Organic Food | Itty Bitty Impact

Posts Tagged ‘organic food’

No Waste Recipe: Butternut Squash Pasta Helps Tonia out of a Wintry Slump

Posted on November 19th, 2010 by Tonia No Comments

Once in a while {umm…aprox twice a week} I have zero motivation to do anything productive. It usually happens on days when I’ve had an extra demanding client at work {“demanding” is my “Minnesota Nice” way of saying “asshole”}.

It happens more often this time of year because by the time 5 PM rolls around and I shut my laptop for the day, it’s totally dark out and all I want to do is snuggle on the couch with a book. Something about less sunlight puts me in hibernation mode. This would be fine, except for the fact that I have kind of designated myself as the meal-preparer in the relationship…in other words, if I don’t make us something to eat for dinner, then we don’t eat anything for dinner.

This is not because Mike is lazy or because of old-fashioned gender roles or something. He does other things to contribute, like chopping huge amounts of firewood and redesigning my blog for me. So I do most of the cooking.

Anyways, when Mike closes his laptop for the day and finds me spooning our dog on the couch instead of enthusiastically creating a culinary masterpiece in the kitchen…well, the look on his face can only be described as pure and utter disappointment, with a dash of hunger mixed in for extra potency. It doesn’t exactly make me feel like Wife of the Year.

But I can’t help it…some days I just want to sit around and play on Pinterest. On sad nights such as this, I usually call upon my Twitter friends for inspiration. There’s nothing better than delicious pictures of food to get you off your butt and into the cooking mood. If I tweet “looking for a good meal for dinner tonight…” I usually get four or five tweets in response with links to luscious and tempting recipes.

Last night, I wanted something wholesome, fall-ish, easy to make, and in the “comfort food” category. @YouCanCookThis totally read my mind somehow, and sent me this. One glance at the ingredients and I realized I already had everything I needed for it {having to GO GROCERY SHOPPING is a huge thorn in my Wife of the Year foot. Can’t wait until spring when we can “shop” our garden instead of going to the store!} I made it in about a half hour, along with an arugula/apple/cranberry salad.

It was soooo delicious and easy. I doubled the recipe so I could use a whole squash and a whole box of pasta {qualifying it as a “No Waste” recipe, and we like having leftovers to re-heat for lunch}. Make this right now, and savor every bite, and congratulate yourself on being Wife/Husband/Person of the Year, if only for a night.

Itty Bits: 100-Mile Thanksgiving

Posted on November 12th, 2010 by Tonia No Comments

Thanksgiving is an awesome holiday for many reasons, the main one being it is a chance to gather and give thanks for the many, many blessings in our lives. The other main reason being that the holiday centers around the Three Holy F’s: food, family, and football. My three most-favorite things!

We have so many things to be grateful for this year- it’s a little ridiculous. I kind of feel like we hit the celestial jackpot in 2010…Mike’s brother got married to an incredible woman, Mike’s sister & brother-in-law had their first child {making us an aunt and uncle for the first time in our lives}, we got married and took an incredible honeymoon, we purchased our dream-hobby-farm and moved, I started working from home {a very welcome change that makes having a somewhat-boring-full-time-job a WHOLE lot more bearable}, and so much more. AND the Packers aren’t half bad this year. WHEW!

In other words, this Thanksgiving is kind of extra-special because of the remarkably fantastic year it has been, and I am really looking forward to the big feast and the moment just before we all dig in, when we bow our heads and collectively lift up our prayers of thanks.

SO! For Thanksgiving 2010, I challenge you to break the status quoe and try something a little different. It’s called the 100-Mile Thanksgiving Challenge and it’s brought to you by TreeHugger, which is a fantastic website and you should check it out if you don’t already have it bookmarked and read it religiously every day…ahem. I’m slightly addicted.

The challenge is very simple: make your Thanksgiving meal local. Buy groceries that were grown/raised within 100 miles of your home. Send TreeHugger your 100-mile menu. They will be voting on the best local Thanksgiving meal and announce the winner on the week of Thanksgiving!!

Eating local is one of the most important and best things we can do as a society. It’s good for the economy AND the environment. Mike and I are thrilled to live in a town that is highly supportive of local farms. The bakery down the road uses locally grown wheat for all their goods, we’re able to get our milk, cheese, and ice-cream from a dairy that is about five minutes from our house, there are apple and cherry orchards everywhere around here, and 15 minutes to our north is a beautiful free-range pig farm where we get brats, bacon, ribs and the likes. You’ve never seen happier, healthier pigs.

This challenge will be more difficult for those of you living in urban areas, I know, but get creative with it: do you have a relative coming to visit from a farming area? Ask them to bring along some local produce or meat if they’re able. And if you’re not able to make everythingon the table be from local sources, at least try to make some of it be- the turkey, the sweet potatoes, the green beans, the cranberries {this one shouldn’t be tough for anyone in WI…it’s the cranberry STATE! So I don’t wanna hear no excuses.}

We haven’t done an Itty Bits Challenge for some time now, so you’ve been off the hook. Make this one count! Happy Thanksgiving!

Itty Bits: Eat Better Meat

Posted on April 2nd, 2010 by Tonia 10 Comments

I’m sorry for the lull in posts lately. Mr. Itty Bitty and I have been busy helping my family make maple syrup for the past few weekends.

My family has been making syrup for 23 years now, and it is a wonderful activity that brings us together every spring {nothing bonds people like the outdoors, honest hard work, and a sweet treat to reward you in the end.} I am excited to share the process with you and hope that maybe you’ll give it a try with your family. You will hear more about all that soon…but first, let’s get on with a new Itty Bits post.

Our last Itty Bits Challenge was to NEVER FORGET TO BRING YOUR REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS WITH YOU WHEN YOU GO TO THE STORE!! I used all caps so that hopefully you can feel my frustration a little. Because, the sad fact is, this is the hardest bad habit for me to break. Why?!? It seems like such a simple thing to do! But somehow I am so used to just using the paper/plastic bags at the grocery store, and it is really, really hard for me to remember to bring in my reusable bags. This is my major eco-sin, and I am confessing it to you all in hopes that embarrassing myself is what it takes for me to finally change my ways.

Alright! That felt good! Moving on!

Recently, the Mr. and I went out for beer and wings at a local restaurant {yep, we occasionally indulge in the fantasy that we’re still in college}. It was a delicious, cheap, and satisfying dinner. Until we noticed something that grossed both of us out beyond the point of return: the chicken wings were SO tender. They were SO tiny. They SO did not come from any real-life chicken I have ever seen before.

Now, we’re no strangers to the fact that most of the meat served at restaurants come from huge farms/huge factories where the meat is chocked-full of hormones and other wonderful things, and the treatment of animals is complete and utter horse-crap. It is for this reason that we avoid chain restaurants and usually eat at places that serve meat from local farms. We kind of pride ourselves in our level of “awareness” on the topic of meat…which is why it was a shock when we realized what we had just eaten, without even thinking twice about it. How many other awful things are we consuming without a worry in the world? Shiver.

So, without further ado, this week’s challenge is to eat better meat. And if you can’t find good meat {no hormones, grass fed/vegetarian fed, family farm, local, organic, free-range} then eat NO meat.

This is no simple task, especially for Wisconsin-born-and-bred-brat-loving kids like us. The Duluth Farmer’s Market is not open for the season yet, and although our grocery store does a fantastic job offering locally grown produce and all kinds of organic goodies, they are slacking in the meat department– they don’t stock anything but Gold n’ Plump {don’t be fooled by the packaging that claims their chickens come from family farms!} So, I wrote the grocery store the following letter:

Hi Super One,

I am a loyal customer and never shop anywhere else for groceries. Thank you for doing a great job to stock organic and locally grown produce. It’s really important to me to support family farms. Your prices on these types of foods are excellent- far cheaper than Whole Foods for the same brands.

I just have one bone to pick…You only carry one brand of chicken: Gold n’ Plump. I have a problem with this because of how Gold n’ Plump treats the chickens that come to them. Yes, they might come from family farms in MN, but once they arrive at Gold n’ Plump they are treated terribly. I am really bummed that I don’t have any other choice but to buy this brand. I would really appreciate it if you could stock another option in addition to Gold n’ Plump. There are several excellent local farms that can provide FDA approved meat, all grass-fed and free-range:

Earthwize Natural Meats is a coalition of small-scale family farmers committed to sustainable, environmentally responsible farming and to providing healthy, natural foods for their customers. Beef is available year round in variety packs of 25 to 50 pounds. Pork is seasonal and is sold in variety packs of 30 to 40 pounds. Chicken is seasonal (spring through fall) and is available as whole chickens, which average 5 pounds and are packaged six to a box. All meat is frozen and processed at plants meeting USDA standards.

Earthwize Natural Meats – Mark Thell, 2100 CR 4, Carlton MN 55718 – (218) 384-9350.

E-mail: thell@computerpro.com
Website: http://soarizona.net/greatbeef/earthwize.html

Green Pastures Dairy, owned and operated by the Hedquist Family, offers Minnesota Farmstead™ 100% grass-fed, all natural, raw milk cheese. Spring through fall we milk our totally grass-fed cows and use this highly nutritious milk to make our hand-crafted cheeses. May through September, 100% grass-fed ground beef, and pasture and whey-fed pork. No herbicides, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers are ever used on any of our pastures, and no hormones or antibiotics are used in our herd.

Green Pastures Dairy – The Hedquist Family, 2353 Bromfield Road, Carlton MN 55718 – (218) 384-4513.

E-mail: cheese@greenpasturesdairy.com.
Website: http://www.greenpasturesdairy.com.

Please let me know if buying from these farmers is a possibility. Thank you so much!

-Tonia

…If you’re in the same boat, please write a similar letter to your local grocery store. Stores should respond to the needs of their customers, so if enough of us do this, we might make an impact!