Day 32 of 40 - Produce!

Just need to share my excitement about a handful of quick things, then I have to go hit the kitchen again.

First: My husband was about to purchase some "free-roam" eggs from the woman we get our veggie box (and up-coming grass-fed beef) from, and she did us a big favour. She turned down our business, and instead gave us the address to her sister's house. Her sister sells free-RANGE eggs, which are vastly superior AND cheaper! (Only $3 a dozen. That's only $.60 more than Costco!) There's a little addition on the side of this woman's house which has a small fridge filled with eggs, and a bowl for you to leave your money in. Totally on the honour system. And we know the eggs were free-range because we had to maneuver carefully out of the driveway so as not to run over the chickens!

The second great thing was my conversation with our farmer. I told her we were interested in including more organ meats in our diet, so I asked if I could buy some livers (beef and chicken) from her. She's not sure if the butcher who does her chickens will save them or not ("he's pretty cranky", she said), but she'll sell me some beef livers for a great price. (I intend to grind them and hide them in our burgers, meatloaves, meatballs, etc.) I asked her about bones for making stock, and she said she'd give them to me! Even the lousy bones at the grocery store don't come free! I'm excited!

Third, we stopped by our local community garden on the way home from picking up our eggs and Princess and Music Man helped us pick some candy-like cherry tomatoes, yellow beans and snow peas.

Lastly, after the kids' naps we drove down the street to a small produce market. (Most of the stuff is local, and most of the non-local stuff is at least from around the province. There are only a couple of imported items.) We picked up lettuce for wraps, celery, four sweet peppers, three bulbs of garlic, a giant zucchini, green onions, and a red onion for just over $6.

I love where we live!

Now our fridge is bursting with beautiful produce (because we also got our regular weekly load!), and I have some serious organizing to do! I'm going to do some washing, chopping and freezing, so we have stir-fry mixes ready to go in the freezer. (One more mention of how grateful I am to finally have a big freezer!)

Breakfast: The usual plus one and a half pieces of bacon.
Lunch: Two thighs, a drumstick, a handful of cherry tomatoes and some roasted cauliflower.
Supper: A leftover hamburger topped with more sauteed onions and a side of coconut curry stir-fried veggies (snow peas, yellow beans, green pepper, cauliflower, purple carrots and onions).

P.S. We already have brunch plans for tomorrow, otherwise I'd be making these. I can assure you they'll be on the menu in the very near future!