Month 5: March-ing Toward Spring

We finished our fifth month on the 100-mile diet. I haven't been posting vegetable recipes, since our selections are getting pretty small--Daikon, a few roots, Napa Napa Napa (wonderful stuff), potatoes, lactofermented (pickled) vegetables, leeks, canned tomatoes (Exception until summer). We still have some local fruit: dried apples, applesauce, dried plums and peaches.

It's been harder in March, and April will be the same. I'm trying to put a balanced diet on the table, with the fewer selections, but it means we eat a lot of the same things week to week. That's one reason for adding the canned tomatoes to our selection. This summer I will be canning a lot of local tomatoes.

We sometimes have salads with slivered Napa, lactofermented carrots, canned tomatoes, olive oil (Exception) and pickle juice as dressing. They really taste pretty good, but I'm lusting after Lettuce! Going without lettuce for six months is one sure way to make you appreciate the stuff!

We've been eating Cincinnati chili, putting it on local pintos or the last of the On Hand pasta. It's good on boiled potatoes too.

I cooked a local Eastern Plains heritage turkey (from the freezer) for Easter Sunday; we've had delicious leftovers on that, and I made soup from the carcass. We have one more batch of broth and meat for soup.

End-of-Winter Turkey Soup

Break up a turkey carcass (the remains of a small bird) into a large pan or kettle, cover with water, add salt, and herbs or pepper as you like. Simmer 2-3 hours. Fish out the bones, pick the meat off them. Strain the broth and save it--you could have 2 to 4 quarts.
(Works best with an organic turkey, because the broth is so much more flavorful.)

Soup: Heat one quart broth in saucepan, add 1/2 to 1 cup chopped turkey meat, 1 cup or more sliced Hazel Dell portabellos, and 3/4 cup of wild rice or quinoa (whatever you have on hand; brown rice would work too). Simmer until the grain is tender. Check for salt, add fresh ground pepper if you like.

You could add some vegetables to this, if you have on hand: sliced carrots, sliced leeks, chopped celery, sliced scallions, or peas, or some combination. (We don't have any left.) The soup is good with some cole slaw on the side, for green and crunch. Applesauce for (our) dessert.

On another subject:
The LoveLandLocal bulk food buying cooperative is putting together our first order. We can get free delivery from the Denver distributors to Loveland for $300 worth of food, which we are sure to have from the orders we already have. If you live in the Northern Colorado area and want to be a part of it, let me know. All of the foods are organic, many from Colorado, and the rest from the western U.S.