Month 6: 'April is the cruelest month'

'April is the cruelest month' is a quote from T.S. Eliot. April was the month I was worrying about back in November when we started this way of eating. Stored vegetables gone, this year's vegetables won't show up until June or later. What to eat?

And in fact, our meals did become somewhat repetitious. I allowed the ninth Exception to be canned US organic tomatoes, just to give us some variety. This will be retired in summer when we get good Colorado tomatoes. And the tenth: peas, fresh, frozen, split peas for soup. .....We knew lettuce was coming.....

And so it did. We bought fresh Colorado-grown organic butter lettuce in our LoveLandLocal Food Buying Cooperative distributions. I bought three heads which we just finished. It's a luxury to have fresh local lettuce in a salad. You can also get Osage Gardens lettuce at the Whole Foods. We hope to have fresh Grants Farm spinach soon.

I am hoping to put in some season extenders in the yard: a cold frame, a small hoop house, or something like that. You can pick your own fresh greens nearly year round, with protection from the cold nights. Eliot Coleman's book "Four Season Gardening" has a lot of good advice on this.

So what were we eating in the "cruelest month"? Cincinnati chili on the beautiful tasty Colorado organic pinto beans, and occasionally on the last of the on-hand pasta. Gypsy soup with Colorado garbanzos and sausage, the last Hubbard squash, canned tomatoes (Exception). The traditional homemade pizza on Saturday nights, except I stopped having mine (gluten-free) because I ran out of pesto. Green peas in soups and as a side dish. Split pea soup with local non-cured ham shank. Spaghetti made with canned tomatoes (Exception), local sausage, and peas (Exception).

Very nice organic potatoes, sproutless in our distribution, which I'm eating up quickly since they're starting to sprout. A nice beef rump roast from the freezer, cooked with local onion and chili powder. Good with the potatoes. I'm still loving the millet. I will do another post just on millet (for those who aren't tired of hearing me praise it).

We still have our own fruit for desserts: applesauce, dried apples, dried peaches. And one splendid hubbard squash pie made with local eggs, honey and dairy, on-hand spices. Yum! I have
a few jars of farm pumpkin puree in the freezer too, in case we need another pie or two.

As always, getting good local meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products is not a problem. And now we have our Colorado staples of millet, quinoa, pintos, garbanzos, anasazis, and whole wheat flour. So, life is good, even in April. And our yard is filled with blooming fruit trees and shrubs, in white and shades of pink, so beautiful! A promise of fruit to come. Happy spring!