Digging out

It took me twenty minutes just to clear the snow off of my car this morning. There was a good ten inches piled on the hood and the windshield, somewhat less on the rear window. Once I'd cleaned the car I drove over to Hyde Park, one of Cincinnati's tonier neighborhoods. There are always joggers in Hyde Park and today was no exception, snow and ice be damned. I saw a man jogging down the street holding what looked like a pizza box at first glance. When I got closer I realized he was jogging with a box of donuts from Busken Bakery.

The reason I drove to Hyde Park this morning was to meet a woman from Mohr's Animal Acres in Urbana, Ohio. They are regulars at the Hyde Park farmer's market and in the off season they've arranged a pre-order system and they meet their customers in a bank parking lot to drop off the orders. I picked up some lamb for my traditional Irish stew for St. Patrick's day and some smoked ham to put into bean soup.

So since I've set out on my quest for locally produced food during a Cincinnati winter I've found an untended honor system store, where you write down what you took and leave payment in a lock box, I've picked up pre-ordered winter greens from a porch in Wyoming and bought meat out of a parking lot. It seems so very clandestine for some reason and I'm having so much fun doing it. I'm really looking forward to visiting farms that will be selling peas, asparagus and strawberries this spring. Those goodies are generally in season well before the farmer's markets open, but I feel sure they'll be worth the extra effort.

Grass Fed Beef

I decided to make some Pineapple Beef Curry from the ground beef I purchased at Red Sun Farm a couple of weeks ago. I tried today to determine the difference in number of calories per serving that would result from switching grass fed beef for the typical corn finished beef and it was no easy task! Even though I found many websites touting the health benefits of grass fed beef and many suppliers, virtually none of them posted a simple Nutrition Facts label. This wasn't due to unwillingness to provide the information, simply that it's not required for single ingredient items such as beef (or indeed, coffee) coupled with the fact that the nutritional analysis is very expensive. I did find several interesting facts along the way though, including:

• Grass fed beef has 1/2 to 1/3 the amount of fat as does corn finished beef
• Grass fed beef is two to six times higher in Omega-3s and other healthy fats and is much lower in saturated fat
• Grass fed beef contains more vitamin E
• The e. Coli count is much higher in grain finished beef than in grass fed

This information and much, much more is available at EatWild.com. After reading and weighing the pros and cons for a couple of hours, I had to come to the conclusion that there are only two reasons not to eat grass fed beef as opposed to corn finished; taste and cost. Some people find grass fed beef too gamy for their tastes. I'll reserve my judgment on taste until I've actually tried it, although I don't think that will be an issue for me; I mean, I've eaten moose and liked it. But grass fed beef is more expensive, mostly because it tends to come from smaller producers. For me, cost isn't much of an issue since I don't eat much meat (I've only had beef once in the past 5 months), so I can afford to splurge a bit.

At the end of the day, it's really very simple. Letting cows be cows, and doing what millions of years of evolution have honed them to do (eat grass very efficiently) is better for the cows, better for the environment and ultimately, better for us.

Still, after two hours digging, I didn't find a simple calorie count until I stumbled across the nutrition information for Wild Oats Organic Grass Fed Beef Burgers. Using that and some raw calculations from the information I did find, I've decided I'll assume grass fed beef has about 80% of the calories as the conventional stuff. That's good enough for my calorie counting purposes.

Green green green

I was really in the mood for green things today. I'm ready to be done with the winter root vegetables and move on to green spring leaves. I bought kale, spinach, watercress, zucchini and green beans at the grocery today. The spinach went into a frittata with goat cheese and some tomatoes that were getting a bit too soft to use in salads. I thought it came out so pretty I took a picture of it. It tastes damn good too. I also whipped up a Thai green curry with mushrooms, green beans, zucchini and tofu, so there's breakfast and lunch sorted for tomorrow.

I came across the term hoophouses a couple of times this weekend and found out that's the name for those inexpensive, portable greenhouses I see on farms from time to time, usually in the spring. I believe that's how the Greenacres Foundation is producing green vegetables this early in the year.

Of local interest

In between laundry and deep cleaning the kitchen and bathroom today, I did some research on local farms. I hit the farmer's market almost every week (in season) for fresh vegetables and fruit and I love it. However, that still leaves me going to the grocery store for cream, bread, eggs and the little meat I buy. Since I only eat meat once or twice a week at best, I can afford to spend a little more for organic meat. I'd just as soon support my local farmers and I managed to find a few places that aren't a very long drive from me. Mind you, I haven't actually been to any of these places yet, so this is not a recommendation list.

Turner Farm

• Located in Maderia, Turner Farm sells their produce at Findlay Market from June through Thanksgiving and from their farm year round. It looks like they have loads of produce variety and they sell chicken, lamb, pork and honey in season.

Red Sun Farm

• Red Sun is in Loveland and they sell grass-fed, free-range beef, pork and poultry. This will be one of my first stops.
  

Greenacres Foundation

• A farm and educational center in Indian Hill. They have Black Angus beef, pastured poultry, fresh eggs, raw honey and produce. It looks like they already have some spring greens available!

I've also been wanting to find a good bread bakery and I found a couple of possible candidates:

Old World Bakery

• I've been buying their pita bread in Krogers for years, but I've never visited their store. They sell pitas and bagels and they're located in North College Hill. They have a restaurant there which serves gyros; I'll report back.

Breadsmith of Cincinnati

• OK, it's a franchise, albeit a small one. They have several varieties of whole wheat/grain bread available and they bake fresh each day. I'll give them a shot.

Crock Pot Oatmeal

This is by far the best oatmeal I've ever made. I'm not really a big fan of oatmeal, but it's so darn good for the body, I keep trying to find ways of making it more interesting. I adapted this recipe from one in Vegetarian Times:

Crock Pot Oatmeal

• 1 3/4 cups steel cut oatmeal (not regular, instant or old fashioned please)
• 4 cups Silk Light Vanilla Soy Milk
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup unsweetened dried cranberries
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Combine all the ingredients in a crock pot and cook on high for about three hours. Don't let this cook too long; if it over-cooks it will become hard as a rock and inedible. Four hours in my crock pot was just a bit too long; it was on its way to petrifying.
2. Leftovers re-warm in the microwave just fine if you add a little water. I've been adding a handful of fresh blueberries too.

Note to self: treating the crock pot with cooking spray will speed clean up a great deal.

I am somewhat intrigued by the plans for the world's first vertical farm to be built in Las Vegas. On one hand, it doesn't strike me as being very ecologically friendly. Then again, water could be re-circulated and I suppose sunlight could be directed into the interior levels with a system of mirrors. The article doesn't provide those sorts of details except to say the design details would be worked out this year. I'd certainly visit it should I ever find myself in Vegas.