I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!

Ahhh, I love Alice in Wonderland. It's so... unintentionally creepy. I'll always think of the PC game Alice whenever I remember this beloved children's story. But I digress.

Last week, I spent the weekend in Lawrence. So... I cheated on the Dark Days Challenge. :( I'm not proud of it, but boy was it tasty. (I'm also horribly late, which is where the rabbit reference entered.) You see, we have this wonderful little place on Vermont St. called Local Burger, and it's exactly what it sounds like: Delicious local meats and cheeses (the veggies are, of course, only local when in season). I had a beef burger from Baldwin City, Kansas, with goat-milk feta cheese from Harrisburg, Missouri, on top. Scrumptious!! I will always recommend this restaurant to visitors passing through Kansas. It's definitely one of the best burgers in Lawrence, possibly in the whole state. And you don't even have to feel guilty about enjoying a nice dinner out. :)

I'm stuffed! Please, no more food.

This holiday season has been one of the busiest I've ever had. With my families, my boyfriend's families, and friends' dinner parties, we had five (count them - five) Thanksgivings to go to this year. Add to the frantic schedule the fact that I didn't have much left over from my trip to the farmer's market last week, and you've got yourself a sticky situation. How could I make a large enough side dish with the little I had for even one of these parties? Reluctantly, I settled on making a late lunch this Sunday for Paul and myself. I had purchased a couple round cuts of beef at the market, eggs, and a couple heads of cabbage, so I could at least do that.

A round cut of beef is notoriously tough - so much so that people usually use it to make jerky! Alas, I didn't have enough to make tasty strips of portable meat, so I settled on making the meat as tender as possible. The following are my gentle instructions for beating the crap out of tough meat: After letting it thaw overnight, cut the meat on both sides with a criss-cross pattern; it should look sort of like a tic-tac-toe table. This maximizes the surface area so that the marinade can get to as much of the meat as possible. Then use a tenderizer (gee, I wonder where it got its name?) to beat the meat into submission. Not too hard, though - you don't want it to be too thin - but a short/light-handed beating will help, well, tenderize it. Marinate it in a concoction of soy sauce, lemon juice, pepper, garlic, and pineapple juice for at least six hours (I did mine overnight). When you're ready to eat, broil the meat for a minute or two on each side, and it's done! I served mine with a sunny-side up egg on top, and the meat was tender and juicy and flavorful. Nothing like a filet, but tasty nonetheless. :) On the side, we had a simple vinegar coleslaw. Here's the recipe:

Two heads of cabbage (make them two different colors to jazz it up a bit)
One large carrot
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. mustard seed
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar

Shred vegetables and mix them together in a bowl. Combine all other ingredients in a separate bowl; pour over vegetable mixture. Refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.

Dark Days: Week One

I know that it's only the first week of a very, very long challenge, but so far it's been relatively easy to obtain local food in my area. It seems that locavores in Kansas City are blessed with a winter farmer's market. I knew we had multiple summer markets, but winter?? It's too awesome to be true. Eggs, beef, lamb, end-of-season vegetables, greenhouse vegetables and more - all from different vendors, all under one roof. I purchased a dozen eggs and a basket of greenhouse tomatoes from a lovely woman with her own bit of land, some beautiful white radishes and arugula from a backyard garden, two small steaks from grass-finished cattle, and a couple heads of cabbage with which I plan to make cole slaw at some point. Everyone was so friendly as the crowd slowly packed its way into the room. I had a wonderful conversation on how to correctly prepare mustard greens. :)

This week, I settled on a local breakfast. I figured it would be a nice way to start my day. I wish I had a camera - I would provide pictures of how I used my bounty. It's broken, though, so you'll have to make due. I know you'll manage somehow. ;) I started by wilting some roughly chopped arugula in butter. As soon as it had turned that vivid Christmas green, I added the eggs, beaten with a bit of milk (also from a local Missouri farm). As they were just starting to firm up, I added bits of tomato. Salt, pepper, and some rooster sauce (none local) topped it all off. With it we had toast slathered with local clover-flavored honey.

As the months progress, I expect that meals will get more and more challenging, especially since I haven't saved anything from the summer. I'm grateful that there will be a local market open through at least part of this challenge, though. I'm glad to have the support system!

Dark Days Challenge '08 - '09

I spend a lot of time tooling around on the Internet - a lot. I browse Google Finance, online news sources, blogs about chickens / gardening / eating local, webcomics, etc. While completing my allotted tooling-around time a week or two ago, I came across this wonderful blog: Urban Hennery (which is, now, a not so Urban Hennery since the blogger has moved to a small farm outside the city). It combines information about eating locally, gardening, cooking, and raising chickens - so, of course, it's perfect reading in my opinion. If you are at all interested in the aforementioned subjects, I highly suggest that you check it out.

And when you do, head over to the Dark Days 08 - 09 Tab at the top of the website. It details the annual challenge to eat at least one local meal a week during the winter - no small task when it regularly freezes in your neck of the woods. I've decided to participate, and hopefully I'll discover some interesting ways to eat local in the cold, dark, and wet Midwestern winter. I've decided on some personal rules for this challenge, sort of a pre-New Year's Eve resolution:

1. For the purpose of this challenge, local food is grown/raised within a 200 mile radius. I probably won't have to go that far, but I'd like to give myself as much room as possible this winter, since it's much harder to eat locally between growing seasons. I'll keep you updated on how far I actually have to drive to get my local meal.
2. Even on days when I am not eating local food, I will still cook my own meals. It's been difficult lately to do so, what with the two jobs and the twelve hour work days. Cooking in bulk will help, though (not to mention be nicer to my budget).
3. These meals will be mostly plant-based. While I am certainly not a vegetarian, I have come to the conclusion that meat is a treat, not a staple of our diet.
4. That being said, if my weekly local meal features delicious grass-fed lamb or cattle this winter, I'll be ecstatic. Honestly, how could I not? My mouth waters at the thought.

That's pretty much it! Check in later this week for an update about my first local meal of the winter.