Dark Days Eat Local Challenge

I've signed on to another Eat Local Challenge. This one will be my third. The first was the Pennywise Eat Local Challenge, second was the Eat Local Challenge in September. Now here we are with what might well be the most challenging, though not as challenging here in Northern California as it will be for those in other parts of the country.

Here are the details from the Dark Days site:

It’s a challenge to continue cooking at least one local meal through the leaner days of winter. Your ingredients can come from your freezer, pantry, cold storage or local sources like farmers and other producers.

The rules are simple.

Each participant can set their own rules, but generally they are:
We have to cook one meal a week with at least 90% local ingredients
We have to write about it - the triumphs and the challenges
Local means a 200 mile radius for raw ingredients. For processed foods the company must be within 200 miles and committed to local sources.
Keep it up through the end of the year, and then re-evaluate on New Year’s Day

It has also been suggested that sharing the local meal with others each week is a good idea. I love that idea. I have become so boring to my friends and family with my "Eat Local" preaching. Maybe if I feed them once a week they will be more convinced?

I am a pretty committed locavore as it is, but it will be fun to come up with a special meal each week that is truly all local.

As soon as I've planned this week's meal I will post it here.

Cookie Bars

One rainy afternoon last week my two year old was harrassing me for a cookie, but I wasn't in the mood to go out. I looked around my pantry to see what I had that could be made into a cookie. I found oatmeal, butter, sugar, bananas, some chocolate chips. Here is what I came up with, it actually turned out pretty well! They were really sweet so I gave my son a big glass of milk with his, and I had a nice, hot cup of coffee with mine. Yum!

Banana-Ginger-Chocolate Bars

Preheat oven to 350

3C rolled oats
1C all purpose flour
2C dark brown sugar
2 sticks salted butter, softened

2C mashed bananas (very ripe - about 4-5 small bananas)
1/2t ground ginger
1/8t salt

2T crystallized ginger, chopped
1 - 12 oz bag semi sweet chocolate chips

1. In a large bowl combine oats, flour, sugar and butter with fingers until combined but crumbly
2. Press 1/2 oat mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Bake at 350 until partially baked and just beginning to turn golden brown, about 15 minutes
3. While oat mixture bakes, combine mashed bananas, ginger and salt in a bowl. Add crystallized ginger to the remaining oat mixture and combine.
4. When oat mixture is finished baking, remove from oven. Spread banana mixture evenly on baked oats, sprinkle chocolate chips evenly on top of banana, taking care not to let them touch the sides of the dish. Finally, sprinkle remaining oat mixture on top of the chocolate chips.
5. Return to oven until golden brown and baked, about 15-20 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and allow to cool, cut into bars.

More Apples

We are still harvesting apples from our tree. This time I got lazy and made applesauce for the freezer. I found this recipe in Martha Stewart magazine but altered it slightly by omiting the butter and reducing the brown sugar, our apples are quite sweet already. It couldn't have been easier, and now I have a freezer full of applesauce to enjoy this winter. Our apple crop is winding down, I'll use the rest of them in a few apple cakes to give as gifts to friends who are hosting us this weekend. The Meyer lemons and grapefruit are just getting started.

Honey Harvest

My father has been raising bees in his backyard in Berkeley since the spring. He just harvested his first batch of honey and boy is it good! It has a lovely flavor, with a hint of anise, which may have to do with the abundance of anise plants growing like weeds in the hills near my parents' house. We had it on our oatmeal at breakfast this morning. Delicious!

Chocolate Adventure Contest

My sister, who also loves to cook, and I heard about the Chocolate Adventure Contest sponsored by TuttiFoodie and Scharffenberger Chocolate, we thought it would be fun to try out a few recipes together and enter. In order to enter you have to create an original recipe using Scharffenberger dark chocolate (62%-99% cacao) and at least one of a list of "adventure ingredients."

On Saturday she came over for the afternoon to work on our recipes with me. We talked about several different ideas, including trying to come up with some savory dishes, but finally decided on three desserts. I won't tell you what they are, just in case we win (haha), but stay tuned for the recipes once the contest is over! In the meantime, here's a picture.

Raw Milk

I have been reading a lot about raw milk in the papers lately. There was a big article in the New York Times over the summer. I have been wanting to try some raw milk, but didn't want to buy an entire carton of it at the grocery store. Last weekend when I was strolling through the Berkeley Farmer's Market I saw the Claravele Dairy stand. This was my opportunity! I asked for a small taste of the milk. It was really good. Not remarkably different than the Straus milk that I usually buy, just a bit creamier and milkier, if you can imagine that. It was a subtle difference. I bought a quart of it to take home. We drank it during the week. Everytime I or the Boogie had a glass I felt a little thrill. Similar to the thrill you get when you are about to ride a roller coaster - like you are doing something a little bit dangerous. I know that it is generally safe, but with the warning labels on the bottle and that I've read, I was always a little nervous one of us would get sick. Fortunately neither of us did. In the end, I have to say that I am pretty happy with the Straus Creamery milk that I buy and I think I will stick with that, despite the purported health benefits of raw milk. At least while I have such young kids anyway. I will definitely continue to consume lots of raw milk cheese though!

Incidentally, I recently read that the state of North Carolina is requiring raw milk dairies to put gray dye in their milk, since it is only legal to sell as petfood. Go ahead and fertilize the spinach fields with cow shit, look the other way at those mega-slaughter houses, but whatever you do don't sell carefully handled raw milk from small family farms to informed consumers! So crazy!

Book Review: The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese

When I saw this book on a table at Barnes and Noble I had to buy it. Being the cheese lover that I am, I was intrigued by what I might learn about goat cheese. I wondered if some of my favorite local cheese makers would be written about in there. On top of the cheese aspect of the book, I was excited to learn more about the dairy goat industry. My family has a 400 acre ranch in Northern California, and my dad (a fellow cheese lover) and I often talk about how great it would be to move up there, raise goats and make cheese. I picked it up and bought the book immediately.

I enjoyed the book, but definitely felt a bit misled by the title. I learned more about the meat-goat industry than I did about making goat cheese and raising dairy goats. The book takes you on the cross country journey of a young NY couple as they try to learn everything there is to learn about goats in order to determine whether or not they want to quit their jobs and move to the country. It was a fun read and I definitely had moments of great envy. If I didn't have a house, two kids and a dog I would be all over my husband to take a similar journey with me. Somehow the thought of taking such a trip with two little boys seems far less romantic.

The only local cheesemaker that is written about extensively in the book was Redwood Hill Farms. They are well known for their goats milk yogurt, which is surprisingly tasty. The day after I finished the book I headed off for my weekly farmer's market shopping trip, and was delighted to see Redwood Hill Farms represented there. I bought a round of Camelia, in my opinion their best cheese. It is similar to a Camembert, one of my all time favorite cheeses! I also bought a little container of fresh chevre. We ate the Camelia with a nice Acme baguette and tomato salad for lunch that afternoon. Perfect!

I would recommend the book if you want a fun read, but don't expect to learn too much about goat cheese. Instead it is more of a well rounded goat education, which is also useful.