Ah--the sweets of summer!!! Fresh peas and peppers from the garden, fresh green beans from our wonderful neighbor's garden, fresh eggplant and other goodies from the farm!!!! WOOOOOHOOOO!!! Our tomato plants are bending over with tomatoes, I'm sure we'll have some ripe ones by next week! Sometimes I just go out there and SMELL the garden!!! This must be how people have felt every summer since the beginning of time, when food is literally growing out of the ground! We are already planning to double the size of the garden for next year!
The grumpy-grocery-gusses (my kids and hub) have been up and down all week. My older son has been the easiest convert for sure: he loves the raw milk, is a buttermilk pancake junkie, and eats my home-made stone ground wheat flour bread like potato chips, slice after slice!
His brother has been tough. As an athletic type, he eats pretty much non-stop and he has had a hard time with the lack of convenience food junk. On the other hand, he LOVES veggies and will eat pretty much anything. He is a hands-on type, so I have tried to keep him involved in the processes of making the food. So far he has made yogurt, ice cream, tortillas, butter, and salsa, and even though he complains the entire time lol, when the food is actually ready he is always AMAZED that the ingredients turned into recognizable food!
I was going to have him grate cheese while I rolled out and cooked the tortillas the other day, and he didn't think that was 'fair' haha, so he ended up rolling out and cooking all the tortillas himself!!! And they turned out WAY better than the original batch I had made! And then when we ate them (we split one still warm off the griddle, but then had them with our fajitas for dinner) he definitely seemed proud. I had him make salsa completely on his own, and he kept griping that 'no way was this going to be salsa' until it WAS! And then we housed it all down with home- made tortillas!
My husband is the most difficult case for sure. We pack his lunches for work each day, and finding local sustainable options has been a struggle. Not because there aren't lots of options, but more because he is super high maintenance lol! He is sqeamish about everything in general, and if he likes something one week, he is sure to be 'sick of it' the next. I had been making eye round roasts, slicing it very thinly, and making sandwiches out it, but then he 'couldn't eat another bite' of that, so I tried a couple other options for his sandwiches (ham salad='too strong', pb&j='needs meat', meatloaf='not good cold') but I am at a loss now. I have offered to make other items, but since he is on the road, he can't heat anything up. He is a body-builder, so he wants lots of protein in every meal. And he usually eats on the road, so he can't have a salad or anything that requires attention to eat. I had been packing him pasta salad (made with local stuff), but he quickly tired of that. Red beet eggs were popular for a week or two, but have now fallen out of favor. He is vocally unhappy with our decision to stop eating factory farmed meat, and now wants Boar's Head turkey breast again....sigh.
I confess it astounds me and upsets me to a certain extent. I feel like he should put aside his selfish desire for lunchmeat and focus on the bigger picture of eating food that is good for the body and the planet. I feel like he should appreciate the effort that goes into packing his lunches and shut the hell up and eat them. I feel like he should realize that he is so far disconnected from the cycle of nourishment that he only thinks of the end product and not the process of getting it to that point.
I guess maybe it is selfish of ME to expect him to get on board as whole-heartedly as I have, but we did discuss all of this many times, and have been trying to eat more locally and sustainably for a long time now. I guess he just doesn't feel as strongly as I do about it. Which is strange and uncomfortable for me, because I am used to our opinions being so similar. And also because I don't think this has been very difficult, and usually he is the one who thinks things are easy...
It is a struggle. I can't help but wish he would try a little harder. I'm sure he wishes I would try LESS lol!
Anyway, I am pressing onward. I am going to look for a locally, humanely raised turkey breast, although I know it is hard this time of year.
Other than my family hahahaha things are going along well. I made 4 loaves of bread (one batch of two loaves, then immediately made another batch of two loaves) on Sunday so I wouldn't have to make bread every other day. That was a big help. Then I made a batch of tortillas (SUPER DUPER EASY!) and my son made a batch a few days later (I tweaked the recipe a bit based on what went right and wrong with the first batch) so bread has not been an issue this week. My last batch of yogurt was awesome (again tweaked a bit) and lasted until, well, yesterday, so I am planningt to do another big batch this week. I broke down and bought one of those spout-on-the-bottom beverage dispensers to help me separate the milk. I let it rest in there overnight, then basically just drained the milk part off the bottom and stopped when it got down to the cream! So now I have 'skim' milk for CERTAIN PEOPLE and all the cream to make butter with.
We made some lemon-honey frozen yogurt with some of the yogurt, again soooo easy, and it was delicious!
I made some blueberry desserts with blueberries from the farm and some frozen ones my mom had given me, and I substituted the stone ground whole wheat flour for the white flour the recipes called for, and they turned out just fine!
Farmer gave out some recipes for various cookies made with the flour also, and I am hoping to have time to make some this week.
Oh and I substituted my yogurt for sour cream on my baked potatoes and I couldn't tell the difference!
I have been going to the farmers market every week also, to supplement the farm csa stuff. Mostly getting mushrooms,zucchini and honey, just avoiding anything not grown, at least, in state. I am definitely WAY down on grocery store purchases, but I am still buying things like lemons and avocados (bad I know, but soo delicious!) and coffee, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. Still, I feel like I am accomplishing something, making a drop in the bucket difference. And all I can do is my best, so that is what I am doing.
I promise by next week to get some recipes up here! And wish me luck with my lunch meat endeavors!
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