Monday, February 22, 2010

Current Food Sources

Boy, was I ambitious yesterday! (Saturday Feb 20 actually)

Tried cooked wheatberries (white winter wheat from CSA, not the hard red winter wheatberries I’ve bought before) with some milk and brown sugar for breakfast. It was okay. Even the overnight soaked wheatberries were still very chewy. I didn’t mind that so much but I thought they’d be a little softer. I think this would be better cooked in milk rather than just adding the milk to it after it’s been cooked in water.

I’ve had a terrible craving for something sweet like pumpkin pie all week. The pumpkin pie taste simply wouldn’t leave me alone so I made one yesterday. I had the pumpkin puree, added spices, egg and the condensed milk and used a pie shell I had in the freezer but it wasn’t homemade shell. I was so hungry for the pie I ate a 4th of it! But it satisfied my craving for that flavor finally.

Al, I made red lentil soup for the first time. It was okay but I’d want to use more veggie or chicken flavored broth with it next time. I had a recipe that used cumin, salt and pepper and some lemon juice and some olive oil on top at serving in the bowl. I think this might be a “learned flavor” for me.

And some chicken with veggies and leftover wheatberries is the last thing I cooked. The chicken was all thawed and needed to be cooked.

That leaves a lotta dishes to be washed one way or the other loaded in the dishwasher or the sink …

And notes about current Food Sources

1. CSA vegetables. These are more greens that I thought but I want to do a whole year’s worth of subscriptions to see what they grow all year around. I wish we could get a few citrus each week. I’d imagine we’d get summer squashes later on and I hope some sweet peppers and tomatoes.

2. Sprouts. This is where I get dry bulk things: flour, sea sale, cornmeal, farina, oats, sugar, rices, legumes, dried fruits, cereals to cook. I also can buy bulk spices here. Sometimes I buy some applesauce I particularly like here as well as canned pumpkin and sweet potato. I like these canned products rather than the similar ones at the grocery stores. They also have the usual food store supply of produce, meat, dairy etc. I also buy those things at this store.

3. Safeway and Bashas’ are closest grocery stores. I still buy peanut butter ( a LOT for the collapse is needed you know ;)) jams, maybe meat and dairy, fruit, maybe some veggies I don’t get in the CSA but I’m trying not to do that as long as I have the CSA membership. So far, it’s working for the veg.

4. Farmer’s Market weekly about 2 miles from here. This might be a more economical place to get fresh produce than the CSA pickup but I like the variety and figuring out how to prepare and eat the CSA veggies.

Peace, shamba

2 comments:

Chile said...

The wheat berries will be a little less chewy if you sprout them one day first. Soak them overnight and then drain. Let sprout one day until they have a teeny tiny little tail. If you don't have a sprouting set-up, you can just line a colander with a dishtowel and put them in that. Cover with another dishtowel and stick in a dark place - I use a closet. Rinse twice or so during the 24 hours' sprouting.

The advantage of this is they will now cook in half the time and be a little less chewy.

Shamba said...

Now, I 'd been soaking them overnight but I'll let them sprout the next time I try this.

thanks for the suggestion,

shamba