What's your Beef with eating local?

I get an email from a local farm that delivers their meat straight from the farm to your home once a month.  While I try to buy Amana steaks, I check the labels of the pork to make sure they're from Iowa (we have the best) and I refuse to buy South American grown fish... I have yet to take part in this door to door service. 

It's incredibly convenient and you get to shake the hand of the farmer who raised the cow and probably named it... (although I've heard you're not supposed to name them... you get too attached.)
But how does the cost of the true blue Iowa locally grown beef stack up against the supermarket deal-of-the-day? 

**Spoiler alert**
This stuff is kinda expensive... 
Starting with the cheap stuff:  Your basic ground beef is on sale this week for $2.99 a pound at Dahls, but this local farm delivers it to your door for $5/lb. 
Beef patties aren't too outlandish at $5.75/lb delivered to your door, but for 75 cents more you could pick it up at HyVee for $5/lb. 
A roast runs around $3.80/lb at the supermarket but the local dude brings it for $6.50. 
Knock, knock... it's the local meat guy! He has your ribeye Steak for $16 but Dahls is running a deal for $10.70/lb. 
Finally, Fareway has some stew meat for sale for $3.99/lb, and local guy is offering it for $6.50. 

Now, keep in mind these are all special deals, not the usual supermarket price...  But on any given week you can find a cut of meat on sale at one of the three big grocery stores in the metro. 

Choosing to eat local isn't going to be extremely cost effective, but for a girl who can live on a two pack of pork chops and some ground turkey every week... The benefits outweigh the costs.  Literally. 

Granola Bars That Taste Ah-MAZING

I have made countless failed attempts at chewy granola bars.  I spend a lot of money on granola bars, and I would love to know exactly what's going into them... but I could never find the right combo of ingredients I wanted to consume and taste.  

I only had to pick up one ingredient for these... it was a trail mix of fruit, nuts, and chocolate chips.  I call that "more bang for your buck".  

One major problem... these are SO good. I could eat the whole batch. 

Ingredients:

• Granola cereal, 1 cup (Thanks to my mom, I had some delicious mom-made granola.)
• Rolled Oats, 1 cup
• Good Sense Trail Mix Caramel Nut Delite, 1 cup (or another fruit/nut mix)
• Flour, white, 1/2 cup
• Egg, fresh, 1 large
• Brown Sugar, 3 tbsp packed
• Vegetable Oil, 3 tbsp
• Honey, 3 tbsp
• Cinnamon, ground, 1/4 tsp

Mix the granola, rolled oats, fruit/nut mix and flour together in a large bowl.  

In a separate bowl, mix the egg, brown sugar, vegetable oil, honey and cinnamon.  


Combine the wet and dry ingredients and spread out into a 8x8 pan.  Press the mixture down with your hands.  


Bake at 325F for 25-30 minutes. 

Makes 10

Nutrition Facts

Cals: 247.8

Fat: 13 g

Cholesterol: 18.5 mg

Sodium: 32.8 mg

Carbs: 28.9 g

Fiber: 2.9 g

Sugars: 13.7 g

Protein: 5.7 g

A few notes: 
-I found that trail mix for pretty cheep at Dahl's, so I used it instead of buying mixed nuts and dried fruit.  The nutrition facts reflect the change.  
-I loosely followed a recipe from some magazine I cut out months ago... Sorry, I can't remember which mag.  
-The recipe I loosely followed  said this made 18 servings, but the photo made them look about as big as the ones I cut. Take that for what it is.

Family Recipe: Blueberry Muffins

We used to make these muffins all the time when I was younger, so I'll consider this a family recipe. 

 

 I only had a few blueberries that I had frozen this summer, so I got into my frozen mixed berries and literally picked out the blueberries... My friends always joke that I would go to great lengths to make something even if I didn't have the ingredients.  

 Don't mix these bad boys too much or you'll have flat dense muffins.  Mine were perfectly fluffy and yummy.   

Don't mind that there is one muffin missing... It's always a crap shoot finding the right amount of batter to fill each cup to equal exactly 12, so I just filled the cups and let them fall as they pleased.  So it made 11.  Get over it.  

Basic Muffins

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup cooking oil

Oven 400°

In a large mixing bowl stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. make a well in the center. Combine egg, milk, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just till moistened; batter should be lumpy. Grease muffin cups or line with paper bake cups; fill 2/3 full. Bake in 400° oven for 20 to 25 minutes or till golden. Remove from pans; serve warm. Makes 10-12 muffins.

Blueberry Muffins

Prepare Basic Muffins as above, except combine 3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed, and 2 tablespoons additional sugar. Carefully fold into batter.

Turkey Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

AKA one of my favorite foods!  

My roommate Allyson in New Orleans made this one time and I think I ate the leftovers for every meal for a week.   

You can put any seasonings in this.  I used basil, it called for parsley.  

 Get all of your separate parts and fill it up!

 Pack them into that pot you boiled the cabbage in...

 Cover with part cabbage boil water and part tomato spaghetti sauce and cook away.  Yummers!

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

 

2 quarts water

1 large head of cabbage

2 tablespoons butter

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

2 cups cooked brown rice

1 lb. ground turkey (or pork or beef)

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes

2 celery stalks, finely chopped

1 green pepper, finely chopped

4 cups tomato puree

 

1. Remove the center core of the cabbage. (Not as easy as it sounds) Boil 2 quarts of the water in a  stockpot that is not make of aluminum. Add the cabbage and cook for 2-3 minutes until the outer leaves are tender. Remove the outer elaves and continue cooking the rest, removing outer leaves and cooking the interior until all the leaves are cooked and removed. Reserve 2 cups of the cooking water.

 

2. Cut away the bottom of the center vein on each leaf. Place 4 large outer leaves at the bottom of the stockpot.

 

3. Melt the butter in a pan and add the onion and garlic, cooking until it is golden.

 

4. Mix onion/garlic misture in a bowl with ground meat, rice, salt, pepper, parsley, green pepper and celery.

 

5. Place 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the rice mixture on each cabbage leaf. To roll the leaves up, fold in the sides, then begin rolling from the bottom of the leaf, tucking the edge of the leaf under the finished roll. Place the rolled leaves in the stockpot.

 

6. Mix tomatoes and reserved cabbage water in a bowl. Pour enough into the stockpot to almost cover the cabbage. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover and simmer for 1 hour until the cabbage is tender. Add more reserved tomato/water mix while cabbage cooks if the level drops too far.

 

Substitution: feel free to swap out a jar of spaghetti suace for the pureed tomatoes. (I did this because I've read bad things about canned tomatoes.  I generally try to avoid them in my own cooking.)

Orange Poppyseed Bundt Cake

I'm going to admit... I made this at 1 am and forgot to put in the leavening agent...  But you'll forgive me, right? 

It's still pretty stinkin' good. 

Ingredients Americanized. 
120g poppy seed – ½ cup
250ml milk—1 cup
225g butter – 1 cup
220g sugar -- 1 cup + 2 T
3 eggs
300g flour – 2 1/3 cups
2 teaspoons baking powder (OOPS!)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tablespoon orange zest
4 tablespoons orange juice

Here's the original post:
http://junglefrog-cooking.com/orange-and-poppyseed-bundt-cake/

In hind sight I would have spent more time zesting oranges and added 2 or even 3 tablespoons.  1 just wasn't enough. 

I also don't think I got quite 1/2 cup of poppy seeds in it.  I had 2 Tones spices packages.  I'd say it was maybe 1/3 cup... But that was plenty.  In fact, I hope I don't get drug tested anytime soon... Because I've been eating a lot of this cake lately. 

So the cake turned out pretty dense, but it freezes well and was the perfect weekend splurge. 

Now, speaking of splurging.  This woman needs to STOP!  Just because I get my butt kicked in spin class doesn't mean I get a piece of cheesecake at the coffee shop. 


I'm making a statement here, in front of family, friends and God that I am going to start kicking butt and taking names at this healthy living lifestyle.  Logging my muchies on loseit.com (super user friendly and totally awesome and customizable) and adding pilates 3+x a week.  Sticking with this pescatarian thing till at least the end of November.  Working really hard to keep my carbs below 250g and my protein close to 100g. 

(Can we also note that blogger wants to change pescatarian to caesarian...)

Pesto Pizza

I found this idea on http://budgetbytes.blogspot.com/ and I put my own little twist on it. 

I found a simple focaccia recipe here and mixed it up in the morning and let it grow all day. 

Half of the recipe got cut into buns because I'm working on a blackened chicken sandwich that my friend LOVES at the Continental here in Des Moines and it has a focaccia bun. 

The other half got flattened out on my pizza stone and covered in goodies. 

Instead of buying a jar of pesto, I bought a packet.  I remember my mom having these pesto packets at home all the time and I HATED them.  And now that I've actually tasted it (weird) I love it. 

I would have obviously rather made fresh pesto from basil and pine nuts, however, I was on a tight budget and I figured the pesto wouldn't exactly be the star of this pizza... It was more like a collection of semi-famous stars equaling a yummy pizza. 

The pesto was spread over my dough and then I put sliced roma tomatoes over that.  The yummy mozzarella cheese (okay, maybe the star) covered that and I baked it till the edges were brown and the cheese looked sufficiently toasted. 

I loved this pizza when it first came out of the oven, but it's not a killer left-over.  Pizza usually isn't my favorite next-day lunch.  And if I do it again I might just skip the tomatoes.  November tomatoes leave much to be desired. 

This was 100 times better than frozen fare, but not quite as good as Gusto.  mmm. 

Cajun Chicken Pasta. OUT OF CONTROL

Lately I've been planning my meals a little better.  This keeps me from eating the same cheese quesadilla every day...  But I will gather 2 or 3 recipes before I go to the store and make sure I get all the ingredients. 
This recipe is one of the dishes that caught my eye on the Pioneer Woman's blog.  I lived in New Orleans for a bit so I LOVE cajun flavors. 
I did, of course, adapt the recipe a little.  I didn't want to buy heavy cream and I had a chunk of 1/3 less fat cream cheese... So why not, right? And I used far less chicken and skipped the wine.  Not that I don't like cooking with wine, I just like drinking it more. 

Ingredients

• 1 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, Cut Into Cubes
• Cajun Spice Mix, To Taste
• 3/4 lb pasta... I kept 1/4 lb because I have some leftover pesto.
• 1 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 Tablespoons Butter
• 1/2 Green Bell Pepper, Seeded And Sliced
• 1/2 whole Red Bell Pepper, Seeded And Sliced
• 1/2 whole Large Onion, Sliced
• Garlic, Minced, To Taste
• 4 whole Roma Tomatoes, Diced  Just wasn't in the mood
• 1 1/2 cups pasta water and 1 bullion cube
• 1/2 cup White Wine
• 1/3 block of Cream Cheese
• Cayenne Pepper To Taste
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste
• Salt To Taste
• Chopped Fresh Parsley, To Taste

For the step-by-step, go over to Pioneer woman's blog.  I'm not in the mood to type that much. 

But it was AMAZING.  Probably one of the best things I've ever made.  And I'm so excited that I have a TON of leftovers for the rest of the weekend. 

Adapted from http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/09/cajun-chicken-pasta/

--Also, I did my 3 days of Pescatarian dining this week.  Not bad at all!  This dish might even rock with some tofu. 

She's a vegetarian...

I’ve been working out like a crazy person lately (pretty on par with my life) and I don’t seem to be losing any lbs. 

I’ve always been very athletic, playing sports every season, bla bla bla… But I don’t really look like an athlete. 

I will say I notice changes in my body when I’m committed to certain exercise regiments… like when I rode RAGBRAI I noticed my quads were solid gold.  And I went to do one of my least favorite moves (pushups) on Wednesday and noticed I could actually do a real pushup! On my toes! 

Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I don’t know why I have a little extra junk in the trunk…  I like sweets.  I can take down a package of Halloween Oreos in 3.5 days.  I just like food.  I like looking at pictures of food, I like spending 2 hours cooking a meal for my parents, I like telling people about amazing restaurants… 

One thing that makes me a little queasy however, meat that other people have cooked…  I love a grilled steak or a curried salmon.  I have an entire small chicken in my fridge sitting next to three chicken breasts… But I just like to know what the meat looks like before it gets cooked… It’s just a phobia.  Carnophobia if you will. 

I’ve always said I can’t go vegetarian because of my intense love for meat… But in my old age (I’m 26…) I’m starting to wonder if there’s a whole new world out there full of quinoa burgers and tofu that I’m missing out on!

Mean girl side note- there was a girl on my floor in college who was a vegan and ate vegan cookies and pizza and didn’t touch vegetables… She wasn’t fit and fabulous.    

All this said, I’m considering a move to pescatarianism. (I’m a proud sushi junkie.)

So this is my plan: 3 days a week in November I’ll be a pescatarian, 5 days a week in December and if all goes to plan, a full-fledged pescatarian by New Years. 

If you know me, I make crazy plans like this all the time… so stay tuned to see how long this lasts. 

In other, but still slightly related news… here’s what’s on the menu for the next 2 weeks. 

Pumpkin oatmeal- I can’t remember where I got this recipe.  I’ll look for it and get back to you.

Roasted chicken- Hence the entire chicken in my fridge. 

Cajun Chicken Pasta- thepioneerwoman.com

Sweet potato and onion hash with an egg- A pretty customary go-to

Pesto pizza- budgetbytes.blogspot.com

Quesadillas- Just cheese.  Slightly over cooked.  Love of my life. 

Whoa... They Have What?

 I don't often get excited about packaged food...  Mostly because I can make the same thing with real food and less of that unpronounceable mish mash... But in the last few days, I've stumbled upon some new fall foods I MUST try!  Don't worry, I promise to share.  :)

First of all, my dear friend Natalie told me about these White Chocolate Candy Corn M&Ms... They're sold exclusively at Walmart... Which I also don't frequent.  In fact I had to Google a location for a Walmart in Des Moines.  Alas, they didn't have any.  And when I asked the friendly Walmart staff member, she said, "I don't know... did you look in the candy isle?  Well then we don't have them..."

.......................

Thanks! 

 Then, I was unassumingly checking Facebook when a little add popped up!  for Chex Mix Muddy Buddies!  Aka Puppy Chow!  Who knew Chex Mix made puppy chow...  Not me.  

Actually, one time I got an especially disgusting flavor of Chex Mix and penned a letter email to let them know what a mistake it was.  They promptly sent me coupons to try another flavor.  Wish they had these back then! 

AND THEN, I was reading a blog and found these puppies...  Trader Joe's S'mores Ice Cream Sandwiches.  I mean, COME ON.  Graham crackers with marshmallow-chocolate swirl gelato and milk chocolate flakes!  If it were me I'd mix in some charred mallow.  mmm.

 And then there are the old standbys that come around this time every year...  

Pumpkin Pie Blizzards!  Gotta have at least one.  It's like the Shamrock Shake... Totally wrong, but seasonally appropriate. 

AND Halloween Oreos.  For some reason the orange double stuff tastes better than white...  

I don't even really like Oreos... Call me crazy. 

Bobby Flay's Corn and Wild Rice Pancakes

 I was searching Tastespotting.com for a side for my Salmon.  I searched wild rice and came across Last Call for Corn's blog posting of Bobby Flay's Corn and Wild Rice Pancakes.  I had everything I needed but milk... So I ran to Dahls and got some milk.  

The batter is mostly like a regular pancake batter without sugar and with just a squeeze of the honey bear.  

 

Add in some herbs, roasted corn and cooked wild rice.  

 

Bake them up just like pancakes.  (In a non-stick pan... I learned that the hard way)  They're perfect with my salt and pepper salmon.  The pancakes only need a little pat of butter since they're so flavorful.  

 

MMM, look at that corn and the chives!  

 For the full recipe, check out Last Call for Corn

Dinner Time: Angel Hair Pasta with Veggies

 I had a beautiful red pepper from my grandma's garden, so I decided to saute up some other veggies with chicken for a perfectly delicious, healthy meal. 

 

I put the pepper under the broiler and charred it on each side.  After the onion came out, I put it in a plastic bag and let it cool for a bit.  When you take it out of the bag, the charred, tough skin comes off easily and you're left with delicious slimy roasted red pepper.  Yummers!  

I put the chicken in a pan and cooked it through, and added a splash of olive oil to the veggies I had in my crisper.  (Onion and some broccoli)

 I threw it all together with some angel hair pasta and salt and pepper. 

The soft pepper and onion were enough of that wet texture to not need any sauce. 

And just as I was plating my dinner... I got a phone call from my friend.  Threw my dinner in a Tupperware and took off to the bar!  Yeah, I'm classy like that.