Category Archives: Green Ideas

The first and the last

I love it when we sit down to a meal and realize it’s almost all local food!  We made this salad with our first garden harvest of greens (although we’ve been buying local lettuce for a few weeks now), radishes, green onion, and locally grown kidney beans.  The sunflower seeds and dressing (homemade with a base of olive oil, vinegar, and minced garlic) prevent this salad from being 100% local.

Second component of the meal: butternut squash soup.  We bought 15 butternut squash in the fall; for this meal, we ate the last squash.  They kept beautifully for over six months with minimal effort.  We put them in mesh bags (the bags that onion come in, for example) and hung the bags from nails in our basement.  Simple!

For this soup, we roasted the whole squash, then added sauteed onions, butter, milk, cumin, turmeric, and salt.  I blended it all with my stick blender for easy clean-up.

It all came together for a simple, delicious, local dinner.

Carrot rack

Room for one

I stopped in to Local Harvest Grocery yesterday, where I snagged the coveted carrot rack parking spot.  A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that they carry bulk (organic) rolled oats.  I eat oatmeal for breakfast pretty much every day.  I recently switched from quick oats to rolled oats — I now strongly prefer the texture and taste of rolled oats.  As part of the switch, I buy the rolled oats from bulk containers (compared to buying the quick oats in the cardboard canisters), so I reap the added benefit of less waste!

Milk!

Several weeks ago, a friend turned us on to the milk from Lavy Dairy Farms in Silex, MO, just north of St. Louis.  Their listing on the Local Harvest website (linked above) reads as follows:

“The Lavy Dairy Farm is a certified organic Grade A licensed dairy. Family owned and operated. We sell quality organic raw milk. Our cows are cross bred for high protein and butterfat.”

Not only is their milk organic and local, the cows are pasture-fed (except in winter).  We finally visited in-person on the way home from Iowa yesterday.  For the amazing price of $3/gallon, we left with four gallons of beautiful milk.  Until we found the Lavy Dairy Farm, the lowest price we’d seen for this product (local, organic, pastured milk) was $10/gallon.

Now here’s the part that gets me.  They produce more milk than they sell directly to customers (like us), so every other day, a big truck comes to empty their milk tanks.  Due to the low demand for organic milk, they cannot get on an organic pick-up route at this time.  Their amazing milk that comes from cows tended with such care gets mixed in with all the other milk from factory-farm dairies!  Such a tragedy.

I don’t have exact numbers, but some quick peeking at milk commodity prices indicates that they make a mere $1 (rough average) per gallon on milk that they sell on a large scale.  They can sell their milk directly to customers (like us), but not directly to stores or at farmers’ markets because it is unpasteurized.

If you’re not sure that buying local food makes a difference, this proves that it does.  In this case, even selling at the bargain price of $3/gallon, the farmer makes $2 PER GALLON more when selling locally.  The Lavy Farm, and countless others like it, require [more] customers who value high-quality, healthy food produced in an environmentally-conscious manner.  Vote with your dollars!

I had my heart set on seeing some calves (and posting some adorable pictures here), but that was not to be. Due to the ever-present rain, we didn’t get to see as much of the farm as we hoped yesterday, but that just leaves something to look forward to on a future milk run!

In which I encourage you to watch t.v.

Uncharacteristic, I know, but every once in awhile, someone broadcasts something worth watching.

Case in point: next Wednesday (April 21st), many PBS stations will air Food, Inc. as part of their “P.O.V.” (which stands for Point of View) documentary series.  Check your local listings for times.  TVGuide.com simply listed it as “P.O.V.,” which threw me for a moment, but don’t be fooled!

If my sources are correct, it’s airing in St. Louis at 9:00pm and Burlington, IA at 8:00pm.  Personally, I prefer 8:00pm — less chance of interfering with my bed time and all, but I’ve been curious about Food, Inc. for awhile.  Now I can watch it at my favorite price (FREE), while sitting comfortably on my couch, wearing what I want (i.e., sans pants).

Tune in and celebrate Earth Day Eve by learning about the connection between farming and food systems, our health, and the health of our planet — just remember to unplug the t.v. or flip the switch on the power strip when it’s over!

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Image from the Food, Inc. website

Carbon fast fast

If you’re asking yourself, “Is that a typo?  Did she mean to type “fast” twice?” the answer is, “No, it is not a typo.”  (Grammar and spelling errors in published writing — and this includes blogs — are one of my pet peeves.  I strive (with occasional lapses) to hold my writing to the same high standard to which I hold others’ writing.)

So, yes, I meant to type “fast” twice.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave up on my daily “Carbon Fast” posting.  It just didn’t seem to fit in with my regular posting/writing style, and, to be honest, the carbon fast posts failed to generate much discussion.  I wondered, “Will anyone notice that I’m not posting a daily carbon fast action?”

The answer?  A resounding, “No,” although I felt guilty for quitting (ah, the good old Catholic guilt).

However, in observing most of the carbon fast, I tried some new things, and have others on my “to do” list, so some good came of the venture, and Easter is almost here, so I won’t have to feel bad about not posting the carbon fast tips anymore!