INTRO

Okay, so here we go. I am starting a blog as a guide to help navigate you through eating/cooking local for your family. In doing this, I will help with simple, straight forward recipes for weekly meals of products that are in season. I will have formulas for baking, recipes for canning/pickling, how-to-guides for artisan cheese making at home, and much more.

Little about me... I am a professionally trained baker, a father of four children (Ben, Clementine, Anna Claire & Callahan) and married to Kim. Kim and I have owned and operated the Village Baking Company for the past 8 years. For the last year and a half we have been selling our Artisan Breads and Pastries at farmers markets around DFW and Austin. Kim grew up on a century old Farm and Ranch in the Panhandle. Her family owns and operates 3J Cattle Company and 3J Beef, Inc., where they produce hormone free, dry aged beef around.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is going to be very simple. I will show different areas to make cooking local in your kitchen very simple and straight forward. We will not be reinventing the wheel here, most of the techniques will be coming from many generations ago.

Normally we go out to the farmers markets on Saturday morning. I buy enough ingredients for our family of six to eat on all week (80% local) and then go to Central Market Whole Foods, Market Street or Sprouts to fill up the other 20%. Most everything that we buy is organic. At the Farmers Market, I normally pick up extra produce that is in season to can on Sundays along with making some cheese, butter and yogurt. Luckily, we have a freezer full of venison and some of the best beef from 3J Beef (all natural-dry aged). We have a small herb garden and three chickens for eggs and then fill in the remaining products with all the great products that are produced locally around here.

This week, May 14th, we picked up some greens, onions, red potatoes, snap peas, squash, herbs, pickling cucumbers, strawberries, peaches, milk, hot-house tomatoes, Italian sausage, and some chicken. I am going to can the tomatoes and pickle the cucumbers with some dill. There were some really nice looking green beans out there today, but i have tons already to eat that I canned last year. I am going to see how these early season peaches are before I make them into jam or pies. This is the first week, so I probably need to let them ripen a bit, before making a decision.

For a weekly menu, we normally have some sort of pasta with homemade noodles (you can also buy really nice dried noodles at the farmers market), a meal with chicken and fresh veggies a couple of times a week, something beef (steak or hamburger) and fresh Veggies, and we like to throw in some tex-mex once a week as well. On the weekends, Saturday night and Sunday night I like to do something special like foie gras! I love foie gras!

Here are some pictures that I took at the farmers market this morning. I will go over how to skim the cream off the milk to make butter and use the skim milk for yogurt all week, again think VERY SIMPLE. I will also show some pictures, probably tomorrow about canning the tomatoes and pickling the cucumbers. I will be posting some recipes about the pasta and some of the other meals that we will be making for our family this week. I also really need to brew some more beer soon, as my keg is about to float!