DDW-Week 3

This week we had pork and fiesta cabbage en escabeche wraps.

Breakdown:

Pork chop: Locust Point Farm - 7 miles

Cabbage - Calvert Farm CSA - 15 miles

Red onion - not local

Red bell pepper - Calvert Farm CSA

Hot pepper - Calvert Farm CSA

Olive oil - not local

Balsamic vinegar - not local

Spices - not local

Whole Wheat tortillas - 85 miles

I love this site

If you are anything like me you are suddenly being bombarded with catalogs that you don't want. I found a great webpage to opt out of these catalogs all online.

http://www.catalogchoice.org/

You search for the catalog you don't want to receive anymore, put in your customer number and that is it! Much faster and easier than calling each catalog individually.

Secret Chocolate Cake

The picture I posted yesterday is of Secret Chocolate Cake from Simply in Season. It is very good and moist! I know it makes me a non-purist to use my veggies to make cake, but Mark (the husband) doesn't like many veggies cooked. Especially if they get soft when cooked. So, I was really struggling with how to make the beets and decided to try this first. If we get more from the CSA I'll cook them and eat them straight.

So, here is the recipe if you don't have the book. And if you don't have the book, you should! It is the best in season type of cookbook I've looked at. I checked many of them out of the library but this is the one I bought.

This is the recipe as written in the book with my changes in parenthesis:

2 cups beets (cooked, peeled (I didn't peel them) and chopped)
1/2 cup applesauce (I used my homemade and canned applesauce)
Puree until smooth, set aside.

1 1/2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup)
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used chocolate yogurt)
3 eggs
Combine in large mixing bowl and beat with electric mixer for 2 minutes

1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Add along with pureed beets, beat for another 90 seconds

1 1/2 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat for all the flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Gradually sift into the batter, mixing it with a spoon until just blended

1/2 cup chocolate chips
Stir in

Pour into 9X13 inch baking pan. Cook at 350 F 40-50 minutes, until knife comes out clean.

What I did with the beets

Definition of Local

OK, I'll admit I'm now confused by the definition of local. I've been trying to stick to within 100 miles, but I've been doing those as driving miles. I've looked at a number of local food webpages lately and they all do the 100 miles as the crow flies. Doing it this way, here is my local foodshed.


Well poo, blogger won't let me load the picture because it is a pdf, I'll keep trying to get it into another form, but anyway, if you do it by how the crow flies, my 100 miles goes past DC and Harrisburg, both of which are over 200 mile drives.

So what do you think? Should we got by driving distance or flying distance? My 100 miles becomes a lot bigger if I go by flying distance. And then if I extend that to 220 miles as some local groups go by I could eat half the east coast!

I try to get as close to me as possible, but for some things like grains going by how the crow flies I may be able to find "local" sources for these things.

Help!

I got this in my CSA box and I'm not sure what it is. I thought they were rutabaga until I peeled one and it was red inside. Are they really big beets? OK, I cut it open and I'm pretty sure it is a big beet. Aren't they hard and woody when they get this big? What do I do with huge beets?

I was really hoping they were rutabaga, I had a plan for those. I sure feel dumb.

Butternut squash muffins

Melinda asked me how I made my butternut squash muffins so here is the recipe. These muffins are incredibly moist and just all around delicious.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup unbleached white flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup cooked and pureed butternut squash (or any other winter squash, usually I use pumpkin)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup applesauce (I use sauce I made myself and canned)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt

3. In a large bowl, combine squash, sugar, egg and applesauce. Add flour mixture and mix until smooth, don't beat it makes the muffins dry.

4. Scoop into muffin pans, bake for 25 minutes.