Happy Home Update- Settling into that Winter Routine

Not a lot going on in the garden front here now that it's December, but I'm still trying to find ways to appreciate local foods and incorporate them into my diet! I've started receiving my Stone Soup CSA, which is a mix of root veggies and grains- it's been awesome so far! I'll have to share a picture of my new grain mill in an action in the next post; I made some yummy Pumpkin Muffins with local roasted pumpkins and locally grown, home milled whole wheat flour!

Here are some highlights of what I've been up to:

• Hitting my local Farmers' Market, which has expanded from every other week to each and every Tuesday in November and December- woohoo!
  
• Started back up on my annual Winter Routine of Saturday Local Grocery shopping, venturing out to the Ann Arbor Farmers' Market, the Food Cooperative there, to a locally-owned chain grocer (Busch's) and then to Whole Foods. I try to get as much local produce and products that I can from each stop!
  
• Exercising and really watching what I eat lately, and have lost some weight, which is great!
  
• Started another blog, where I can share all my new fitness interests, finds, & success!
  
• Changed Eating Habits- As a result of a more healthy and thoughtful diet, I've cut out a good deal of the grains and dairy products that I eat. I've had a lot more energy, and I can really tell the difference on a day when I over-indulge because I feel sluggish and my stomach is irritated!
  
• Trying out Juicing- Today I made homemade Carrot/Apple/Ginger juice thanks to a friend, who let me try out her juicer! Someone should probably just write a warning label on the cover of the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead dvd. After-effects of watching DVD could include but are not limited to: May cause one to research juicers online for 2 hours, may result in juicer purchasing/borrowing from a friend, will most likely cause you to make an Apple & Carrot-based juice, exalting it's nutritive properties for the next hour to whoever will listen. 

I'll be checking in early next week with a home grain milling demo and a product review of the hand mill I recently purchased! 

Winter Local Eating in Columbus, OH

I grew up in Worthington, Ohio- a suburb 10 minutes Northwest of Columbus. This weekend, my roommate and I drove down to Columbus for a visit- his girlfriend is at Ohio State and my parents still live in Worthington.

massive carrot harvest! (mom's hands)

Since I was never really an adult in Columbus (except for that crazy, hectic year of grad school), I am not super familiar with where I can "buy local". I wasn't raised "anti-local", or anything like that- my mom loves to garden and always had a veggies garden along with beautiful landscaping that always looks effortless. My dad's side of the family is from Kentucky/West-Virgina and gardened/farmed throughout the years. Enjoying home-grown food is in my blood! It's just that I truly developed interest in supporting local farmers and businesses in the past 5 years, and I've been in Michigan almost all of that time.

Every time I come into Central Ohio, I make a point to stop by the Olde Worthington Farmers Market, one of the few Columbus Farmers' Market I'm familiar with. I hadn't been to a Winter Market in the area, but I assumed that they exist- Columbus is a big city! I did an Google search and stumbled upon a list of all Winter Farmers' Markets in Ohio, and discovered that the Old Worthington Farmers' Market has a Winter Market! SO off we went on Saturday morning to check it out.

Goodies from the market

I didn't need much in the way of groceries, but the Old Worthington Winter Farmers' Market was nice and homey- I'm glad we went!

There seemed to be a fair amount of customers coming in and out, and a nice mix of fresh winter veggies, honey, cheese, meat, breads & baked goods, etc. I came home with some sweet potatoes, a few heads of garlic to replenish my local stash, and a copy of edible Columbus, central-Ohio's edible communities magazine.

veggie seeds for 2012

We also made a pit stop at the Dublin location of Oakland Nurseries, which is an Ohio gardening & nursery business. My mom and I had been pouring over seed catalogues, and were excited to find both Botanical Interest seeds (organic) and Livingston Seed Co. seeds (based in Columbus), so we went ahead and made most of our seed purchases for the 2012 gardening season. Oakland is a great store- I'd recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area.

If you're in Ohio and you're looking for some homegrown goodies in the Winter, check out this list of Winter Markets! Edible Columbus also is a great way to learn about the food hubs in the Columbus-area, and get a better feel for some of the restaurants, businesses, and organizations that work with food, sustainability, and gardening in "Cap City" Ohio.

Over-wintering Herbs Indoors

from L (Rosemary, Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Rosemary, Oregano)

If you like to cook, as I do, it's a little sad to switch from using freshly-picked herbs from your garden in the Summer and Fall to the store-bought dried ones during Winter. This year, I made an effort to dry some of the herbs I use most- basil, rosemary, oregano; its been great to have those to utilize. I decided to try bringing some of my favorite herbies indoors for the winter, to see how they do.

They've been under grow lights- just standard fluorescent shop lights in my hook-up in the basement- for about 3 weeks, and they seem to be doing pretty well! I also just placed an order for some more herb seeds, so I'm going to try starting some and keeping them indoors until they're ready to go outside. This will be my first time starting herb seedlings, so we'll see how it goes, and I'll keep you posted!

Dark Days Challenge: Week 1- Potato Soup

Potato Soup!

Here it is- my first Dark Days Challenge post! As a re-cap, as a participant in the Dark Days challenge, I am aiming to cook at least one meal each week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients. For this week, all of my ingredients are local and ethically sound. Can't completely vouch for sustainable but most of these ingredients can be grown at home or found on local farms, & I personally go for local/natural before I go for certified organic.

This recipe for potato soup is one of my go-to favorites in the winter. It's fairly quick, easy to prepare, and can be made using almost entirely season veggies. The only one that's not terribly seasonal is celery, and you could leave that out if you choose to!

Potato Soup

Ingredients: 
6 large potatoes, (or 12 medium/18 small)
source: homegrown/Downtown Ypsilanti Farmers' Market- 50 mile radius
3 large carrots
source: homegrown- my backyard
2 medium onions
source: Westside Farmers' Market- 50 mile radius
3 cloves garlic
source: Dyer Family Farms- 20 miles 
1 cup milk
source: Calder Dairy- 50 mile radius
2 tbsp butter
source: Calder Dairy- 50 mile radius
2 tbsp flour
source: Westwind Milling Company- 45 mile radius

Directions:

• Cut the potatoes into small, 1-2 inch pieces. Then slice carrots, onions and mince garlic.
• Boil 6 cups water in a large stock pot. Once water is boiling, add potatoes, carrots
• Place the butter in a small frying pan, once it starts to melt and bubble, add onions and garlic. Let onions brown a bit, then add the flour, and the milk to the pan. Stir all ingredients, then set aside.
• Once potatoes and carrots are tender, drain all water out of pot, but save 1 cup and set aside.
• Run the potatoes and carrots through a food processor, adding the water in with the veggies. Once veggies are nicely pureed, add them back to the large stock pot, and pour in milk/onion/garlic/butter/flour mixture.
• Stir soup until all ingredients are mixed, and let the soup cook down for 10 more minutes. 
• Add salt, pepper, rosemary to taste.

Serve soup and enjoy!

Settling into the Winter Routine again

My love! Great day for the park yesterday!

Winter is rolling its way here in Michigan, although you wouldn't have known it by the temperature yesterday- incredible weather! I've been getting back into what has been my Winter Routine for the past several years;
Turning to use the food I've canned, frozen, or have stored;
Heading over to the Ann Arbor Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings in search of root vegetables, winter-hardy greens, local herbs, honey, and other winter goods;
Making and eating a lot of chillis, soups, and stews.
It feels good to have been at this whole "homesteading" thing long enough to even have a routine to return to. Each year, I get a little closer to being more self-sufficient, although on the whole I'm still very far away from that goal.

Storage root veggies and squas

This year it seems I'll be all set through most of the winter squash, sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrots and onions, meaning I'll be able to eat those things locally throughout the entire winter, based on what I've grown and/or bought locally and stored. I also have some canned corn and green beans that will probably get me through at least until January or February. I've got 5 pints and 7 half pints of jam, which will last me until next year's jam-making begins.

I'm going to try to focus on utilizing the root vegetables I have and getting what I can locally as far as winter greens goes, and will again this winter try to avoid purchasing produce that is way past its' season: Peppers, fresh corn, etc. The same goes for fruits- I'm going to stock up on apples that will last for a while in my chilly "mudroom" space.

I usually cave and purchase frozen fruit in the winter because I start to crave it; we're lucky around here to have a great Winter CSA called Locavorious- they purchase locally-grown fruits and vegetables while they're in season and then they flash-freeze them, so folks can have this great produce available all-year round! While I didn't purchase a share from Locavorious, they are usually at the Ypsilanti & Ann Arbor Farmers' Markets and I love that I can still buy local in the winter!

What's your technique for eating local in the Winter?

Putting the Garden to Bed for the Winter

Today, I was overcome with Garden Fever again! Occasionally I will be suddenly compelled to do a crazed home or garden project. Last month, it was making a Root Cellar out of 5-gallon buckets. The month before, it was creating a "built-in" storage area for the jars I've put up. Last winter, it was building an entire seed starting set-up in my basement. Today, it was finally placing the remaining 40-odd cinder blocks that have been sitting in my driveway for 2 years! I muscled-up, and  lifted about 50 cinder blocks to form a reaaally long raised bed- 4 ft x 36 ft! This will add about 144 square ft to my total edible veggie-growing space, bringing the total square footage up to 341 sq ft of raised bed gardening space

New garden bed on side-yard

<----------- Check out the new addition:
I've started planning what I want my garden layout to look like next spring. It's way too early to be thinking about this, I know. But laying out a garden plan is my version of geeking out. Others may play video games, scrabble, or DnD; my "cup of tea' is planning, strange as it may seem.

Canned good "built-in"

This year, there have been several major homestead successes, and several things I'd like to improve upon for next year:

2011 Successes:
+ Two 5-gallon Root Cellars
+ 36 sq ft extra garden space

Winter veggie storage

+ Tried seed starting indoors
   - started zuccs. & tomatoes
 + Made additional storage for canned products
 + Winter veggie and bulk good storage rack added

Improvements for 2011:
+ Add 144 sq ft of garden space
+ Grow enough carrots, onions, & potatoes to eat in summer and last until January
+ Grow and dry more beans- goal= 2 pints of dried beans
+ Try to start everything from seed indoors this year (except for carrots, onions)

The Put Up Lowdown for 2010

Went through and tallied all of the canned goods I have put up during 2010. I have a total for ya'll, although this is a tally of everything I have left, not everything I canned in 2010 all together.

Here goes!

Canned:

3 pints Pickles

6 quarts Tomato Sauce

17 pints Peaches

7 pints Pears

1 pint, 1 half-pint, 3 4oz jars Cranberry Sauce

4 pints, 6 half-pints, 5 4oz jars Applesauce

12 pints, 3 half-pint jars Baked Apple preserves

5 pints Blueberry jam

Frozen:

3 pints, 11 half-pints Corn

3 quarts, 1 pint Turkey Chili

2 quarts frozen Tomato Sauce

3 containers dried apples

16 frozen Raspberry Muffins

Stored:

30 red thumb potatoes

25 onions

Woohooo!!! I'm very proud of my self. I'll be eating seasonal, local fruit for at least part of the Winter. My goal is to avoid buying fruit if at all possible (although the girls love it and so do I) until it is in season. I will probably cheat because grapes and bananas are pretty standard in our house. But I'm going to dehydrate a lot of banana chips, and I hope I can also do more apples slices, etc.

What else is good to dehydrate? I tried making fruit leathers and they were very leathery as they stuck to the plastic tray they were created on. They tasted very good but they did not come off. How do I prevent fruit leathers from sticking to the tray from whence they came? :) A teeny bit of cooking spray? Would that be gross?

I still have some cayenne and jalepeno peppers growing in the garden, along with the lettuce, basil, and a few lonely tomatoes. I planted garlic several weeks ago and it is shooting up already. Our weather has been so warm lately!

Also, happy to report that I transplated some of our outdoor basil plants inside under the grow lights, and it is doing pretty well- growing back, albeit slowly. Fresh basil in the winter! :)