One Local Summer-Week 1 Recap

One delicious week of June has come and gone. The traditional way to do this challenge is to plan one meal for the week made from exclusively local ingredients. Well, this is easy for me for lunches but since we're going through the stores in the freezer and pantry, not as easy for the main meals. Here are some meals we've enjoyed.

• a lunch staple for me: quesadillas with local tortillas, local MouCou cheese, Jay Hill greens & eggs.

• a lunch staple for the kids: sandwiches on homemade bread with local flour/honey, homemade almond butter and Rocky Mountain farm cherry jam.

• a breakfast staple: homemade waffles with local flour/honey and local Rocky Mountain Farm strawberry syrup.

• One of our favorite meals this week was homemade french fries with local potatoes, Jay Hill rainbow chard and veggie brats grilled on the grill. Such the quintessential summer meal.

• Another was baked (local) potatoes with Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy (made with CSA Indian Woman Beans, Farmer's Market onion & garlic), and a side of Jay Hill beet greens. YUM!!!

• Lastly, from the freezer, black bean loaf (CSA black beans, onion & garlic) with a side of Jay Hill spinach. The loaf was a bit chewy after being frozen but still good.
  

Our plum tree is producing! Last year, we had a crazy windstorm that blew all the baby plums down before they had a chance to plump up. I hope these make it. We have a TON on the big tree. Our other plum tree is 2 this year, so next year we can expect some fruit from it as well. Mmm...

the garden is growing!!!

The garden is starting to perk up! The mint is doing great thanks to all the rain but everything else was starting to worry me. We have zero tomatoes! I don't understand! In years past, cherry tomatoes were the only things I could get to grow! I may get a few larger, further along plants and pop them in. Tonight Ted and I took a closer look at the carrots and sugar snap peas and lo and behold! They are up! They are still small (although we couldn't resist pulling up a few teeny carrots just to talk about root vegetables) but they are so cute! We started those from seed on February 22!! Talk about a long wait. The sugar snaps and carrots were the first to sprout. Hooray!! I just don't understand those tomatoes...

Today at swim practice Ted learned the "inchworm" move, the first step in Butterfly. Most of the kids would "wiggle, wiggle, rest... wiggle, wiggle, rest... "etc. Not Ted! He wiggled his way from one end and back again four times (which was the drill) with enthusiasm. After practice he said his stomach hurt. He'll have rock hard abs with that drill! They also did a few laps of "whatever you want to do" and he chose backstroke (usually he chooses breaststroke). He looked so confident and graceful. He is not a fan of freestyle at all (neither am I!). Coach Brooks said he was going to be great at the Butterfly. That's exactly what Judy says about Sam (he does the wiggle thing all the time, just to be fancy).

Monday is Shavuot, no camps for any of the kiddos so we'll do our bike to the pools routine. Tuesday Ted starts HHS camp and Wednesday Sam and Mae start JCC camp. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be our pool days for the next 2 weeks, although I expect we'll spend some evenings there as well so Ted can get some fun in. He is very tired after practice and usually lies on a chair for about an hour before getting in the water to play. He is also eating up a storm, probably due to the swimming. I am so happy he is enjoying it!

a perfect day

Today's chavurah at the Shoenfelds came at an opportune time. Both Becky and I are "into" the "locavore movement" and found out today that we both are also "into" the "voluntary simplicity movement" as well. We chatted about starting up a Jewish-themed Voluntary Simplicity group at HHS. We also talked about the book Last Child in the Woods, which I'm reading for the Bookworm Challenge. All this while our kids climbed robes, traversed wires, zipped across our heads, played (literally) 6+ hours of soccer, and generally ran happily amok from 9:30am til 5:30pm. Perfect. Just perfect. Meanwhile, the dads joined the kids in soccer, spotting them in times of worry on the zip line and took them on occasional 'adventures' to the creek while the moms sat on the porch swing and talked. Perfect.

I went to the Farmer's Market this morning (chickened out of the bike ride and we all went together in the car) and bought a gallon of Compost Tea from the EcoCycle booth, as well as 3 dozen eggs, spinach, beets, cheeses and mushrooms. We stored those in a cooler in the shade for the day, but I had to get my plants into the ground tonight to use the Compost Tea in all its compost-y goodness. I put everything in but the tomatoes, so: broccoli, carrots, swiss chard, spinach, mint and sugar snap peas. Ted helped. Everyone took a bath (WOW the dirt!) and crashed without a peep tonight. Perfect. What a lovely day! More scary action pics on moeltini.

shoots!!

It's started! My little shoots are starting up! What a sign of Spring. Hooray!!!

Sadly, Ted was sent home from school today because he threw up (in the bathroom ... what a good guy!) He spent the day lying down and napped for 3 hours. He didn't even play with his birthday presents. Poor thing. He couldn't keep anything down til about 7:30, when he carefully ate 2 graham crackers. His fever is 102 so we gave him Motrin before bed. Poor kiddo! Send him get well vibes please.

Seeds are planted!

My seeds are planted! We moved into this house in the Fall of 1999 and in the early Spring of 2000 I started some cherry tomatoes inside in early March. By June, we had BUSHELS of them. I did it again the next year and we had a wonderful harvest again. Then Ted was born. And then Sam. And then Mae arrived. And every year since these energetic children have been with us, we've guiltily perused the young plants at Home Depot in early May and returned home with a few. Meager harvests follow in July, although August is usually a good month no matter what. This year, Mae is 2.5 and, in my opinion, old enough to understand to leave the plants alone. I'm excited for this year's harvest, although I may have overplanted. Our garden is quite small, but we'll see. The back row is home to (from left to right) Heirloom Mini Red and Yellow Pear Tomatoes, Red Cherry Tomatoes, and a hybrid variety known as Early Girl, a type of plum tomato, from the looks of it. In front in the yogurt containers (from left to right) are strawberries, golden chard, baby carrots and sugar snap peas. The two lonesome ones on the right are full size carrots and spinach. I plan to transplant the strawberries and golden chard to the big standing pots we have on the deck. I learned a nice trick from a website today: water the seeds with warm water and then cover them. This creates a nice greenhouse effect. I'm going to water them at night with warm water and help them through the chilly nights this way. Back in 2000, our little tomatoes did just fine without extra help from me, but boy would I love some homegrown spinach and strawberries!! Nothing quite heralds spring like the scent of baby tomato shoots! Can't wait.

The Growing Challenge

I love challenges. It's like the math worksheets from my childhood. While reading a chapter or studying for a test could never be really PROVED, a carefully completed worksheet was a badge of honor ... at least in my mind. This challenge is about growing more food in the backyard garden (or indoor pots etc). We have had great success with tomatoes here. While they tend to come into season rather late, in late July, they are bountiful and delicious. I've tried others and they have not made it. The first rule of this challenge is to grow one more vegetable or fruit from seed than last year. Now, I used to plant my tomatoes from seed, but then these children began appearing and it got too ... messy. This year I think they can all handle steering clear of the perfect sunny window seat in the front room. I'll start my tomatoes from seed and also add in spinach. We can't ever have enough greens in this family. Apparently you can seed spinach every 10 days through the spring! Wow! I need to learn about the (fancy word here) rotation of crops, rather than just planting a ton and sitting back to wait. I love my library ... I'll be heading over there today or tomorrow. We are to post once a week so the challenge organizer, Melinda, can keep track of us. I bought some heirlooms at the seed store earlier this Fall so I will start with those, but I have an email out to the CSA to see what, if any, seeds they might have. Local is still my #1 goal. Wish me luck!