Egg-cited about Spring!

Yesterday, some friends of mine brought me some farm-fresh eggs. Over the winter, I've been buying organic, cage-free eggs at the store, but eggs never taste as good from the store. I've missed our farmer's market, so yesterday's gift of eggs was most welcome! The eggs were so beautiful, I had to take a picture of them.

They almost look as if they were colored for Easter: rich ivories, deep tans, and delicate mint greens. It is amazing to see the color variations in these fresh eggs when we consumers are so used to seeing sterile white eggs for years, or only whites and browns if we are buying organic. What a loss.

That variety is such a big part of what our food system has lost. According to the UK Biodiversity Coalition, "More than 90 per cent of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers' fields" worldwide. When was the last time you ate orange cauliflower or a purple carrot? Did you know that corn used to have a very high protein content until the geneticists started messing with corn traits in order to improve yield and resistance to herbicides? Now, corn has very little protein and is primarily starch. (For more information, I recommend the enlightening and amusing documentary King Corn.)

When we lose varieties, we lose nutritional value. For example, orange cauliflower gets its color from a high level of carotenoids, from which our Vitamin A precursor, beta carotene, is derived. Purple carrots are purple due to the high levels of anthocyanins, also nutritionally valuable. When we lose these varieties, we lose the high nutritional values, the different flavors, the unique beauty of these varieties.

Some people fear that our loss of crop variety could lead to a food crisis. For instance, very few varieties of corn are grown commercially, and if a disease came along that those varieties were vulnerable to, our entire commercial corn crop could be decimated. It could happen easily; remember the Irish potato famine?

Back to eggs...most of today's commercially sold eggs are gathered from Leghorns, but so many more varieties of chickens for egg laying are available! (See Henderson's Handy Dandy Chicken Chart.) Additionally, store-bought eggs are typically less nutritious overall than farm-fresh eggs from farmers who pasture their chickens (in other words, allow them to either roam free or have a chicken tractor that moves the chickens from fresh pasture spot to fresh pasture spot). Why do we allow a few large corporations to determine the nutritional value and selection of what we eat instead of seeking out the largest variety and most nutritional options?

Buying eggs from a farmer might cost a little more...up front. But you'll increase diversity in the market and be healthier for it...meaning you might just pay a lot less on the back end to doctors for nutritional deficiency-caused illness and disease. I'd rather fork out a few extra dollars on the front end and enjoy the beauty of my fresh eggs!

Slice 'Em and Dice 'Em...But Then What?

Yesterday I hit the farmer's market. I had planned to purchase more pork and chicken from my favorite meat vendors, but Twin Oak Meats and TJ's Free-Range Poultry weren't there. (The other meat vendors who were, unfortunately, finish their cows on corn. No. No. No.) They're excused, though, because it was a crappy day--rain off and on, chilly, and overcast. Not many customers were there, either. I was feeling better (had a fever all day Friday from some unknown bug) and decided to brave the weather anyway.

So I bought some lovely peppers from Blue Schoolhouse Farm and some tomatoes to supplement my recent meager harvest. I bought the tomatoes from O'Rourke Family Farms, and they have some lovely Valencia tomatoes--the big orange ones in the picture. They are almost Beefsteak-like in their meatiness and juiciness, but a bit sweeter and maybe even less acidic. At least it seems so to my lay palate.

One of the things I love about the farmer's market is the friendliness and generosity of the farmers. Often you can get a deal without even asking for it! Buy enough, and they'll often throw in some slightly damaged or overripe goods that are still perfectly fine. In this case, Mr. O'Rourke (I'm making assumptions here) threw in some tomatoes that had spilled on the ground, keeping him from selling those to a customer. I wash my tomatoes anyway before processing, so it was no biggie to me. Thank you, O'Rourke Family Farms!

Now here's the problem: what do I make with all these tomatoes? I skinned and diced them this evening and put them in the refrigerator until tomorrow. I've ruled out salsa--I already have more than I can probably eat over the winter. The plum tomatoes I'm saving to add to others I harvest from my garden (no frost yet) or buy at farmer's market; I'll turn those into tomato paste. I don't use tomato paste very often at all, so I don't think I'll need a lot. The rest of the tomatoes will either become chili sauce (although again, I think I have more than I can eat), tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, or perhaps both. I do know I won't have many more tomatoes from the garden for a batch of anything, and there are few tomatoes at farmer's market since tomato season is essentially over.

But maybe I should turn the diced tomatoes into something else. Any suggestions? I'm new at this food preservation thing, so I'm open to advice from you more experienced gardeners.

Oh, and by the way, the 9-grain bread turned out really well. I love breadmakers!

Yesterday's Harvest; Today's Market Purchases

While I was out taking pictures of my creepy bug infestations yesterday, I also grabbed a few tomatoes that caught my eye: A couple of brandywines, a Best Boy, and a plum tomato.

I was very pleased to note that my pepper plants are getting blossoms on them now. I am worried, however, that I won't get peppers from them quickly enough to beat the frost. We'll have to see. I don't know if I have the energy to build a cold frame for them--I'll have to do some looking online and see what it takes. I just planted too late, I think, but time will tell.

I stopped by the Bloomington Farmer's Market today and picked up some Italian flat-leaf parsley, some Ropp cheese (cojack; garlic-bacon cheddar, and tomato-garlic-basil cheddar), some beets, 4 anjou pears, some salad lettuce, some heirloom tomatoes ($1 a pound for defectives, many of which had hardly any defects) for salsa making, some green, yellow, and red sweet peppers, and a bag of peaches. The peaches are huge, and I hope they are sweet! The crap they call "peaches" in the store are never ripe when you buy them, and if you try to ripen them on the counter, they go bad overnight. Blech. All of what I purchased was fresh, herbicide- and pesticide-free, and from local farms. I also purchased another 1.5 pounds of bacon made from pastured piggies. Yum!

I'm hoping, too, that the sunflowers, which are now all open, will develop their seeds before the frost. I'd really like to be able to roast sunflower seeds this year.

I need to order a cover crop for the garden. I'm thinking hairy vetch instead of winter wheat, to help break up the soil. Any suggestions?

Eavesdropping at the Farmer's Market, You Hear the Strangest Things

Well, I wasn't meaning to eavesdrop. It's just that these women were standing next to me while I was waiting to purchase some wholesome antibiotic-free, non-animal-parts-fed pig strips: bacon.

One woman was mentioning how she just put a deposit down on her free-range, antibiotic-free, pastured Christmas turkey (I put my deposit down last week). Her friend says, "Wow, you really are way out there, aren't you?"

"Way out there"? How is buying healthy turkey meat because you don't want to consume unnatural chemicals "way out there"? Have we gotten so brainwashed as a society that we think eating absolute crap is "normal"?

I could only wonder what she would think of my ridiculously abundant, chemical-free garden, my attempts to preserve healthy veggies for winter, and my intent to grind my own flour, make my own vinegar, and reduce my eco-footprint. In fact, I wonder what friends and family really think about all my atavistic attempts to eat healthier--maybe they think I'm "way out there." Heck, even I was beginning to think I was "way out there" until I read a chapter from Michael Bunker's book-in-progress Living Off-Off Grid. I was reassured--somebody out there is going to even greater extents to live with nature instead of against it, or even despite it.

And I think that's where we've gone wrong as a society. We have become so indentured to the creature comforts that technology provides, that we have lost sight of the consequences of our actions--not just the impact on the environment of these marvels of modern science, but also the impact on our health.

If buying healthy food is "way out there," then "way out there" I'll be. Anybody care to join me?

The Best Melon I Have EVER Tasted

Neither hubby nor I were feeling completely healthy tonight (weather headaches), so we skimped on dinner. We decided we better eat the melon I picked up at Saturday's Farmer's Market, since the farmer had told me that is was "field ripe," which means, he said, that we needed to eat the melon within the next few days.

Oh. What. Heaven.

This Yellow Doll melon was like eating honey in melon form. The melon-y aroma promised sweetness, and that promise was definitely fulfilled! Imagine eating the sweetest, most succulent watermelon you have ever had...and then imagine sweeter. That is what the Yellow Doll tasted like! What you see in the picture is one-half of the melon (shortly after taking the picture, David and I devoured this half, too). It's small and round and has outside markings that are very similar to a watermelon.

I hope the farmer has more of these on Saturday, because I really need to get a few more of these before they are out of season.

Purple Is the New Green...At the Farmer's Market

Since Saturday is my Farmer's Market shopping day, I dutifully set out to pick up some more meat. I came home with three packages of bulk Italian pork sausage and put a small deposit down on my hormone- and antibiotic-free, free-range, pastured turkey for Thanksgiving. It's kind of neat knowing that someone is actually raising a turkey for me, but also cool to know that it will be the healthiest Thanksgiving turkey I have ever in my life eaten.

I'm trying to put up good meat for the winter. After watching some of the recent food documentaries I've seen, the most recent being Food, Inc., I have trouble walking down the meat aisle at the grocery store. I've seen the conditions under which the animals live who are packaged by familiar labels, such as Tyson and Perdue; I can't stand the thought of contributing to the industrialized food system. So I'm stocking away meat each week...and I still have quite a ways to go if we're going to eat off the farmer's market meats all winter.

One of the things that makes our Farmer's Market fun is the fact that a variety of performers entertain the crowds. I caught a young lady in mid-dance and the balloon-animal guys preparing a treat for a young girl. Throughout the market, a number of musical acts were performing, and part of the market includes arts and crafts. It's quite the cultural endeavor, and it happens every Saturday morning downtown!

Another wonderful aspect of the Farmer's Market, which I've mentioned before, is the fact that you can buy organic and heirloom varieties that aren't available in the grocery store. Last time, I tried the purple cauliflower. This time, I picked up some purplish carrots (Purple Haze variety) and some purple beans which, according to the farmer, will turn a dark green when cooked. I'm looking forward to trying these new varieties to see how the taste compares to the common varieties. I have to say that the purple beans are absolutely beautiful; the Purple Haze carrots are more of a brick red, I think, than purple. I will, of course, let you know how the taste test turns out!

Who Needs Pepper Spray When There's Onion Juice?

Sunday night, I set out to chop the sweet walla walla onions I bought at the farmer's market Saturday morning. I had purchased a 5-lb. bag, which was about 7 good-sized onions. I purchased a "comfort" onion chopper from Bed, Bath & Beyond for $7.99 (it was $9.99 regularly and I had a 20%-off coupon), which I planned to use for my onion endeavor. The chopper worked beautifully...but only if you chopped, turned it about 1/4 of the way and chopped some more, turned it 1/4 and chopped again, until you made your way back to the starting point. Otherwise, I ended up with big chunks of onion.

My goal, of course, was to chop a bunch of onion and freeze it so 1) the onions wouldn't spoil before I could use them, and 2) so when I cook with them, all I have to do is take a package out and dump them in the recipe. It was supposed to be easy: clean and skin the onions; cut them into quarters; chop, bag, and freeze them.

I didn't factor in the part where, midway through the chopping, I have to go sit in the living room and do other things for an hour while my eyeballs stop burning and tearing.

After recovering, I dutifully marched myself back into the kitchen and, despite the return of onion tears, began chopping again, determined not to take a recovery break until I was finished. I made it (barely) and ended up with 12 1-cup packages of chopped onion for my trouble.

Before I could get the bags sealed, however, hubby came up the stairs, his eyes burning. Apparently the onion juice had entered the humidity-thick atmosphere of our home and moseyed on downstairs to where David was working. Hubby set about fumigating the place and I lit a candle, finished bagging the onions, and cleaned.

All I can say is . . . wow. Those were some powerful onions. Who needs mace or pepper spray when you could just dash some walla walla onion juice in the eyes?

I've also been wondering what to do with the huge zucchini--you know, the ones that somehow miss getting picked or that mutate overnight into zucchini giganticus. The seeds in the center are far too big to shred or to saute. I settled on removing the seeds and chopping up the rest for use in winter soup or a stir fry. One giganticus = 12 cups of chopped zucchini, so I figure I've got about a gross more cups to chop. And that's assuming I can stay on top of the rest of the incoming zucchini (thank goodness it looks like the plants are finally slowing down!) and keep them from mutating.

Purple Is Not Just for Barney

I promise--I did not Photoshop this picture to get the purple hue you see here. This head of cauliflower is truly purple.

It was the last head of purple cauliflower the farmer had at today's farmer's market in downtown Bloomington. I try to get to the farmer's market every Saturday morning to pick up organic meats, produce, and herbs. I couldn't believe how beautiful this cauliflower was, and decided to try it.

The coloring comes from anthocyanins, phytochemicals responsible for the purplish color in cabbage, leaves, and other vegetation; this cauliflower variety is richer in antioxidants than its white counterpart. The color is a little off-putting, but the farmer assured me that it takes just like "regular" cauliflower. I will cook it up tomorrow and then let you know what I discover.

In addition to the cauliflower, I purchased a 5-lb. bag of sweet walla walla onions, more green and chocolate beauty peppers, some green onions, radicchio, red-leaf lettuce, dill, cilantro, and chicken drumsticks--all chemical-free. I also picked up a 3-lb bag of hard red winter wheat berries. I had no idea what to do with them, but the farmer said I could grind them to make my own wheat (although I do not yet have a flour mill, although I'm looking for a reasonably priced one) or could soak, cook, and eat them like hot cereal. I found a couple of recipes online that use red winter wheat berries, so I will soon give those a try.

My goal with farmer's market food is not only to eat fresh healthier, chemical-free produce now, but I've started freezing the produce so I'll have almost-fresh, healthier, chemical-free produce over the winter. Today I managed to chop and freeze the green onions (about 1 1/2 cups, separated into 1/2-cup packages) and green and chocolate beauty peppers (about 5 cups total, separated into 1/2-cup packages). I also baked two loaves of zucchini bread (which won't make it to the freezer) and am in the process of shredding some more zucchini and also chopping some zucchini for winter soups. The cucumbers I'll throw in the refrigerator for future bread-and-butter pickles and perhaps even freezer dill pickles (I just found a recipe).

Tomorrow I'll tackle chopping the walla walla onions. I'm not sure how powerful they'll be--today's green onions were powerful enough to get my eyes burning and tearing--but I'll manage somehow. Come winter, it will be a delight not to have to chop any onions--just open the Ziploc bag and pour!

Broccoli Never Tasted So Good

Yesterday I went to our local farmer's market. I would provide you with a picture, but it was cloudy and began to rain, so I decided to get my veggies and meat and duck out before the clouds exploded. (Which they did, about one minute after I got into my car.)

I'm impressed with how friendly the farmer's market vendors are. Before I make any purchases at a stand, I ask questions. For vegetables and fruit and herbs, I ask whether they have used any herbicide, pesticide, or insecticide on their fields or products. If the answer is yes, I thank them and move on; if the answer is no, I will purchase the produce. If the vendor is selling meat or dairy or eggs, I ask whether antibiotics or hormones were used on the animals. If that's a no, I ask whether the animals are free-range. If they have four-legged critters, I want to make sure the grazers are grass-fed, not corn-fed.

Luckily, we have several "organic" veggie and animal farmers. (I put that word in quotation marks because legally, farmers are not allowed to label their products as organic unless they meet the USDA organic guidelines.) So yesterday I purchased a green pepper (the only one left at the market), the last carton of eggs, some bratwurst burgers, and some broccoli. I would have had a much bigger haul if I had been able to force myself out of bed earlier than 10 a.m. Maybe next week.

The meat is pricey--$4.89 a pound for the bratwurst burgers, which added up to $15.31 for 10 patties. But I am willing to pay extra to know that I am not eating added hormones or antibiotics, and honestly, about $1.50 per burger (they're a good size) is not unreasonable for good meat. I'll supplement my meat purchases with complimentary deer meat from my friend Blake's family's hunting adventures.

The broccoli was incredibly inexpensive. It was priced at $1 per pound, so I asked for two pounds. I ended up with a plastic grocery bag full of broccoli! They had already trimmed the heavy core away from the branches, so what I was getting was completely edible. I steamed the broccoli for dinner, and I could not believe how wonderful it tasted. The broccoli from the store doesn't have a tenth of the flavor that this broccoli had. No more store broccoli for me! I also found out that you can freeze broccoli without blanching (it stores for about 6 weeks that way), so I may have to load up on broccoli and do some freezing.

The eggs were more expensive than I could find at the grocery store, but again, since they are antibiotic- and hormone-free, I'm willing to pay the extra. They were asking $3.50 for a dozen medium eggs. They had one dozen left, with one cracked egg. They offered it to me for $3 if I didn't mind the cracked egg, so I leaped at the opportunity. I'm looking forward to tasting home-grown eggs from free-range chickens.

After the farmer's market, I stopped by Kroger to pick up some organic milk (we prefer Horizon or Organic Valley, but we'll settle for the store brand as long as it's organic). I spied some portobello mushrooms on manager's special for only $1.49 for a 1-pound package instead of the $3.79 regular price. Once I got home, I cleaned the mushrooms and sliced them, then sauteed them in a little bit of olive oil, and packaged them in snack-size Ziploc bags. Then I placed all those bags in a larger 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag. When I need portobello mushrooms for a recipe, I just run the bag under warm water for a minute or so and then empty the mushrooms into the sauce or whatever I'm using them for.

Tomorrow my goal is to pick whatever zucchini is ready and to freeze some and bake with some. The freezer is beginning to fill up with healthy food for winter. I feel a bit like a squirrel, hiding nuts for the lean months.