Dark Days Challenge: Week 5

Eating local through the dark days of winter: that is the Challenge! Now, if you follow this blog, you know that Aagaard Farms is well on it's way with our own homegrown pork, fresh eggs from The Hens and a root cellar full of potatoes, winter squash, some onions and a wee bit of garlic. There's still a small amount of carrots and parsnips in the fridge. We're on the Prairies, so local grains are quite readily available. Surprisingly, even though there are cows everywhere around here, local milk, butter and cheese are really, really hard! I have sourced some great goat cheese from Iles de Chenes, Manitoba - just a wee bit out of the mileage limit. So far, though, it's a rather limited diet. We're missing greens! So, it was definitely time to get out the Biosta Sprouter. This is a great gadget to get sprouts going for fresh, local, organic greens. As we get our seed orders in, we're also getting some micro green and mesclun mix seeds, which we'll start in flats as soon as they arrive. So, we've got breakfast down, with our own eggs, bacon and local grains for oatmeal. Now, lunch is looking better, with sandwiches of homemade bread, fresh sprouts and (sort of) local cheese. Making bread has become a part of the regular routine - love that 'Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day' by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois! (If you grab a copy of the book from the Amazon link in the sidebar, The Hens will get some extra treats!) I'm going to give another try at making cheese, soon. If nothing else I can find organic milk, even if it isn't local! Dinner, well, we know it's largely going to involve pork, potatoes and winter squash - we've just got to find some new recipes to keep things interesting!