A Week of Eating Local--Eat Local Challenge: Day 1

This was going to be a much longer post about the comedic elements of my chasing around stocking up like a madwoman on local produce, meat and other ingredients for the Eat Local Challenge I am participating in this week. But work stuff got in the way, then my MacBook and Wordpress (where Cook the Books is hosted), had a little falling out and my "Climbing the Mango Trees" round-up post that should have been pretty quick, took forever.. hours waiting for pictures and links to load... then I lost half of it... had to walk away for a few hours before I hurt something... then more time waiting before I finally got it finished.


So now I am tired, slightly grumpy and not really in the mood to go into great detail about how I stocked up to enable me to eat only food made from local ingredients for seven days. But trust me, it was kind of humorous and took visits to the farmers market, Kokua Market (my local co-op), and Whole Foods and two other grocery stores. And, because bread, rice, pasta and other carbs made from grains are not grown locally and therefore off the menu for the week... I felt that a "goodbye cupcake" was in order and stopped to get a banana-caramel one from Cake Couture (which was a little cake from heaven by the way).

You would think I was planning on eating just local foods for months from the goodies I have stuffed in my fridge. But if I learned nothing else from Girl Scouts, I learned to be prepared, so stocked up I am!

Which brings us to my Eating Local Challenge: Day 1 recap of Sunday's food:

• Breakfast: Smoothie made with all local ingredients--honeydew, GMO-free papaya, frozen apple-bananas, Naked Cow Dairy yogurt, Waimanalo honey and mint from my container herb garden.

• Lunch: Two poached local eggs over sauteed local Tuscan kale with tarragon and scallions from my lanai container herb garden, and Hawaiian sea salt cooked in a bit of Naked Cow Dairy Hawaiian Sea Salt Butter, served with tomatoes. Key learning: eggs are hard to poach neatly without vinegar (not local) and if you are offended by runny yolks, get over it--it is the best way to eat eggs over greens--you have to mix that yolk in. Mmm...

• Dinner: "Burger in A Bowl"--or a "bun-less" burger. Two mini Maui Beef patties served over a bowl of Nalo Greens--their "Healthy Mix" lettuces, with caramelized local onions (in local butter), local Japanese cucumber, local tomatoes, feta from Naked Cow Dairy, and guacamole made with local avocado, cilantro from my herb garden and local lime and red sea salt.

• Dessert: Figs, sliced, grilled and drizzled with Waimanalo honey and sprinkled with a little Naked Cow Dairy feta. OMG--yum! I nearly knocked over a few people getting to these last two figs at a booth at the farmers market and I whimpered pathetically when I found out the rest had sold--They were from the farmer's grandmother's tree and were juicy, sweet and perfect.
  
  

• Snacks: an apple-banana and a Japanese cucumber

Notes/Results: A day full of delicious food--I enjoyed everything I made and didn't feel deprived as we do have such a big variety of local food available here. I am missing bread a bit, but everything I ate was so fresh and good, it wasn't hard at all to eat almost completely local. (Chances are the starter for the yogurt wasn't local but the milk is and it is produced by a local business, so I think it meets the spirit of the challenge.) Another bonus to doing the challenge--my consumption of veggies--particularly those nutritious leafy greens, will be going up considerably this week! ;-)

Tune in tomorrow for Monday's recap, including my Local-Style Ahi Nicoise Salad.

Hope you are enjoying your week!