Since we have so many participants in the Dark Days Challenge this year we’re breaking it down into two different groups (East and West) for the participant recaps and for the writers here at Not Dabbling. No doubt you’ve already received an e-mail from your host, but if you haven’t comment on one of these two Sunday Posts please! If you haven’t signed up today is the deadline. Head on over the (not so) Urban Hennery and do it! If you’d like to know which group you are in, head on over to the Dark Days Challenge page and find out.
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Here at Chiot’s Run we’re seasoned Dark Days eaters. Over the past couple years I’ve been working hard to shift our diet to more local seasonal food and thus about 90% of our meals during the winter are Dark Days appropriate. As I try to be more mindful I notice the subtle changes in what my body tells me it wants. In the winter it craves bitter greens, starchy potatoes, roasted rood vegetables, long simmered soups and much richer food. For my first Dark Days Meal I used the bones and leftovers from our Thanksgiving smoked turkey and made a rich smokey stock, it smelled much more like ham stock and turkey stock. This stock was divided up into 3 batches, one went in the freezer, one was made into a lentil soup with lots of homegrown carrots and spinach and the last of it was simmered with homegrown potatoes and onions into a wonderfully simple potato soup (recipe over at Chiot’s Run today). I put the plate outside to grab a few quick shots with decent light as the sun was starting to set in the West.
While I was at Local Roots in Wooster, OH I found these beautiful little mini butter head lettuces. Instead of my usual balsamic dressing I whipped up a buttermilk herb dressing with fresh buttermilk from the farm along with fresh herbs and garlic from the garden. It was simply delightful! As you can see after finishing my dressing it was dark, so this was a true Dark Days meals enjoyed by the warm glow of the dining rooms light after the sun had already gone down.
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On Wednesday I (Sincerely, Emily) made a very simple, yet wonderful local pork roast. I rubbed it down with local olive oil and threw in some onions, sage and thyme. It would be so easy to reach in the cupboard to grab a bag of organic noodles or make some noodles, or even toast up some homemade bread – STOP – those are not local. Instead, I am lucky to live in South Texas where I can have a wonderful winter garden. I walked out back and picked some fresh chard and sauteed that up. Perfect. A great local meal. You can read more of the details and find links to TX olive oil at Sincerely, Emily.
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While we were in the Smokey Mountains for Fall Break, I (DeeDee) bought a beautiful cheese pumpkin from an orchard we visited. Being much more inexperienced in real food than the other contributors here, I’ve (gasp) NEVER used a pumpkin for anything other than a jack o lantern! A few days ago, I baked the pumpkin and ran it through the Victorio Strainer I have “indefinitely borrowed” from my mom. Thursday evening I made it into soup! I’ve always wanted to try pumpkin soup… I loved it, but unfortunately the 5 others in my family weren’t fans.
This challenge is truly a new experience for me. I’m using it to prove to myself and my family that we can eat good, real, local food without spending a lot of money. I paid $2.50 for the pumpkin… although it wasn’t actually local from where I live, it was local from where I bought it on vacation so I’m going to say that counts!
Last Saturday I took our two younger boys down to the Winter Farmer’s Market at Trader’s Point Creamery to buy some vegetables and some of their creamline milk (ingredients I needed for the soup). I must admit the one non local ingredient in my soup was store bought maple syrup. I’m still going to consider this a big success for my first week… it’s progress!
My oldest son loves pumpkin seeds, so we also soaked the seeds in saltwater over night and baked them. He is responsible for packing his lunch for school, and each day this week he took the pumpkin seeds until they were gone! They were a much bigger hit than the soup, but we’ll keep trying… Here’s to better luck next week! In the mean time, I have a lot of soup to eat!
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If you’re in the EAST group for the Dark Days Challenge please post a link to your meal in the comments below, we’d LOVE to see what you’ve been cooking up!
PARTICIPANTS
“EAST CONTRIBUTORS”
Ohio Valley
leader: Susy Morris from Chiot’s Run
life, from the ground up.
The Life of a Novice
Put Em’ Up: A Chronicle of Making Stuff
Life On Fire After 40
Our Rural Home
SOLE for the Soul
Thrift at Home
Delicious Potager
Martha who’ll be adding her meals in the comments
Mid-Atlantic
leader: Emily Jenkins-Bastian from Tanglewood Farm
Late Bloomers Farm
Bumble Lush Kitchen Garden
Fessenden Farmstead
Monica Tries to Cook
Prospect the Pantry
A Lighter Footprint
Listen, Foodie!
NOFA-NY Locavore Challenge
NY Locavore Challenge
Knit and Be Happy
the suburban road less traveled
Belle Jar Canning
Gardening to Preserve
Kitchen Jam
Barefoot City Girl
Sunny Hill Farm Blog
Cross Creek Farm Family
From Scratch Club
Snowflake Kitchen
Living my Dreamlife on the Farm
New England
leader: Ryan from Phoenix Hill Farm
EatLocal365
The Finicky Farmer
31 and holding
You Got Me Cookin’
Vegetarian Paradise
Grown Away – Adventures in Food
Nine Lines n More
Whittled Down
The Luddite’s Apiary
Green(ish) Monkeys
100 Mile Locavores
Great Faith in a Seed
The Onion Flower
This Little Monkey Went to Market
Adventures of the Kitchen Ninja
Nicole Carey’s Blog
the crowing hen
Prosperous Pantry
South
leader: Emily Sauls from Sincerely, Emily
Post-Industrial Eating
The Soffritto
AnnieRie Unplugged
Southern Fried Goodness
Flight of the Seabirds
Windy City Vegan
Lizard’s Hollow
Eat. Drink. Nourish.
Keeping Up With K
40 shades of green
Eating Appalachia
Backyard Grocery
Family Foodie Survival Guide
Eating Floyd
Nancy – maintaining progress via emails and comments
Our meal this week in Maine:
http://greenishmonkeys.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/dark-days-challenge-week-1/
http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/dark-days-meal-week-one-nov-27th-to-dec-4th/
For my first Dark Day Meals, we have stewed Lamb chops, in homemade Rhubarb/Apple Relish, Baby Potatos, and a Veggie mix of Red Pepper, Daylily flowers, Burdock Root and with fresh mushrooms and horseradish..
My challange is to have a min of 50% of all things done from the farm itself, in this meal, only the butter, Mushrooms and Honey were from off the farm, and they all were very local within 15 miles of the farm.
Look forward to seeing what everyone else did this week!
Fessenden Farmstead
http://fessendenfarmstead.blogspot.com/2011/12/dark-days-challenge-week-1-couple-of.html
I grow a lot of my food, preserve, can, etc. I also have a CSA from a farmer in WV where I get vegetables, pork, chicken, eggs and whatever else he wants to sell. My milk products are delivered from a local dairy. My meal this week was heritage pork chop, homemade fig jam, salad from my garden and pickled collards (greens from the farmer’s market)
http://teresa-johnston.com/blog/2011/11/dark-days-nov-29-venison-stew/
Our first official Dark Days meal was incredibly simple (it has been a crazy week, I’ve been taking advantage of the crockpot), but good none-the-less. A couple months ago we had the unfortunate luck of having a deer hit right in front of our house. I couldn’t bare to see such a lovely animal killed for naught, so I butchered the deer and packed the cuts away in the freezer. It’s probably going to be making regular appearances in our winter meals.
This week we had venison stew with potatoes, onions, and carrots from our garden. It was simmered in beef broth that I had previously cooked down and frozen. I find that this helps the meat be less gamey (for those not into venison.)
That sounds so good!
Everything looks so great. Here is my first effort at the challenge. It’s not hard yet, but we still have fall CSA and at least six farmer’s markets until Christmas. February and March will be really difficult for me other than meat and eggs, both from a winter CSA.
http://annieriedora.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/dark-days-challenge-week-one-dinner-and-lunch/
Our first DD meal from Northeastern OH 🙂
http://novicelife.blogspot.com/2011/12/dark-days-challenge-week-1.html
Oh, darn! I thought I was supposed to email my link for two meals THIS week. Sorry for the mix up!
Here’s the link to my Dark Days Meal from last week:
http://deliciouspotager.blogspot.com/2011/11/5th-annual-dark-days-challenge-is.html
Thanks for doing the round-up, Susy! I know it’s a lot of work, but it’s so nice to swap ideas and recipes for SOLE eating!
You are right, we have having folks e-mail their meals to their group leader. We just decided to have people comment their meals here too in case you wanted to read what other people are eating before our recap comes up next week.
Shoot – I thought I commented earlier!! In any event, here is my DD meal for the week, from Northeastern OH!
http://novicelife.blogspot.com/2011/12/dark-days-challenge-week-1.html
It is fun to peak at what people are cooking up. Thanks for the links.
Here’s my Week 1 post- I’m in the East, in Michigan! Potato soup recipe. How do I add my posts to the larger group?
http://happyhomeypsi.blogspot.com/#!/2011/12/dark-days-challenge-week-1-potato-soup.html
Just e-mail your link to your group leader, they’ll add it to the larger recaps.
Thanks for organizing this and posting these links. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I’m afraid my meals are fairly simple so far. But I’m looking forward to getting inspiration from others’ recipes!
Here are my first two weeks so far:
week 1:
http://bumblelush.blogspot.com/2011/12/dark-days-of-winter-meal-1-stuffed-bell.html
week 2:
http://bumblelush.blogspot.com/2011/12/dark-days-of-winter-week-2-breakfast.html
We had a locally made Spinach Fettucine with homemade pasta sauce with carrots & broccoli. Sweet Italian sausage for the omnivore, none for the vegetarian 🙂
http://grownaway.blogspot.com/2011/11/dark-days-meal-1-spinach-fettuccine.html
That sounds really good!
Hi – sorry for being the slow to catch on. I have no idea how this is supposed to work. I’m receiving discussion emails, but I have not received any instructions. So I should link to my blog post in the comments here and then email it to you as well?
We’re having people link here while we’re still ironing out the details. Since we have over 100 participants this year it’s taking some time to make sure everyone is getting the e-mails. We’ll be sending out another e-mail this week with all the final details and contact information for your leader.
When you get this e-mail you can send the link to your meal to your leader.