Week Ten Meals

Our final week on the Alaska Food Experiment! Here's what we ate:

Sunday, January 5:
Breakfast - unless otherwise noted, breakfast is eggs fried in butter
Lunch - unless otherwise noted, lunch is leftovers
Supper - "zoodles" in beefy tomato sauce with kohlrabi

Monday, January 6:
Supper - sausage/burger patties, edible pod peas, fried potatoes

Tuesday, January 7:
Supper - beefy tomato sauce, kohlrabi, broccoli, potato chips

Wednesday, January 8:
Supper - leftover beefy tomato sauce, edible pod peas

Thursday, January 9:
Supper - chuck roast, roasted carrots and onion, baked potatoes


Here's where it came from:
Beef - Homer
Butter - homemade
Carrots - Palmer
Dairy / Cheese - homegrown, homemade
Eggs - home grown
Kohlrabi - Soldotna
Onion - Soldotna
Pork - Funny River
Potatoes - Sutton
Tomatoes - Soldotna
Zucchini - Soldotna

On Tuesday, two of our goats, special pets, were picked up by their new owners and moved to the village of Sleetmute. I missed them a lot, and rifled the cabinets for something to stress eat. Yes, I know that stress eating does not help. But I did it anyway. I wanted to feel better. I found some chocolate chips left over from Christmas baking and ate some. Yes, I made myself sick. I got the jitters, and if I thought I was crabby beforehand, well, that was nothing compared to afterward. Note to self - you can't handle chocolate like you used to.

Friday, I had a doctor appointment at 9:15 a.m.. Understand that I'm a night owl. I could happily stay up until 2:00 a.m. but that means I sleep until 10:00, so I was going to get up three hours early for this appointment. Jim spent Thursday night working 'round the clock (again) and he literally got into bed as I was getting out of it. In the interest of being quiet and not waking him, I skipped breakfast and left the house. Once I got to the doctor, I found out my appointment had accidentally been deleted from their schedule! Fortunately, the nurse remembered talking to me and trying to make the appointment, so they still got me in to see the doctor. Ten minutes and $150 later, I found out I could treat my owie with home remedies. Having spent so little time at the doctor, I found myself with 45 minutes to spare before my next appointment to meet one of the people I sew for and pick up some work. I drove around a bit, walked through a couple of stores, and eventually decided I was hungry enough, and would still need to be away from home long enough, that I could justify a trip through the drive-through for just enough breakfast to tide me over until the afternoon. I pulled in to McD's and ordered an Egg McMuffin. It wasn't until I had driven down the road a ways and got out my sandwich that I looked inside it to discover a slice of cheese, a slice of Canadian bacon, and a sausage patty. No egg.

After the stress of the week, the early morning, the sleepless schedule Jim's been on, the sticker shock of ten minutes of my doctor's time... an eggless EGG McMuffin was the most ridiculous thing in my world. I just sat there and laughed.

And decided that this unplanned meal cheat would signal the end of the Alaska Food Experiment.

We're getting so low on veggies that yes, I could still squeeze out a couple more days, but then again, ending on January 9 means a nice round 70 days of being a full-time locavore. That's a good place to end it, I think.

I still plan to post some recipes and how-tos for a few of the things I did while on The Experiment, as well as a summary post, but those will be for later. 

Week Nine Meals

This week sees us reach our original goal of two months on our Alaska Food Experiment! Here's what we ate:

Sunday, December 29:
Breakfast - unless otherwise noted, breakfast is eggs fried in butter
Lunch - unless otherwise noted, lunch is leftovers
Supper - Dinner out for James' birthday

Monday, December 30:
Supper - chicken-fried moose steak, edible pod peas, hash browns

Tuesday, December 31:
Supper - steak, cheesy bacon baked potatoes, beet greens

And although New Year's Eve was the last "official" day of the Experiment, we've decided to go on until we run out of local veggies.

Wednesday, January 1:
Breakfast - bacon and eggs
Lunch - chicken broth soup with napa cabbage, carrot, and egg, with bacon
Supper - steak "stir fry" with potatoes, carrots, garlic slices and beet greens

Thursday, January 2:
Supper - steak, cabbage, edible pod peas

Friday, January 3:
Supper - pork chops, edible pod peas

Saturday, January 4:
Supper - bbq beef ribs, homemade potato chips, edible pod peas

Snacks: honey candy, dehydrated zucchini slices, cheese, potato chips

Here's where it came from:
Beef - Homer
Cabbage - Soldotna
Carrots - Palmer
Cheese - homemade
Chicken - Funny River
Edible pod peas - Soldotna
Eggs - home grown
Garlic - Nikiski
Moose - outside Fairbanks
Pork - Funny River
Potatoes - Sutton
Tomatoes - Soldotna

James' birthday was on Sunday, and we took him out for upscale pizza and to the movies. It was very good food and a fun time. Sometimes it's nice to take a vacation from strict eating, but it's also good to go back to it when the party is over. Between Christmas treats and dinner out, I put back on some of the weight I'd lost. Now that I know how to get it back off, though, I'll lose it again and hopefully lose more besides.

On New Year's Day, I decided I wanted some candy, so James and I made Honey & Cream Taffy (recipe here). Well, it would have been taffy if I hadn't taken my eyes off of it for a second and let the temperature go past soft crack stage to hard crack stage, and then forgot to add the baking soda. It did make a nice (albeit ever-so-slightly-scorched) hard candy. James and I each pulled some of the hot candy, but his got cold before mine did, so I managed a lighter color. Next time I make this, and I definitely will, I won't be so easily distracted and will make a nice, soft candy!

Honey & Cream Candy

A few minutes ago, I counted up the frozen Alaska veggies that we have on hand, and there are six baggies left. That doesn't count the potatoes and carrots, or the dehydrated veggies, so I'm thinking we can do another week pretty easily. As you might have guessed from the menu of this past week, we had a lot of edible pod peas left! We only have one or two bags of them now, though. The next few days' meals will be interesting to eat as we clean out the odds and ends from the freezers! Wish me luck!

Week Eight Meals

Did everyone have a merry Christmas? Did you have some yummy treats this week? Here's what we ate:

Sunday, December 22:
Breakfast - unless otherwise noted, breakfast is eggs fried in butter
Lunch - unless otherwise noted, lunch is leftovers
Supper - steak stir-fry

Monday, December 23:
Breakfast - bacon and eggs
Supper - steak and beet greens
Dessert - cookies and ice cream

Tuesday, December 24:
Supper - pork roast and sauerkraut, cheesy baked potatoes
Dessert - ice cream

Wednesday, December 25, Christmas:
Supper - smoked ham, cauliflower, edible pod peas
Dessert - ice cream, chocolate and cookies

Thursday, December 26:
Supper - sirloin tip roast, cheesy baked potatoes

Friday, December 27:
Supper - sirloin tip roast leftovers, edible pod peas

Saturday, December 28:
Supper - zucchini "lasagna"

Where it came from:
Beef - Homer
Beet greens - Soldotna
Butter - homemade
Carrots - Palmer
Cauliflower - Soldotna
Cheese - home made
Dairy - home grown and Kasilof
Edible pod peas - Soldotna
Eggs - home grown
Pork - Funny River
Strawberries - home grown
Tomatoes - Anchorage
Zucchini - Soldotna

Christmas was this week! I love Christmas. James got to spend the night on Christmas Eve and spend the whole of Christmas day with us. Our holiday meal was entirely Alaskan, but not dessert. The cookies were homemade but with white flour and white sugar.

On Christmas day, I made fresh butter with some cow cream I had saved in the freezer from Peninsula Dairy, the place we used to get raw milk between the time when we ran out of frozen goat milk and the time when our goats freshen in the spring. While making the butter and seeing the buttermilk in the jar, I thought about how, if we weren't on this special eating plan, I would make some buttermilk biscuits while the buttermilk was fresh. Suddenly it made perfect sense to me how yesteryear's farm families were able to get so much food made. There's a logic to it that isn't very common knowledge in these modern times when we buy most of our foods at a store. When we are using our cream separator to get cream for butter, for instance, there is skim milk left that can be used to make monterrey jack cheese. The whey from the cheese can be used to lacto-ferment vegetables, or to make bread. Going back to the cream, it can be used for cheese or used to make butter, which gives you buttermilk, which is good for baking. The processes for milk, cream, cheese, whey, butter, veggie preservation and baked goods don't have to be independent activities, they can go smoothly hand-in-hand to give you greater variety of food in a streamlined method of food preparation that I plan to implement more often next year.

As we near the end of our Alaska Food Experiment, we are starting to run low on vegetables. We knew that the veggies would be the limiting factor in how long the Experiment lasted, and it looks like we'll be able to go for the projected two months but not much longer, if any.

As I write this, it is Saturday night. Sunday is James' birthday, and we are taking the day off of the Experiment to take him to dinner and a movie. Happy birthday, James!

Week Seven Meals

Week Seven! We're almost done with our goal of two months. One more week to go! Here's what we ate this past week:

Sunday, December 15:
Breakfast - unless otherwise noted, breakfast is eggs fried in butter
Lunch - unless otherwise noted, lunch is leftovers
Supper - hamburger/sausage patties, fried potatoes, beet greens

Monday, December 16:
Supper - roast chicken, red cabbage and mixed veggies

Tuesday, December 17:
Supper - roast pork chops over spicy sauerkraut, carrots

Wednesday, December 18:
Supper - chicken and potatoes

Thursday, December 19:
Supper - beef stew

Friday, December 20:
Supper - pork chops, sauerkraut, carrots, edible pod peas

Saturday, December 21:
Supper - steak, edible pod peas, bacon jack baked potatoes
Dessert - homemade ice cream sandwiches

Where it came from:
Barley flour - Delta Junction
Beef - Homer
Beet greens - Soldotna
Butter - homemade
Cabbage - Soldotna and Nikiski
Carrots - Palmer
Cauliflower - Soldotna
Celery - Soldotna
Cheese - homemade
Chicken - Funny River
Edible pod peas - Soldotna
Eggs - home grown and locally grown from the feed store
Honey - Kasilof
Pork - Funny River
Potatoes - Sutton

This week, I took some days off work to prepare my own holiday gifts and baked goods. And I confess - I ate some treats. After having little to no sugar for so long, eating some sugary snacks made my heart pound. And not in a good way - it was borderline uncomfortable for about an hour. That night I had the first problem with my restless leg syndrome in several weeks. Remind me of that if I'm tempted to go back to my old way of eating, okay?

I am pleased to report I'm down a jean size now!

There's only a little more than a week in our Alaska Food Experiment. It's hard to believe it's gone by so fast. Two holidays occur during those last few days, too - Christmas, and James' birthday. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Week Six Meals

We're three quarters of the way through with our Alaska Food Experiment! Wow, that went fast! Here's what we ate:

Sunday, December 8:
Breakfast - unless otherwise noted, breakfast is eggs fried in butter
Lunch - unless otherwise noted, lunch is leftovers
Supper - bunless sloppy joes and baked potatoes

Monday, December 9:
Supper - leftovers

Tuesday, December 10:
Supper - Mexican turkey soup with monterrey jack fricos

Wednesday, December 11:
Lunch - pork chops and fermented mixed veggies
Supper - pork ribs, beet greens, fried potatoes

Thursday December 12:
Supper - "zoodles", sausage spaghetti sauce

Friday December 13:
Supper - canned moose, beet greens, potato chips

Saturday December 14:
Breakfast - bacon and eggs
Supper - roast chicken, roast potato, cabbage and carrot stir-fry, spiced trail apples

Snacks - monterrey jack cheese, pickles

Here's where it came from:
Apples - Soldotna
Barley flour - Delta Junction
Beef - Homer
Beet greens - Soldotna
Butter- homemade
Cabbage - Soldotna
Carrots - Palmer
Cauliflower - Soldotna
Cheese - homemade
Chicken - Funny River
Cucumbers - grocery store's Alaska Grown section
Eggs - homegrown and supplemented with eggs from the feed store
Lard - home rendered
Moose - outside Fairbanks
Pork - Funny River
Potatoes - Sutton
Tomatoes - Soldotna
Turkey - Funny River
Zucchini - Soldotna

This week I opened a slightly less than two month old monterrey jack cheese that I made from some skim milk left after spinning out cream. It was my best cheese yet! AND I found a good use for the skim milk that Jim won't dream of actually drinking. It melts so well, I grated it and made fricos, and they were good, no matter that frico is best made from a harder cheese.

I've lost just over 10 pounds, and my jeans are starting to get loose. Yay! I'm not quite ready for a smaller size jeans yet, but it won't be long, I think.

And now... confession time. Chocolate was eaten this week. Yes, I did. It was a very stressful week for both Jim and me at work, and I am a long-time stress eater. I got into some chocolate I bought for Christmas gifts and shared a candy bar with Jim. I did take the time to sit down and do nothing but concentrate on the pleasure of having the treat, and I enjoyed it a lot, but the whole point of the exercise was to feel better from the stress - - and it didn't help that. Note to self:  stress eating doesn't eliminate the stress. Next time, eat the treat because you want to have a treat, not because you want it to make all the world's problems go away.

Spiced trail apples

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner was a big success, even if I do say so myself. Pictures of the food didn't turn out as well as I might have liked, but we were hungry and anxious to eat the yummy food, so photography wasn't the first thing on our minds!

Our main course was (naturally) turkey. We bought a 17-pounder from Sarah at Kenai Feed and Supply. This was our first non-grocery-store turkey, and I can't imagine willingly going back to store-bought birds after eating this guy. I splurged on a little cranberry butter made by my friend Patty from local berries. The stuffing was made from barley bread (recipe here) that was allowed to go stale, then mixed with local sausage, apples, celery, and onions. Kabocha squash drizzled with Alaska's Natural honey and cinnamon was a delicious stand-in for sweet potatoes. Our greens were steamed broccoli crowns. Barley and white flour rolls finished off the savory plate, along with plenty of gravy and homemade butter.

The only (slight) disappointment I had was the barley rolls, and that was my fault. I misjudged the cooking time for the rolls and had to bake them before they had fully risen, so they were heavy. A generous slather of the best butter I made this year helped make up for the denseness.

Total deviation from the all-Alaska plan:  less than two cups of white flour and a smidge of sugar in the jelly (we didn't eat much).

A blurry photo of our Thanksgiving goodness

Dessert - - dessert was a triumph of will. I have never worked so hard for a plate of desserts in my life, and I loved it! Starting from jars of cream gathered myself back in the summer instead of using "boughten" cream cheese certainly gave me a new appreciation for the feast cooks of yesteryear! We had honey ice cream (recipe here) with squash pie in a pat-in-the-pan crust (crust recipe here) and honey cheesecake (filling recipe here) baked in a cookie crumb crust. The cheesecake was my favorite part. I made the cream cheese from part goat's milk cream and part cow's milk cream from Peninsula Dairy. Someday soon I hope to post my adaptation for the Finnish spice cookies I made the crust from. 

Total dessert deviation from the all-Alaska plan:  1/4 cup of lemon juice and a splash of vanilla.

Mmm, sweets!

My heartfelt thanks go out to my husband Jim and son James for being good sports and letting me experiment with a holiday meal. Shout-outs to Kenai Feed and Livestock Supply (Kenai), Alaska's Natural Nature's Treat (Kasilof), Alaska Flour Company (Delta Junction), Jackson Gardens (Soldotna), Ridgeway Farms (Soldotna), Peninsula Dairy (Kasilof), and Alaska Organic and Crafts (Nikiski).

Week Five Meals

Week Five is behind us! Here's what we ate:

Sunday December 1:
Breakfast - unless otherwise noted, breakfast is eggs fried in butter
Lunch - unless otherwise noted, lunch is leftovers
Supper - Beef stew

Monday December 2:
Supper - Thanksgiving leftovers

Tuesday December 3:
Supper - chicken-fried moose steak, edible pod peas, potato chips

Wednesday December 4:
Supper - chicken-fried moose steak again, broccoli

Thursday December 5:
Supper - "BBQ" pork ribs, fried potatoes, zucchini

Friday December 6:
Supper - bacon cheddar baked potatoes, edible pod peas

Saturday December 7:
Supper - chuck roast, baked potatoes, zucchini
Dessert - cream cheese honey filled Finnish spice cookies

Snacks - dehydrated zucchini slices, potato chips, pickles, sauerkraut

Here's where it came from:
Barley flour - Delta Junction
Beef - Homer
Broccoli - Soldotna
Butter - homemade
Cabbage - Soldotna
Carrots - Palmer
Cream Cheese - homemade
Cucumbers - grocery store's Alaska Grown section
Edible pod peas - Soldotna
Eggs - home grown and locally purchased
Honey - Kasilof
Lard for frying - home rendered from local pig
Moose - outside Fairbanks
Pork - Funny River
Potatoes - Sutton
Tomatoes - Soldotna
Turkey - Funny River
Zucchini - Soldotna

I apologize in advance that this post is going to be short... Work is keeping me extremely busy and I have a batch of highbush cranberry and trail apple jelly on the stove. If I try to multitask too much, I might ruin that jelly, and it would be a shame to spoil all that nice juice! I'm hoping to have a small assortment of jellies to put in Christmas boxes, so I'm up early (well, early for me) to make up some jars. Anybody else canning goodies for Christmas presents?