DAY 31! Nuf Said. (Not really, you should keep reading)

Snap back to reality, oh there goes levity, oh there goes rabbit...

Why am I paraphrasing Eminem lyrics? Well, this morning I returned to school for a conference day, signaling the end of my summer vacation. And I brought my rabbit back to my classroom. I knew I had a long day ahead of me, and as I said yesterday, my days of fancy breakfasts cooked in a skillet are numbered. I dined on pancakes, a hard-boiled egg, and milk.


With all my ice cream making and the fact that a glass of milk makes for a refreshing snack during the hot weather we've been having, I've gone through my Mountain View Dairy milk in record time. I bought a gallon Saturday and it will be gone tomorrow morning. I think from now on I will buy two gallons, and if it seems like the second gallon is on the verge of being around too long I will just make ice cream or some other dairy packed treat to use it up. My boyfriend's aunt, who is a nutritionist, told me that milk can be pasteurized or re-pasteurized by microwaving it for one minute a cup at a time. Since my milk is raw I can always fall back on this for the second gallon. She actually recommended doing this for all my raw milk, but in my book that's not L-I-V-I-N.

To soften the blow of our return to school, we were provided a lunch of pizza, chicken riggies, and greens from local pizza place Sorrento's. I opted for a heaping serving of vegetable lasagna and did not venture to the cafeteria, because a girl can only take so much. I also snacked on sunflower seeds and an apple, but did not take pictures because I had so much to bring to school this morning that I didn't feel like lugging my camera along.

For dinner I had Mexican lasagna, but don't worry I'm not turning into Garfield, because honestly, I always found him to be kind an a-hole.


But I did have my own personal Odie to keep me company while I ate.


Stay tuned tomorrow to find out what I eat once I'm free of my self-imposed shackles. On Friday I'll assess weight loss, do a cost-comparison and a give an evaluation of the month.

Day 30: Vegetable Lasagna and Problems with Pull-ups

One more day!!

But not every day can be perfect; this morning Leo and I began our walk in the usual fashion: head to the elementary school, walk around the football field, run up Suribachi hill, but then, alas, we could not complete our morning fitness circuit because they took down our pull-up bars to make room for a field hockey field!

I returned home hungry and with my arm muscles beginning to atrophy. I drowned my sorrows in syrup, with pancakes underneath, and a glass of milk.


With school starting tomorrow, in the form of a conference day, my mornings of frittataing, pancaking, and omeleting will be a thing of the past, so I hard-boiled some eggs.


As you can see these eggs were a little too fresh to peel, but OH! the color of that yolk.


While biking home from tennis practice I came up with the most brilliant idea for lunch - a quesadilla. I had a couple tortillas and some cheddar left over from the Mexican lasagna. I topped the tortillas with tomatoes, basil, and peppers...

...and popped it in the old George Foreman.


I had planned to add some crushed red pepper flakes because although I'm not a very good cook these little flakes make it seem like I am. I forgot said flakes but my quesadilla was still delicious. In fact, I've learned this month that fresh cheese adds a lot of flavor to a meal.

It was at least 85 degrees at tennis practice, and I still felt hot and sticky so I decided to make more ice cream. I had a hair appointment to get to and had no intention of leaving my maple mixture in the ice cream maker long enough, but even mushy it was still a cold, refreshing treat that hit the spot. And I'm not the only one who found it enticing.


This afternoon I completed my last big cooking project of the month - vegetable lasagna. I followed a recipe from the Food Network, but was dismayed when it did not call for lasagna noodles. Apparently these foodies intended to replace pasta with thinly sliced zucchini. I have no problem with zucchini, but decided to make some pasta to lay down as well. The recipe also called for eggplant, which I have never been able to cook without it tasting like my bicycle tire, and mushrooms which I couldn't get. Instead I included broccoli and green peppers.


It turned out pretty good, and, as always, the first piece of lasagna was a little messy to serve up.


A few times this month people have commented on how my bread, pancakes, pasta, etc. are brownish in color. I've been using all purpose flour, not whole wheat as you might expect, but it's not bleached and retains some of its original pigment, xanthophyll. Bleaching isn't necessarily harmful, though bleached flour may have less vitamin E. Even non-bleached flour needs to be exposed to aging chemicals so it will gluten-ize well and be more elastic for baking and cooking. Pasta has a yellowish color because the semolina it is made from is never bleached.

Well, one more day! But stay tuned, there will be a few more posts after tomorrow.

Day 27: Mexican Lasagna

I find that I can only have so many sweet breakfasts before I start to crave something savory when I wake up in the morning. With eggs restocked from the Foodshed, I had all the necessary ingredients for one of my favorite new breakfasts: an omelet (or frittomelet, due to my sloppy spatula skills) with tomato, basil, and feta. This time I used a Caprese feta I bought from Jones Family Farm last week.


After tennis it was time to continue restocking. I drove to Mountain View Dairy in Richfield Springs to buy another gallon of raw milk and some cheddar cheese. While there I saw a man riding a plow being pulled by two horses, which would have made for a great picture if I had my camera. Fortunately I did not because I've learned that most Amish are not keen on having their photos taken.

On my way home I stopped at Ingles Maple Products and bought hard and soft maple candy, my new "goo" for long runs, as I intend to stay chemical free during training and races after the month is over.


My last stop was Grandma's Fruit and Vegetable Stand on Main Street in Mohawk, which is supplied by the Triple Family Farm on Route 5 in Schuyler. I bought all the produce below for only $7.


With all my shopping done, I put my food away, let my dogs out, mowed the lawn, and was dead on my feet. I had one hour before I had to be at a birthday party (Happy 1st, Benson!) and had no time to waste laying around trying to fall asleep. To speed things up I needed to imbibe something soporific. While running errands I had picked up a couple bottles of wine.


Chocolate Lab is produced by Pleasant Valley Wine Company in Hammondsport, NY. It occurred to me in my kitchen, not at the liquor store, that this chocolate. I have not had chocolate all month because there are no local cocoa plants. However, the label describes a hint of chocolate, and since this bottle was already paid for I opted to call this a flavoring.

For dinner I decided to adjust another recipe. When I was in high school my mother used to make a Mexican dish that probably came from a Campbell's ad, since it specifically calls for Campbell's condensed tomato soup. This is a quick, easy, delicious, albeit processed meal. Here's the gist: combine 1 pound cooked ground beef, 1 can condensed tomato soup, 1 cup salsa, 1/2 cup milk, 6-8 ripped tortillas, 1/2 cup cheddar. Mix in a casserole dish and top with another 1/2 cup cheddar. Bake on 400 for 30 minutes. When I stopped eating meat I replaced the beef with black beans and it is still one of my favorites. Since I do not know the name for this recipe that is scribbled on a piece of scrap paper in my cookbook, I call it Mexican Lasagna.

Besides its utter deliciousness, I wanted to make this dish to finish up my homemade peach salsa. Since the salsa contains corn and black beans I left the beans out of the recipe. I had cheddar from Mountain View, which left two ingredients unaccounted for.

My tortilla recipe instructed me to let my dough sit for 1 and 1/2 hours. No thank you, I have a birthday party to get back to. I think the reasoning behind letting a non-yeast dough rise is to let it dry out. I had to incorporate more flour, and the dough still wasn't easy to work with, but since I was just going to rip these puppies up anyway, appearances were inconsequential.


For the soup, I combined two whole, peeled tomatoes, milk, butter, salt, pepper, and baking soda in a blender. I didn't take a picture because it looked kind of gross - nice and smooth, but a weird shade of pink.

Here's the finished product!


It could have used more salsa and beans, but I used all the salsa I had and would have had to plan farther ahead for more beans.


And if anyone knows how to get rid of this shadow, please tell me in Comments. It's not my head, I think it's from where the flash sticks up.

Day 25: Voulez Vous Coucher Avec French Toast Ce Soir

Here is my list of syrup holding breakfasts from most to least favorite:
1. Waffles
2. French Toast
3. Pancakes

I surprised myself with how much I've enjoyed pancakes the past couple weeks, so I decided it was time to try french toast. Besides, I'm out of flour until tomorrow so I can't make pancakes anyway.

Not too bad. My homemade bread is very dense and didn't soak up the batter as well as store-bought, so these were not as good as the pancakes, but still pretty tasty. Which means my list of syrup holding favorites needs to be amended when it comes to eating local. Now I just need to make waffles to invite further revelations.

For some reason all I brought to the Farmers' Market for lunch today was an apple and some cheese.


It wasn't enough, and left me feeling empty. I wanted to be bad. I wanted to cheat. I wanted something new and different. As I sat there smelling kettle corn and kabobs and staring at whoopie pies, I devised a plan. There was a way to break my diet without cheating. For this month my food must come from within 100 miles, which means buffalo from Clayville is perfectly acceptable, even though I do not usually eat meat. (As explained earlier, my meat intake is accidental, I eat around it in some dishes, but probably consume some, I've probably had soup made with chicken broth, and my friend Jimmy made a delectable brisket for his birthday that I was goaded into trying, and was then glad I did).

I bought one piece of Pepperjack Bison Jerky from American Buffalo in Clayville. I couldn't find a website for this farm, so the link leads to an interesting article about a rare white buffalo born on the ranch in 2007. My intentions were to eat half the jerky and give the other half to my boyfriend. I ate half, then ate the other half later with an apple. And although I can count the amount of times I've intentionally eaten meat in the past three years on one hand, my stomach feels fine. As I sat there masticating my jerky, I pictured happy buffalo grazing around, frolicking and drinking out of streams. I am not opposed to meat-eating, but I think if an animal is going to be eaten it should be treated humanely while it's alive and fed a natural diet. Call me crazy, but I could taste that this one was.


I figured if I'm going to start buying meat, why not go all out? My next stop was Promise Land Farm; my neighbor at the farmers' market, M.L., says they have THE best burgers, that each burger tastes like filet mignon. The proprietor of Promise Land explained to her that the burgers probably have some filet mignon in them. The burgers are made by using the whole cow, not just one cut or the cheap cut usually used for ground beef.


I bought a 1 pound four pack of burgers for $4.50 to bring home to Dick. I will not eat a whole one, but will likely try a bite when Dick cooks his.


Lastly, I made a purchase for the future. All month long the Amish whoopie pies have been staring me down. They're directly across from my booth and priced affordably, 1 for $1 or 5 for $4. I've had some whoopie pies in the past that have a marshmallow filling and I find them mundane. These whoopie pies taste like they're filled with cake frosting, and I've heard they're even better frozen. I bought 5 and stuck them in the icebox.

(Don't worry, I didn't break down and eat two. I gave one to Dick, and for photography's sake, left the duplicate chocolate-peanut butter pie in the freezer.)

For dinner I made a salad and finished my pasta with alfredo sauce.


After dinner I took the last of my hard cider and warmed it up with some mulling spices. It turns out this is not as good as regular mulled cider, and as a friend, I cannot recommend that you try it.

Day 23: Alfredo Makes Everything Better (except sore calves)

This morning I woke up with legs that were still very sore from my race on Sunday, but after walking Leo for a mile and a half they felt much less stiff. So I ran Zoe for 4 and 1/2 miles and sure enough I'm now doddering around like a homeless person carrying too many bags of cans.

After abusing my poor legs it was time to fuel up before tennis practice. I had a hard-boiled egg, pancakes, and a big glass of milk.


Next time you make pancakes, try giving them a crispy, darkened edge - you'll thank me. It's like the delicious charred skin on a piece of grilled meat, without all the carcinogens. But since I made my pancakes in a Teflon pan I'll go ahead and dismount my high horse.

After tennis practice I made Alfredo sauce with a couple substitutions. I didn't have any fresh parsley so I used fresh basil; I realize they're not interchangeable, but I like basil, can't make pesto (not just because I can't use oil, I tried making it in the past, it came out gross), and thought this added some nice flavor. I used Gruyere instead of Parmesan , and milk instead of cream, which made the sauce a little runny, but once the pasta was mixed in it didn't really matter.


It tasted so much better than it looked! It was at least 10 times better than the same pasta with tomato sauce I had on Saturday night, and had to be sampled many more times before I could make myself put the leftovers in the fridge.

My lunch was pretty late so for dinner I had a slice of leftover garlic and tomato pizza.


One thing I need to amend: my fruit and vegetable intake. I'm not eating vegetables as consistently this month; I usually have a salad a day, but sometimes opt not to because it seems like more of a hassle having to make my own dressing. Although, a lot of the things I cook have veggies in them. I've never been a big fruit eater, but I was eating a lot more fruit the first two weeks of this crusade, that waned once I ran out of yogurt.

One observation/question. Why do cheese names have to be capitalized? Every time I type them lower case this blog tells me they're spelled wrong. When I go back and capitalize the obnoxious red underlining disappears like a cat at a dog party.

Day 22: Garlic and Tomato PIZZA!

Well, to prevent my body, mind, and entire outlook on life from going into shock on September 7th I've started getting up at 5 in the morning. Well, 5:15 by the time I dragged myself out of bed. After taking two dogs on two separate walks (because I value my safety and sanity and will no longer walk them together), I had just enough time to cook some breakfast before heading out to coach my first tennis practice of the season (or I would have had enough time if I hadn't forgotten my keys later on).

I made scrambled eggs with peppers, onions, tomato, and Mountainthaler cheese from Mountain View Dairy. I also had a glass of cider and bread with butter.


After tennis practice and errands I returned home to cook the garlic and tomato pizza I never got around to yesterday. I've had garlic pizza where the garlic is minced and placed under the cheese, I am not a fan of this. I decided to roast my garlic (cut tops of unpeeled cloves, spread butter or oil on top, cover with foil, bake at 400 for 35 minutes). When it was done I squeezed it into a bowl of butter, smooshing the soft cloves apart and melting the butter into a soft, tasty homogeneous mixture. I spread this over the pizza dough left over from my first pizza-cooking adventure that I had already rolled out, and topped it with sliced heirloom tomatoes and shredded Gruyere and smoked Swiss cheeses.

Unfortunately my camera battery was dead, but I charged it and took a picture of the slice my boyfriend re-heated for dinner:


I had two slices for lunch and couldn't resist cutting off another sliver as I was putting the leftovers away. This pizza is right up there with the life-changing quiche I made last week, but I'm extra proud because I went rogue and cooked recipe-free.

Other foods that were not captured by my exhausted camera: a nun puff (2 actually, these things are soooo much better than PowerBars), and a glass of milk.

Dick, my boyfriend/significant other/life partner came home with a huge jar of honey produced by a colleague's parents.


If you've ever wondered why different honeys are different colors it turns out that it depends what the bees are currently pollinating. This can also affect flavor, as in the case of tupelo honey. Tupelo honey comes from bees that are pollinating tupelo gum trees that only grow in the southern United States along rivers and in flooded forests. There are two types of tupelo gum trees: white and black. White tupelo honey will not granulate. Granulation also affects the color of honey: fresher honeys are dark, but as they age they begin to granulate and lighten.

Still pretty full from my pizza and snacks I decided to have a salad for dinner. Dick, a culinary genius whose only formal training came from working at Ponderosa, suggested adding basil to my feta-cider vinegar dressing. My original recipe was very tart, but the basil balances out the cider, creating the best salad I've had all month.


After dinner I had a glass of Bully Hill Reisling; I give it a 9 out of 10. One thing I've discovered about myself this month is that I prefer sweet white wines. If you do not, you should probably subtract at least 4 points from all my wine scores.

Day 19: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Mush

Oops, I did it again. I was so excited to eat my Mediterranean quiche I forgot to take a picture. I realized this with about three bites left.


After breakfast I took Leo on an epic walk that included toddlers, playgrounds, pull-ups and construction zones. Next I had to run errands in Herkimer, and figured I might as well bring Zoe along and give the community college nature trails another go. I chugged some milk, harnessed the dog and off we went.

We did not get lost, in fact I found the turn I missed on our last adventure and we ran a 8:10 mile on the winding, grassy trails. All in all we covered about 3 and 1/2 miles, and found more mud than pricker bushes.


Although we ran faster and farther than last time, I didn't manage to thoroughly exhaust Zoe.


I needed to get the ice cream started before lunch and I needed to shower before I started the ice cream, but I was too hungry to wait that long, so I prepared my favorite snack: sliced tomatoes with smoked swiss cheese. This time I used one of the nice orange heirloom tomatoes I got from the farmers' market. I also had another glass of milk.


Oh, and editor's note: yesterday I said that the farmers' market offered tomatoes in every color of the rainbow except for blue, indigo, and violet. But, there are some purplish tomatoes available. Also, have you ever wondered what it means when produce is referred to as an heirloom variety? Well, heirlooms are formed through open pollination by insects, birds, wind, etc. rather than self-pollination. This leads to more variety. Also, they've generally been around more than 50 years or even passed down via seeds through several generations of a family.

Maybe because it's Friday, maybe because it's my last truly free Friday for a long time, or maybe because I had such a nice run I decided to try my Fly Creek hard cider - it was pretty good. I didn't know what to expect because the last time I had hard cider it was Magners at a bar in Syracuse and it tasted like cigarette butts and regular butts. It may have been from an old tap, or maybe Magners just can't compete with what Fly Creek is throwing down, but I was pleasantly surprised.


I started making my ice cream. The recipe called for eggs, milk, sugar, cream, and vanilla. I decided I wanted to make raspberry ice cream so I substituted raspberries for the cream and honey and maple sugar for the regular sugar. I thought I was on the track to success when I achieved the thick, runny-pudding consistency the recipe called for.


Next step, put this mess in the pre-frozen ice cream maker for 20-40 minutes.


I left it in for over an hour, and it was still runny. Maybe I hadn't frozen the base of the ice cream maker long enough, maybe my substitutions funked up the works. And if you own an ice cream maker and you think that paddle moves slow enough that you can stick a spoon in and get a sample while its spinning, you may get away with it once, but not twice.


Either way I poured it into a container and stuck it in the freezer, but not before I sampled a few spoonfuls. It was good! Kind of like a cold custard or smoothie. I'm definitely trying this again with chocolate and peanut butter in September.

For dinner I had some cornbread and peach salsa.


And a couple hours later, even though I knew it wasn't frozen, I had to try my raspberry ice cream.


Only the top and sides had frozen and the texture was more reminiscent of a sorbet than actual ice cream, but I'm pretty easy to please these days and I declare this project a success.