A Real Rhody Bfast

You know what I love to do? Wake up inappropriately late, saunter around in my snowflake jammies, yell at my cats who are sitting on the counter when they are not supposed to be and make an insanely delicious breakfast. Since I am a student at URI and I live on campus, (which means a tiny room and no kitchen) I rarely get to do this. Yet alas! It is spring break and I have the luxury of using my mother's kitchen. I have only been home for three days, (I was skiing in VT for 4) but you better believe I've been cookin' up a storm.

Sunday while I was making breakfast, I realized everything I was using was local. This just proves to people (like my skeptical parents) there IS INDEED local food you can eat in the winter and it is NOT HARD. Check out the Farm Fresh RI website for a winter market near you. Valen and I hit up the Costal Grower's market at the mills in NK. We try to go every Saturday- we always come home with treasures.

Anywhoodle. Lets cut to da chase.

Yeah did I mention I found a food setting on my Nikon camera? Its like they knew or something. I will try to not post anymore crappy pictures (refer to post one) anymore.

Bread is multigrain bread from Olga's cup and saucer based out of Providence RI. Jam is some that my friend Alyssa gave me over Christmas, made last summer from grapes she picked right near her home in South Kingstown, RI. The greens are greens I bought at the market (sorry not to give credit to the farm, I can't remember the name) and the eggs are from my best friend's cattle farm right here on the island of Jamestown.

Local AND tasty. Aint nuffin' betta dan dat.

Happy eatings.
-Cate

Taste the Rainbow

I was first introduced to rainbow carrots by my good friend Alyssa. She is a food obsessed girl such as myself. Check out her blog Absolute Ambrosia for some fantastic recipes.

Anywho.

For our club Slow Food URI we decided to have a local foods thanksgiving dinner, complete with local donated vegetables and a turkey we "processed" ourselves from Pat's Pastured Poultry Farm in Jamestown, RI.

Along with Rhody Fresh milk and cream, Windmist Farm cider and eggs, Sonowski Farm potatoes, Watson Farm beef and Moonstone Garden buttercup squash were oodles of carrots courtesy of the URI Agronomy farm- and they were purple. I had never seen purple carrots before, so I was a bit shocked. Alyssa informed me that there are actually many varieties of carrots- some purple, violet or even a reddish color. These are heirloom breeds, and are usually not sold at your local Stop&Shop. These carrots are delicious. I concocted a vat of carrot soup with them of which went down very well at the  Thanksgiving Dinner. Valen was eating the leftovers for weeks and said he was glum when he ate his last bowl.

These carrots are hard to come by. The only other time I stumbled across them was through a roasted vegetable dish at Local 121, but they always have amazing local food.

So when I saw them at the farmer's market in North Kingstown, I grabbed a whole bunch. MmmmmM!

Aaaaaand you guessed it. I made carrot cake- one of my favorite, favorite, FAVORITE desserts. Whenever Valen and I are out to eat and carrot cake is on the dessert menu I can guarantee you we will be trying it. The mixture of nuts, carrots and spices in the cake create an intense flavor but the cream cheese frosting always helps it go down smooth. Along with olives and those really, really addicting sweet potato chip things, it is one of our top foods. Anyways, I am a huge fan.

-C

The Last Supper

Valen was leaving for San Francisco.
I was leaving for Vermont.
How do we celebrate our last evening together?
By eating lots and lots of food.

I'm going to use this post to give my my little speech on how important I believe local food is. After this I won't bother you with it again (I could go on and on).

 In a nutshell- local food rules. It is good for the environment because it uses way less petroleum than shipping produce halfway around the world (ahem greens grown in South America that can be grown right here in Little Rhody). It is an economically sound practice as well because it keeps your dollar in the state and supports the dwindling population of small farmers (30+ years ago we had about 70 dairy farmers in the state- now we have 11). Local food is fresher, and often grown organically. Most importantly however, IT IS THE MOST DELICIOUS FOOD YOU WILL EVER EAT. I am a huge, huge advocate of it. If you want to know more about local food, visit my other blog at Slow Food URI or just leave a comment and ask.
Our dinner contained 2 local ingredients: Rainbow Carrots (again) and Rainbow Chard.

The photo is oven roasted leeks, carrots and parsnips over wild rice. The two little guys on the side are goat cheese filled dates. The were not part of the original dinner plan but Valen was fooling around with some odds and ends while cooking and came up with the combo. Delicious.

For some more veggies and protein we made a salad with local Rainbow Chard, fried chick peas, sprouts, tomatoes and some yummy Briana's brand dressing (they make the best).

This supper was vegetarian, local and really, really healthy. Jesus and his apostles would approve. Amen.


Peace 'n blessings. Peace 'n blessings.
-C