Taking a Break from Greens and the Best JoJos Ever!

Summer "Salsa Salad" and Nourishing Garlic and Herb JoJos

Moss Family Farm, one of my farmer's through my CSA, Western Montana Growers Co-op

Don't get me wrong, I love greens. I especially love fresh spring greens, plucked from the garden one day and brought to me the next. As a kid, we had iceberg lettuce, hacked in half. Sometimes "bag o' salad" if we needed variety. I always picked out the tomatoes and cucumbers. Now I eat a huge pile of greens every day. However right now in Montana, the food growing fresh is mostly greens, and as a family we've been eating huge amounts of them a week and by this week, we needed a night off. 

At a picnic last week I had a yummy corn and bean salad that tasted sweet and summery, so I replicated/improved it to go with dinner last night. I added avocados, tomatoes, green onions and other delicious and nourishing ingredients. Along with our "salsa salad" we had some cold ham (that I roasted on Sunday in 100 degree weather-it was excruciating but well worth it) and the best garlic and herb jojos I've ever had, hands down.

Summer "Salsa Salad"

If you haven't guessed, I kind of have a thing for tomatoes.

Ingredients: * denotes it's local

2 avocados

2 large tomatoes *

1/2 cup black beans

1/2 cup corn kernels *

3 green onions *

1/2 cup fresh cilantro *

1 lime

salt and pepper to taste

This is fairly easy. Dice your avocados and tomatoes and put them in a bowl. Add your cooked black beans and cooked corn kernels. Chop your green onions and cilantro and add. Juice your lime on top of the mixture, stir and mix, taste and add salt and pepper to taste! It keeps for about two days, this mix feed five of us twice over a 24 hour period.

Garlic and Herb JoJos

If you ever get a chance to buy fresh purple garlic from a farmer's market, there is nothing more juicy and delicious!

Ingredients: *denotes it's local

4 yukon gold potatoes

4 garlic cloves

1 palmful of fresh basil *

1 palmful of fresh sage *

1 palmful of fresh tarragon *

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut your potatoes thick, into large slices, about 3/4 of an inch. I put them in a 9x13 inch glass baking pan and then get out my food processor. Put your garlic cloves in the food processor and pulse until totally chopped. Add your herbs and olive oil and blend until all chopped and mixed and mashed together. Coat your potatoes with the herb and garlic mix and rub, massage, coat, caress the potatoes with the mixture. Sprinkle salt and pepper on top and bake for 45-50 minutes at 400 degrees, occasionally turning with a spatula. Make sure they are soft in the middle with a fork and then turn your broiler on low to finally crisps them up, monitoring the taters while under the broiler so they don't burn. I left them there for about 4-5 minutes, but sometimes never that long, just watch.

Banana Nut Chai Breakfast Bars

An experiment in deliciousness

I've been thinking about my grandmother in Illinois lately who years ago was a voracious cook and won cooking competitions, getting her recipes published in her local newspaper.

I have baking in my family, as many of us do for generations back. Lately, I've been experimenting and tonight, I tried something that worked out.

For tomorrow's breakfast after yoga but before work with my family, I experimented with banana bars and it turned out delicious and packed with nutrition! 

Ingredients:

2 overly mashed bananas

1 pastured egg

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 heaping teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 packets powdered chai

1/4 cup golden flaxseed

1/2 cup walnuts

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/4 cup melted butter

Turn your oven on to 400 degrees and put your walnuts and sunflowers seeds, dusted with the cinnamon in a baking dish to toast for five minutes while you ready your other materials.

In a large bowl, add your dry ingredients plus your flaxseed and stir. After five minutes in the oven, remove your cinnamon nuts and add to the dry mix.

Mash your two bananas and mix in your pastured egg, brown sugar and milk. Stir with a fork until the wet mixture is totally mixed with a few lumps.

Add your wet mix to your dry and after a few stirs, add in the melted butter. Mix until fully incorporated, add to a greased 9x13, and bake for about 22 minutes.

The flavor is very nutty and yummy!

 

After Something that Tasted Like Oysters, I had to Have a REAL BURGER

In Search of the Perfect Burger

Once I came up with a cure to my bad burger experience, it was a very good burger indeed!

The Bad Burger: I attended a picnic recently that served prefrozen, smashed down, buy in bulk, Costco burger patties. They came on a sesame seed bun. It sounded like a fine proposition after a long morning outside. I ate one. Bad idea. One bite in, ONE BITE, and it tasted like oysters and paper. Salty oysters from a can and paper with sesame seeds. It was so terrible. I threw it away, and I never throw food away.

The Good Burger: The disappointment of a bad burger meant I had to cleanse my pallet with a good one, and that did not begin with a stop through a drive through. It began at the farmer's market Saturday morning. I stopped by the meat truck, Montana City Meats, and asked if they had any bison patties.

I love a good cow, but I really love a good bison. The meat is extraordinary and the bison from Montana City Meats is locally raised, beautiful bison.  It is not for the cheap, however, and as I had not made burgers in a year (yes, a year) I bought a package of three pounds of premade patties. They were pricey, but I was excited. 

I let them thaw and then we grilled them outside on our propane grill until they were medium rare. I toasted sourdough buns on the grill and added a slice of raw milk cheddar from the Lifeline dairy on top of each burger. I added red onion and lettuce to each burger when they were complete and voila, a pretty darn good burger.

The Beauty of Tomatoes, Basil and Spinach Fettuccine Marry

Oh my Oh me Tomatoes!

There is nothing sweeter, is there?

The only place in Helena, Montana to get tomatoes right now, that I know of, is The Farm in the Dell, one of the sweetest places on the planet that provide purpose to developmentally disabled adults in our community. Every resident has a job on a real working farm operation that mainly raises tomatoes in their big greenhouses and sells them at stores and the farmer's market.

I love tomatoes, and this year we sadly did not plant any of our own. I will rely on my CSA and the Farmer's Market to feed my addiction. Tonight, dinner was inspired by an impulse purchase at the grocery store and starred beautiful Dell tomatoes. 

I also adore hand made spinach fettuccine pasta. There use to be a national brand that made it and sold it, but I haven't been able to locate it in years. Today, I found a new product at the Real Food Store, a Montana product, that made me giggle. 

Apparently, there is this glorious business called The Great Northern Pasta Company operating near Whitefish, MT. They sell a variety of ORGANIC and GLUTEN FREE pastas, right out of Whitefish! I tried their spinach fettuccine tonight, and it was SPECTACULAR! If you get a chance to try their pasta, they sell it at the Real Food Market in Helena and have a website. 

This recipe is originally inspired by Betty Crocker. I have her cookbook. It was one of my first, alongside the thin and threadbare Amish cooking manual that was my great-grandmother's, her handwriting still in it. We've added and subtracted through the years and dinner tonight was delightful, springy, and simple.

Spinach Fettuccine

Ingredients:

2 packages of Great Northern Spinach fettucine (fresh is best, but you can buy dried pasta and cook it for longer)

1 teaspoon salt

6 fat ripe tomatoes, diced

Half a jar of sun dried tomatoes stored in olive oil (about 1/2 cup, minimum, snipped into small pieces

4 green onions, chopped

2 beets, peeled and diced into small pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil 

6 fresh basil leaves, chopped

1 container of feta cheese, any variety

Start to boil your pot of water with your teaspoon of salt. If you use fresh pasta, it only needs to cook for three minutes, so it can be left to the last thing. If using dried pasta, you will need longer to cook them so start boiling them right away.

In a skillet, heat your olive oil and toss in your green onions and beets together, sauteing at medium high heat for the time it takes to dice your tomatoes and snip your sun-drieds.

Add your two types of tomatoes to the skillet and lower the heat to medium heat, string to prevent sticking or burning until the tomatoes are cooked through, about 10 minutes for us. 

This is when you add your fresh pasta into the hot water to boil and your chopped basil into the tomato mixture. Stir your pasta, stir your tomatoes. When the pasta is done, remove it from heat and drain it. Turn off your tomato mix and add it to your pasta. When your serve it, sprinkle a generous amount of feta on top of the pasta. 

You can always add more vegetables too, in my opinion. Tonight it was a disguise act with beets (and it worked) but we've also used fresh peas, baby spinach, and peppers. There is always room for more vegetation at the table!

Caramelized Onion Breakfast Burritos and an Experiment in Avoidance

An Experiment in Avoiding the Grocery Store

This is Clark Fork Organics, one of my new "grocery stores."

When we joined the Western Montana Growers Co-op and started receiving baskets every Friday, we started adding on extras at cost and direct from local farmers, dairymen and ranchers. 

This week we ordered two gallons of milk from a local, biodynamic dairy, cheese curds and "Montana Jack" cheese from the same dairy, flax seeds from Timeless Seeds and pastured eggs from Mission Mountain Organic Eggs. 

We are trying, very hard, to eat locally and locally only. With three little boys, it is very, very hard. We are trying to do good things for the environment and to save money, so instead of buying bananas last week, I bought five pounds of pitted, frozen Flathead cherries from our co-op. Instead of buying lunch meat, I bought an extra dozen eggs. 

This has pushed us to be very creative and absolutely delicious in many of our tasks. Tonight I'll later share a recipe for the breakfast burritos we made. But for now, I have a confession to make.

Unlike in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kinsolver, the most inspirational book on eating locally I have ever read, we do grocery shop still. I still buy peanut butter, brown sugar and maple syrup. I still buy yogurt instead of make it. To prevent over reliance on these staples, though, we only grocery shop twice a month now, and spend less than $100 each time doing that. Otherwise, our food comes from the co-op.

Tonight our mostly local dinner (mostly because I did not make the tortillas) was:

Caramelized Onions Breakfast Burritos

Every good meal should start with a cast iron skillet, butter, and an onion.

Ingredients: (* means its a local food)

1/4 cup salted butter *

1 onion, sliced into rings

1/2 pound pork sausage *

5 pastured eggs *

1/2 cup whole milk *

1/2 cup corn kernals *

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese *

2 large flour tortillas

Pull our your cast iron skillet and heat it to medium heat. Melt half your butter in the pan and slice your onion into rings. Start to saute and let them go for 20-30 minutes, occasionally stirring and adding butter as needed so they don't burn. They will turn sweet and oh so delicious. 

After they are caramelized, scoot them over to the side in the pan and add the sausage, sauteing and stirring the sausage, leaving the onions alone, until the sausage is cooked through. Add your corn (mine was left over from my parent's garden last summer) and stir it all together. Then, use a fork to whip the eggs and milk together then add to the pan. Cook until the eggs are done, melt in the cheese, then serve into tortillas.

 

Packing Food for a Cabin Weekend Away and a New Recipe with Co-op Food

Eating out is Expensive and Messes with our Digestion.....

So how do we travel?

Ah a weekend at a cabin in Montana....

Soon we embark, as a family, for a trip to Virginia City, Montana, one of our favorite places to visit for a close and quick getaway. There are any number of cute cabins, hotels, and campgrounds surrounding it and we have one we stayed at last summer we will frequent again this year. 

After staying in Virginia City, we'll make a stop in Norris at Norris Hot Springs, one of the coolest places in the Gallatin Valley where they grow their own food, feed you with it, and let you swim in their luscious hot springs until you force yourself to go home. 

We plan on eating at least one meal in Norris, but other fare, like bar food in Virginia City, seriously affects our digestive systems. Grease is not our friend. When we have an outing like this coming up, I try to plan and eat at least half of our away from home meals on location, not from a restaurant. I bring our own food, and no, its not bologna sandwiches.

For dinner one night I am premaking, right now, a spring lasagna I hope to please everyone with, and I'm using more of our awesome food from Western Montana Growers Co-op! Tonight I'm using some of the milk, cheese, eggs, oregano, baby spinach, and morel mushrooms I obtained from our delivery this afternoon.  Here's how I made it and hope to bake it, I'm pretty sure it's going to be fantastic!

Spring Greens Lasagna with Morrells and Fresh Oregano

Ingredients for an 8x8 pan (* means I got this item from my local co-op)

6 lasagna noodles, boiled in salt water with a dab of olive oil

Alfredo sauce (homemade or premade, I used a Simply Organic packet mix for ease)

1 ounce Morrell Mushrooms *

I package (about 2 cups) ricotta cheese

1 pastured egg *

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1/2 ounce (about six sprigs with the leaves pulled off) fresh oregano *

1 cup freshly grated raw milk cheddar *

1 cup freshly grated mozzarella *

2 cups fresh baby spinach *

Cook your lasagna noodles with a dab of olive oil and some salt in the hot water. Set aside.

Mince your Morrell mushrooms and stir them into your Alfredo sauce. Set aside. 

Take another bowl and put ricotta, salt, pepper, oregano and egg into it. Mix swiftly with a fork until totally combined. Set aside.

Grate your cheeses. Set aside.

Get ready to make something beautiful. Layer in this order:

Three noodles, half the ricotta mix, half the spinach leaves, half the Alfredo and morrell mix, half the cheese, three more noodles, rest of the ricotta, other half the leaves, other half the Alfredo, other half the cheese.

I foiled our lasagna and set it in the fridge to gel together. When we go, we'll carry it in a cooler and bake it in the oven at the cabin at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

Breakfast the next day will be Baked Oatmeal. Find the recipe at Nourished Kitchen, an inspiring website with inspiring recipes.

 

 

 

Oven "Fried" Happy Chicken and How I Never Have Buttermilk

Happy Chickens

This is what every backyard chicken used to look like. Most supermarket chickens are white, fat, and can't support their own weight. 

The Real Food Market in Helena is where I get my poultry from. I buy one or two chickens a months and use it many times and many ways. If I could keep chickens in my own yard, I would. I would keep them, eat their eggs and when they stop laying, butcher them and eat them. But my town, East Helena, distinctly separate from Helena in many wonderful ways, said backyard chickens were not allowed. This made me sad. Until the day we are allowed, I will buy my chickens from the Real Food Market, or from my co-op if they become available.

One of the reasons I buy happy chicken is that the Real Food Market has a Real butcher that will cut them into quarters so you don't have to hack them up yourself. I used my chicken twice, earlier this week on a simple baked chicken for use in chicken salad and on salad salad and tonight on something very, very yummy.

Oven "Fried" Happy Chicken

Ingredients:

Chicken legs, thighs, and wings, from one chicken, skin on

2 cups milk

4 tablespoons lemon juice

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons dried oregano

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons butter

In the morning before I headed to work, I put the chicken in a freezer bag and wanted to marinate it in some buttermilk to give it tang and make it juicy. Who buys buttermilk though. Instead I used the Betty Crocker substitution and added milk and lemon juice together, sealed the bag and squeezed most of the air out of it, and put it in the fridge to marinate.

When I got home, 8 hours later, I combined all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and preheated the oven to 400 degrees. I melted two tablespoons of butter into my trusty cast iron skillet and started dredging the chicken through the flour mix. I dipped the chicken in buttermilk again and dredged it again. I set each piece in the skillet and when they were all double dredged and set them in the oven to bake for 40 minutes. At 20 minutes, I flipped the pieces to provide equal crunch.

Allow to rest for five minutes after they are finished.

How to Get over an Aversion and a recipe for Beet Brownies

They Weren't Dwight Schrute's Beets...

About two months ago, we roasted a chicken for dinner with root vegetables alongside. There were potatoes, carrots and beets from our Bountiful Basket. Our kids chose not to eat the beets, so my husband and I overloaded ourselves with them. About four hours later, we were sick. Really sick. Praying on the bathroom floor for 24 hours sick. After the cloud of horrible left us, we racked our brains to try and figure out what had happened. All three of our children were right as rain. 

Was it salmonella? Unlikely, since our children ate the chicken too with no reaction. Was it a bug? Unlikely, as the illness hit us at the same time and lasted the same amount of time and our children were unaffected. Eventually, we figured out that our children had avoided the beets and dinner and we laid the blame solely on the blasted beets, they were contaminated or we just ate way to many of them and accidentally cleansed our systems, as beets are often used as a cleansing agent. We weren't sure how we would handle them.

Waste not want not.... (Happy Mom?)

I dislike wasting food on any level. In fact, we never throw any away. I am serious, never. What isn't eaten is either re-purposed for leftovers, given to our voracious beagle as a treat, or composted. We did not want to get rid of the food we feared. They are not all evil, beets contain vitamins and minerals that help guard against heart disease, birth defects, and cancer, especially colon cancer. (Whole Foods Website Reference)

Avoid the Aversion...

Suffice to say, we were not overly excited about hearing that our first co-op basket contained beets. When they arrived, they were beautiful. The greens crisp, denoting fresh pulled veggies. The beets ranged in color from yellow, to orange to blood red. They smelled slightly sweet even. We decided to find a way to ease back into beets and avoid a taste aversion to them forever. Searching the internet, I found many references to Beet Brownies. I decided to play around and came up with the following, child and husband approved recipe.

Sweet Beet Brownies

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup unrefined granulated (white) sugar

4 pastured eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups cocoa mix (we use Alton Brown's, a big money saver-Here's the Recipe for Alton Cocoa 

3 beets, peeled, steamed for 25 minutes, and then pureed

1 cup whole wheat flour

First, take your beets and rinse them well, cut off the greens and peel the outer skin off of them. Cut the beets in half and put them in a pan, covered half way up with water. bring the pot to simmer and cover with a lid, allow to simmer until the beets are soft, 20-25 minutes

While your beets are simmering, beats four eggs (I use a stand mixer). Add the salt, baking powder, vanilla and cocoa mix to the eggs and beat until fully incorporated. There will be a couple little lumps, and that's OK.

Melt the butter in another pan on low heat. Add in your sugars and stir until they have melted together, then stir often to avoid the sugar burning and butter scalding. You can remove it from heat if you need.

Remove the beats when they are soft enough to mash, either with a fork or food processor and preheat your oven at 350 degrees.

Turn your mixer with the egg and cocoa mixture on low and add in the butter and sugar mix, then the pureed beets. Mix on medium speed until fully incorporated, then add in the 1 cup of flour until fully incorporated. This mix will appear a bit soupy, and that is alright. 

Line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper or grease it well with butter. Pour in the mix and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool, and enjoy.

  

"This Milk Tastes Sweeter than Normal" and a totally Local Feast

Who's Your Farmer?

Celery starters from one of my farmers, Harlequin Organics.

Today was our first day as hosts for Western Montana Growers Co-op here in Helena. They deliver the boxes of our area's participants (all 13 of them) to our home and we make sure the food stays safe in our garage until its family comes for it. Sadly, this year the co-op is now sold out of shares, but those that got in early are very lucky people in deed.

There were a few minor glitches. The truck, which was supposed to arrive between 10 and 12 arrived a few hours late, at 3:00. There were a few folks that stopped by looking for their goodies prematurely, but they were sweet and understanding and returned later. Also, I ordered two dozen eggs from Mission Mountain Farms and only received one. These things though, I am willing to endure as the produce and extras we received were amazing, and so was the customer service. I emailed the co-op at 4:00 to let them know we were a dozen eggs short and by 5:00 someone had gotten back with me and assured me they would send the dozen the next week.

The produce we received was unbelievable! Kale, romaine, salad mix, spinach, radishes, beets, and we ordered extras by way of milk, eggs and cheese.

My kids love to try every kind of food that come through the doors. I remember Commissary day when I was little, my dad hefting paper sacks into the pantry still in his uniform, and my brothers and I digging through endless containers of goodies. Today felt a little like ti when my kids saw the new kinds of cheese and our usual milk and asked for both.

As my 6 year old drank his glass of milk, probably produced from the cow less than a week ago, he remarked, "Mom, this milk tastes a bit sweet and kind of grassy."

I smiled, knowing this was due to our dairy, Lifeline Dairy, being organic and biodynamic, meaning they contribute to healthy animals and a healthy community, growing most of their feed for their cattle and re-purposing the cattle waste. All things that go into a cow come out of it in its milk. It is milk, after all, and like human breast milk it will pick up the flavors and nuances of what the mother ate that day. This time of year, after the weeks of rain we've had, that flavor is going to grass. Lifeline does pasteurize their milk, so it is not raw, but they do not homogenize it, so much of the cream and flavor stays with the milk.

Dinner tonight was 100% Local. This is what we ate:

Spring Greens Fritatta

Ingredients (And ALL of these came from within 120 miles of my home):

1 tablespoon bacon grease (rendered from bacon my parents raised)

1 tablespoon butter

2 cups fresh kale

1 cup fresh spinach 

4 baby garlic

6 pastured eggs

1/2 cup whole milk

1 cup freshly shredded raw milk cheddar cheese (from Lifeline dairy)

With handy cast iron skillet in hand, I pulled out my not so secret fritatta secret ingredient, BACON FAT. Yes, I keep a fat jar from my bacon dripping, and like my grandmothers before me, I cook with it. Mind you, not every meal and every day, but on fritatta day, I am not afraid to slap a spoon of bacon grease in my pan. You can do this if you are not ingesting grease through daily McDonalds or Taco Bell. Its ok. I weigh 115 pounds guys and do some killer yoga three times a week, and I eat bacon grease on occasion.

Warm up your cast iron pan, with bacon grease inside, on medium heat while you also preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Saute your greens and baby garlic in the bacon fat, stirring, wilting and inhaling the goodness of them. The fat also helps break down the fat soluble vitamins in the greens, and makes them delicious in doing so. Grate your cheese while you wait.

After your greens are totally wilted, about 10 minutes later, ready your eggs and milk together, whipping with a fork in a bowl or using an immersion blender to totally liquify them. Remove your pan from heat and add in your butter, to add a bit extra lubrication to the pan for your eggs. Melt the butter fully and then and in your eggs and milk mixture, then your cheese, and use a fork to mix the cheese about in your eggs.

Move your pan to the oven and bake for 40 minutes, checking at that point with a knife to see if it fully cooked. If it is, remove from the oven and allow to cool a bit.

Enjoy the flavors of Spring!

 

Bacon and Venison Meatloaf after a Third day of Freezer Digging

Still Digging...

This was my third weeknight of freezer digging for dinner. Fortunate for me, I have a very happy and still quite full freezer with venison, pork, and lamb, corn and leeks, bread and other fun things. 

Today I sadly pulled out the last pound of frozen ground venison. After the shed tear for the fine venison to be used, I smiled at my plans, satisfying ones that meant I could get my hands bloody and crush very crunchy things.

Bacon Venison Meatloaf

Yum yum yum.

Ingredients:

Roughly 1 pound ground venison (thawed out if from the freezer)

1 pastured egg

1 sleeve saltine crackers, crushed (roughly a cup and a half when crushed by very satisfied hands)

Salt and pepper to taste ( 1 used about 1/2 tsp of each)

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup Worcestershire

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Bacon

Oil (to grease the pan)

Time: 10 minutes prep, 45 minutes bake Temp: 400 degree oven

I love making meatloaf. I use my hands to crush and mash and mix it all together. Together was an especially long day at work with young children and I felt I definitely needed both meat for dinner and a release in making it into dinner. Meatloaf fits the bill both ways.

Essentially, I lightly grease a loaf pan with any kind of oil. In a big glass bowl I put all of the ingredients together, take my hands, and mash. I mash and squirt and mixed all the ingredients until combined fully, then lightly packed it into the loaf pan. 

Don't mash it into the loaf pan, it will be too dense, I just like to place it in with the correct sort of shape. After the meat mix is placed, I drape it in bacon and bake it until it reaches 160 degrees on the interior. Adding the bacon to the top seals in the moisture and it adds a lovely flavor. Bacon fat is such a lovely addition to darn near everything. 

As for venison being dry and gamey, as many people I know complain, I have never had that problem. This meatloaf had a very polite, non gamey flavor and was incredibly moist.

 

They say they hate it? Keep trying! And The Story of "the Meat Truck"

Texture Woes and German Sausage

This is another creative week in our home. We skipped grocery shopping in favor of adding new items to our CSA basket (first delivery Friday!) Our pantry, freezer and fridge contain food, but sometimes putting them together to make a nourishing meal takes some thought. Tonight, what sounded good to me only partly sounded good to the kids: 

German sausage sliced onto parsley and garlic couscous and mixed frozen berries

A Substantial Word on Good Meat

This Saturday, we hit the Helena Farmer's Market on the way back from our last soccer game of the season. We picked up our lunch there and ate it on the lawn until a wobbly old hippie lady and her tye died toadie started sauntering around with a tape deck, asking little children to dance for them (seriously.) Before we left, we were able to score some amazing sausages from "the MEAT TRUCK." 

Montana City Meats has a truck parked at the market every Saturday that sells lovely local meat; lamb, beef, bison, pork and other assorted items. My favorite items of theirs are their sausages. OH THEIR SAUSAGES! Depending on the week they sell Germans, Polish, Bach-wurst, tomato basil, cheddar-wurst, jalapeno cheddar-wurst, etc. They are all amazing!

Dinner was fairly easy after I figured it out. I took my lovely sausages and cooked them in my cast iron skillet on medium heat, turning them occasionally and pouring water into the pan, covering them with a lid to steam them to keep them moist, and then turning them over and over again. I cooked my couscous when the sausages were ready, boiling 2 cups of chicken stock in a pan, adding 1 cup of couscous and a paste of 1 minced garlic clove and half a bunch of fresh parsley. I let the couscous sit for five to ten minutes until the liquid was fully absorbed. I sliced the sausages on top of the couscous, served berries alongside, and called it dinner.

As soon as the plate hit the table, my six and four year old sneered and replied, 

"Ew! Couscous! I hate couscous!"

Its a texture thing. Its all in their heads, but you know, I can't control what goes in or comes out, just what I offer. They tried the couscous, as I ask, but wouldn't eat much more. I won't stress too much about it though. Someday, they will surprise me, and until then, it makes delicious leftovers, cold or warm. When the boys won't eat part of their dinner, I don't whip up something else for them. Dinner in dinner, eat it or don't.

Western Montana Friends! Check out this local CSA!

What is a CSA?

Homestead organics Farm, one of the suppliers of Western Montana Growers Co-op

Community Supported/Sustainable/Sensational Agriculture. If you have enjoyed Bountiful Baskets but are curious about trying something local and Montana and live in the Missoula or Helena area, look into Western Montana Growers Co-op. They are sensational. We subscribed to a large share for the price of an organic Bountiful Basket and much less than a grocery store trip. Click here for the Co-op website!

Subscribing to a CSA cuts out the markup a grocery store attaches to its goods, and its all local! The co-op with a standard subscription will deliver to your area a wooden crate of fresh fruits and vegetables depending upon what is in season. The beauty of it is after buying your subscription, you can purchase add ons each week at a lower price too. These add ons vary from seasonal fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meats and dry goods like mushrooms and lentils. 

Take organic milk, for example. One gallon of Lifeline Dairy milk at the Real Food Market and Deli is $6.49. We are getting ti for $4.93 a gallon through our co-op because 1) the coop orders it straight from the dairy and 2) we got an extra percentage off because we volunteered to be the Helena drop point. What a happy stroke of luck and a big money saver that we get to host the drop point AND get 15% off our extra orders! Thank you Amy Pavlov at WMGCOOP! She is an amazing lady who has answered at least a dozen questions for me already and we have yet to get a delivery. Her email is on the website and she is great at answering questions!

Why Buy Local?

This is directly from the Western Montana Growers Co-op website:

"The Western Montana Growers Cooperative makes it easier for wholesale and individual customers to buy local food products, by distributing our growers’ local food to restaurants, groceries and some local schools. The concept of “buying local” is simply to purchase food from your local community. For us, that community is western Montana, from the Bitterroot to Glacier, from Missoula to Helena. There are many reasons to buy local, as shown below, and for WMGC the most important reasons are superior quality and freshness, contributing to the local economy, and reduced environmental impacts."

Please go to their website to read on! And if you decide to subscribe, feel free to mention me or this blog in the comments on their order page.