Applesauce in Colorado

My Aunt Janet and Uncle Cole have sent me photos of their home grown applesauce endeavor for the Colorado edition of the blog. The first photos are of their tree and garden this spring, covered with apple blossoms. So pretty!



Next comes harvest, and they had quite the bounty in red delicious apples! They picked 3 five gallon buckets of apples from their tree.

Here is Cole with some of the freshly picked pears, berries, and apples. Finally comes the applesauce and apple butter. Cole described the process:

"We just cored & de-wormed the apples, cooked the heck out of them (with a little water), ran them through a ricer to remove the skins, and canned them. The apple butter was similar, but cooked longer & with lots of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice...)

It's a good use for organically grown apples. You can cut the bugs out of the ones that go into the applesauce and, at the same time, sort out wormless apples to snack on whole."

They now have 15 quarts of applesauce and pear-applesauce, and enjoyed apple-blackberry cobbler, pear-blackberry pie, apple brown Betty, and blackberry frozen yogurt with their homegrown fruit as well. Janet says that all the cobblers made low-no fat, with minimal sweeterns and diet friendly! She's a Weight Watcher, too.

The love for local foods apparently runs in the family! Janet and Cole are conscious eaters, and Janet's daughter and son-in-law, Panaena and Joe, are local eaters, too. They had a locally sourced cocktail hour at their wedding reception last summer. Janet just sent me a link to our cousin Jim's new website: http://localfoodeconomygame.com/ Their goal is to:

increase the production and consumption of wholesome foods grown and sold
locally. We are developing a web-based exploratory learning environment where
folks can have fun while deepening their appreciation of the social and economic
impacts of "Buy Fresh, Buy Local."

For the Freezer: Getting prepared

I did Once a Month Cooking ages ago when I was working full time, doing a monster cooking day and then just reheating meals throughout the month. It was handy, but the recipes I was using were certainly not healthy. I'm preparing to do a big batch cooking session on Sunday and Monday with Core recipes and local ingredients, a tasty and healthy way of having a home cooked meal even when I'm too tired to cook.

All of these meals will be prepared with locally grown, organic ingredients and will all fit the Eat Local Challenge that I've been so lax about following this past week! I think this will make up for my lack of cooking this week, haha.

Here's the menu:

Meatball chili with pumpkin (Crockpot) pumpkin adds a subtle sweet creaminess and plenty of fiber and vegetal goodness, but no strong pumpkin flavor
Pot roast (Crockpot)
Beef picadillo (Pressure Cooker)
Mushroom, and barley soup (PC)
Chicken cacciatore (PC)
Unstuffed cabbage with meatballs in sweet and sour tomato sauce (PC)
Chickpeas with eggplant-tahini sauce (PC)
Sweet and sour lentils with 5 spice rice
Shephard's pie

To get ready today, I'm cleaning the kitchen and going to the Grocery Outlet and Country Sun today. Mr.M will get the CSA box tomorrow while I'm at school and I'll visit the farmer's market on Sunday morning for any other fresh ingredients on the list.

On Sunday, I'll prepare a big batch of meatballs, mushroom barley soup in the pressure cooker, beans for the chili in the pressure cooker, chop veggies, and put the pot roast in the crockpot overnight.

On Monday, the crockpot will make the meatball chili, and I'll spend the day rotating meals in and out of the pressure cooker. Once it's all done, I'm sure I'll be exhausted, but I'll have two or three packages of each meal in the freezer and can relax about my school night meals for the next month or more.

Mr.M, Jax and I went to the new Palo Alto farmer's market on California St. after church yesterday. It's a cute little market with a lot more baked goods and prepared foods (including relishes, pickles, oils and vinegars, etc.) and fewer produce stands than the Mountain View or downtown Palo Alto markets. They also had meat from a pastured ranch in Paso Robles, outside of our local range but still wonderful to see.

There was also the 1st edition food guide being handed out from the Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign by the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, listing various food growers and distributers throughout the Bay Area. It is fantastic! I ate it up (harhar) and was thrilled to find local producers of dry beans, a staple I've up til now been unable to find locally, and chickens, goats, lamb, sheep, and pork. My copy is already dog-eared and written all over, and I may have to pick up another one since this one is sure to be well loved.

I bought organic pastured eggs ($4.25), strawberries ($5), and milk at Country Sun ($5.99) bringing my weekly food expenses up to $17.49. I'll need more milk later in the week, but otherwise we're going through the stuff in the fridge and pantry this week. My total should be under $25.00.

Next week and again in August, I'm planning on preserving some of the wonderful summer fruits and veggies. I bought a vacuum food sealer to freeze produce and will also do some canning. In addition to freezing a variety of blanched veggies and fruits, I'm going to do some pickling and preserving for the first time. I found a recipe for fig and caramelized onion preserves that looks very tasty, but I don't think we've hit fig season (or figs just aren't that popular around here) since I'm not seeing them in abundance quite yet.

Next month will be a tomato canning adventure and hopefully I'll be able to can enough to keep us through the winter without having to resort to the mealy storebought "fresh" tomatoes or commercially processed canned. I'd also like to try to make my own ketchup and tomato chutney, both recipes I remember my mom making when I was a kid. Fresh ketchup has such a different texture than the storebought variety and has such great tomato flavor that I'm excited to try it again and introduce it to my family.

***

On the Weight Watchers front, I used all my weekly points (plus some, probably) on nachos and beer last night. It was not my brightest move, but it's done and I have the rest of the week to eat on track and make up for the garlic cheese, tortilla chip, and Sam Adams indiscretion.

***
I am making this recipe for dinner. I found the it at US Wellness Meats, a grassfed beef online store. I'll report back how the recipe worked for me.

Eye of Round Crock Pot Roast

Ingredients
2 pound eye of round
Salt and pepper
1 clove garlic, sliced
2 medium onions, sliced
2 bay leaves
1 whole clove (optional)
1 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Rub roast with salt and pepper. Make small slits in roast and insert slices of garlic. Put 1 sliced onion in bottom of crock-pot. Place roast on top of onion and add other ingredients. Cover and cook on low for about 10 hours.

To make a thicker gravy remove roast from pot. Blend 2 tablespoons cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of cold water to form a smooth paste. Set on high and pour in paste. Stir well and let come to a boil (about 15 minutes) until thickened.

***

Daily Menu

Breakfast
Potato pancakes (mashed plain potatoes, egg, grated squash, grated carrot, salt, pepper, and seasonings, pan cooked in 1 t. olive oil.)

Lunch
Egg salad
Strawberries
Carrot sticks
2 c. milk

Dinner
Pot roast
Carrots & Celery
bulgur (I had potatoes for breakfast, and they're a once-a-day food)


WPA (Weekly Points Allowance) points used today: 0
WPA points available: 0
Activity points today: 4
Activity points this week: 4

Daily 8 - the 8 Healthy Guidelines
1. Fruits and veggies - 5+
2. Whole grains - bulgur
3. Milk - yes
4. Healthy oil - yes
5. Protein - yes
6. Limit sugar and alcohol - yes
7. Water - 8+
8. Multivitamin - yes