French Toast

It was down to two recipes this week for the Dark Days Challenge: French Toast or Chicken Alfredo. I chose the french toast and I'm thinking of doing the chicken alfredo next week. I did make a run to the co-op for bread and bacon. I got the bacon from Pastures A Plenty and the sourdough bread from New French Bakery.

I am a pancake man and I have always been a pancake man... or boy when I was younger. I have made french toast a time or two in my life but I normally stick with pancakes. I might just have to switch over to french toast. It is a lot easier to make and it feeds that same craving. I made the batter for the bread with some half&half and 2 eggs. I cut the bread into 1/4" slices and dipped it into the batter. It cooked pretty fast. While doing that I baked the bacon at 350. When I cooked all the french toasted I cooked a couple eggs for the fun of it.

I normally don't eat breakfast and I haven't had a fried egg in a long time. It was a very nice treat. The sourdough was wonderful! The bacon topped with some local maple syrup...yum. Amara even had a couple slices of the french toast.

Roast Chicken

Dark Days 

I have had two chicken in my freezer for months. One that I processed last summer and the other one I got at the co-op late last summer. Buying local meat can get expensive. Buying whole chickens makes more sense than buying a cut up chicken or chicken breasts. But then you are left with a whole chicken you need to cut up or cook. Let's face it: The more an animal is processed the easier it is to eat. If I had to cut those short ribs off a cow carcass last week there is no way I would have enjoyed them.
When planning this meal I knew I had all the ingredients. One of the cool things about eating locally is that your pantry, freezer and frig fills up with local food. I didn't have to make my lovely trip to the co-op to make this meal.

Roast Chicken! That's where I started. I know you need a chicken, a oven, a pan of some sort, some butchers twine and some spices. But how long does the chicken cook and at what temperature? That's where my idol, Anthony Bourdain comes in. He made a 'Techniques Special' for No Reservations. I did a youtube search and found the roast chicken clip. Thomas Keller walked me through how to simply roast a chicken. Then I went to my kitchen to put it to practice.

I did it a little different than Thomas Keller did. I cut up some veggies to roast with the bird. I cut up a carrot, two onions, and three potatoes...all local. I added them to my cast iron cooking pan. Then I added some butter and a drizzle of sunflower oil. Then I went to cut the wishbone out of my chicken and found it was already gone. I rinsed it out and seasoned it generously with salt and pepper.

I plopped the chicken on top of the veggies and went to find my butchers twine. No luck! I have three young daughters that like to make girly things, such as necklaces and bracelets. Stuff I don't understand being a raised with no siblings. So somewhere a pretty little doll is wearing my butchers twine. I use the butchers twine to truss the chicken so the bird evenly cooks. You basically tie the legs and the wings into the body. Finally I tossed it in my oven at 400... without being trussed!

I took the wonderful-ness out of the oven and set in on the counter. It cooked for about 45 minutes. It smelled and looked done. I put a thermometer in it and it was at 180, so it was plenty done.  I picked at a few potatoes while letting the chicken set for 10 minutes. I cut off a breast and plated some veggies. At this point is when you are happy you took out that wishbone. Taking the wishbone out helps get those wonderful breasts off the bird easier.

I sat down at the table and gave out nothing but grunts of approval. It was very good. It was up there with the braised short ribs. What made it so good was the quality of the local free range chicken and the butter I put over the veggies.

Braised Short Ribs (Part 2)

Dark Days

Part 2 of 2. Here is part 1.

The Braised Short Ribs

I bought less than 1.5 pounds of the short ribs so my recipe isn't as big as what I'm going off. I used 3 pieces of bacon and cooked them in a 5 quart, heavy bottom pot. As the bacon was cooking I covered the short ribs in spelt flour.

I then browned the meat in only the bacon juice. I took out the meat and added some butter. I got local hand rolled butter, so I really don't know how much I put in... maybe like half a stick!? By that time I had a medium carrot- diced. Along with a small onion and a shallot- also diced. This is my first time cooking with a shallot. I added the veggies to the pot to start to cook them.

When the veggies were looking slightly browned I added my homemade wine. The wine I have is naturally carbonated, sweet and low in alcohol. I brought that to a boil and added my non-local spices- thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper and two bay leaves.

At the point I ran to my chest freezer and grab a pint of turkey stock from the local Thanksgiving turkey and put that in the pot. When that just came to a boil I added the short ribs and put in the cut up bacon pieces, covered and set in my oven at 350.

The liquid was very dark. It was looking wonderful when I put it in. The recipe says to cook at 350 for 2 hours and turn the heat down to 325 the last 45 minutes or so.

Just after I put the pot in the oven I remembered I didn't add a pepper. While at the co-op I was thinking BBQ sauce and I found dried local peppers. Lately I have been craving smoked peppers in a dish, so I wanted to add a dried pepper to this dish. I took the pepper out of the bag and it sounded like a rattle. I cut half of it up and put it in the pot saving as many seeds as I could. By spring I should have a lot of seeds. I want to plant those seeds to see if I can get more peppers. I don't know the drying process, but it is worth a shot to see if the seeds survived. As a locavore that buys legit food you need to be thinking of getting food in the future AND for a decent price. I paid $2.99 for those peppers, if they grow I could potentially have peppers for years. (Not including the cost of growing and preserving them.)

I made the mashed potatoes. Then I took the short ribs out 2.5 hours later. These things are no joke. They looked awesome and smelled wonderful. I laid down some potatoes, the short ribs with some of the veggies and that sweet, sweet juice. Let it cool and dug in. I might need to go back up to the co-op for more short ribs.

The Co-op... Wha Haha! (Part 1)

The Co-op...Wha haha haha haha!!!


Part 1 of 2. Here is part 2.


For those of you that don't know, I am doing a local eating challenge called the Dark Days Challenge. Once a week I need to prepare a meal from sustainable, organic, local and ethically raised food- then blog about it. My first few post were a challenge due to the Daniel Fast and my cooking skills were not able to shine.

I feel I have been taking the easy way out by going to the co-op and buying what the co-op calls 'local food,' making a so-so dish and blogging about it. This week was a bit more fun. I was able to buy some meat; My Daniel Fast is over.


The past few weeks I have had "Braised Short Ribs" running through my head. I have never had them or made them. I have just felt inspired to make them. I love BBQ ribs! Love them! With this type of rib I feel they are more Asian?! Maybe? At the co-op I bought the short ribs, more sunflower oil, spelt flour, butter, carrots and some hot peppers- all local. I was thinking I was going to make a BBQ sauce to cook the ribs in. I was trying to think of what I had that was local to make the sauce. All I was missing was some vinegar.

From watching Food Network I knew I would have to slow cook the short ribs in some sauce. I just needed to know: what type of sauce, how long...etc. When I came home from the co-op I looked up recipes for braised short ribs and found an awesome one at The Pioneer Woman. This recipe did not have any type of BBQ sauce, but I could work with all ingredients. I am adapting this recipe for the short ribs and using her recipe for creamy mashed potatoes to complete the meal.

After looking at the recipes, I found I was a few ingredients short. So, I went back up to the co-op. On the drive up there I knew I had all of the ingredients at home, but they were not local. I was planning on only buying only two of the ingredients using the other two non-local ingredients because I didn't want to pay for their local counterparts.

I like my co-op, but every time I say the word "co-op," my wife cringes. She knows the food is better for you, but she also knows it costs twice as much. I have put A LOT of thought in becoming a locavore, but realized it is something I cannot do at this time.

I have been married for ten years and I have three daughters. I have a few points with this. (1.) All five of us will not always agree on food. (2.) The money will not always be there to get sustainable, organic, local and ethically raised food. (3.) This diet is something my wife and I have to be in complete agreement with.

Becoming a locavore is not something to take lightly. There are responsibilities. You will need to eat seasonally, preserve food, grow some food, FORAGE, visit farms or farmers, do a lot of meal work yourself and be a very thorough planner. Did I mention you need mad discipline?


That's why I'm saying I have been doing a very basic job getting my food. I have been going to the co-op, buying food that has the "buy local" sticker next to the price tag and cooking a simple meal. I feel I am not taking the responsibility in gathering my food. I know there is a ton more to eating local. I want this challenge to mean something. To go through the dark days of eating locally means preparing extensively for the dark days.

I have some preserved food. We had a garden last year and I knew I had to save as much as I could. We have pumpkins, tomatoes, wine, pickles and jams. If I knew I was going to go through the winter months as a locavore, my spring, summer and fall would be filled with doing as much as I could to make these dark days as pleasant as they could be.

When I got to the co-op I did buy all four ingredients I needed for the meal, so beyond the seasonings it will be a local meal. When I got home I looked in the fridge and found the non-local ingredients. I was a bit irritated by feeling I was wasting resources, but understanding the motions of eating locally. I told my wife and she had a 'thanks for wasting our precious money' laugh.

Part 2

Sweet Potato Fries and Butternut Squash

The third Dark Days post, nice! The first two posts were a challenge and I felt like the recipes sucked because of my Daniel Fast. This will be the last week of my Daniel Fast! I am making a lunch for myself with a butternut squash and a sweet potato. I will be slightly breaking my Daniel Fast with some local maple syrup and frying the potatoes. I bought the sweet potato and the butternut squash from the co-op; they had the "buy local" sticker next to them. They are both local with-in the rules of the challenge.

I cut the top half of the butternut squash off and used it in a soup for my last Dark Days post. I like to roast the lower half of the squash. I just cut it down the center. I leave all the guts and seeds inside. I typically eat everything including the skin.

With the sweet potato I tried something new. I normally cut the potato into fries and bake them for a half hour, take them out, mix them up and put them back in the oven until brown. I have done this several dozen times and I never REALLY like them, so I will finish them off by frying them in some sunflower oil.

To get started I cut the potato into 1/4"x1/4" fries and let them soak in cold water for a few hours. I drained the water and coated them with sunflower oil and spread them out on a baking sheet. I then roasted them at 350 for 40 minutes.

During this time I cut the squash down the center. Slightly oiled a baking sheet putting the squash inside down and roasting it at 350 for 45 minutes while cooking the sweet potato fries. I took out the squash when it was the color I like. I took out the fries when the bottoms were starting to brown and set aside.

I pan fried the fries in the sunflower oil. This is one of my first times using that type of oil and I found out it has a lower smoking point than what I am use to.

The fries turned out awesome. The texture was very good; soft in the middle and a crunchy outside. Sweet and yes, salty... I had to salt them! The squash was very good too! I poured some maple syrup on it and salted it. It's been a while since I've had a squash, so it was a nice treat.

Dark Days Soup #2

Hey! Guess what?! I have OIL! Not just any oil, local oil! I got some Wisconsin sunflower oil. Let's face it, my last soup sucked. I did have 5 bowls of it and it was a meal for me. It wasn't the best soup I have ever made. I was not prepared going into the first week of the Dark Days challenge. My wife told me it was just a "base" to add other things to. It was missing a lot.

I did the same thing this week as last week. I went to the co-op and looked for the "buy local" stickers and bought everything I could with the intention of making a soup. The first thing on my list was the oil; I had to saute stuff. I also picked up a bag of onions, carrots, purple potatoes, dried black beans, wild rice, purple cabbage... I had a bag of rutabagas, homemade wine, a frozen tomato from the garden... I think that's it...

I sauteed one onion in the sunflower oil, added a diced carrot ten minutes later. Then I added a half of diced rutabaga and 3 small diced purple potatoes. I let that cook for a couple minutes. Then I cleared the bottom of the pan with some homemade wine from grapes from my yard. Added 4-5 cups of water. Then I added the black beans and wild rice. I let it cook for an hour or so then I added a small amount of diced cabbage and the diced tomato and let it cook for 15 more minutes.

Everything is Daniel Fast friendly and local...wait... I did add salt and pepper to the soup. I read some other blogs and not everyone was 100% local like I thought the challenge meant, so I added them. AND the wine is not Daniel Fast friendly, I remembered after I made the soup.

The result: It needs meat! I have really been craving ham. This soup and the last soup have not had the soul of a soup with meat. It does need more seasonings as-well. I really wanted to put a bay leaf in the soup or other herbs. The only herbs I have from the garden are lemon balm and chamomile. So I have some hunting to do for local dried herbs.

Vegetable Soup

For my first Dark Days post I decided to take the easy way out. I made a soup! For the next few weeks I am on a special diet where I cannot have meat or dairy. That makes these first few Dark Days posts interesting.

I went to my local co-op, Mississippi Market and bought the veggies for the soup. I got a small onion and a butternut squash from Wisconsin Growers in Mondovi, Wisconsin- 101 miles away. Then I picked up a 3 pound bag of assorted root veggies (carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas and sunchokes) from Harmony Valley Farm in Viroqua, Wisconsin- 185 miles away.

A note about local food. My co-ops definition of local is: Products grown, made or processed by a business owned and located in MN, IA, WI, ND and SD. My definition is 250 miles, I believe the Dark Days Challenge is 200 miles and hardcore locavores is 100 miles. You should be able to drive to the farm and back in a day.

I was planning on sauteing an onion in butter, but I can't due to the Daniel Fast. Then I thought I could just use olive oil, my main oil, but realized that's not local. I decided not to make a trip up the my co-op to find a local sunflower oil and I will not be sauteing that onion. I was planning on putting wild rice in my soup. I have Minnesota grown wild rice. When I looked into the company on the package I found they are part of a corporation that is "America's leading brand of rice." Unless I know that corporation is farming sustainably the rice is not going to be a part of my soup.

I cut up all the veggies and put them in a stock pot with some water. I brought it up to a boil and let it simmer for 1.5 hours. It's also interesting what I didn't add to my soup. When I make soup I will put celery, garlic and spices in it. I just bought a thing of bay leaves yesterday for soup that I wasn't able to add. When using local ingredients you need to know where they come from. To Dole, who produced my celery, and McCormick, who produced my bay leaves, these are cooking ingredients not plants. We need to remember that most of what we cook with was living at some point in time, not just seasonings.

After simmering for 1.5 hours I let the pot of veggies cool slightly. I strained out the vegetable chunks and set aside some of the liquid for vegetable stock. I then used a blender to puree the vegetables and added them back to the liquid.

OK, so it's not my favorite soup. If I could have added some ham, butter and cream it would have been awesome. Or SALT! This is a simple soup and it is good by itself. With my first post for the Dark Days Challenge I see that I will need to do more planning on certain types of ingredients like oil, meat and dairy. None the less, this is a local meal!