Saturday, April 9, 2011

Weeks 26 & 27

OK, I have to admit, life has been a bit hectic with the baby goats and being sick so I totally forgot to post week 26. Not only that, I forgot to even keep tabs on it, so I don't have all my meals from that week. So I'll just skip on ahead to what I do remember eating.

Sunday
We hosted a dinner at our house and served pork chops with pasta, bread, and swiss chard. Friends brough dishes as well.

Monday
I was home sick so that morning I started boiling down a duck and chicken carcass and made vegetable rice soup that evening.

Saturday
BBQ chicken with tortillas, spanish rice and guacamole.

Sunday
Pork shoulder braised in tomato sauce with potatoes and carrots.

Monday
Spaghetti! I got lazy and bought some local artisan pasta from the Fatted Calf when I picked up the sausage.

Tuesday
Meatloaf with grassfed beef, onions, mushrooms served with sweet potatoes

Wednesday
Pizza with squash, onions, mushrooms and bacon.

Thursday
Bacon and Eggs

Friday
Pork chops with asparagus from our garden and mashed potatoes

Saturday
Biscuits and gravy with broccoli and Baconator ice cream for dessert

Reflections
We've got so much going on here and with that we're so behind. I'm starting to feel worried about having enough food in the garden for our 3 months without buying food. That said, we've decided what we're going to do when the year is up. We're going to continue doing this crazy project with one small change. We're going to allow ourselves one restaurant meal per month. I think this will definitely make us feel less deprived while also making that restaurant visit somewhere special. We're not going to waste our one month visit on crappy food.

2 comments:

  1. Looks yummy! I just found your blog and I'm enjoying it. I have to admit that I'm surprised by how much meat you guys are consuming. I'm kind of going the opposite direction with my family and moving towards eating a lot less meat as part of eating more locally. It's partly for health reasons, partly because of the costs of feeding sustainably raised locally grown meat to a large family, partly because philosophically I feel like eating large quantities of meat isn't environmentally sustainable (not that the grass-fed meat and lamb we have in the freezer isn't sustainably raised, but that I can't imagine there's enough pasture space around for everyone to eat a meat-heavy diet of sustainably raised meat -- at least locally. Correct me if I'm wrong!) If that's something you've addressed in an earlier blog post I'd love to read it (I'll browse for it for now, while I enjoy your blog.)

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  2. Yep, we eat quite a bit of meat - but not as much as it might seem. Our servings of meat are small - less than 6 oz per day vs. 12oz the average American eats per day (which is probably higher since vegetarians and vegans don't eat any). And the meat we use for dinner actually lasts multiple meals. All of it is sustainably raised. We raise the chickens and rabbits ourselves and will soon be adding goats to our meat production. Actually we only eat chicken once or twice a month rather than before when it was multiple times a week. The pork we eat (except for the sausage I bought for one meal this week) all came from one animal that we bought whole and will most likely last us the majority of the year. The meatloaf was only 3/4 lb of meat stretched with oatmeal, mushrooms, onions and egg. We ate the leftovers later that week for lunch.
    IMO even if we eat meat every day we can provide enough sustainable meat if we reduce the amount we eat per day. I think Americans waste a lot of meat and aren't willing to pay for sustainable meat which is why factory farming exists.
    That said, most days it's just my husband and I (and my stepson on the weekends), so it's definitely more affordable for us to eat more meat than someone that has a large family.

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