My grand experiment

For a little over a year now we've been getting our produce from an organic produce co-op. This whole time we've been splitting it with another couple. Recently, they decided to no longer get their portion and instead see how they fare at the Cupboard (GREAT local store). Oh by the way, the Cupboard has fresh LOCAL pastured chicken eggs. yummy!!

I decided that, rather than trying to find someone to share the co-op produce with, we would see how we do with a full share. There have been a couple of times that we've run out of things. With the last shared delivery we had to go to the farmers market to get some food for the next week!

I'm really hoping this will work, but if it doesn't I think we'll look into getting a half share of a CSA. I'll have to do some research when the time comes for that, though.

But the thing is, we don't eat at home every night. Usually at least one night a week I go out with friends and Shinerman goes out another night. On those nights we either eat leftovers or, more often than not, go get sandwiches at a local sandwich shop. And then even on nights when we are all home, it seems I always forget to take something out or get home too late to start dinner.

This week, I got home late on Monday, Tuesday we had dinner at the in-laws for an early Father's Day, and tonight is Shinerman's night at the bar. That leaves just 9 days left to eat all the food! And of course the key is also to be able to do something with it before it goes bad. Bright spot? Two mangoes that will be frozen soon to be made into mango daiquiris, Shinerman's idea and a great one right?! I cannot wait.

I started tomorrow's dinner already - sirloin tip roast in the crock pot. But, I've got to do some serious meal planning. I'll be using this website, supercook.com. You enter in all the ingredients you have in the kitchen. It sounds like that would take a while, but it doesn't. They suggest things as you go and that helps remind you of things you have. The system consolidates recipes from different websites based on the ingredients you have in the kitchen.

My usual process is to write a list of everything in the fridge, freezer, and the cabinet and then troll the cookbooks and websites for something to make. I think the supercook site will seriously save me some time.

I'm off to do some meal planning...

BPA-Free Organic Pumpkin Puree

It's Pumpkin Time!
And what better way to celebrate than to make some BPA-free pumpkin puree for the holidays?

We got an organic sweet pumpkin in our co-op delivery this weekend. Since we split the deliveries with a friend, we really got a half a pumpkin - but it was plenty.

And what do you do with half a pumpkin? My friend is making soup, but I'm not really a soup girl. But I do like me some pumpkin pie, mmmmmmmm. So, I roasted it - see instructions below. You can actually do this with other kinds of pumpkins too - like the one you carved, but that brings in some sanitary issues for me.

Pumpkin Puree

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp. You'll want to save this for toasted pumpkin seeds later. DO NOT THROW this goodness away!

Cover with foil - no spices needed, but I think if you're using a carving pumpkin you'd want to add some sugar. They aren't raised for flavor, you know.

Roast until insides are soft. It took mine 1.5 hours. I took it out at 1 hr and started to scoop it out, but the meat closer to the skin wasn't quite ready I think. I noticed it was a bit stringy, so I put it back in for 30 mins.

Scoop out pulp with an ice cream scoop. Puree with a blender or a food processor until smooth. You don't want any strings so you may have to strain the puree to get these out - I didn't have that issue.

I got about 3 cups of puree with my half of the pumpkin. Enough for a pie and maybe some of these pumpkin muffins.

I've always heard that canned pumpkin puree was as good as the fresh, but since this was so easy and with all the nasty BPA lurking in those cans - Why not just do it yourself? Plus you get some yummy seeds to snack on.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Separate seeds from pulp. I cover the seeds with water in a bowl, they kind of float to the top and I get my hands in there to remove the yuck and then put the seeds on a cookie sheet.

Toss with olive oil, enough to coat. Season with your preferred seasoning. Shinerman prefers All-Purpose Season Salt, yes I know it's made of horrible chemicals - oh well. I think a good combo would be cayanne and salt. What about you?

Toast in the oven with the pumpkin for about 15-20 mins.

I tossed the stringy pulp and shell into the compost pail so this was NO Waste project! WOOHOO!

Picky Eaters beware!

Let me start with full disclosure. I was a picky eater when I was a kid and on into my twenties. I didn't start eating different things until I went on Weight Watchers and even now I'm still finding new things to eat in my food co-op share. I ate beets for the first time really last night - pretty yummy! BUT, the littlest man does not have my issues with food. He'll try anything, he doesn't always like it, but he will try it. Unlike this article, I don't credit this with my great tasting breast milk or (obviously) living in an exotic land. I credit it to the fact that we don't make him special meals and we don't have tons of junk food in the house on which to fill up. Our philosophy is that you don't have to eat whatever is on your plate, but that's all you get - there is no snacking later. So sometimes early on, he would go hungry. But he would definitely eat what was on his plate at the next meal.

What does this have to do with being green?

When you think of the things that some folks put on kids plates in an effort to get them to eat, you think of all sorts of fake foods. Boxed pasta with powdered cheese and 'chicken' nuggets? There is nothing green about those two things.

My food headache…

And so my headache begins…sitting in an airplane waiting to take off. I hear excerpts from conversations next to me, in front of me and the slamming of overhead bins. I'm trying to concentrate on my book and Pollen's long list of all the ways I eat corn. There's a lot.

Essentially, any food that's processed and packaged has processed corn products. And you thought you only ate corn from a can? Reading Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma has made grocery shopping even more of a chore than it already was. Even organic products are offenders. It seems as though nothing is safe from the long golden river of overproduced corn. All this depression and I'm not even halfway through the book. Did you know they are breeding corn that is engineered to produce its own pesticide? I know that many plant species have ways to defeat and ward away pests, but this just isn't the natural thing to do. Also, he talks about how it is not illegal to feed cows to cows, but part of their diet includes fat…in the form of beef tallow from the slaughterhouse they are headed to – because fat is fat (according to the slaughterhouse)! Another thing, poultry and pigs are fed leftovers from these slaughterhouses and then they're leftovers are fed to cows. In my book cows to pigs to cows = cows eating cows.

I'm not saying that corn or corn products are inherently bad, but too much of a good thing is too much. And Pollen also had an entire section about how we're stuffing our cows, poultry, and swine with corn they are not biologically capable of digesting. That's why we get e. coli in our meat supply; cows (who normally have low acidic stomachs) are now full of acid and the e. coli that lives there is used to it and doesn't die when it hits our stomachs. Just one more reason I'm going to go pastured grass-fed meat. There's a local place called Burgundy Beef Pasture, they have a wide range of selections and they deliver to your home or office. The only draw back is the 10lb minimum, but I might have someone who is willing to split it with me. That being said it still isn't cheap, so Shinerman and I have decided that we'll cut back on meat. So my first meatless recipe is cheese manicotti.

Anyone know a good way to cook sweet potatoes and beets? Not necessarily together. Neither of us are fans of the sweet potato, but it came in our co-op food share this week.

Getto-Fabulous AND eco-friendly

Shinerman decided that, although we don't have a clothes line yet, he would dry the clothes outside today. I came home to see clothes strewn around the deck and patio furniture. He was very proud of himself. And they did dry a lot faster than I thought they would, so they weren't out there for too long – not that the neighbors would care – they're pretty ghetto-fab themselves! BTW – I think that the guy a few streets down is building a chicken coop!! I'm not that ballsy, but maybe we'll get some fresh eggs out of the deal.

Speaking of fresh eggs, when we went to get our co-op delivery Saturday, the host had fresh eggs! For FREE!! Have you ever seen a blue egg? I had not, but I can't wait to eat it…yummy! This is our second co-op delivery. It's all organic produce, you don't get to choose what you get, but it's been pretty good so far. I had cauliflower for the first time last week. It was ok, the littlest man and Shinerman both loved it. I didn't, but liked it enough to eat it again. Last time I roasted it like I do our broccoli, not sure what I'll do this time. I'm really hoping that all this produce will force me to up my veggie intake. The co-op also does dry goods, so I will try that out and let you know how that goes. We have one more delivery on our trial membership. I think we'll keep it up. I really wish I could get more local food, but all the CSAs were full and the Denton farmers market doesn't start until June. June! Ugh…

We are thinking about getting a deep freezer. We'll have to get rid of the beer fridge, though – I know I know!!! But this way we could buy a bunch of local beef and also freeze the bounty that this summer will bring so we could have it for the winter without having the eco-guilt from BPA-lined canned/fresh flown in from who-knows-where. We'll have to see.