Sunday Morning Pancakes

Sundays are really about pancakes. In our house, that means gluten (wheat) free, casein (milk) free, soy free and artificial anything. They were delicious!

Here's the recipe:

1 cup potato starch
5/8 cup each chickpea and brown rice flour
1/4 plus a tbsp arrowroot flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup water

Mix the wet items together in one bowl and mix all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Then mix the dry ingredients into the wet and mix well.

In a hot non-stick skillet, heat up a bit of canola oil and scoop 1/4 cup for each pancake.

Enjoy with 100% maple syrup or as Jack likes it, sprinkled with sugar. Yum!

Tonight is a night of Bliss!

How blissful! Tonight is a night of Bliss from the makers of Coconut Bliss which is by far the most delicious ice cream you will ever taste.

Since Jack is on a gluten / dairy / soy-free diet, we are always looking for food options. Now, I do make him a lot of things from scratch like pizza, muffins, lasagna and popsicles but it's always nice to find something that is ready to go. We were first introduced to Coconut Bliss at the Good Earth Natural Foods in downtown Spearfish.

The gang at Coconut Bliss is smart to use social media to keep in touch with their many fans. I found out about the Night of Bliss contest on Facebook and entered. And sa-weeet! I am one of the winners and the only winner from South Dakota :-) I received a box full of all sorts of goodies including free Coconut Bliss (coupons), fun toppings, a t-shirt and a cool handmade bowl.

Click here to see all the poetry entries. Here is the poem I entered:

Coconut Bliss is a delight
Here in the Black Hills
I sometimes finish the whole thing
It's what cures all my ills

South Dakota can see its share of snow
In fall and winter time
But my Naked Coconut Bliss
Keeps me warm and fine

So tonight our court is having a progressive dinner party and we are the first house so I am serving Coconut Bliss, champagne and lemon verbena infused vodka I made from my garden. Doesn't that sound like a perfect first course?

Check it out A Night of Bliss and do have a blissful day!

The Six Items

For the Ultimate Locavore Challenge, there are six items that we can purchase this month for the family - milk, cottage cheese, spinach, chocolate, chicken and oranges. It's a funny list when you think about it but it includes some favorite foods of ours. Of the list, the only items we have not bought yet are chicken and chocolate because we had a stash which is now running out. In looking at our list, I am so glad we chose what we did.

Happy Halloween!

Trick or treating is local. We has purchased candy before we started the Ultimate Locavore Challenge and had a good time handing out treats. Our table was covered in candy!

Snow!

Snow in the 'fish! That's Crow Peak in the background. Doesn't it look like Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings?

The Ultimate Locavore Challenge - Rule Modifications

Every family handles money differently. In our family, we get an 'allowance' each month to spend on whatever we want. Sometimes it sounds funny to say, "hey babe, here's your allowance" to your husband but it works for us. In light of that, we thought that if either of us wanted to buy some sort of food (not one of the six), that would be fine or go out for a drink or for something to eat. Also, if there was food at work or at a friend's house, that was fair game too. Yes, it doesn't make the process quite as challenging but it does make it more doable.

Already, we can see how taking out all those trips to the grocery store is making us more creative in our menu planning. It just seems more fun to shop in our cupboards and freezer.

Here's a great and very simple and very delicious rice dish:

Preheat oven to 375
Saute a chopped onion in 1/4 olive oil until translucent.
Add and stir until well coated 1 cup of long grain rice.
Add 2 cups boiling stock (I used turkey and of course, homemade is better).
Cover and bake 20-25 minutes.
Mix in 2 tablespoons of olive oil (I used rosemary infused olive oil from my garden)
Serve.

It's even better the next day!

Infusing olive oil with herbs is so easy. Just wash and dry your favorite herb and put in a small jar. Pour enough olive oil in the jar so the herbs are completely covered. Set in a cupboard for a week or so and taste. If it's not strong enough, wait a while longer. When the flavor is to your liking, remove the herbs. Nice!

The Ultimate Locavore Challenge -- Thanksgiving 2009

In 2008, the week before Thanksgiving, I accepted the challenge from the Community Food Banks of South Dakota to eat for a week on $25, the average amount allotted to people living on food stamps. It was an interesting, yet humbling experience, which was reported by Jomay Steen at the Rapid City Journal on Thanksgiving Day. Each day, I shared on this blog what I was eating, cooking and feeling under the Eat on $25 a week label.

Since fall is here in the Black Hills (well, at least for a few days it was) and Thanksgiving will be here before we know it, I have been reflecting on the experience and will try something new this year, in the spirit of thankfulness. This time the whole family is involved! We are calling it: The Ultimate Locavore Challenge.

The word Locavore was the Oxford word of the year in 2007, and according to Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press, the word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment. Ben adds, "It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.” Most people use the term when considering food purchases within a 100 mile radius from where they live. It's a smart idea which benefits local growers and ranchers as well as consumers, who end up with food that is fresher and usually tastes better.

Being a locavore in western South Dakota during the winter months can be a challenge when it comes to produce, unless you've 'put up' a good amount of fresh fruits and vegetables from the summer. Yes, this is ideal and it's true that I do have mint from my garden drying in our shed, and one butternut squash from Mitchell, but that's not going to get us too far.

So here's what we are going to do.

We're going VERY local and just shopping in our own kitchen for the month before Thanksgiving which this year is on November 26. So on Monday, October 26, our family will start The Ultimate Locavore Challenge. Think how small our food carbon footprint will be! Now I am not really sure what I will find lurking in my cupboards or down 'in the basement,' but our goal is to not be wasteful, and start noshing on what we have, instead of heading to the grocery store and buying something new. How many of us have good food in our cupboards that just sits there while we run out and pick up a pizza or a pre-cooked chicken or a fast-food bag of 'food'?

Okay, there are a few caveats that we made in order to get the family involved. Each person gets to pick two foods that can be purchased over the month and here's what we selected: Mike: milk and cottage cheese: Michelle: fresh spinach and dark chocolate and Jack: oranges and chicken. Other than that, what we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner will just come from our refrigerator, freezer and cupboard. There are also two events that we've committed to attend over the next month that would be difficult to brown bag so we decided to keep it at that. We figure, since it's our challenge, we can make the rules!

Now, what do we expect to get out of this little experiment? We hope that we will be more aware of what we are eating, how we are spending our money and time, and in the end, more thankful for the blessings that we have in our lives, and in our kitchen.

We challenge other families to consider how this might work in your own lives, the conversations it can bring up and the changes it may cause you to consider. Do it for the month or a week or even just a day. That is up to you. We'll be talking about it here for the month. It will be fun!