If you
are serious about eating locally and reducing the number of miles your food
travels, Corvallis Oregon is an excellent place to live. Not only do we have
several large organic farms and a variety of smaller operations which run a
Winter Market from January until April, a farm which wild crafts and grows an
amazing variety of mushrooms, and a young man who apprenticed with Joel Salatin
and now raises meat animals using his principles, but we also have the Bean and
Grain project, which has been looking at returning grass seed acreage in the
Willamette Valley to growing staple crops—oats, wheat, and beans. For the last
three years, they have organized a Fill Your Pantry event, where people can
stock up, direct from farmers, for the winter. We buy oatmeal, wheat, and beans
every year. Add that to the potatoes, onions, winter squash, canned tomatoes
and dried fruit we stash away in September, and you have the basis for our
winter meals.
Oatmeal
is the backbone of winter breakfast. I rotate hot oatmeal with dried fruits and
walnuts or hazelnuts with home made yogurt, compote, and granola made from
local oats. Even with some exotic brown sugar and barley flakes thrown in, we
have drastically reduced our breakfast mileage, especially compared to cold
cereal, which is coming from Canada. And it lasts longer in our tummies. On the
weekends, we’ll eat oatmeal waffles or our own chicken eggs with toast, made
with home ground wheat—although, right now, we’re eating duck eggs from Sunbow.
Why do chickens molt in the coldest times of the year?
Local
beans are the most remarkable food we have. Black, Pinto, Indian Woman,
garbanzo beans AND lentils—they are beautiful, poured into old fashioned
canning jars and sitting on the pantry shelf. The first year I had locally grown
beans, we never did eat them; they were too lovely to look at. Beans are not
easy to grow in the valley. The season is tricky; spring rains keep the ground
cool into late May some years and an early fall rain may mess with the drying
in the field. Harry at Sunbow has been experimenting both with varieties and
planting times for years, trying to push open the spring window. Garbanzos can
be planted in March—but they don’t grow well for the first month. One year, the
pintos were harvested in the rain, and they take three washings to come clean;
our soil is clearly gray clay. But, every year, there are more varieties. I
pour them into the crockpot every Sunday morning, add garlic, onions, and
whatever vegetables are around and slow cook our weekday lunches. Before
dinner, we ladle the soup into pint sized canning jars. With a slice or two of fresh bread, we’re
styling. Fast food.
We’ve
been eating like this for several years now. It is normal to make bread dough
and yogurt while cooking dinner, to plan around what is available in the fields
and pantry rather than what we can buy in the grocery store, even at our local
co-op, which really focuses on purchasing and promoting food from the five
counties that touch ours. I don’t think it costs anymore than my old way of
doing things. I am, after all, a Master Forager all summer long. And we support
people we know when we buy their food, rather than some faceless corporation.
But, most importantly, it tastes better.
Curried Lentils and Winter Squash— altered from Recipes from the Root Cellar
The original recipe calls for stuffing the squash with the
lentils, but that takes longer and we were hungry.
Cook 1 cup of lentils until nice and soft
While the lentils cook, back a winter squash, cut in half,
face down, in the oven
While the lentils and squash cook, sauté a chopped onion
and 2 garlic cloves in olive oil until lovely and soft. About half way through, add 1 T of cumin, 1
T of curry powder, some salt and pepper. When they are done, slowly pour in ½
cup of buttermilk. It may break down and look ugly, but it’s ok. Just stir it
in. If you can, add the lentils to the pan and cook together slowly until the
squash is done.
Serve on a purple plate with some pickled beets on the
side.
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