One Month In--Eating for Sustainability Pt. 5

This week I spent $150 in groceries, same as last week. I will keep tallying, but I'm feeling more and more confident that my average weekly bill won't exceed $200, even when I've transitioned to all organic or local. However, I am still amazed by the amount of food I am able to cull from the cupboards each week. This week I dug up some old pancake mix, dried cranberries, chocolate chips, and pecans to concoct a dessert that was meant to be a bar cookie but turned into a cake. That was a fun kitchen moment with the kids, and it felt good to reduce waste. I can't help but think that developing creativity in the kitchen is as good for my morale as it is for the environment.

Which leads me to the CSA box this week. Most of it was easy for me to use: ground beef, a nut butter, salsa, bean dip, eggs, mushrooms, yogurt, apples. The one exception that forced me to get creative? Acorn squash. I still had one from a previous week, and they gave us two this week. I definitely don't love winter squash, but I couldn't put off using them any longer. One I baked and pureed. I used the puree in the cookie-turned-cake concoction. The remaining two became "Sausage and Apple Stuffed Acorn Squash" from food.com. It was a heavy meal, but still pretty good. For winter squash, I'll take that.

By the way, I just learned that Fair Shares CSA is offering two-week trial memberships. Find more info at https://fairshares.org/trial-membership. If you decide to try it, please tell them I sent you because I'll get a $5 credit just for you trying it out!

This week, I've realized that it's not that hard for me to follow Michael Pollan's advice to:

• Eat only food that Grandma would recognize as food.
• Shop the perimeter of the grocery store, because that's where the least processed food is found.
• Don't eat food that won't ever rot, and try and keep the number of ingredients in a product at or below five.
• Eat mostly plants. When you do eat meat, eat meat that's been raised in humane conditions and given good feed.

In fact, our family eats this way a lot. We just needed this "food reset" to make it more consistent.
It does take planning, but it doesn't feel like a burden at all right now. Part of that is due to the easy, from scratch foods that have slowly accumulated in my mental recipe file over the years. (See below for two great recipes from friends.) And part of it is that I can cut vegetables a lot faster than I used to. But part of it is due to the fact that mindfully buying, cooking, and eating has integrated my values and my actions. Eating in a way that promotes the health of my family, the local economy, and the Earth actually lifts a weight rather than creating one. Once again, I'm thankful to have the means and the time to buy well, cook well, and eat well.

Recipes

Hummus

This recipe is from my college roommate, Salwa Rosen. The first time I ate her mama's version of hummus and taboulleh, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Mama Rosen's taboulleh was great, but the hummus took so much less time that it was one of the first things I ever consistently made from scratch. Now that I've started cooking my own beans, maybe I will shift from canned chickpeas to dried...

2 cans chickpeas, drained (juice of one can reserved)
3-4 T. tahini, or more to taste (tahini, or sesame seed paste, found in Middle Eastern section of grocer, or at specialty shop--it's a lot easier to find than it used to be!)
Juice of 1-2 lemons, to taste
About 1 t. of salt
2 garlic cloves, minced
A tablespoon or two of olive oil

Puree it all in a food processor or blender. Adust seasonings to taste. If too salty, add more lemon (and vice-versa). If too thick, add some liquid from chickpeas.

That's the basic recipe--so easy, so yummy, and so simple to vary. Have fun!

 

Versatile Vinaigrette (from Moosewood Restaurant's Simple Suppers)

Although this recipe is from a cookbook, I really want to credit my friend Pascale Perraudin (her recipe is very similar to the one below) for teaching me how to make my first vinaigrette. Knowing how to do that literally changed my life. It was so delicious and easy that I hardly ever buy salad dressing anymore (have you looked at those labels?!?!).

1/3 cup vinegar or lemon juice (Pascale got me started off using red wine vinegar)
1/2 t. salt
1 t. Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/4 t. black pepper
1 c. olive oil

Whisk it all together. It will keep in the refrigerator for week. When cold, the oil tends to partially solidify, so let it sit at room temp for awhile before serving. Variations: Add fresh or dried herbs. Whisk in 1 to 2 T. of minced fresh herbs, or 1/2 to 1 t. dried. Allow dried herbs to steep in vinaigrette for at least half an hour.