LOCAVORE CHALLENGE DAYS 5-7

NOFA knew what they were talking about by labeling this Locavore adventure I’ve been partaking in as a “challenge.” It was a heck of a lot more challenging than I would’ve ever imagined it would be. How do I grade myself? A solid B +. As you saw in my previous entry, I did cave in and had gluten-free pretzels. I also had to alternate my five cheats each day; without that switch up, I don’t think I could have completed the challenge. So to summarize the final three days of my locavore challenge…

Day 5:

Day 5 was a rough day at work. Super-busy insanity. For breakfast that morning, I had my non-local muesli; this time, I ate it like oatmeal so that I wouldn’t have to waste a cheat on rice milk. I brought a local egg and cheese wrap with a non-local brown rice tortilla to work with me; that was to be my brunch, but I didn’t even get to eat it until 3:00 PM and followed that with a succulent local, organic peach. Brent and I went to Empire Brewery and I had a delicious local free-range turkey sandwich with sautéed onions and peppers and chipotle mayonnaise; let’s call it a Philly Cheese Steak-Shannon style! And I had a most delicious local beer called Golden Dragon.

Day 6:

Day 6 was by far the most difficult day. I had local eggs with local cheese and a non-local piece of toast for breakfast. For lunch, I had local purple string beans dipped in babaganoush. At 4:30 PM, I had to rush to the airport for a flight from Syracuse to NYC. I had a local peach while I was waiting to board. After boarding the plane, we all learned that our flight would be delayed for an uncertain amount of time. That uncertain amount of time turned into turned into three hours. Needless to say, I was starving when I arrived at JFK. I didn’t find anything local at the airport, but I did find two healthy and organic options. An organic chicken sandwich, and an organic fig and pistachio bar. Both options made me happy.

Day 7:

I didn’t get much sleep the night before, so I opted for black coffee in the morning as one of my non-local cheats. I met my friend Judy at the Union Square Green Market and we shared a rosemary-garlic sourdough baguette with local honey chevre. That was absolutely delectable! We then shopped for all kinds of local veggies that we would later roast for dinner along with homemade pesto from basil picked out of her garden. I forgot how scrumptious and appetizing roasted veggies were. I’ll be roasting away all fall and will have recipes to share. Locavore Challenge completed!

If you ever in Syracuse, you must go to empire Brewery; they source a great deal of their food locally and have damn good beer!

Hot peppers growing in Judy's Bedstuy Brooklyn garden! So pretty!

It's amazing to me how heat alone can add so much flavor to vegetables. Judy and I roasted these veggies at 475 degrees for 20 minutes. What a super fast meal. Roasting makes onions so sweet and eating onions prepared this way doesn't make your breath smell!

Locavore Challenge Days 2 and 3

Being a true Locavore is tough work especially when you thrive on variety! I have thoroughly enjoyed eating seasonally-available foods since spring but there are some things that are available year-round that I am not loving much anymore. I can not eat another egg! That feeling put me in a jam yesterday for breakfast. I HAD to have my Bob’s Red Mill muesli! Some may argue that I should have had Mu Mu Muesli because it is produced locally. However the ingredients are not local so I somewhat feel as though that doesn’t count, though I LOVE SUPPORTING LOCAL COMPANIES, PRODUCERS, ETC. And I will vouch that Mu Mu Muesli is delicious!

Being at work on my locavore diet has been challenging. I had to ignore my Cajun-spiced pumpkin seeds and my licorice. I am a grazer; I think it’s a product of being an athlete and bordering hypoglycemic. I generally eat 4-6 small meals a day. I found it SO odd yesterday that I didn’t need to graze. I was totally satiated by ¾ cup muesli with rice milk for breakfast and then 1 ½ cups of my quinoa with local veggies for lunch. Granted I did have a BIG cup of iced black tea and the caffeine could have been suppressing hunger. I didn’t even want my yummy gluten-free allowable chocolate chip cookies. When I arrived home from work yesterday, I had my local peach that I forgot to eat at work. And then I reheated the homemade chicken soup for dinner and made a beet, goatcheese spicy greens solely-locally produced salad. Gotta love the yellow and red/white striped beets from Wyllie Fox Farm! The goat cheese and spicy greens came from Monarch Farm. And Brent’s client tipped him with some local beer. I only had a few sips, but it was tasty! So, I’ve decided my five non-local ingredients can rotate by the day. Monday, my non-local five were: muesli, rice milk, quinoa, black tea, and the rice that was in the chicken soup.

Today, I had muesli again. And I had quinoa salad again for lunch. I had my peach at work in the mid-afternoon and two of my gluten-free cookies. Then I strength trained and was soooooooooooo hungry after the fact that I had to have some of my gluten-free pretzels with the baba ganoush. So, there goes my five non-local foods: muesli, tea, rice milk, quinoa, cookies, pretzels and baba ganoush! Oops-that’s seven! Good thing my dinner was entirely local: local chorizo sautéed with local red onion, over baked butternut squash with dried oregano from my herb garden and other spices (shhh…not local) like cumin and cayenne. I’m about ready to have a couple of slices of local cantaloupe and then to bed I go! I have leftover dinner for lunch tomorrow. But dinner might have to be a trip to Empire Brewery!

Local chicken soup with local beet medley, goat cheese, spicy baby greens salad!

Local chorizo with local green chard, local red onion, over local butternut squash!

Locavore Challenge Days 1 and 2

I am attempting to be a locavore for an entire week. I’m on Day 2 and it is HARD! I am partaking in the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA)’s Locavore Challenge. It’s happening for the entire month of September. You can choose to be a locavore for a day, a week, or a month. When I first learned of this challenge back in July, my intention was to do it for an entire month, but then I remembered that I had the Montreal Marathon in September. There’s no way I’d be able to melt into the magic of Montreal if I had to scout out only local food. Brent and I opted the challenge for a week.

If you would’ve asked me a week ago how much of my food is local, I would’ve confidently replied “About 90 %.” Wrong! I’m only now realizing this. So, for this challenge, we’re allowed to select five non-local foods to have in our food repertoire. That was easy for me: quinoa, brown rice (as athletic as Brent and I are, we need grains to sustain us), tea, my gluten-free chocolate chip cookie mix, and chocolate.

Day 1:
So yesterday, I started to prepare a homemade tomato soup. This was my first time peeling tomatoes! Oh my goodness, I was like a kid tying her shoes for the first time! Success! But then I started adding ingredients and looked at my spice cabinet, dismayed that so few of my spices are local. Fortunately in the locavore challenge, spices don’t count; they have a Marco Polo rule. After cooking though, I had to expand that rule to include ANYTHING that I use to season my food with (and sadly it’s a long list: vinegars, several spices (like asafetida powder), lemons, broths, yikes! At any rate, my homemade tomato soup was so delicious with a dozen fresh, local heirloom tomatoes (thanks to Wyllie Fox Farm). I wanted to have grilled cheese sandwiches with the soup. Ugh—Bread! And I can only eat sourdough; I get hives when I eat any other type of bread. Brent and I scoured the market looking for sourdough bread with flour that was made locally. The closet we could get was Vermont, but the vendor made us aware that there “could be some North Dakota flour mixed in there.” We’re trying. We used a local sharp cheddar cheese. Yum!

Day 2:
Breakfast was easy. We had local eggs, with local goat cheese, with chives from my herb garden and leftover local eggplant parm (oops the tomato sauce was not local, but I guess that can count as a seasoning?), and the semi-local sourdough bread toasted. Lunch was my yummy quinoa, corn, cucumber salad. And the corn and cukes were local! Dinner is cooking in the crockpot right now. Homemade chicken and rice soup with a local organic chicken, wild rice, local carrots, celery (shoot that’s not local either, but it is organic!), local garlic, and lots of chives and parsley from my herb garden!

Two days almost done! Five to go! Stay tuned! Definitely contact me if you’re up for this challenge!