our local day - go local - week 9

Tracey enjoying a caprese sandwich

I just went to visit Tracey for a few days in Moscow. While we were having fun around town we decided to have an all local day on Thursday. On Wednesday night we went to the Moscow Co-op. While we were there we picked up some Moscow Sourdough bread (the most delicious whole wheat sourdough ever) and some local mozzarella cheese. The next day we went to the most amazing and affordable little produce shop called Ottos. While we were there we got beautiful yellow tomatoes and some perfectly ripened peaches.

Local grilled pizzas

The menu for our local day looked like this:

• Breakfast: Moscow Sourdough bread toasted with either local honey or local raspberry jam
• Lunch: Caprese Sandwiches: open-faced sandwiches with tomato, mozzarella, and farmer's market basil.
• Dinner: Grilled Pizza made with tomato, basil, mozzarella, and grilled summer squash. A side of tabouleh salad made with farmer's market cucumbers, basil, tomato, and garden mint (not local...bulgar) and grilled peaches.
  
• Dessert: Peach Pie

It is such a great time of year. We are happy to say that almost every single meal this week contained something that was local...corn, carrots, tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, green beans... just about everything is ready to eat!

xoxo ~ Tracey and Stephanie

go local - week 8

My loot from Boise Farmer's Market

This may be the best local week I have had so far. Everything is getting ready to eat. The farmer's market was overflowing with food. I had to restrain myself or I would have had WAY too many things to try and eat. Here is a list of things I found at the market this week:
* 2 beautiful summer squash, a bag of baby eggplants, sweet corn, basil,
and rustic ciabatta bread.

Beautiful baby eggplant from Lazy Dog Farms in Caldwell

With this bounty, some leftover from my last visit to Spyglass Gardens and some of my own vegetables from my little garden I created The Summer Garden Ratatouille from the Simply in Season Cookbook recommended by my friend Heather. It was AMAZING! It is recommended that the ratatouille is served over pasta, but it was so delicious that I just served it as the main course. We also ate fresh sweet corn grilled in the husk and ciabatta bread topped with fresh tomato and basil. YUMMM! I highly recommend this meal. Almost all of the meals we ate this week (well, since we have been home) have had at least some local part to it. I can't wait to start on next week's meal!

xoxo ~ stephanie

go local - week 6

I know that I jump from week 3 to week 6 on the go local challenge this week...I missed a couple weeks with the trip to New Orleans and then the trip to Donnelly with Tracey and Mom (more on that soon.) The local eating group is now on week 6, so I think it would be easiest if we just jump ahead to week 6 also.

Our local meal

We had a local eating feast this week! Our local plate this week consisted of baked sandwiches with Parma sourdough bread (baked locally...I don't think it is made with local ingredients though), grilled ball zucchini, sauteed red onion and red, white, and blue baby potatoes, fresh basil and lettuce from the garden. Our sides were grilled red, white and blue potatoes with rosemary from the garden and sea salt, fresh red raspberries, and grilled apricots.

Beautiful red, white and blue potatoes from Lazy Dog Farms at the Edward's Market

I found our food in three different places: Edward's Greenhouse Tuesday Market, Nampa Farmer's Market, and Spyglass Gardens. I love all of these places, but if you haven't been to Spyglass Gardens you should really go check them out. It is the cutest backyard garden with the friendliest people. They happily show you around the farm and their produce prices can't be beat! I bought a pound of apricots, a zucchini, a cucumber, about two servings of green beans, and a red onion for under three dollars!

xoxo ~ stephanie

go local - week 3

We had our local meal a little early this week because I am leaving tomorrow for New Orleans. Our meal was simple...and almost totally local. My mom and I went to the Tuesday Market down at Edward's Greenhouse this week. It was nice. There was only one produce vendor at this farmer's market, but it also included arts and crafts vendors, local wine producers, and live music. At the market I bought this beautiful rainbow chard.


Using the chard, leftover napa cabbage (from Farmer's Market last week) and my new vegetables from the garden we had a local stir fry. The vegetables from the garden include snap peas, the first five of my yellow pear tomatoes, the babiest of baby carrots, and some cilantro. The only thing that wasn't local about the dinner was the rice. The rice is from California...not shipped overseas at least. It was really good; not the most creative meal, but fresh and delicious.

xoxo~stephanie

go local - week two

I had quite a week with local eating! I found so many amazing things to add to my local diet. As a vegetarian (who doesn't really like eggs), I have really struggled trying to figure out how to get enough protein into my local diet. I decided to head over to the Boise Co-op, just to see what I could find. I am used to eating a lot of beans, lentils, nuts, tofu in order to get enough protein. I was feeling a little disenchanted until I started looking through their bulk food items and found great white beans, red lentils, split garbanzo beans and pink beans (they look like pinto beans, but they are pink!) all grown in Idaho. It didn't give a specific place of origin, and I am almost sure that they are from Northern Idaho, more than two hundred miles away, but I am counting them.


In other great news I found some beautiful produce at the farmer's market this week AND I finally got a basket for my bike, so now it is much easier to carry them home.The best part is that the basket detaches, so I can carry it through the farmer's market to carry around my produce. The picture you see above is some delicious napa cabbage, a huge head of romaine lettuce, and white garlic from the Boise Farmer's Market.


My main meal this week was a Rustic Cabbage Soup. I found a recipe on a really cool blog called 101 cookbooks. I forgot to take a picture, but you can check out the one on her website. Her blog has all kinds of amazing vegetarian recipes on it. I did some adjusting to the recipe to make it local, but these are the (all local) ingredients I used: white beans, potatoes, napa cabbage, garlic, onion (from my garden!), water, salt and pepper. I think it was some of the best soup I have ever made. Johnpaul liked it, but of course couldn't help adding that it would have been great with some sausage. I served it with a salad made with the lettuce from the farmer's market, baby peas from my garden, and onion greens from the onions I used in the soup. Delicious!

I also made some of my own yogurt this week. It is amazing how easy it was to make local yogurt. My mom found my an awesome yogurt maker at the thrift store a couple weeks ago. I have been really interested in making my own yogurt for quite a while now. My mama used to make homemade yogurt when I was little. This machine is just like the one she had, except hers was yellow. I used skim milk and nancy's yogurt (not local, but now I can use my own homemade) for the starter. It is so mild and delicious paired with fruit, especially those strawberries from the Berry Ranch.

xoxo~stephanie

Strawberry Fields Forever...

look at these cute little babies!

Last week my mom and I went to pick strawberries at The Berry Ranch located in Nampa. Let me tell you, it is AWESOME! It had rained pretty hard the night before we visited the ranch, so they were not letting people go pick until 10:30 instead of the 10:00 time that I thought we could start. I am actually kind of glad that we had the extra half an hour to look around. They had pigs, sheep and chickens on the ranch in addition to tons of strawberries. They were so cute.

picking the berries

At 10:30 we took a tractor ride down to the fields of strawberries. There were SO many strawberry plants and they had the most beautiful berries on them. In no time at all we had picked our boxes of strawberries. It was so hard to stop picking...even though we knew we had brought limited cash along with us.

angel food cake with strawberries

When we returned home, mom quickly made her berries into jam. I had that same plan, but then they just tasted so good that I decided to go back, another day, to get jam berries. We would eat them fresh. And we did. It was Johnpaul's birthday last week and I made angel food cake, fresh whip cream, and we ate it all with fresh crushed strawberries on it. It was delicious! Next week...heading back for more strawberries for jam.

xoxo~ steph

local eating challenge

little plants in one of the beds.

My friend Heather decided to start a local eating challenge. I am so excited about it. The premise is that each week you fix one meal made with entirely locally produced ingredients (other than oil and spices.) You can check it out (and join us if you like) at her blog living senses. I am totally excited to see what everyone comes up with. There are people from all over the United States taking part in the challenge and everyone is invited.

baby lettuce

Anyway. All of this has me thinking so much about my garden. I am tending to it and checking it everyday and I just can't wait for that time of year where pretty much everything we eat comes out of the garden. It just fits so well with this local eating challenge. I wanted to post a few pictures of the garden and where it is now.

onions

Each year I usually start all of my seeds inside in my little greenhouse before spring has officially sprung. I love doing that, but this year was just too crazy and I couldn't get it done. So, I admit it, my tomatoes were officially bought as starts from nurseries around the area. Most everything else I just sowed right into the ground and so far...so good. We will see if they produce in time, but for right now they are just growing and growing.

Potatoes..growing like mad!

xoxo ~ stephanie

Finally....

Sorry this took me so long to put up. I have some photos to show everyone. First, the boats and crowd at the huge Obama Rally a few weeks ago.... This is a photo of our view of Obama....The tree was in the way most of the time, but it was such a fun event! This is a picture of the Rhubarb raspberry crisp I made a week or two ago. It was delicious. I took the recipe for The Rhubarb Strawberry Crisp out of the wonderful William Sonoma Baking Cookbook that Stephanie got for me a few years ago and just used Raspberries instead. It was so tasty, I think I will make some more this afternoon.Here's how to make it!


filling
6 medium stalks rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/2 cup granulated sugar
topping
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashion rolled oats
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt (I totally forgot salt when I made it!)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Position rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350. Have ready a 2 1/2 qt ceramic or glass pie dish (I used a 8 x 14ish cake pan and I greased it).
To make the filling, in a large bowl, stir together the rhubarb, strawberries, and granulated sugar until well mixed. Pour into the baking dish and set aside.
To make the topping, in a large bowl, stir together the flour, rolled oats, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt until blended. stir in the melted butter until evenly moistened crumbs form. Spoon the crumb mixture evenly over the filling.
Bake the crisp until the rhubarb is tender when tested with a toothpick, the juices are bubbling, and the topping is golden brown, 35-40 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Serve warm. The crisp can be cooled, covered with plastic wrap, and stored at room temperature for up to two days, then re-warmed in a 250 degree oven for 15 minutes before serving.



-M

homecoming

stephanie and tracey at lucky peak

So. I know this post is a little late, but we had such a great time, that I still just have to put it on there. Last week, Tracey was home and we had a great time. I took a day off of school and we just hung out. We went to almost every store I can think of...which is funny because neither of us are really shoppers, but it was awesome.

On Thursday we celebrated Mother's Day with my mom. We were waiting until Tracey was home so that we can all celebrate together. We bought my mom a little grill for Mother's Day and we made some really good shish kabobs on it. I made some with marinated tofu and Tracey made some with chicken. We both used pineapple, red onions, mushrooms, yellow and orange peppers, and asparagus. They were delicious. It was so fun. Ryan, Tracey,Johnpaul, mom and I all had a really nice evening.

We also went to Roaring Springs on its opening weekend. It was really fun and pretty warm. We only went on one ride and hung out in the river, but it was nice to see that summer is almost here. I can't wait for the warm weather and freedom that summer brings. I can almost taste it. One more week!

More French Toast

When Steph and my mom came over to see Ben Folds, I made them some French Toast for dinner. I bought fresh strawberries, which i think were perhaps better than the raspberries.




Ok, so I had a series of pictures to go along with this post. But as you may or may not know, I have the worst internet on the face of the earth. My pictures wouldn't all download the right way. Therefore, you only get the finished product.

I used heavy whipping cream (which I am aware is kind of gross), vanilla soy milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and an egg. The bread was this big, tasty sourdough (which I enjoyed for my morning toast for over a week).

After it was all cooked up, I put a scoop of vanilla ice cream (low fat to balance out that heavy cream), fresh strawberries, and some powdered sugar. If it didn't taste awesome, at least it was pretty :)

Love always, Tracey.
Photo by:Stephanie

Stir Fry

I made this fantastic stir fry for dinner tonight using all the left over veggies I bought for the baby shower veggie tray.

It has chicken, broccoli, green onions, bean sprouts, red peppers, and celery. Totally tasty.

I'm so excited for mom and Stephanie to come over this weekend to see Ben Folds! I wish Michelle was able to make it, but we'll take some awesome pictures so she can pretend she is here with us.

Plus we get to spend a good amount of time in the hotel swimming pool and hot tub! Woop woop!!

French Toast

Since I have become an expert in all things French...






I made this french toast for dinner tonight. I used vanilla soy milk and it was so good! Thanks for that great idea, Steph. I also used raspberries mixed with maple syrup. Also very tasty!! I remembered to take a picture half way through my first piece.

spring break

I started my spring break out with Easter. My Grandma Doris was in Idaho visiting us for the weekend. We went to several nurseries and found some really fun plants. If you live in the area and haven't been to Boise's Edwards Nursery, you should really take the trip. It is awesome! We also explored some of Nampa's new quilting and fabric stores downtown. Grandma found some really awesome fabric.

On Easter Day we hung out at my mom's house and ate a lot of really delicious food. We had potatoes, beans, asparagus, bread, artichokes, fruit salad and yummy, yummy lemon meringue pie. After we ate dinner we played cards and had fun into the evening.

As you know, the next day I headed out for Tracey's house in Moscow. We had a lot of fun!

When I returned home and Johnpaul got off of work on Friday morning we headed

to Bend. We went to visit Johnpaul's parents for a couple of hours and then headed to my dad's house for dinner and a place to stay. We had a nice time chatting with all of them. The next morning we woke up early to meet Michelle at my Grandma Doris' house to put together her beautiful new greenhouse. This ended up being a very big project, only taking a break to attend my cousin Crystal's baby shower (she looks so cute!) and to visit my Grandparents Van Orsow. Here are some photos of the greenhouse project.

Here is Johnpaul and Michelle putting up the corner posts where we would eventually slide in the walls.

Look at this wicked awesome picture of Michelle and my grandpa's old electric drill. We really did use this at one point!
















Putting up the walls.









Finishing up....yes...it really is that dark out. We started at about 9:00 am and finished about 9:40 pm.

It was well worth it though, the greenhouse turned out beautiful and I got to spend a nice day with my fantastic husband, my wonderful sister and my delightful grandmother.






That night (at 10:00!) we headed over the mountain to Portland to visit Johnpaul's sister and her family. We got there after they were asleep and crawled into bed. The rest of the time spent in Portland was used to visit family and friends that we don't get to see often enough. One highlight for me was being able to see my friend Megan and her awesome family. We ate a delicious meal at her house and chatted about life.

We made it home Tuesday, just in time for us to each have a day of relaxing before we headed back to work.

xoxo, Stephanie

Easter

This Easter we were invited over to an afternoon meal. We decided to bring a simple green salad and a fruit salad. I've been wanting to make a fruit salad for a while now, I kind of wanted one like great grandma or grandma Doris used to make. So, I've been searching online for a good one. The one I found is really easy and uses almost all canned fruit. I'm really looking forward to this summer and trying all fresh fruit instead. This is the one I found:

Ingredients:

• 1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks, drained 1 can
• (16 oz) peach slices, drained
• 1 can (11 oz) mandarin orange sections, drained
• 2 apples, cored and chopped
• 1 package (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 1/2 cups cold milk 1/3 cup frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Preparation:
Combine fruits in a large bowl; set aside. In a small mixing bowl, combine pudding mix, milk, and orange juice concentrate. Beat for about 2 minutes. Beat in sour cream. Fold mixture into fruit mixture. Cover and chill thoroughly.

So it is pretty simple. I messed up with buying the canned fruit. I was in a hurry and bought crushed pineapple. I decided to just mix it in with the pudding stuff and it worked really well. I also only used one apple and put one banana in.
I have to tell you, this salad looks pretty nasty, but oh my god, it tastes so good!
Love, Tracey

lemon pound cake

Martha Stewart's Lemon Pound Cake

Johnpaul had a little potluck at work last night, so I made some nice, springy lemon loaf for him to take with him. I was really drawn to this lemon loaf from Martha Stewart's website because it resembles the lemon loaf from Starbucks that I LOVE. It did not turn out exactly like Starbucks, but it was pretty tasty. The lemon glaze was to die for!

xoxo ~ Stephanie