Day 4- YAY tea!

After grillin' up a hamburger in "Kentuckyaki" sauce for lunch, it was time to go grocery shopping---so off to Berea, to check out their market!

Which brings us to the absolute highlight of my day: I found local tea, thanks to Salamander Springs Farm! Not only did they have loads of onions, garlic, and wonderful blackberries...but they had tea! And a girl working at the booth told all about how to make my own yogurt...so that's definitely gonna happen soon. :) Thanks, Salamander Springs! (Did I mention they had tea!??)


While at the Berea Farmers' Market, I also stocked up on raspberries and blueberries. Now, we all know that we shouldn't shop while hungry...but I totally broke that rule, so half the raspberries were gone before I even left the market! They were so good though, and I've never been so happy to have a big ol' raspberry.

After Farmers' Market, I rolled on down to Happy Meadows and bought a loaf of bread and cheddar cheese, which made quite possibly the best cheddar cheese sandwich dinner I've ever had (or maybe I was just really, really hungry!). I also got a jar of cream from a local dairy, because I didn't do so well at rationing my butter to last an entire week. Unfortunately, the cream met its demise on the sidewalk outside of the house, rather than actually making it through the door. So much for having cream 'n berries for dessert! Ah, well--getting more milk tomorrow, so I can manage a day without butter! ;)

Tomorrow and Friday will be tricky for me, because I'm traveling for meetings both days. On Friday, I'll be out of town for lunch and dinner...I'm a bit nervous about that one!

~Mel

Local Food Finder

This post is in response to a few followers who were interested in where we are finding local foods in the area.....

Where to shop?!

Weingerberger Mill, Midway Ky – Offers cornmeal, grits, pizza dough for sale.

Hillside Bakery, Knoxville - They offer fresh breads such as Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, Multi-grain, 
Oatmeal and Raisin Oatmeal, 100% Whole Wheat, Multi-grain
Pumpkin Harvest, Raisin Walnut
Rustic and Rye Rustic and granola….all of course seasonal.

Meats

C & P Quality Meats, Canadatown Ky (outside of Williamsburg on 25W) They have a variety of meats for purchase (Beef, Pork, Lamb, Goat). You can custom order and have your meat aged even. ( 606-549-1151 )

Eat Wild Kentucky - Beef

Local Farmer’s Markets

Whitley County FMkt - Offers Blueberries, Farm Fresh Eggs, Tomatoes, Green Beans, Corn, Squash Zucchini, Onions, Rhubarb, Honey, Jams and Cedar Grilling Planks.

London FMkt (haven't visited yet but plan to soon!)

Berea Fmkt - Great little FMkt! Several varieties of mushrooms, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, garlic, and then the usual veggies. Salamander Springs Farm was also set-up here and they provide a wide range of special produce (like tea)!

Knoxville Fmkt - All varieties of meat, vegetable heirloom varieties, Hillside Bakery, the best Bacon, Chive and Swiss Biscuit I have ever had!

Lexington Fmkt - Whole Chicken

Dairy

According to Kentucky Legislature, selling raw milk (unpasteurized milk) is illegal. Though I am aware of a few farmers who have dairy cattle and dairy goats that are willing to sell you a share of the cow/goat for fresh milk. Tennessee laws are a little bit more relaxed.

Out of fresh milk I make butter, buttermilk, mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese and yogurt for my own dietary needs. If your doctor prescribes that you need that particular bacteria in your system.

Happy Meadows Natural Foods, Berea Ky -Offers local milk, buttermilk, cream, Kenny’s cheese and Fresh Baked bread….which is quite yummy!

Happy Shopping! - k

Day 3-Sugar Withdrawal!

So breakfast was great. Thanks to my chicken Helen Keller, I had a loverly egg on toast:

Lunch was fabulous too. A salad made from cucumbers, tomatoes, and feta cheese, and a porkchop!

Then.....the clock struck 5pm. All I could think about was sweets. Of some kind...any kind! Suddenly, every commercial on TV was of some sort of processed, fried, sweet, wonderful looking food...oh, I was craving it!

So I reminded myself that I already had my celebratory "Last Coke" on Friday Night, and I was probably just craving caffeine:

...and went for the honey on bread. And ya know what? I felt better afterwards! I was sure that the honey would be a sad, hollow replacement for a Twix...but after eating it, my sweet tooth was quite happy.

So far, I feel like I get downright ravenous around breakfast/lunch/dinner! I think its because I'm not snacking between meals like usual. So I'd say that's actually a good sign--I realize now how often I eat high calorie, high processed "filler" foods just because I'm hungry. Who knew eating local could be so enlightening? :)

~Mel

The Radius

The challenge is to eat local food within a 100 mile radius or 160 km for you funny folk. Click on RADIUS and see the location of our food mapped out!

Day 2....Cornbread!

Definitely not as difficult as the first day because I stayed close to home. It's when I'm out and about that the food challenge gets hairy!

So for breakfast I ate.... a poached egg from my very own Chickens, toast from Hillside Bakery patted with my butter I made and honey I got from Lynch Farm, and a porkchop from my farm as well...AND a cold glass of raw milk! Yummo!

Lunch got a little difficult, because I went over to my Grandparents after Church and Grandad was bent on grilling...thankfully we eat our own beef. So I had a nice hamburger patty with a slice of onion, tomato and basil from my own garden, green beans ala Dot bought at the Whitley County Farmers Mkt and cornbread! The corn meal came from the Wienerberger Mill in Midway, Ky. I thought my Grandparents would be interested in trying the milk and the butter...but neither were really interested. Granddad said he had never seen such yellow butter before....swearing it couldn't be real!

This unique recipe included:

Cornmeal

Farm Fresh Eggs

Buttermilk (left over from making butter)

Shredded Zucchini

Minced Hot Banana Pepper

Grated Manchego Cheese (from local sheep)

Salted Butter

And I had the cornbread with honey and butter for dessert after tonight's meal too! It was scrumptious!

For Dinner I had steak and potatoes! Steak from my own beef cattle and new potatoes from the Whitley Co Farmer's Mkt. For a salad, I had chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic and feta....all local! So far.....soooooo good!

Day 1--Makin Butter

Welcome to Saturday, our first day of eating local! I woke up feeling super confident and excited about my breakfast of local raw milk, and locally made bread, toasted, with homemade butter.

That's right, I said homemade butter.

We made friends with a woman with dairy cows here in Whitley County:

(this is one of the cows, not the woman ;) )

She gave us some milk, and we siphoned off the cream and put it in the food processor:

We hit the button and watched it spin, and spin, and spin...and suddenly, it started to transform!

Pretty yellow butter:

We separated the (now) buttermilk from the butter, and set it aside for cornbread (yum!)

and now we're left with this:

And lemme tell you, it tastes good! Also, I've churned butter before...and a food processor is Godsend. :)

Lunch was beans and potatoes from the Whitley County Farmers' Market, with some ham from Faulkner Bent Farms. Oh, and a very nice man offered me a piece of fudge...but I totally passed it off to Rudi with only a twinge of sadness.

Dinner was a repeat of lunch, but add in a huge hunk of bread with aforementioned butter and honey from the Lynch Farm...I could probably last the first fifteen days on just bread, butter and honey...I love that stuff.

I then launched off to Moonbow Prom by the Corbin Main Street Program, and felt so full of honey, buttery goodness that I didn't even long for the funnel cake. Plus, we were all too busy dancing to think of food! Day 1=Success. :)

~Mel

Milk, Bread and Cheeeeeese!

So in search of the few items I had not yet acquired for my local culinary adventure, Mel and I headed off the beaten path on a lead to a source for raw milk! The lead was a success! We met this wonderful woman, who has 5 very cheerful Jersey milk cows. She gets almost 10 gallons of fresh milk a day, making her own butter, yogurt and cheese. After being educated on butter production we took off to try our hand at making our very own butter. We were tickled to death to find raw milk only 15 miles away. We left there with 3 gallons of local milk and a new farm friend. I can tell we are going to be fast friends! I mean seriously……do you get a call from your dairy source asking you how well you liked your milk after you bought it?! Seriously, this is so much fun!

Milk….check! Butter….check!

I still needed bread and cheese though. I headed to Knoxville this afternoon to their Farmers Market on Cherokee drive. I was shocked at the amount of variety they had to offer. The market provided so many kinds of seasonal fruits and vegetables, and especially the heirloom variety. There was even a company there who sold any kind of meat and cut your heart desired! Wanted organic free range chicken, duck, leg of lamb, oxtail, salad bar beef…they had it!

But, we were in search for the cheese! There were two different booths set-up for cheese. One from goats milk and the other, sheep’s milk. We tried samples…which were all very yummy and proceeded to buy Feta (from the dairy Goat producer) and Manchego, a yummy peppercorn hard cheese from Sheep. Then we visited Hillside Bakery’s booth and tasted many samples of bread! It was a hard decision between all their options but I narrowed in on buying their Rustic Round bread and a Raisin Bread loaf that both smelled, crunched and tasted unbelievable!

I think I'm set for this new local culinary adventure!

The Challenge-Mel's Perspective!

I'll be honest, I never put much thought into the food I ate before working with Extension. Eating local to me meant getting KFC...after all, it is Kentucky, right? Well...in working with the Farmers' Market, I started learning about what really goes into this food that travels across the country-or across the world to get to us. Did you know that a tomato grown in Brazil is bred to be hard, because its sole purpose is to travel for days and days before reaching you? Kinda cuts down on the flavor, huh?

Over the past year, I've been more and more involved with finding local foods-but never decided to go exclusively local. But from Saturday on, I'm gonna be a local-only girl. I'll letcha know how that goes. :) The goal is to be more aware of what I actually eat, see how I feel about cutting processed, preserved, and transported food out of my diet... and then bonus points if I lose a few pounds! ;)

So what exactly is an Eat Local Challenge ?

When: June 26-July 26

What: Eat locally grown and produced foods for a meal, a day, or for the entire week - you decide what is a challenge for you. --We went with 30 days!

Exceptions: Marco Polo Rules apply (salt and spices that sailors could carry in their pockets for 6 months while at sea) --I dunno who invented this rule, but I love it.

Wild Cards: Choose from 0 to 3 wilds cards for foods that you will eat during the challenge that are not local. --This makes it possible for people who have to have their coffee or tea able to participate. I havent decided on my Wild Cards yet...I'm saving them for if I get an awful craving for something non-local--I'll keep you posted. :)

If you wanna join in, for a day, a week, or a whole month--you're more than welcome! Jump in with us, the more the merrier!

~Mel

The Challenge

Inspired by a few recent reads, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver and another from the magazine "Mother Earth New", I have decided to challenge myself to a local culinary adventure! Starting June 26th, I am making an effort to eat only foods grown or harvested in a 100 mile radius from my home in Williamsburg, Ky. After becoming more aware of the origins of the food I consume, I realized that the weight of my decisions of what I eat are not only important healthfully but politically, environmentally and economically as well.

Since considering this challenge, I have shared it with a few of my friends in our local foods group and several of us have made the decision to give it a try together! As I make note of how my new diet differs from my Walmart/IGA diet within factors of my pocketbook, nutrition, accessibilty, lifestyle, variety and locality.....I will invite my friends to join the blog as well documenting what differences they encounter.

Luckily, I live on enough land that I am able to raise my own beef, pork, chicken and goat and grow several varieties of vegetables. Off to do a little more research before the big day! I still have to find.....raw milk, flour and honey!