The colors of fall heading to the bowl

A butternut squash from Gage's Gardens in Spearfish was unearthed today from our basement. I see a delicious and beautiful golden yellow soup in my future!

Roasted Squash Seeds

Okay, who loves roasted pumpkin seeds? I'm talking out of a fresh pumpkin - not those weird looking white 'pumpkin' seeds in bags at the gas station. Oh yeah. Love them. So if you are digging pumpkin seeds, have you tried to roast seeds from acorn squash, butternut squash, really any winter squash? Hello! If you are just tossing out the innards you are missing out on an absolutely delicious and healthful snack.

Two nights ago, I cooked a small acorn squash (from my local stash in the basement) and scooped the seeds into a bowl which set on the kitchen counter. They were a little dry this morning so I separated the seeds from the dried squash guts (just rubbing them together), put them on a cookie sheet, sprayed on a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt and into in my standard seed popping 450 oven and within 2 minutes I heard the magical popping sound and viola! Sooo delicious. I think acorn squash seeds are the most wonderful of all toasted seeds because they are very small and become very crispy.

Next time you are prepping ANY kind of winter squash, save and roast the seeds. You won't be disappointed.

Roast 'em if you got 'em!

Yes, you can eat that!

Okay, everyone knows that processed foods suck in more ways than one. Not only are most colorfully boxed and shrink wrapped food "stuffs" unhealthy, their existence alone makes people forget what real food really is.

Another take on the value of the veggie in The Atlantic yesterday from Carol Ann Sayle, co-founder and co-owner of Boggy Creek Farm, a five-acre urban, organic farm in Austin, Texas, takes a smart spin on the economic value of buying fresh vegetables and eating the whole thing. I was reminded of this concept this summer as I was in search of beat greens locally for sale. I could find beets but no greens. That was until I was directed to a huge pile behind Gage's Gardens of perfect beet greens destined for some pig (lucky pig!) food. When you consider a simple beet and the deliciously that can come from both the beet (for some) AND the greens, that's money well spent!

Think about this over the winter as you are peeling an orange and the amazing opportunity of making simple candied orange peel.

Boozy Fruit

The New York Times gets it right! I've been dunking local goodies in booze for years. In my cupboard now is a cherry, sugar, vodka concoction that I envision drinking as a cordial and using the cherries themselves over vanilla ice cream or Naked Coconut Bliss. Of course I still a bit of my two years ago, lemon verbena infused vodka which is a perfect, lemony after dinner drink.

Reading this article makes me want to try other recipes. What do you think about mint infused vodka? Sort of like a local Rumple Minze? I could be on to something!

Garden Bounty!

Although it only got to the high 40's today in the Black Hills, there is still much garden harvesting to do today! Lots of cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, gypsy peppers, hot cayenne peppers and many, many green beans. I absolutely love this time of year!

Meadowbrook School in Rapid City receives grant to encourage kids to move more

Getting kids moving is so important to overall health. Nice to see an elementary school in Rapid City moving in the right direction. As reported by the Rapid City Journal, Meadowbrook School will receive a $168,000 state grant to expand education and infrastructure to encourage its students to walk and bike to school. Nice!

Now, if we can just look at those school lunches...

Six items or less .. it's a clothavore challenge!

Okay, another fun game. We've done the uber-locavore project, "Eat what is in your house ALREADY before trotting off to the grocery store" and the "Eat on $25 a week challenge". Here's something new!

What if you only had SIX items hanging in your closet and that was all you could choose to wear from for a month? According to the website, http://www.sixitemsorless.com/, there are some exceptions to the game: undergarments, coats, socks, shoes, work out clothes, pj's and accessories. Work-out clothes, hmmm... the issue is that you would actually have to work-out if you were wearing them.

What does this have to do with being a locavore? Well, locavores are interested in being smart with our time and resources. Who wants to waste a thing! So if I only have a few things in my closet, choosing an outfit will be a snap. It will be the month of the clothavore! Now, not only will I still be a regular at Crow Peak Brewing Co., I will look the same for a month sipping my frosty pint of IPA. Nice!

Why would you want to self-limit yourself (again, I am sure there is a therapist out there to tell me why I like to do these little challenges)? I think it's about freedom and thankfulness. When we have less choices, we actually have MORE freedom. IMHO with less, you don't spend time dealing with all the "stuff" which can equal more time to do what is really important to you. The second benefit is thankfulness. When we don't have as many choices, we become thankful for the choices we do have. I learned this first hand in my $25 a week challenge.

The fine people at http://www.sixitemsorless.com/ have already done this once and will be set for the second experiment mid September. Of course, you can do it yourself but it's really more fun with others.

Are you in?

You can sign up here.