Localvore Week, Day 2 ~ Breakfast of Champions!

Tuesdays are busy days for me. Along with picking, sorting, and getting our fruit ready by 2:00 p.m. to take to NorthSide Farmers Market, I also do marketing P.R. on Facebook. After I get the press release done in the morning, I check the market's Facebook page several times to see if any vendors have updates for me to add and to answer any questions that customers may have.

That means that Tuesday's meals are usually quick and easy, and more often than not, a repeat of Monday's fare. 

This is Day 2 of my dedication to eating as local as possible. For breakfast, I had apple/pear cobbler that I baked yesterday, served with whole milk from Hartzler's Dairy. The dairy is in Wooster, I am able to buy their products from Mendy Sellman's store, The Farmers Wife.

At this point, I don't know what lunch and dinner will be, I am thinking that we'll heat up the "mess" of green beans/new potatoes from yesterday.

Market Day means Shopping Day. Most of the time, my market purchases are spontaneous ..if something catches my eye, I buy it. Today will be more focused. I am taking $25.00 specifically for this week's fresh groceries to see how far it will stretch. Just imagine the tasty, FRESH meals I'll be able to prepare for my localvore week!

Marcheta * keepin' it tasty!

Localvore Week, Day 1

Today is the first day of my experiment of having as much locally produced foods as possible for our meals. So far I'm calling it 99% successful. The glitch came about because Jim had bought green beans at Ashland's farmers market on Saturday when he was in that town on business. I was working at Bucyrus' Lil' Farmers Market, if I had known that he was coming home with fresh green beans, I could have bought ham, bacon, or ham-hock from Mendy and Russ, who also set up at the market with their naturally raised meats. 

Those beans needed to be cooked today, and Mendy's store is not open on Monday, so I thought the next best choice would be at Discount Drug Mart. Yes, it is a chain store, but it does a pretty good job of supplying local when available. DDM carries meat from  New Washington, a village in the northern part of the county. 

No luck, DDM was out of what I was searching for, (being Monday morning I am guessing that the delivery hadn't arrived). My only option that was left was to go to our main grocery store. I bought a nice ham hock, that I believe came from an Ohio farm. 

Back home, I cleaned the green beans and put them in a slow cooker with potatoes and onion from our garden. The ham hock went in for flavor.

Then it was time to fix lunch. The only thing on our lunch menu that was not local was lettuce.

I made hamburgers from ground beef bought at Mendy's store on Saturday. The bread was a hearty maple/oat loaf that I got at NorthSide Farmers Market last week. It is wonderful bread made by the Charlton's. The bread has no preservatives and has to be stored in the refrigerator, but believe me, I've never had any kind of bread keep as long as the Charlton's. :)

The tomatoes and red peppers were from our garden, the cauliflower from Witter's Produce (again bought at NSFM).

A peach smoothie, made with our peaches and fresh milk from Hartzler's Dairy in Wooster (again, purchased at Mendy's) served as beverage and dessert :)

Tonight's dinner is the green bean dish (it smells SO good!) and apple/pear cobbler, made with our apples and pears, honey from Dave Duncan (Crestline) and Hartzler's milk. 

All in all, I think that I've got a good start to a localvore week of eating. What do you think?

Marcheta *keepin' it real