What's for Dinner?

Chicken from Restoration Acres Farm

What’s for Dinner?

                I have to confess, since our families concentrated efforts to eat more local, “what’s for dinner?”, is a frequent question. I have always tried to fill our kitchen with yummy healthy foods. In the past we have had a milk cow in the barn, a garden full of fresh veggies, blooming fruit and nut trees and a grain mill on the counter. Now, I come home after a day on a cube-farm, to the bounty we found at the Community Market the previous Saturday.                

                So what is for dinner? I thought I would share this week’s menu with you. Hoping both convince myself that I am feeding our family of 4 healthy yummy meals (OK honestly, 2 adults with 2 transient teenagers that graze outside of meal times); as well as demonstrate how we can eat local, wholesome meals and support Lynchburg economy. Our Ramsey approved budget is $150 a week, and yes even our meat comes from the Community Market.

Here are our dinners this week.

Sunday:

Herb-ed Baked Chicken (Restoration Acres Farm)

Brussels Sprouts

Roasted Potatoes

Monday:

Three squash Soup

Sour Dough bread

Tuesday:

Creamed Chicken

Over Corn bread

Roasted Broccoli

Wednesday:

Marinated Teriyaki Beef-Tips

Mashed Cauliflower

Thursday:

Vegetable Chicken Soup/Crackers

Friday:

Quiche

Left over veggies

Saturday:

Date Night!

We have successfully removed the majority of the bar codes from our kitchen and drive the farmers at the market crazy, with our how did you grow this questions. Definitely looking forward to filling our freezer and root cellar starting next spring. 

~Julie

Creating a Driveway -- Part 3

Creating a Driveway – Part 3

         Earlier in the week the Virginia Department of Transportation came out and ok’d the location of our planned entrance and gave me the specific details that I needed for building it.

         Armed with the information that I needed and a verbal encouragement that the permit would be approved and mailed by the end of the week, I got busy. I had a meeting with an excavation company early Saturday morning to get an estimate for the cost of the groundwork for the road entrance portion of the driveway. It was a great meeting, and we came to a very reasonable price for the work. On top of that, they said that so long as the weather co-operated, they hoped to have the work done before Christmas.

         All of this bumped up the timetable for getting the rest of the clearing done in the proposed driveway. The majority of the remaining trees that I needed to cut were softwood, Pines and Cedars with tons of limbs. I fired up the chainsaw and got busy. By the end of the day, I had all the tress down and limbed. I also had a mountain of brush! The brush needed to be gone before the driveway work could be done and I had already made plans for Sunday, so my only option was to cancel plans for next Saturday so I could spend the day burning.

A Mountain of Brush

        

While I was out of town on Sunday, my Son-in-law Brandon secretly headed out to the land and spent his day feeding blazing hot brush piles with the rest of the brush that wasn’t piled up. I showed up late in the day and was totally surprised and blessed by his unexpected help.

All Gone

         With all the trees and brush gone, Brandon couldn’t resist the temptation to christen our new driveway. With any luck, we will be able to drive down onto the property by Christmas.

A Boy and his 4x4

~Terry

A Big Step Forward

A Big Step Forward

         Sometimes you just have a productive day, and yesterday was an exceptionally productive day. I started with a meeting with the Virginia Department of Transportation. I drove out to meet the man who did the site inspection and got thumbs up for the driveway entrance location from the roadway. The gentleman informed me that the permit should be in my hands by the end of the week. As soon as we have the permit in hand, I will be able to contact the excavation company and schedule the work!

         I next went to the County Health Department and turned in the application for a septic site approval. They went over my paperwork and told me everything was filled out correctly. I was expecting one to two months before I had a permit. I was pleasantly surprised to be told that it should only take about two weeks!

         If everything goes well, we could have the initial permits in hand by the end of the year to move ahead with a building permit. That means that I need to get busy with the building plans for the cabin.

~Terry

Something for the Freezer!

10 pounds of broccoli

 Something for the Freezer!

Terry and I have worked very hard at filling our cupboards with Lynchburg grown foods. Not only to support the local farmers, of which we some day hope to call ourselves, but also to improve the quality of foods that we consume. Each Saturday morning we have a date at the Lynchburg Community Market, AKA  Lynchburg Farmers Market, where we fill our basket with enough produce and meat to last us the week and beyond.

This week as the greens are starting to leave our market, we found broccoli to put into the freezer for the weeks to come. No, this is not a cheaper way for us to eat by any means. We bartered with the growers to buy all they had left and still paid on average of $1.75 per pound. But we know, that we know, this broccoli is not filled with pesticides, is not a GMO,  has not been shipped across the country, we know the farm that grew it and on average 48% of what we spend with a local business will be recirculated locally into our economy.

Getting the broccoli into our freezer was super easy.  

I have had the privilege of growing up with an amazing mother who taught me how to can and preserve the abundance that was grown on the farm. I was also taught that The Ball Blue Book was authority for all things canning, freezing, and dehydrating. While I now have a number of books and sources to help out with improving our families diet, I still head back to The Blue Book to help out. It made putting this broccoli in the freezer painless.

Soaking the water/salt brine

 

Steps to freeze broccoli - The Ball Blue Book Style

1) Wash, remove leaves and cut off any woody portions (This was picked yesterday and early this morning...no woody portions here).
2) Immerse and soak in a water/salt water brine (1 gallon of water to 1 cup of salt) for thirty minutes. --This is to remove any insects. For organically grown broccoli, we were both surprised at the few insects that we found.
3) Rinse and drain.
4) Blanch for 3 minutes.
5) Drain, Cool and pack into containers.
6) Seal, label and freeze.

Broccoli cooling after being blanched

We are looking forward to next weeks market. The brussels sprouts have been amazing this year. When we get to the end of February it will be nice to pull some green from our freezer and know that not only do we have some amazingly healthy yummy-ness but that we have supported the farmer who has worked incredibly hard to secure our food system here in Central Virginia.

Broccoli ready for the freezer

I do have to admit I am looking forward to starting some seed in the spring, and watching our garden grow. Until then I will see you Saturday at The Lynchburg Community Market. 

~Julie

Planting Garlic

Planting Garlic

10 Varieties

         After one failed attempt to purchase some organic garlic starter bulbs, our seed garlic finally arrived. Julie found a small farm in New Mexico (through, of all places, Amazon) who still had two pounds of seed but only sold a variety selection. We are just a bit late getting our garlic planted, so we were happy to find seed still available and put in our 2 pound order.

         I opened the box and discovered 10 different types of garlic including both hard neck and soft neck varieties, the two primary categories for garlic. Each type was in its own paper bag with hand written descriptions of each one.

Estonian red: Marbled purple stripe from Talin Market

Takayama: A highland city in central Japan—Rocambole/Asiatic variety

Persian star: Purple stripe hardneck from Uzbekistan

Transylvanian Artichoke: Transylvanian

Shavot: Wild garlic from Tajikistan

Susanville Artichoke: A long keeper, California white

Ron’s Single Center: Also called Trueheart

Spanish Roja: Rocambole- A favorite of chefs for its quintessential garlic

flavor brought to Portland, Oregon over a     century ago.

Rosewood: Porcelain variety from Muldalvia

French Red Artichoke:

         So I headed out to the waiting raised bed and happily set to work planting. Spaced 6-8 inches apart and planted 4 inches deep, I got one full bed and one row in a second bed planted.

Nice Straight Rows

         While I worked in the soil, I was glad to see plenty of worms. The soil looks, feels, and smells great, and the worms confirm that there is a good amount of organic material.

A Garden's Best Friends

All planted and tagged

       All that is left is to mulch over the beds with straw about 3-5 inches deep and then wait……..the hard part.

~Terry