be it a few large pots on your patio, whatever, it's a start. It's as local as you can get...and quite inexpensive. The same day I saw the Oprah show I went to my monthly Master Gardener meeting and it was on Superabundant Small Gardens. In 2005 the presenter decided to really see how much her organic garden produced, not only in pounds but how much it would have cost her to buy it all at the time it was harvested.***

Her garden's expenses included: manure, other fertilizers, seeds and plants, potting soil, electricity and water, pots and supports and her community garden plot rental fee. It totalled up to be around $253.50. Her crop was valued at $1,408.65, minuses expenses...for a total value of $1,155.15. WOW! Now she follows a few simple rules that I personally abide by for my own garden...When you have a small space to garden, produce what you love and costs the most to buy. Of those things look at what takes up the least amount of space, grow up verses out. Love beans but you don't have a lot of room for a large crop? Plant pole beans! Have a fence and love cucumbers? Plant the vining variety and have them climb up your fence. Find compact varieties. Interplant your edible plants into your flower gardens. Eggplant are not only beautiful, but their purple flowers are gorgeous too. Peppers, especially the hot variety add a splash of color (habanero for fall, what could be better???)

Second, if you have access to a Farmers' Market...GO! Not everyone has the room or the time for a garden (or in my case I cannot grow as much as I use) but everyone can visit a farmers' market. Not only do you get the freshest fruits and vegetables picked at their peak, you also get contact with the people who grow your food and support your local community at rockin' prices! I did overhear one woman say, "If I wanted to pay this much for X, I could just go to the grocery store." I think she's missing the big picture, don't you?

Some of my purchases at the Farmers' Market included:
Red bell peppers - 16 lbs for $12 ($.75/lb)
Green bell peppers - 8 lbs for $4 ($.50/lb)
Eggplant - 21 lbs for $5 ($.24/lb)
Tomatoes - 60 lbs for $18 ($.30/lb)
Fresh onions - 5.5 lbs for $4 ($.73/lb)
Beets (red & golden) - 8 lbs for $4 ($.50/lb)

What did CiBaby and I make with all of this (and from our garden) food, you ask?

We made salsa...lots of salsa!...(both red and green...which we eat a lot and is an easy/good thing to bring to parties), pickled beets, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, raspberry jam, pear butter, tomato sauce, eggplant parmesan, moussaka and ratatouille. I also put away roasted eggplant, roasted red and yellow peppers, green peppers, zucchini, corn, sweet potato leaves, green beans and tomatoes for future cooking use...which saves me a ton of money and everything is still peak flavor.

You don't have to be a foodie, like me, to see why this works. It just makes [dollars and] sense.


*Ironic???
**Long ago I was a check-out girl at a grocery store and saw the "food" come through on food stamps...let's just say that a good majority of it was not what I would consider good choices.
***I forgot to ask her if it was just at the co-op/grocery store and didn't factor in the farmers' markets' prices.

*FM* - Fabulous Miraculous

Farmers' Market

What a year.

The Eat Local Challenge: Day 17

With the bounty of the harvest kicking in...fresh tomatoes, ripe off the vine, eggplant and zucchini begging to be picked and used...I couldn't wait to cook up a batch of Ratatouille!

Sebha del Hdaree

Ratatouille with Dates from Cooking at the Kasbah by Kitty Morse

4 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, seeded, de-ribbed and diced

3 tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 fresh rosemary sprig

1 bay leaf

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 eggplant, peeled and cubed

2 zucchini, cubed

1/2 cup dates, pitted and chopped

2 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 Tbsp slivered almonds, toasted

Preheat the oven to 375F. In a medium enameled casserole over medium-high heat, heat 2 Tbsp of the olive oil and saute the onion and pepper until tender, 3-4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, rosemary, bay leaf, and garlic. Set aside.

Meanwhile, in a medium skillet over medium heat, heat the remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil and cook the eggplant and zucchini until the zucchini are golden, 3-4 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Add the eggplant, zucchini, dates and paprika to the mixture in the casserole. Stir to blend.

Cover tightly and bake until the vegetables are tender, 25-30 minutes. Remove from the oven and discard the rosemary and the bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with toasted almonds. Serve hot or at room temperature.

The Eat Local Challenge: Day 10

This recipe has been a favorite of mine going back to my childhood. G-Mama use to wait until the zucchini were bursting at the seams and all of a sudden we got a mammoth one...what do do with it? Stuff it, of course!

Hint: start with the tomato sauce so it all comes together at about the same time.


Stuffed Zucchini

4 medium zucchini, scrubbed and peel removed in stripes (you could take it all off or leave it all on, I just did stripes)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 lb ground beef
1 egg beaten
3/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
6 Tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp dried OR 2 tsp fresh oregano
1 tsp salt
1/4 pepper
(tomato sauce recipe, below)

Cut zucchini lengthwise, scoop out inside leaving 1/4" shell. Chop pulp coarsely. Heat olive oil, brown onions 8-10 minutes on medium heat until soft. Add zucchini pulp and garlic, cook 5 minutes longer. Scoop into mesh colander and set over bowl to drain.

Brown beef, drain well.

In a medium mixing bowl, take vegetable mixture and meat and add egg and breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, oregano, salt and pepper. Spoon evenly into zucchini shells, mounded. Bake in a shallow dish with warm tomato sauce. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup cheese.

Cover tightly with foil and bake at 375F for 30 minutes, then 15 minutes uncovered.

Tomato sauce for stuffed zucchini:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 lbs plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped OR 1 big can of plum tomatoes (not drained)
3 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
black pepper, to taste

Simmer on low for 40 minutes. Press through a sieve or food mill (I never do this, but do it if you like a really smooth, seed-free sauce)

The Eat Local Challenge: Day 6

The other day I purchased a large bag (around 4-5 lbs) of green beans at the Farmers' Market with the intention of eating some and processing some for the freezer. Well, to my dismay I didn't care much for them...at least steamed. They were a bit too mature (a bit tough and dry), although they had decent flavor...so in order to save them I had to find a recipe to use them up that would somehow eliminate the parts I didn't like. The following soup did the trick (with a little bit of recipe manipulation)!!!

Green Bean Soup (Transylvania style!)*

2 lbs fresh green beans
1 large clove of garlic
1 handful fresh parsley
1 pinch of salt
4 slices Canadian bacon, chopped fine
1 onion, chopped
1-1/2 Tbsp butter, divided
3 Tbsp flour
1 cup Goat's milk yogurt (for the lactose challenged in the family)
3 Tbsp rice vinegar

In a large pot over medium heat, combine green beans, garlic, parsley, salt and water to cover, and cook until beans are tender.

Reserve 2 cups of water from cooked beans, transfer bean mixture into blender and puree, in batches, until smooth. Return to stove and put over low heat.

Fry Canadian bacon until browned, add to bean puree. Add 1 Tbsp butter and cook onions over low to lightly caramelize, add 1/2 Tbsp butter and flour, stirring until brown. Slowly add reserved water, stirring slowly and constantly to prevent lumps.

Cook onion/flour mixture to thicken a bit, then add to the bean soup and bring to a boil. Stir in yogurt (warm up yogurt by spooning some of the hot soup into a large bowl with yogurt first, then add back into the kettle) and vinegar.

Serve with warm bread.

We hope you like it, it was a big hit at our dinning table tonight!


*The original recipe can be found on All-Recipes.com

The Eat Local Challenge: Day 4

Steamed Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

(Nplooj Zaub Pob Qhwv Cub)

from Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America

The mixture used to fill these glistening, fat cabbage bundles is similar to egg roll filling, and, like egg roll filling, every Hmong cook makes it a little bit differently.

Ingredients

10+ outer leaves from 2 large heads of American* or napa cabbage

(or substitute iceberg lettuce leaves)

3 - 2oz packages (bundles) Asian vermicelli noodles (aka cellophane, bean thread or glass noodles)

1 lb ground pork*, chicken or turkey

4 green onions*, white and green parts, chopped fine

1/4 cup cilantro*, finely chopped

1 small can water chestnuts, drained and chopped

3 medium-sized carrots, finely shredded

6 pieces black fungus (they are really black when dry)

6 medium-sized white mushrooms*, chopped fine

1 tsp salt

1 tsp MSG (optional, I did not use it)

1/2 tsp course-ground black pepper

2 Tbsp oyster sauce

a few drops sesame oil (I used about 2 tsp)

2 eggs, stirred

Preparation

Remove and wash the large outer leaves of the cabbage, being careful not to tear them. With a paring knife, cut any tough root-end away from each leaf. In a large pan, bring 3 quarts of water to boil. Once the water is boiling, submerge 1 cabbage leaf (or lettuce leaf) at a time in the water for a second or two. The leaves should become pliable but not limp. Drain and lay the leaves on a plate and set aside.

While preparing the leaves, soak the vermicelli noodles in a bowl of warm water for 30 minutes (or follow the directions on the package), or until soft. Using a fine-mesh colander, completely drain the noodles (and rinse and drain, otherwise they become one huge mass of noodles and are hard to mix later). With kitchen shears, snip the noodles into approximately 1-inch lengths. In a large bowl, use your hands to mix the ground meat with the noodles, green onions, cilantro, water chestnuts, carrots, black fungus and mushrooms. Add the salt, MSG (if using), black pepper, oyster sauce and sesame oil. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly.

Using a plate as a work surface, place 1 cabbage leaf on the plate and about 1/3 cup of the filling on the leaf. Roll up the leaf as you would an egg roll, tucking in the sides as you roll. Discard any leaves that have large tears, since the filling would leak out (small tears do not matter). To steam the stuffed leaves, fill a large flat bottomed bamboo** or metal steamer half full of water and set it on the stove over high heat to boil. (I put my bamboo steamer into my wok and it works very nicely.) Gently place each stuffed leaf in the top part of the steaming pan. The stuffed leaves can be stacked on top of each other. Cover the pan and steam the stuffed leaves for about 30 minutes. Remove the steamer from the stove, take the lid off of the steamer, and allow the steam to escape. Then carefully lift each stuffed leaf onto a serving platter. Serve hot.

In the end I have to say they were delicious!!! The only things I would do differently is increase the salt by maybe a 1/2 tsp, up the pepper to at least 1 tsp, and maybe double the cilantro. We also dipped our rolls in a mixture (in 1/3 increments) of soy sauce, mirin and water.

Note: when there were options, the ingredients that were bolded were the ones I chose to use.

+ I ended up filled 25 leaves with 1/3 cup filling (it made a lot of filling!)...if that gives you any idea.

* All locally grown/raised.

**Make sure you line the bottom of the bamboo steamer with some of your extra, too small cabbage leaves...otherwise you will pick up some of the bamboo taste.

The Eat Local Challenge: Day 1

This year we've (or maybe I should say "I") decided that our family should participate in the Eat Local Challenge. It is run all over the nation, but our Co-Op is having their challenge from August 1-31. The goal I have set for us is to eat 80% of our foods from local producers or sourced by a local business. Our Co-Op defines "local" as our state and the 4 surrounding...but I'm trying to keep it as close to home as possible.

Here are some facts, taken from the newsletter that you may find interesting...

Food Mile Facts
Just how far does most food travel? Most likely, much further than you realize.

• 10% of all fossil fuel energy consumption in the U.S. is due to food processing, transportation, storage and preparation.
• Processed food in the U.S. travels more than 1,300 miles on average to reach consumers.
• On average, produce travels more than 1,500 miles from the industrial farm to the plate.
• On average, an American meal usually consists of ingredients from five different countries.
• Typically, food spends 7-14 days in transit to reach American consumers (this alone would make me run to the farmers' market!!!)
• Smaller family-owned farms typically reinvest more into the local economy by purchasing goods and services available within their region, rather than through large bulk distributors outside the region.

Add all of this information to the fact that it is generally less expensive to shop at your local farmers' market than the large grocery store...among other really great reasons, like getting to know the farmers!

So with this...I challenge you...how local can you go???

*Tonight we had gyro meat produced by the U of MN's meat lab (which was very good, I might add!), local cucumbers in the taziki sauce and local tomatoes on the side.
**I will be adding some of the recipes that we try out that use local foods as the month goes on, but I won't bore you with every meal we eat!