Weekly Local Booty 10/12-10/18/08

It has been a fairly chilly week here in Mid-Missouri. We had a slight threat of frost, but thankfully, at least for now, we've been spared. The weather forecast looks free of frost threats next week. I hope that keeps up until our tomatoes at the community garden ripen.

Despite the nippy trip to the farmer's market this morning, we had one of our better trips in terms of what was available to work with. The fine folks at the farmer's market treated us to live bluegrass music, and Brett and I spent a decent amount of time talking about beekeeping with our farmer Dan. Anyone interested, it would be a good field to get in to - there is a lot of demand for these types of services.

Anywho, check out what we got from our container garden this week:















2 "regular" bell peppers - one ripe, one (obviously) not and 2 ripe serexican chile peppers. A note about the green bell pepper - I kind of mangled the plant getting this pepper off. I decided to just try to pull it with my hands (sometimes using a knife to slice the pepper off is a better method) and I pulled a whole branch of the plant with it.

Check out this week's CSA. A sad note, next week will be our last CSA share for the season. Winter, sigh. At least we have football, sweaters, and baking.















Starting from the bottom right: boiler onions, a green bell pepper, 3 small, but gorgeous tomatillos (!!!!!!!!!!), a funky looking gourd, a head of lettuce, radishes, a cucumber, and another funky gourd.















I know this is a horrible picture, but look at these lovely local tomatillos. Wahoo!

And finally, this week's farmer's market booty. This load ran us a whopping $33.















Starting from the bottom right: 4 vidalia onions, 4 tomatoes, 5 habaneros, 4 pimento peppers, a zephyr summer squash, a zucchini, a loaf of ciabatta from the local Uprise Bakery, a 1 lb. glass jar of alfalfa honey from Bonne Femme Farm (right here in Columbia!), a bag of baby kale, green beans, and carola potatoes.

That is a nice looking load of local loot! We still have a little bit of stuff left over from last week (check out the side bar to see all the local goodies we're munching on), so the Eat Local Challenge has been quite easy. Especially since we already have such a nice stash of organic beans and rice that we purchased from a co-op. We are planning on busting out one of our homegrown butternut squash this weekend too. Wahoo!

Honestly, with the Eat Local Challenge, the only thing I have missed is the morning granola bar I got accustomed to eating at work each morning along with a piece of fruit. I didn't think to put this on my "exceptions" list either. So I decided I'd look up some recipes for homemade granola, and what do you know - I already have a stash of various nuts around, plenty of organic rolled oats, even a little bit of dried fruit (we always have this stuff on hand), and with the addition of some local peanut butter or honey, I can have homemade granola bars and still be within the parameters of the Eat Local Challenge, as well as what we were hoping to achieve as market season started to draw to an end. An exciting longer-term note - the local honey and peanut butter are available year-round at the one of the local grocers here in Columbia, the Root Cellar. The Root Cellar also happens to be on my daily walk to the bus station. Wahoo for local goodies!

I am happy to report that I am now only one food post behind too! I'll get around to that one...sometime...probably after the weekly garden update. You can pretty much expect that the garden update will never be posted on Sunday. I do no blogging on Sundays. My computer is usually on - with the fantasy football live scoring page up. My team is 2-2 and my odds this weekend are looking pretty good. I know not many of you care - but I really enjoy football (but really hate the violence, injuries, and the trash talking).

Anyways, have a great weekend!

'Til next time.