Day One (photos)

We greeted the day with a breakfast of fresh bread (done overnight in the bread maker) slathered with honey. Then the kids and I headed out to Angelic Organics to pick up our goat milk share and a dozen eggs and to get our first vegetable box.

Here's what was in the box! Lots of tasty things. I did grab one extra choi and a few garlic scapes from the box of extras/trades. We were excited to see the zucchini, too, not realy expecting to see any fruiting crops for a few more weeks (longer than that in our own garden!).

Well, I'd say our local eating today gets mixed reviews. We called it our official start day, which it was, but I couldn't stand to waste the perishable items and leftovers that persisted in our fridge so we did incorporate a few non-local items.

Breakfast was local (except for my coffee, which is allowed as an exception and the milk from Oberweis Dairy, which was the remaining half-gallon in the fridge). Kai had my own applesauce, canned last year from local apples (with canning lessons from my friend!) although I did mix in organic baby cereal. OK, not perfect but not a bad start.

Lunch... well lunch... Yesterday Neva and I had made homemade chapatis to go with our chicken and asparagus masala for dinner. At least the asparagus was local. There were two chapatis left and we each had one. There was also a yellow bell pepper, obviously not local, that was almost past it's prime. Kai even had some of that one in his fresh food feeder (a mesh bag that allows him to suck the dickens out of any whole food we put in there). I did eat my leftover spinach salad with green onions, garlic scapes, radish greens, and choi (all local) but I also fed Kai some green beans and brown rice which I had made up a month ago (I freeze the baby food I make in ice cube trays). Kevin, well, I need to work on him to get into the habit of packing a lunch... he had nothing.

For a snack, Neva had some of the dried fruit we had purchased a week earlier (I think dried fruit may be her one exception but we haven't discussed it yet).

Dinner was entirely local with one exception. We enjoyed copious amounts of steamed local, organic broccoli and lovely salads of red lettuce and chopped garlic scapes topped with my homemade Rosemary Ricotta (made from goat's milk) and... tomatoes. Aye, there's the rub.

I had purchased six tomatoes last week, thinking surely we'd eat them before Thursday... well, we didn't and I didn't feel like snacking on tomato salad last night so I used some of them today. We also used oil and vinegar on the salads which fall into our exceptions category.

We did celebrate our first day by opening a bottle of Domaine du Sac from the Wollersheim Winery in Wisconsin. They produce a number of types of wine but they only have a few for which they actually grow the grapes at their vineyard in Prairie du Sacm Wisconsin, this happens to be one made from locally-grown grapes (and a nice table wine, I might add!). We bought this bottle when we toured the winery three year ago while celebrating our wedding anniversary in November.

Here was our first dinner:

Tomorrow I'm thinking about a breakfast of eggs scrambled with chard and allums (onions and garlic scapes) and for dinner we'll try the loin of goat I purchased from Open Range Products in Pecatonica (and processed at Eichmans in Seward) with whole wheat rolls and salad and fresh strawberries from a farm near the Wisconsin boarder (from Edgebrook Farmers' Market) for dessert.

Between the veggies I got at the farmers' market, those I got from my friends, and those I picked up from the farm, not to mention more of the food still sitting in our fridge, we will be comfortable this weekend. Next Tuesday we'll get our first box from Pine Row Farm and the Tomorrow's Harvest cooperative of four local organic growers. I was nervous about having enough produce so we joined another local CSA. I'm looking forward to seeing what they produce (and picking up some of their eggs too!) on Tuesday morning.

Just to let you know, my intention is really to post just once or twice per week so check back next week for more updates. Have a great weekend!