Catching Up

Long time, no post. The end of the semester always kicks my ass down hard, and this one was one of the worst ever.

I'm totally backlogged with greens of all varieties (lettuces, asian greens, spinach, kales). I made the big mistake of buying a huge number of greens the first week they were available, not thinking that the following week was the start of my "value program" CSA delivery, AND that the next few weeks were the end of semester madness, during which I cook a lot less than usual. I get stuff from my CSA in two ways: Full Choice, which means that I pay a deposit and then order whatever I want from what's available all year round (this is how I put in my first big order), plus the Value Plan, which gives me six months of weekly produce deliveries.

So tonight's dinner will be based on whatever greens look the least fresh, and then I'll blanch then freeze all I can, since tomorrow night I'll be getting even more.

I'm going today after work to pick up three local pastured broilers. I didn't ask, but I'm really hoping that they're not frozen so that I can cut them up into individual pieces instead of having to always cook a whole bird at a time.

We had our first totally local meal last weekend, and we didn't even plan it that way: Steak (which was beyond delicious), plus a huge salad. OK, so the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the dressing weren't local, but everything else was, including the herbs. And I still have a bit left to eat of a mostly-local crustless quiche: Local milk, eggs, greens, onions, and herbs. The only thing not local was the cheese and roasted pepper that I added.

And my meager garden is on its way: Peas are climbing, and I have six different varieties of tomatoes in the ground (5 heirloom, 1 hybrid) plus one pepper plant.

I want to remember to write more about a story I heard on NPR yesterday about how chemical fertilizers are getting so expensive that farmers are being forced to *gasp* use manure, instead of paying someone to haul away their mountains of animal poop. I was amused by a comment about folks buying poop from "as far away as Delaware." I was not amused to hear that because of this, natural/organic farmers are finding it harder to get the poop that they've used all along.