Eatwellians Unite!

The Eatwell Farm yahoo group has really been on fire these past few days. The normally sleepy little message board has had an explosion of posts (relatively speaking) regarding local sources for foodstuffs other than the lovely produce we get from our mutual farm. I have to admit that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the information! There are many more sources for local products than I realized, as well as small businesses doing amazing things to make eating local easier. I would like to put these in our link section, but I think we need to be somewhat discriminate about it. Where possible, I would like to share a group link so people can find sources for themselves depending on where they live.

Pasture Raised Eggs

When making mayonnaise, the yolks from these eggs can hold a ridiculous amount of oil. ridiculous. Just FYI.

Adios Domingo

Mmmmmmojito.
The mint is from the CSA and the raspberries are from a local backyard. Slurp.

-M.

No time like the present

My name is R. and I'm a Virgo. The first post for this blog has been in my head for several months now, being repeatedly refined, perfected, reinvented, but never happening. Well, it's happening, and in a most unperfect manner. It's about beginning, about digging in without really knowing everything, without a clear direction.

That's the essence of this blog... we're two moms, trying to feed our family sustainable food in a manner that we can sustain. By sustain I mean not making ourselves crazy and taking all our time away from our families and lives. (Because I just might have those kind of tendencies in me.) We want to find out what that really means, how best we can do it and share our experience for others - hopefully - to benefit.

We each get a box of produce every week from Eatwell, a farm in our region. Some weeks, figuring out to do with that box takes more time, creativity and imagination than I have. Writing about it is part effort to stay on track and inspire ourselves, and part attempt at creating a system within our own kitchens, and hopefully yours, to use the produce before it wilts, rots or otherwise becomes slime.

So, here we go... let the adventure begin!

Diving right in

It is not really fair to be diving in like this, as my partner in crime is not in town this weekend. She is attending the Eatwell Farm Solstice campover (did I just make up a word?) with her family - how fun! We are just not campers, or we would have loved to go. We have no camping equipment to speak of, and just got back from a long vacation back east. I can't wait to hear all about it and see some photos. I'm also dying to know if they heard coyotes, and how loud they were.

One thing I would like to do each week on here is to share my weekly menu. My husband and I both work full time and need to have our meals pretty scheduled so we know what we are doing when we get home. We still don't eat before 7, but the girls are pretty used to it. (Until we figure out how to differentiate authors, I guess we will sign off on the bottom. One clue is that I (M) have two girls and (R) has two boys.)

Our box from Eatwell this week was fab - but next week's looks even more amazing. The best part of this week's delivery was a non-food item: a HUGE bunch of lavender!

In our box this week were:

Cherries
Strawberries
Lettuce
Garlic
Onions

Green beans
Summer Squash (green zucchini)
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Radishes or Turnips (we got turnips)
Red Cabbage
Lavender
Mint

The lavender immediately went on my table...and the rest in the bathroom! It is pure luxury to have a huge bunch of it in my bathroom like that. I am purposely doing nothing else with it :) The other thing I scored was a 2nd bag of cherries. Someone left it in the trade box - I have no idea why someone would do this. There was also an extra bunch of lavender, but I dared not take two extra items!

Anyway - our menu for this week, incorporating the above goods, looks like this:

Shepherd's Pie

- Husband's specialty. He'll use the potatoes*...that's about it. The carrots would have been used, but we are saving it for later in the week. The ground lamb comes from Diamond Valley. Not exactly local, but it is minimally processed, free range, etc. He will use the onions* and garlic* we received.

Stuffed flounder, green beans*, wild rice, maybe salad*

- The flounder is a new find from Trader Joe's. Pacific flounder stuffed with crab and cheese. It is *very* rich.

Couscous w/ Fatted Calf merguez, chicken legs, carrots*, zucchini*

Steak, fries, salad*

Stir fry shrimp (includes cabbage*, leftover vegetables*, onions*, garlic*)

That's what we've got up until Thursday. Tonight we are having mojitos (mint*!) and calzone (I know, they don't go together in any way) using swiss chard* I had sauteed and mixed with ricotta a few weeks ago. Thanks to a fellow Eatwell member for that fabulous idea.

If you haven't figured it out, the * indicates what came in our CSA delivery. You may have noticed I have no usage for the turnips. I'm not a huge turnip fan. Usually I give them away, but I'm thinking of pickling this time...

Ok - this was fun - can't wait until R gets back!

- M

Exciting new venture

We are excited to be doing this blog together - this is a test post.  I hope I can delete it!