This Weeks Local Meal

After last weeks local eating blitz I decided to go easy this week. At my last trip to the farmer's market I bought a huge bunch of fresh basil and made pesto with it and it has been in the freezer just waiting to be paired with the right ingredients.

We had whole wheat pasta, with roasted local veggies and it was all tossed with some home made pesto sauce! I even got to use my huge pasta bowl to serve the pasta in.

I don't think I have ever had pasta with pesto sauce before and I am usually not a fan of veggies in my pasta, but I didn't know what else to cook so I was hoping this would taste good. And once again I hit the jackpot. I loved this stuff. I was totally prepared to not like it, but it just tasted too good plus it felt good to be eating something that was so healthy. We did have to make an addition in order to get Jai to eat it. I grilled up a chicken breast and sliced it up so that there would be some meat. I also put a scoop of ricotta cheese on the top and then stirred it into the pasta. It was a little tip I learned on Rachael Ray.

I will definitely be making this again! Yummy!

A Little Messy

In order to get anything done around the house I have learned to give Isha whatever it takes to keep her occupied. This is how our kitchen looks every afternoon. While I get dinner ready Isha drags all of her toys in the kitchen to play with. At first I used to get stressed out, but then I realized that it was easier just to let her make the mess. This leads to a good lesson, picking up the toys. Unfortunately I am the one who does most of the picking up, but Isha is usually good for throwing a few of the toys back in the toy box.

I think Stitch has done the best at adapting to this new philosophy of letting Isha make a mess. As you can see he feels totally comfortable laying around and napping in this sea of chaos!

A Week Of Eating Local

Since I missed a few weeks I decided to go big this week and do a full week of eating local. I was afraid that it would cost me an arm and a leg, but it didn't cost any more than my weekly grocery bill. I will admit that it did take a lot more running around town though.

So here is my haul from the South of the James Farmer's market, local fruit and veggie stand and P.T. Hasting Seafood store.
Look at all of this meat! Boy will Jai be happy.
Monday night was Flavorful Flounder, a recipe I found at allrecipes.com, and steamed potatoes. The flounder was caught locally and I bought it from my favorite fish guy, Mr. P.T. Hastings. They also make the best home made tuna fish salad there. It makes you never want to eat tuna from a can again.
This picture isn't very pretty because the fish fell apart when I was taking it off the baking sheet, but trust me it tasted really good. Here is the recipe
Tuesday night was eggplant Parmesan with home made marinara sauce. This recipe is super easy and tastes AWESOME. I am addicted to this stuff and I can even get Isha to eat it. The salad wasn't local because I ran out of money at the farmer's market and I had a whole bag of lettuce in the fridge from the week before. I know it isn't local but I figure it would be extra irresponsible to let something go to waste that had traveled so far to get to me.
I was looking forward to Wednesday night dinner, but it really turned out to be a flop. I bought a whole free range chicken and roasted it in the oven, but I don't think I seasoned it enough for one, plus some of the meat was kind of "rubbery". I don't know if it was the chicken or my cooking, but it wasn't very good. I didn't cook the potatoes long enough so they were kind of lumpy, but they did contain chives from my own little back yard garden. The green beans were good, but how excited can you get about them. The absolute worst was the corn. I think it got thrown into the wrong bin. Instead of being sent to be made into ethanol, which is the only thing this stuff would be good for, it made it into the farmer's market bin. After one bite it was thrown in the trash. It was inedible!

A little disappointed with the Wednesday meal I crossed my fingers and hoped for a better outcome on Thursday and we hit the jackpot. We had tacos made with local chorizo (I had never had chorizo before and this stuff was excellent), fresh home made tomatillo salsa make with local ingredients and some cayenne peppers from my garden and last but not least fried mice. These are local jalapenos stuffed with not so local cheese then wrapped in unlocal bacon and then grilled on the BBQ. They were really good, but my lips were on fire for 15 minutes after I ate them.
I made the left over chicken from Wednesday into curried chicken salad and it was actually really good. It was even made with Duke's mayonnaise which is made right here in Richmond, VA. I was never a fan of mayo unil I tried Duke's. It is way better than that junk that Kraft foods makes! I know I sound crazy talking about mayo like that, but it is kind of a southern thing. Ya'll wouldn't get it!!! We had some sweet watermelon to go with our sandwiches and I gave the corn another shot. This stuff was much better. A few of the kernels were tough, but it was a huge improvement from earlier in the week.
Last night we finished up the week with 100% grass fed beef hamburgers, roasted potatoes, cucumber salad and deviled eggs. The beef was really good. It had a totally different flavor from the hamburger you get at the store.

I had a great time trying all of my local food this week. Next week is going to be scaled back because I wasn't able to make it to the farmer's market this weekend and I can't make the Tuesday one because Isha has a Dr. appointment. But don't fret because there will be at least one local meal at the Oberoi house next week!