Half of a half is...

a LOT! If you're talking about a cow, that is.

What you see here (in very poor lighting, yes--it was almost 10pm) is our "half of a half" of a cow, raised by a friend's family, processed locally, and picked up last night. I'd say we're pretty set in terms of beef for quite a while.

These boxes--three total, but one broke--contained the following cuts and quantities:

Burger patties - 9 two-pound packages (1/3lb patties)
Chuck roasts - 7 (huge!)
Cubed round steak - 5
Delmonico - 4
Ground beef - 19 one-pound packages 
New York strip steaks - 3
Rump roast - 1
Sirloin steaks - 6
Sizzler steaks - 2
Tenderloin - 3

I can't believe it all fit into our little chest freezer! Now I just have to figure out a way to use all this meat and not get sick of it. In other news, our grocery bill will likely go down, thanks to this one-time investment. I'm excited to head up to the corner and spend some time at Ken's Fruit Market picking out produce to go with all this beef! There's a certain steak-and-potato salad I've had my eye on...

Eating out: The Cooks' House

The Cooks' House is a hole-in-the-wall local joint in Traverse City, one that I've been hoping to try since we first saw it. The awning says right on it, "local and sustainable." I love it already!

There's a story behind it, which was printed in the Detroit Free Press recently, but I forget what it is and the article is in my car... in Michigan. ;) The chefs/owner(s?) made sure to greet us and ask how everything was. They were quick yet thorough in answering our questions.

After being seated, we were served bread plates (a multigrain and an Asiago slice for everyone except The H) that came with butter and pig belly--the white piped stuff on the left of the plate. Flavorless, in case you were wondering.

We all had water to drink. I thought the bottle was funny...

My first choice was the spinach and fiddlehead salad with roasted beets. Delicious! The H said the fiddleheads tasted like fresh green beans. It was my first experience with them.

My mom started with the asparagus soup... no cream base here, no roux--just asparagus (and shiitake mushrooms). It tasted SO FRESH.

The H had a white bean-red wine soup that was literally, like Mom's choice, made of just those items. Incredibly simple, yet so very creamy and satisfying. I forget what my dad had... pasta of some sort with smoked rabbit and roasted vegetables, I think. It was good. :)

My entree was a risotto. Small-portioned, but rich.

The H and my dad both had the salad with roasted pork shoulder... I thought I had a pic of it, but oh well.

We all ended the evening with mounds of flourless (really!) chocolate cakes topped with homemade whipped cream and grated nutmeg. If I'd run the full marathon a few hours earlier, I'd have eaten two.

This restaurant is a little out of our price range (roughly $60 for the two of us) for an everyday dinner, but since it's 3 hours out of town anyway, it's not like we'll go there all the time. I can see us returning for another celebratory dinner, perhaps in a different season (we *do* have a fall anniversary...) to experience a new seasonal menu.

Overall, eating at The Cooks' House was a pleasant and relaxing way to spend the evening. Our outdoor table, privy to the gentle breeze and beautiful sunset as well as the lightly busy street, enhanced the experience.

Dark Days Challenge: Beef Stew

This was my first meal for the DDC. It's been a month since our last co-op pickup and I am not (yet) a canner/freezer/preserver so our local-food stock was running a bit low. I had one package of grass-fed stew beef in the freezer and some carrot, potatoes, and onions left, so really my first meal for the challenge kind of put itself together.

The only non-local ingredients I added were some red wine (which could've been a Michigan-made thing, but I didn't want to open a fresh bottle for one cup), beef stock, and seasonings. Yesterday I made Jell-O (with juice) for the baby with fresh-picked-and-frozen Michigan strawberries, so we had that, too.

Aaand wouldn't you know the camera battery was dead. So just picture a steaming bowl of cubed Pontiac Red and Yukon Gold potatoes, diced red and yellow onions, the cutest carrots you've ever seen, and browned stew meat (and my son stabbing cubes of red gelatin) and there you have our dinner. We did have my sister join us, which was nice.

Tonight was co-op pickup, so hopefully I'll have more creative fare for next week's DDC meal!

The Dark Days Challenge

A fellow food blogger (Hi, Wendy!) suggested I participate in the Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge, and after reading about it online, I've decided I have no excuse *not* to try this. What's one meal a week, when we belong to the co-op? Granted, I am no canner-preserver-freezer extraordinaire. But I do have resources. It will give me pre-determined blog fare at least once a week, too. In light of this decision, I've altered my current co-op order a bit.

Rather than just regular (fair trade, organic) coffee, I'm also ordering 2lbs of decaffeinated (also FTO) beans. Since one of my goals prior to this challenge was to eat more locally anyway, it doesn't make much sense to keep sending Gevalia money every other month when Craig at Grand Rapids Coffee Roasters is roasting it fresh practically in my own backyard every day. I'm also ordering maple syrup for the first time, since there is no way I can justify Trader Joe's organic grade B maple syrup as "local" especially since I drive two hours to get it in the first place. LOL!

Since we have plenty of non-co-op meat in the freezer for now I won't order any more this cycle, but will plan on some in future months. Eating locally may help me get out of the stock-up-for-an-army-stranded-in-a-blizzard mentality, as good local meat is much pricier than the bulk bags from the grocery store, as Wendy wrote about here.

I know the point of this blog isn't locavorism, but please bear with me during this short experiment. I will still do my best to eat clean, of course; I'm simply adding the challenge of eating clean close to home on a more official platform than before.

So here are my personalized rules:

1. Make at least one locally-sourced meal weekly, using more local ingredients than non-local

2. Blog about the meal

3. Participate in the challenge for 5 weeks before re-evaluating

4. Prepare locally-sourced food(s) for any upcoming holiday potlucks or family meals

And in the words of my son's favorite TV show, "Let...the mission...BEGIN!"

It's co-op shopping day!

Today is the first day of shopping on my second-ever co-op cycle. Supposedly November is a big month for the co-op, as I imagine people are planning holiday meals, so I wanted to jump online and start ordering ASAP. Some things have already sold out! Good thing I didn't plan to make leek soup this month, and I snagged a bag of baby carrots before they were (virtually) gone.

I'm gradually working towards making one big co-op shopping order, one trip to Trader Joe's (Friday!), and a few small grocery-store stops for milk and non-local necessities every month. My grocery spending tends to get out of control and I am hoping that shopping with a purpose in mind helps reign that in.

Other things on our list this month include kale (ah, kale...), a couple kinds of squash, red and yellow onions, a few varieties of potatoes, a bag of hydroponic greens, apples, beef stew meat, frozen blueberries (for baking and chilly-day oatmeal breakfasts!), and eggs. I hope The H is available to assist with the heavy lifting.

Keeping it local

I'm so very excited to report that I've joined a local co-op! Rather than relying on the farmers' market from May-November, I now have year-round access to fresh, local produce, meat, eggs, and a whole ton more. This is my first cycle with the co-op, so I can't say for sure how I like it yet, but so far I'm thrilled. (The H may not be, once he sees the total, but we have to *eat* right?) :) My desire to eat and shop locally has been growing since this blog began. Reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver has contributed to that quite a bit. It reads like a novel, and while I don't agree 100% with every word inside, I like that the tone is not preachy or holier-than-thou at all. I've already recommended it to my mom, an avid herb-and-veggie gardener, and asked that The H read it when I'm done, so he can understand where my "locavore" tendencies are coming from.

This co-op shopping cycle, I'm trying out a bunch of different producers, ordering things like eggs, squash, potatoes, lean beef, and dried cherries. Did you see that I wrote "squash" there? I know it's not one of my favorites, but I'm really trying to like it. Eating locally means I am choosing not to buy a bunch of warm-weather fruits and veggies until April or May, so I'd better get used to what's available here in the mitten state. I figure getting it fresh and local might help with that endeavor, since that is likely where the best, most flavorful product will come from. My experiments with spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes have turned out well, so I have nothing but high hopes for the other varieties we'll try this winter. Up next: buttercup. Stay tuned. Maybe one day I'll take a picture or two and stick them on here.