At the beginning of the year, I made a food goal of eating completely local one day a month. This #LocalMonthly challenge meant every ingredient (with some exceptions like salt) is grown and produced within 200 miles of my home. I hoped this journey would connect me to local farmers, teach me about the food industry, and give me some delicious things to eat!

How did I do? Keep reading about what I learned and did every month.

Local Monthly Recap

In January, I kicked off this project by talking about winter seasonality.

In February, Will and I walked an olive tree orchard and tasted olive oil at Texas Hill Country Olive Oil.

In March, I held baby goats and got a close-up look at goat cheese production at Pure Luck Farm and Dairy.

In April, I volunteered at Johnson’s Backyard Garden and received an abundance of veggies in return.

In May, we picked strawberries and peaches at Sweet Eats Fruit Farm.

In June, I shared my recommendations for learning about slow food.

In July, I talked about local meat and the abundance of resources we have in Texas.

In August, I talked about how easy it is to shop local at your grocery store. Stores like Whole Foods, Central Market, and HEB have signage that designate “local” produce and some even share farm information.

In September, I donned a beekeeper suit and learned about local honey.

In October, I went to the Austin Fermentation Festival at the farmers market.

In November, I toured New Leaf Agriculture, an enterprise of the non-profit Multicultural Refugee Coalition. The farm connects refugees to sustainable farming opportunities.

In December, I visited Still Austin and learned all about grain-to-glass whiskey and gin.

5 Things I Learned in a Year of Local Eating

1. Eating local reminds me to read the labels.

What is actually inside the packaging? When you’re required to question every ingredient, you also question the nutrition and value of what you’re eating.

2. Eating local is a privilege.

It seems like such a novelty, eating fresh produce from a farm in town. Can you imagine how this system worked seamlessly before grocery stores were built five minutes away? It’s also a privilege of being able to afford the time, money, and knowledge to acquire and cook the produce.  

3. Eating local is rewarding.

Fresh vegetables and meat are delicious. You have to taste it to know. But it wasn’t only the reward of good food that made this challenge satisfying. We were supporting the local economy: local farmers, ranchers, and makers.

4. Eating local makes me question what I want to eat versus what is available.

Seasonality is a big part of eating local. Certain fruits and vegetables are not available all seasons, so you learn to cook new types of ingredients. This reminded me to go back to gratitude and be thankful for what I have and the experience it brings.

5. Eating local makes food simpler.

I’ve noticed that this farm-to-table challenge is not only about eating local but eating the purest, most natural form of an ingredient. Have dishes and meals become too complicated? Have our taste buds evolved to want and need more flavors? When I was eating local, olive oil, salt, and pepper were usually what I used to cook and season the food. Dishes like roasted carrots and grilled chicken were simple yet delicious.

Conclusion

While I’m saying good-bye to this project, this isn’t the end of local eating. I know we’ll still make our regular farmers market trips and explore all the local opportunities we can find in Austin. For starters, I would love to start our backyard garden, join a CSA, try canning and fermenting, visit a lavender farm, and visit Barton Springs Mill’s new place. There are plenty of local adventures to try! If you have ideas, send them my way.

I hope my farm-to-table challenge has been an eye-opening and fun journey for you as it has for me.

How can you eat local in the new year?

P.S. See all the posts from the Local Monthly challenge here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: 5 Things I Learned in a Year of Local Eating appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

This month, I suited up and learned all about bees and their hives! I was a bit familiar with bees and honey. I took a hive tour with Round Rock Honey about eight years ago and went to this fun honey event about four years ago. Visiting Two Hives Honey was the perfect refresher as part of my farm-to-table challenge.

Two Hives Honey

Two Hives Honey is a local Austin company providing honey, hive tours, and beekeeping classes. Their hives are located on the land of Texas Keeper Cider, one of Austin’s cideries.

For our hour and a half long tour, we learned a lot about bees! They are so fascinating. Here are some of the things:

• The history of honey goes back to ancient Egypt. Honey bees can be seen on hieroglyphics and pots of honey have been found in tombs.
• Honey bees aren’t native to the Americas. They were brought by European settlers in the 1600s. Now, 4,000 species of native bees live in the U.S.
• Honey bees will visit two million flowers to make one pound of honey.
• There are three types of bees in a hive. One queen, female workers, and male drones. Workers do everything from foraging, cleaning, and feeding.
• A queen bee typically lives three years.
• The drones’ job is to mate with a queen bee, but they usually do not mate with the queen in their own hive. They fly to a drone congregation area. Mating lasts for less than five seconds and then the drone DIES! Drones usually live about 90 days.

After we learned about bees, we got into our protective jackets and gloves and got very close to more than 100,000 bees! A smoker was used to calm the bees down. If a smoker isn’t used, the bees would send out alarm pheromones.

Can you believe this honeycomb is all made by bees? There is no wiring holding this up.

We even got a little taste straight from the hive!

As you may know, colony collapse disorder is a global problem. They don’t know the cause of it, but we do know that a decreasing number of bees is detrimental to our ecology. Bee pollination is critical for crops and they’re responsible for pollinating about 75% of human food plants. That’s why education and preservation are so important. Our food system depends on it!

You can help in several ways.

• Support your local farmers and beekeepers. Two Hives Honey sells their honey at their shop and various retailers around Austin.
• Help your local bees. Grow a flower garden for the bees. Put a shallow container of water nearby for bees to hydrate, but make sure there are surfaces to land on so they don’t drown!
• Keep your land natural. Avoid the chemicals in pesticides and find natural alternatives.
• Spread knowledge!

September’s Farm-to-Table Meals

In addition to the honey I bought from Two Hives Honey, here’s what I bought at the farmers market for $31.88:

• Three pattypan squash, one zucchini, one bag of carrots, and one eggplant from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($12)
• One bag of spinach from Flintrock Hill Farm from Kingsbury, TX ($4)
• One dozen eggs and about one pound of chicken leg quarters from Humble Rooster Farm of Austin, TX ($15.88)

Here are the resulting meals:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with spinach

Lunch/Dinner: roasted patty pan squash, grilled chicken and honey glazed carrots

Eat More Honey

How do you eat honey? Here are some suggestions:

• Sweeten your tea
• Glaze meat or veggies for roasting
• Peanut butter and honey sandwiches
• Drizzle over popcorn
• Swap sugar for honey in baked goods

You can get more recipes at Honey.com.

Conclusion

Visiting a local hive is a great way to learn more about bees and get to know your local food system. Plus, you can use the tasty honey for so many things, from food to skincare.

P.S. Curious about my other posts from this challenge so far? See them here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: Local Honey appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

Eating local is easy, right? In this post, let’s break down the options for the food you eat.

Where Do You Shop Local?

Imagine the time when our ancestors lived on their own plot of land. They gardened, farmed, raised animals, and traded with their neighbors. They intimately knew their food. Some of us have our own backyard gardens today. That’s as local as you get.

If you don’t have your own garden but want to eat local, you might visit a farmers market where farmers bring their produce to sell. But if you can’t make the specific time and place when the farmers market is held, your last resort is the grocery store. I can’t begin to imagine the complexities of shipping and delivering the products from all over the world to our local grocery stores! In those shipments are products that come locally within your state.

In Austin, my grocery stores do a good job of telling customers when products are local. I’m not sure if it’s a marketing strategy or if Texans are more likely to eat local produce, but I’m proud of the transparency. A step above a “local” or “Texas” label, some groceries, like Whole Foods Market, also share information about the farm or company along the shelves. I intended to shop at the farmers market this month, but I started browsing the produce section and realized I should go ahead and shop for our local meal while I was there. The labels made it easy to see which farm the food was grown and raised.

In many of our cities, it’s not a matter of access but a decision we make to eat local. While some products cost more than their non-organic option and some grocery stores may be more expensive than others, many grocery stores provide great options if we stop and read the labels.

August’s Farm-to-Table Meals

Instead of a farmers market visit, I had an impromptu shopping trip at Whole Foods. There are a few cheat items on this list, meaning some of the consumer goods are made by Texas companies, but the ingredients in their products might not be from Texas. For example, this jar of kimchi is made by an Austin company but it doesn’t specify that the ingredients inside were grown in Texas.

Here’s what I ended up buying for $42.91:

• One container of shishito peppers from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($4.99)
• One container of baby bella mushrooms from Kitchen Pride Mushroom Farms of Gonzales, TX ($4.99)
• Two yellow squash and two zucchini from Martinez Farms of Pleasanton, TX ($4.58)
• One container of kimchi from Barrel Creek Provisions of Austin, TX ($7.99)
• One 0.65 lb lamb shoulder steak from Capra Lamb of Goldthwaite, TX ($5.19)
• One bag of tortilla chips from Gloria’s Premium Tortilla Company of Fort Worth, TX ($4.49)
• One jar of salsa from Clint Texas Salsa of San Antonio, TX ($3.69)
• One dozen eggs from Vital Farms of Austin, TX ($6.99)

Here are the resulting meals:

Daytime Snacking: Chips and Salsa; Boiled Eggs; Kimchi Pancake

Dinner: Blistered Shishito Peppers; Roasted Yellow Squash and Zucchini; Stir-fried Mushrooms; Grilled Lamb Steak

Conclusion

Everything we ate was delicious! There are only three more months of this challenge! It is bittersweet and I’m planning on savoring all the meals until then.

P.S. Curious about my other posts from this challenge so far? See them here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: Eat Local Easily appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

This year, we’ve made local beef, pork, chicken, duck, and fish. I’m thankful that Texas has plenty of options for local meat! If you’re curious about eating local meal in Texas, it might be easier than you think. Keep reading to learn more.

Why Local Meat?

With locally sourced meat, you’re more likely to find options that are antibiotic-free and humanely raised while also supporting local ranchers and farmers. When you’re buying meat, check the labeling. Here are some things to look for:

• Antibiotic-free: This means if an animal is sick, antibiotics were not given to heal it
• Free-range: The animal can roam freely outdoors for various amounts of time instead of being confined
• Grass-fed: The animal is raised by eating grass, not grain. Grass-fed is better for the environment and less likely to be contaminated with anything in the grain.
• Grass-finished: The animal ate grass its whole life. If it’s not grass-finished, it could have been given grain as supplemental feed or it started its life eating grass and finished with a grain diet.
• No added hormones, no growth hormones: The animal was not given any steroids or the like
• Pasture-raised: Similar to free-range, the animal was allowed time to roam freely

Note that even if an animal is free-range or pasture-raised, it doesn’t designate a specific amount of time they need to be outside. This means they could be allowed to roam freely for a few hours instead of for their whole life. If the free-range and pasture-raised label doesn’t include grass-fed, they could be fed grain by the farmer in the field.

Where to Get Local Meat in Texas

Below are some options to get local meat in Austin and Texas. These options can be a little out of the way, so don’t forget to read the labels at your local grocery store for more accessible options. For example, I found the bison from Roam Ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas at Central Market. Also, while it doesn’t call out the local farms directly, Farmhouse Delivery also has local meat delivery options.

At Austin’s farmers markets:

• Belle Vie Farm of Austin, Texas
• Humble Rooster Farm of Bertram, Texas
• Ranger Cattle of Austin, Texas
• Smith & Smith of Burlington, Texas
• Winters Family Beef of Brady, Texas

At Austin retail locations:

• Dai Due
• Hudson Meat Market
• Johnny G’s Meat Market
• Longhorn Meat Market
• Quality Seafood
• Salt & Time

By wholesale and retail:

• Cobb Creek Farm of Hillsboro, Texas
• Dean & Peeler Meatworks of Poth, Texas

For more meat options around Texas, check out the Eat Wild website.

July’s Farm-to-Table Meals

Will got some snapper filets from a co-worker who caught them in the Texas gulf and some homegrown cherry tomatoes, so we worked those into our meals.

Here’s what I ended up buying at the farmers market for $41:

• One bag of baby bok choy, one container of okra and two patty pan squash from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($16)
• One lb each of eggplant and shishito peppers from Gray Gardens of Buda, TX ($7)
• 1.3 lbs of sirloin steak from Grass-Fed Beef of Texas ($18)

This time around, because of our social schedules, we ended up doing two local dinners in one weekend. Here are the resulting meals:

Dinner One: Blackened Snapper; Stir-fry Baby Bok Choy; Grilled Patty Pan Squash

Dinner Two: Blistered Shishito Peppers; Stir-fry Okra with Cherry Tomatoes; Roasted Eggplant; Grilled Steak

Conclusion

This post is about meat but the winner of our meals was the patty pan squash! I bought it on a whim because of the name, but it was delicious! I highly recommend it if you see it.

P.S. Curious about my other posts from this challenge so far? See them here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: Local Meat appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

Well, I almost made it half the year before I missed a month! June weekends were fairly full, and eating locally for one day takes preparation. We usually go to the farmers market on the Saturday before so that we can eat local on Sunday. When we can’t get to the market on Saturday, it throws it off. To make up for it, I’ll be eating local twice in July, and this post is the recap of the first day.

What is Slow Food?

As I dined at local restaurants, learned from slow food enthusiasts, and read Dan Barber’s book The Third Plate, I begin to resonate with the concept of slow food. As the Slow Food USA organization describes, slow food is about clean, good, and fair food. (You can read the full list of values here.) My farm-to-table challenge celebrates the slow food movement.

The need for sustainable, local, organic, and whole foods means going back to the roots of food, before harmful pesticides, preservatives, and mass-production. Fresh foods (ones that don’t come in packaging) are best but if I’m buying processed foods, like broth, I look for organic and ingredients I know on the label.

Slow food is important because it supports the breeders who develop seeds, the farmers who plant and raise produce, and the people who process the produce, like millers. These specialized people take great care in the quality they produce.

Slow food also focuses on the land. The health and care of the soil show in the quality of what’s meant to grow there. What grows there have huge effects on our health and the flavors we experience in our food. And then it goes deeper. It’s about nose-to-tail (using/eating the whole animal), seasonal crops, rotation farming, and much more. It’s a beautiful thing to live harmoniously with all parts of the process!

Learn About Your Food

For me, the best way to start learning is with a book, a film, or a blog. I’ve gathered some recommendations from me and the web for you. If you have comments, be sure to share below!

Books

• The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
• American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood by Paul Greenberg
• The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet by Kristin Ohlson

Films

• Local Thirty
• Farmer’s Footprint
• Food, Inc.

Blogs

• Dishing Up The Dirt
• Modern Farmer
• The Lunatic Farmer

June’s Farm-to-Table Meals

Here’s what we ended up buying at the farmers market for $46.75*:

• One bag of arugula and one red bell pepper from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($7)
• One lb each of eggplant, shishito peppers, tomatoes from Gray Gardens of Buda, TX ($11)
• Peaches from Itz Garden and Zenner Orchards of Fredericksburg, TX ($7)
• Goat Cheese from Pure Luck Farm & Dairy ($7.50)
• Two cucumbers at Fruitful Hill Farms ($2.75)
• 1.3 lbs of chicken quarters from Humble Rooster Farm ($11.50)

*Remember, while we buy ingredients for a day of meals, we don’t use all the ingredients. Each meal fed two people and I estimate about $10 worth of ingredients were left over for future meals.

Here are the resulting meals:

Lunch: Blistered Shishito Peppers and Roasted Eggplant

Dinner: Peach, Goat Cheese, and Arugula Salad; Peach and Tomato Gazpacho (see similar recipe here); Grilled Chicken Quarters

We didn’t end up eating this on Sunday, but we also got a watermelon from Dilorio Farms from Hempstead, TX from HEB.

Conclusion

Preparing for these local days every month requires a little work to gather ingredients and come up with a menu but it is also a rewarding and fun project!

P.S. Curious about my other posts from this challenge so far? See them here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

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Summer is here in Texas (temperature heating up, school’s out, sunny days) and that means summer fruit! This month, we made some spontaneous plans to pick fruit at a nearby farm, and it was the perfect introduction to my favorite fruit season. Keep reading to hear all about our experience and see what I ate for my local monthly challenge.

Picking Peaches and Strawberries

I follow Sweet Eats Fruit Farm of Georgetown, TX and saw a post announcing peaches ready for picking. I am very excited about the peach season and I like that the farm is closer than Fredericksburg’s peach bounty. (For my non-Texan readers, Fredericksburg is one of the largest peach-producing counties in Texas and a popular destination for pick-your-own farms. The farm in Georgetown is about 30 minutes away from me compared to Fredericksburg’s almost two-hour drive.) Naturally, my plans for this month’s local eating and research immediately shifted to experience my first time picking peaches and strawberries! Here’s a view of one of the peach orchards.

The strawberry season is slowing down and we got there about an hour after they opened, but we still managed to pick a pound and a half of ripe strawberries. Strawberries don’t ripen after being picked so you want to find the dark red berries. (Strawberries are $3/lb.) We got some good ones!

We then walked over to the peach orchards. Same as the strawberries, you want to look for dark red and yellow peaches. If they’re hard, they’ll soften off the tree. We picked about four pounds of peaches and Will’s height was very helpful to grab the ripe ones others couldn’t reach! (Peaches are $2.50/lb.) It was heating up quickly, and you can easily get carried away by picking too many.

The farm also grows different varieties of colorful zinnias. We didn’t get any but they are $8 for a small bucket or $15 for a large bucket. They were so beautiful!

For the cost of the strawberries and peaches we picked ($15), we had a fun morning seeing where and how these fruits grow. I have a feeling we’ll be visiting this farm again.

If you’re in Austin, another nearby pick-your-own farm (strawberries and blackberries) is Sweet Berry Farm in Marble Falls, about an hour away from Austin.

May’s Farm-to-Table Meals

Will has a few gardening co-workers and this month, we enjoyed a sampling of their plants that are producing more than they can consume. We were given cherry tomatoes, jalapeños, a green bell pepper, a zucchini, a yellow squash, and lots of herbs.

I also tried Rosso and Flynn‘s meat delivery for the second time. The meat is sourced locally from producers that pasture raise the animals and do not use antibiotics. This time I got a 10 oz Wagyu chuck eye ribeye from Ranger Cattle in Austin, TX ($15.00) and 12 chicken wings from Cobb Creek Farm in Hillsboro, TX ($13.50). We eat animal protein weekly and I’m hoping to do more research for a post all about local meat. If you have any questions or tips, let me know!

On the way home from the fruit farm, we stopped at the Georgetown Farmers Market. It’s a bit smaller than the Texas Farmers Market at Lakeline we usually go to but we did see a handful of similar vendors. Here’s what we ended up buying at the farmers market for $20.25:

• One dozen eggs from Richardson Farms in Rockdale, TX ($6)
• Potatoes, two lettuce heads, and one bunch of beets from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($14.25)

Here are the resulting meals:

Breakfast: Egg Scramble with Green Bell Pepper, Jalapeño, and Cherry Tomatoes

Lunch: Chicken Wings, Zucchini and Yellow Squash, Strawberries

Dinner: Lettuce Salad with Beets (dressed with olive oil and balsamic), Mashed Potatoes (with local butter and oregano), Wagyu Steak

Peach Cobbler (used this recipe and the peaches we picked!)

Intentions of Eating Local

If you haven’t gathered from my last few posts, eating completely local is hard, which is why seasonings have been on the cheat list from the beginning. For example, the peach cobbler I made this month featured the peaches we picked at Sweet Eats Fruit Farm, local flour from Barton Springs Mill, and local butter from Vital Farms, but the sugar, baking powder, lemon, salt, and almond milk were not local but items we already had in our kitchen. The same goes for the seasoning (mostly salt and pepper) on everything.

I’ve been approaching this local challenge how I’ve been approaching things like doing more for the environment or accomplishing my goals – I do the best I can. I eat as local as possible while trying not to be wasteful and giving myself grace for falling short. Transitions and changing habits take time. The most important part of my local monthly challenge is learning more about local products and celebrating the local bounty and local producers. As a frequent perfectionist, I have to remind myself that done is better than perfect and a little is better than nothing.

So, if you’re curious about eating more local, dabble in it. Learn more about your local produce and figure out your why. It doesn’t mean you have to stick to it forever or go all out but maybe you’ll find purveyors you like.

Conclusion

The peaches this month gave me life! Living in a city like Austin where there are so many great choices of food makes eating local easy and hard. It’s hard to keep within restrictions but finding local produce is easy with a bit of effort. Seven months to go and more good eating and learning coming!

P.S. Curious about my other posts from this challenge so far? See them here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

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This month, I volunteered at Johnson’s Backyard Garden, a farm in Austin. Their vegetables have made a regular appearance in my farm-to-table challenge, and I was excited to finally volunteer! It was a fun day on my feet and wait until you see the vegetables. Keep reading to hear all about it and to see what I ate this month.

Local Vegetables from Johnson’s Backyard Garden

Our first stop at the farmers market is usually Johnson’s Backyard Garden (JBG) because they usually have a bounty of good-looking vegetables. What started as an East Austin backyard garden in 2004 has grown to 186 acres producing over 200 different crops!

JBG has a strong community supported agriculture (CSA) program. This is a weekly or bi-weekly membership to receive produce grown at the farm delivered to your door or picked up at the farmers market. JBG has four different box sizes: individual ($22), small ($27.50), medium ($35), or large ($41). It’s a beautiful thing to invest in a community farm and in return, receive fresh, organic, high-quality vegetables to eat. Joining a CSA encourages you to eat local and try new produce. Did you know JBG also delivers to Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, and some of their surrounding areas?

I’ve been wanting to volunteer at JBG for years but since volunteer days are only on Tuesdays and Fridays, I had to plan for a holiday. JBG has two volunteer locations and offer five-hour shifts. While I wanted to volunteer on the farm, which involves tasks like harvesting produce, spots weren’t available, so I ended up at their packing shed. This is where the harvest is washed, sorted, and packed to go out to farmers markets and to be put in CSA boxes. On my Friday shift, we bagged mixed greens, spinach, arugula, and carrots. JBG employees were also there rinsing and organizing carrots, beets, and onions, which looked beautiful!

As JBG has grown its number of crops and customers, they have also learned best practices to provide the best end product. It’s a popular and beloved organization in Austin. One bite from a fresh carrot and you’ll understand why!

April’s Farm-to-Table Meals

In exchange for volunteering, I received A LOT of vegetables from JBG, about the equivalent of a small CSA box, including:

• Two bunches of carrots
• One bunch of bok choy
• Two lettuce heads
• One bag of spinach
• One bunch of golden beets
• A handful of black radishes
• One bag of mixed greens
• One bunch of mint

To supplement the vegetables, here’s what we ended up buying at the farmers market for $38:

• Chevre Cheese from Pure Luck Farm & Dairy in Dripping Springs, TX ($6) [See the post from my visit to the farm here.]
• One duck breast (one pound) from Belle Vie Farm and Kitchen of Thrall, TX ($19)
• One pint of strawberries from Engel Farms of Fredericksburg, TX ($4)
• Two garlic bulbs and a dozen chicken eggs from Fruitful Hill Farm of Bastrop, TX ($9)

Here are the resulting meals:

Breakfast: Egg Scramble with Spinach

Lunch: Mixed Greens Salad with Carrots, Golden Beets, and Chevre

Dinner: Mashed Black Radishes, Garlic Bok Choy, Duck Breast, Strawberries

I didn’t start eating and cooking beets until the last few years and now I can’t get enough of them! These golden beets were especially delicious. I could also eat scrambled eggs for every meal. They are so fresh and light!

The Downside of Eating Local

While I’m enjoying most of the meals in this challenge, I’m noticing many similar dishes month to month. I know to eat completely local means simplifying meals, but I would love to try some new recipes.

In the last two months, I’ve realized including protein is very important. I cheated because I got so hungry, I’m grabbing whatever processed snack I had handy.

The black Spanish radishes I got from JBG were a mystery to me but I found a few recipes that recommended roasting and mashing them like mashed potatoes. Well, let me tell you, while the consistency is similar to mashed potatoes, the flavor was much more bitter! We ate them out of obligation but I’m not making that again! Other than cutting small radishes into salads, I have a hard time finding tasty ways to eat them.

Ways to Eat the Whole Vegetable

If you’re wondering why grocery stores keep the tops of vegetables like carrots and beets, it’s because they’re edible! Here are some recipes you should try to avoid food waste.

• Carrot Top Chimichurri
• Carrot Top Pesto
• Sauteed Beet Greens
• Vegetable Broth

Conclusion

I said it last month and I’ll say it again: I’m ready for peaches, strawberries, tomatoes, and watermelon! The strawberries I had for dessert this month were not quite ready but summer is getting closer.

P.S. Curious about my other posts from this challenge so far? See them here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: Johnson’s Backyard Garden appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

This month, I went to Pure Luck Farm & Dairy, a farm in Dripping Springs that produces several types of yummy cheeses from goats’ milk. I’ve been getting their goat cheese at the farmers market for a while (the feta is my favorite), so it was fun to go see where the magic happens.

Local Cheese from Pure Luck Farm & Dairy

It’s kidding season! That means baby goats are being born, which means lots of goat milk. My friend Claire and I bought tickets to play with and feed baby goats, tour the farm, and learn all about the cheese-making process. In the farm’s down-time before cheese production is in full swing, they host these events to give a peek into what goes on at the farm.

Pure Luck is a family operation that started when the land was bought in 1979. The farm grew herbs and vegetables. Quickly after officially became a dairy in 1995, their cheeses were winning awards. Following the farm’s legacy of their parents, Amelia became a cheesemaker and leads the production with the help of her sister Claire. Their sister Hope helps manage the farm duties and gives tours, while Amelia’s husband Ben also helps with the operations.

Today, the farm has 100-130 goats with 70 of them producing milk. All their goats are either Nubian or Alpine, though they recently got a Saanen breed. Nubian goats, the ones with long, floppy ears, are known for the high amount of fat in their milk. Alpine goats produce a lot of milk and also have high fat, although not as much as Nubians.

Breeding season is typically August through November and goat gestation is around five months. We played with goats that were two days old and many were a week old! Pure Luck Dairy will keep some of the goats and the rest will be sold. There will be more babies born in April and October.

This hairy guy named Charles knows how to strike a pose. He’s also very popular with the ladies as we found out when we walked into a full pen of pregnant goats. The larger goats pictured are a year old.

The busiest time of the year for the farm is summer, when their goats produce 65-70 gallons of milk a day, which turns into about 600 pounds of cheese a week! All of the goat milk is combined to make their cheeses. Pure Luck Dairy is known for their chevre, herbed chevre varieties, feta, and June’s Joy, the chevre mixed with Texas honey, thyme, and peppercorns.

In addition to the local farmers market, you can find Pure Luck’s cheese at Whole Foods, Central Market, Antonelli’s Cheese Shop, and Wheatsville Co-op.

March’s Farm-to-Table Meals

The weekend farmers market is still my go-to for finding local products and not having to wonder how local they are. One big factor of this project is knowing exactly where a product comes from, and I could drive to the farm and see it. Grocery stores don’t advertise where they get their product as it can be hard for a grocery store to be consistent if they depend on one farm for a particular product.

At the farmers market, here’s what we ended up buying for $53.25:

• Chevre Cheese from Pure Luck Farm & Dairy in Dripping Springs, TX ($6.25)
• Half lb of pastrami from Mum Foods in Austin, TX ($13.00)
• Chicken eggs from a friend in Manor, TX ($0.00)
• Turkey egg from a friend in Thrall, TX ($0.00)
• Oyster Mushrooms from Hi-Fi Mycology of Austin, TX ($8.00)
• Two bunches of kale, one bunch of carrots, two bunches of beets from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($16.00)
• One bunch of spinach, one bunch of green onions, and one bunch of broccoli from Bernhardt’s Fruit & Veggie Farm of Elgin, TX ($10.00)

To tie in my Pure Luck visit, I was hoping to incorporate at least two types of cheeses in my meals. Since milk production just started, this was their first time back at the farmers market in seven weeks and they were limited on cheese varieties. If the feta had been available, I would have added it to my egg scramble and ate it as a snack. Their feta with olive oil, pepper, and fresh dill on a cracker is excellent.

Here are the resulting meals:

Breakfast/Lunch:

• Pastrami (with mustard and pickles)
• Kale, Mushroom, and Egg Scramble
• Fried Turkey Egg
• Kale Chips

Dinner:

• Spinach Salad with Roasted Beets, Carrots, and Chevre
• Sautéed Mushrooms
• Baked Broccoli Fritters

That salad was easily the most delicious thing I ate in the day. This combination is perfect and the peeled carrots were much better than chopped carrots. We used a cheat in the dressing since balsamic vinegar is strictly made in Italy but we did combine it with Texas Hill Country Olive Company’s olive oil.

As usual, we didn’t finish everything we bought, and dinner portions were for three people. We were left with enough salad for lunch the next day and still half a container of cheese and half a dozen eggs.

Mum Foods is our weakness (and splurge) at the farmers market. Their pastrami and brisket are so good. Did you hear they’re opening up a restaurant in East Austin soon?! They’ll still be at the farmers market but you’ll be able to eat their meats deli-style at their restaurant. They source their meat from local ranchers.

Conclusion

I am ready for spring and all the produce variety that it will bring! Because you know what that means? Pretty soon there will be peaches, strawberries, tomatoes, and watermelon!

Do you have any suggestions on how to expand my project or any local products I should try? I have a general outline of what I what I want to explore this year, but I welcome your comments.

P.S. See all my other Local Monthly posts here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: Pure Luck Farm & Dairy appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

Part of the fun of this farm-to-table challenge is being able to learn more about ingredients and the local companies that are passionate about them. This means deep-diving into their products and history. It even means visiting their farm, like this month’s feature, Texas Hill Country Olive Company in Dripping Springs. I’m excited to share what I learned about olives, olive oil, and more!

Local Olive Oil from Texas Hill Country Olive Company

At the end of January, we had a weekend stay in Fredericksburg, so it was a good time to stop by Texas Hill Country Olive Company. I had bought their olive oil at my farmers market because we use so much olive oil. I knew it would be a staple for the challenge.

Texas Hill Country Olive Company is the first organic farm in Texas, and they grow their olives from March to October.

With our ticket ($6 per person), we learned so much about how olives go from the tree to the bottle. We also got to tour the orchard and processing area.

Here are some of the interesting tidbits I learned about growing olives:

• Olives thrive in hot and dry climates. If it’s a coastal area, they thrive in higher elevations.
• Sloping land and hills provide natural irrigation to olive orchards.
• Texas soil is good for olives because the limestone adds alkaline to the soil.
• Cover crops like clover and daisies are grown in between the trees to help fertilize them.
• Breeze is good on an olive farm because if the tree is not self-pollinating, the breeze helps pollinate.
• The color of the olives depends on when you pick them. Black means they’re ripe.
• They have high fences around the orchard to keep deer out since they eat the flowers.
• Besides deer, olive trees don’t have many issues with birds or insects. The olive mite can take out many trees though.

Here are some of the interesting things I learned about processing olives into olive oil and buying olive oil:

• For the oil to be considered extra virgin, the olive does not touch the ground and it must go from tree to mill within 72 hours.
• Texas Hill Country Olive Company takes about 7lbs of olives to make one 500ml bottle.
• About 70% of imported olive oil is fake, so it’s better to buy domestic. Other countries don’t have the same regulations as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
• The U.S. uses 10% of the olive oil produced in the world while only producing .5% of it.
• The olive paste that remains after all the oil is pressed out can be used for goat food because it helps with their poor digestion.
• Be sure to use your olive oil within three to six months of opening the bottle. Keep it for two years if it hasn’t been opened.
• Store your olive oil in a cool, dry place like your pantry.
• Things that will make olive oil go bad: heat, oxygen, light, and time.

Of course, we couldn’t leave without tasting all their olive oil varieties and picking up more olive oil to use.

February’s Farm-to-Table Meals

As I was planning out my meals, I wanted to include ones that were heavy with olive oil to celebrate Texas Hill Country Olive Company’s products.

Here’s what I ended up buying:

• Eggs from a friend’s chickens in Manor, TX ($0.00)
• Half lb of baby bellas from Kitchen Pride Mushrooms of Gonzales, TX ($5.50)
• One bunch of kale and one bunch of bok choy from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($6.00)
• One butternut squash and one spaghetti squash from Engel Farms of Fredericksburg, TX ($7.00)
• One bunch of carrots and one sweet potato from Fruitful Hill Farm of Bastrop, TX ($5.25)
• Duck breast (less than a lb) from Belle vie Farm and Kitchen of Thrall, TX ($11.00)

And here are the resulting meals:

Breakfast: Mushroom and Kale Scramble with Fried Egg

Lunch: Sweet Potato Hash with Kale and Egg

Snack: Spaghetti Squash with Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper

Dinner: Roasted Duck Breast, Bok Choy, Butternut Squash, Carrots

Tidbit of the Month: Texas Sugar

As if everything above about olive oil wasn’t enough, I wanted to share what I learned about sugar. This came about as I was trying to figure out how I can make dessert. Texas does grow sugar cane in the Rio Grande Valley, but to my knowledge, the sugar produced from it isn’t sold locally. The Domino brand claims to buy 100% of the sugar grown and produced in Texas.

Conclusion

I’m month two into this challenge and I’m loving it! This month I spent $34.75 and we had a bunch of leftover vegetables.

I’m learning a lot and becoming more and more curious about why and how we eat what we do. For example, I started wondering if our taste buds have evolved to want and need more flavors. Recipes these days include so many spices, ingredients, and components but we didn’t always eat this way. Did we evolve to feel more accomplished if the recipe was harder or are we craving the flavors? Of course, trade and globalization introduced many more ingredients, which probably also had something to do with this! If you’re thinking this all sounds like Slow Food USA talk, I would agree!

Discovering and getting to know local companies has also been enriching. I’m REALLY excited about next month’s adventure. Two words: BABY GOATS. Stay tuned! (But to clarify, not goats to eat but goat’s milk makes some magical things.)

I might be posting about this once a month, but I welcome conversations any time! Feel free to send over articles you find, insights you have, and what you’re thinking. (It’s ok to geek out with me. )

Until next month, happy eating and learning!

Are you trying local eats? Tell me all about it below!

P.S. See all the posts from this challenge here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: Texas Hill Country Olive Company appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

I knocked out January’s challenge on the first weekend of the month. My brain sparked with ideas for the year as I walked through the farmers market. I also learned about winter seasonality and new local companies. Keep reading for more! (Here’s the challenge intro post if you missed it.)

Winter Seasonality

A big focus of eating farm-to-table is seasonality. As the seasons change, only certain ingredients will grow in the climate. Eating seasonally ensures you are eating food grown locally and not food that has traveled a long way. It’s also an encouragement to eat different types of vegetables.

Here are some vegetables in season in Texas from the winter months of December to February:

• Beets
• Turnips
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Cabbage
• Spinach
• Asparagus
• Napa Cabbage
• Bok Choy
• Sweet Potatoes
• Radishes
• Leeks
• Fennel
• Cilantro
• Parsley

Is eating out of season bad? For the produce that can’t be grown locally, it is flown in from the places where they can be grown. For example, if you see strawberries in Texas grocery stores in winter, they’re not from Texas. This is not particularly bad but remember it takes fuel for that produce to get from the farm it was grown on to your grocery store. So, there’s a question of the environmental impact of transport.

January’s Farm-to-Table Meals

I went to the Texas Farmers Market early on a Saturday to shop for the day of eating. I had a slight idea of what I wanted to eat but I knew it depended on what was available. I ended up buying a bunch of items and hoping I could make some meals out of them. Here’s what I ended up buying:

• Two Chicken Leg Quarters (one lb) from Humble Rooster Farm of Bertram, TX ($7.16)
• One Dozen Eggs from Ringger Family Farm of Smithville, TX ($6.00)
• Mushrooms (one lb of baby bellas and two big portobellos) from Kitchen Pride Mushrooms of Gonzales, TX ($9.50)
• Vegetables (broccoli, root vegetable bag, bunch of kale) from Johnson’s Backyard Garden of Austin, TX ($11.50)
• 250ml olive oil from Texas Hill Country Olive Co. of Dripping Springs, TX ($16.00)

And here are the resulting meals:

Breakfast: Mushroom and Kale Egg Scramble

Lunch: Kale Salad, Boiled Eggs, Grilled Portobello

Dinner: Grilled Chicken Leg Quarters, Root Vegetable Soup, Steamed Broccoli

Johnson’s Backyard Garden was selling root vegetable soup bags, and I thought it would be easy to make. I cooked with purple daikon, white turnip, and red radish, some vegetables I’ve never made before. The soup turned out delicious.

We did have two cheats – the marinade for the chicken legs and I picked up a bottle of Texas Keeper Cider. The cidery is in Manchaca, Texas but the apples are from New York. It is delicious!

Conclusion

This challenge is off to a good start, and I enjoyed the meals in the day. I spent $50.16 and had plenty of leftover ingredients from my farmers market haul to use in other meals throughout the week. The cost was more than what I would usually spend at the grocery store, but the flavor was worth it and the bottle of olive oil will last me for a while. Next month, I’m looking forward to cooking with more new ingredients!

Are you trying local eats? Tell me all about it below!

P.S. See all the posts from this challenge here.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’. You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

The post Farm-to-Table Challenge: Winter Seasonality appeared first on Fearless Captivations.