Life of Megan

Monday, July 27, 2009

Eating Locally in Ithaca, NY at the End of July

Well, I just saw Food, Inc, so I've been thinking about eating locally a bit more than usual. Of course, in Ithaca, we have an excellent Farmer's Market, a strong population of hippies and environmentalists, a ton of farming, and decent land for home gardening. Aside from our hatey weather, things are good.

We are currently faced with an onslaught of summer squash (a yellow variety, can't remember which) from our garden. We also have green beans, fava beans, practically any herb you could want, chives, beets, and various greens (Swiss chard, escarole, sorrel, borage, and some old and very bitter lettuce).

In our CSA box, we received: more squash, napa cabbage, baby bok choy, scallions, and a big cucumber.

At the Farmer's Market, we bought: blueberry-sage sausage, smoked andouille, and bacon from The Piggery; Keuka gold potatoes from Sabol's Farm; blueberries; corn; and tomatoes (some guy has a greenhouse!).

Ultimately, we only needed a few groceries from a store. These included milk (local), whipping cream (local), gruyere, parmesan (we are down to rinds--need to make soup), coffee, oats (for granola), dried fruit (also for granola), and beer (Brooklyn Brown). The gruyere and whipping cream weren't really necessary, but they make life better.

Yesterday, I cooked up the blueberry sausage (one 3.2-oz link each) with mashed potatoes (featuring chives from our garden); squash sauteed in butter and garlic and tossed with gruyere and parmesan; and green beans, boiled and then tossed with the leftover butter from the squash pan.

Tonight, I cooked again. This time, it was the Zucchini Breakfast Casserole from Simply Recipes. I served it with a salad (lettuce, cucumber, onion, homemade honey-dijon vinaigrette). Then we had the blueberries with a little whipped cream and cinnamon-sugar for dessert.

For the record, we found that the Zucchini Breakfast Casserole dish actually serves six people for dinner, if they have appetites similar to mine and Judson's. I target 2300-2500 calories per day and often have a light lunch.

I might update this as the week goes on, or I might forget.

So far, it's been a delicious (and possibly a bit too rich) week.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A series of updates

Well, it seems that I continue to neglect my blog. I'm sorry.

Since we got back from China, a lot of exciting stuff has happened. I got to see my parents, who came up to visit. My dad and I ran the Boilermaker 15K together. I recently took on the role of project engineer at work, so I now manage the technical aspects of several programs.

My marathon training is going well so far, but it takes up a lot of time. Judson and I are still avidly playing bridge and other board games.

Our garden has been a lot of fun. We've had greens and peas and fava beans and beets. Now there are baby tomatoes and tomatillos everywhere. Our green beans are growing really well, and we will soon be inundated with squash.

All in all, life is good.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Ugh!

I've been extremely busy lately. I'll try to post a real update soon.