Another Advantage of Buying Local

Written by Kevin Gordon, Professional Market Shopper

Not that I really needed another reason to appreciate the benefits of buying local, but I've had some recent experiences at the market that have really reminded me of why shopping local beats going to the supermarket any day.

My family has been trying recently to remove sugar from our diet, which is pretty hard to do even if you avoid most processed foods. Not surprisingly, my kids really love some of the "sweet" things at the market. In particular, the fabulous jams and jellies from Shelly Mac Farm. I decided to talk to Shelby McKenzie of Shelly Mac about my dilemma and she said she would look into making some jam with honey instead of sugar. The very next Saturday, Shelby brought some peach jam made with honey! She went even further the next weekend and made another batch without pectin, since I found out that commercial pectin has dextrose (another form of sugar).

Good luck getting customer service like this from Smucker’s®. Shelby's latest concoction this past weekend was an incredible apple butter made with apples from Godwin Orchards and honey from East Wake Apiaries. Now my kids want to put apple butter on everything, including their fingers.

Don't be afraid to talk with your farmers' market vendors about something new or different that you would like to see from them, or even to offer feedback on existing products. That's the advantage of the direct, face-to-face relationship that you get when buying local at a farmers' market.

Ideas for Winter Veggies & Greens

During a North Carolina winter, it can be challening for even the most committed locavores to eat local produce. The carrots are frozen in the ground and everything else is growing very slowly. We're seeing lettuces, leafy greens and some root vegetables at the market these days. Does a green leaf salad feel like winter food?

Winter Market Salad

I returned from the market last Saturday with eggs, bacon, spinach, arugula, cilantro and Hillsborough Cheese's new meunster. Perfect ingredients for a hearty, wintry salad. Rinse the greens and herbs and toss together. Add some sliced hard boiled eggs, crumbled bacon and cheese. Make a quick vinaigrette dressing (I used balsalmic vinegar, olive oil and salt) and drizzle over your salad. Want to make your salad even heartier and meatier? Just cook up your favorite meat - anything - braised beef, roast pork, grilled steak. Add a little sliced or shredded meat to your salad for a wonderfully hearty - and local - dinner!

Fresh Market Rolls

I was addicted to salad rolls last summer. I think I was calling them "Summer Rolls" at the time. Fresh basil, mint, summer lettuces and sliced pepper were on the main stage. This time of year, fresh rolls are wonderful with salad mix, cilantro, shredded radish and carrot. Shrimp or sliced pork are also nice additions to the roll. Pick up some rice paper and a bag of vermicelli noodles at your local asian market or grocery and start rolling your own "market rolls".

Here's a quick video I found on preparing the rice paper and rolling spring rolls:

Sweet T's Chocolate Stout Layer Cake

Makes a 2-layer cake or ~32 cupcakes 3 ounces unsweetened better quality chocolate, chopped 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour 2 tablespoons baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 1 ¾ sticks unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 1 ¼ cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar 3 large eggs ¾ cup of stout beer (I prefer Young's Chocolate Stout or other chocolate

• 3 ounces unsweetened better quality chocolate, chopped
• 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ¾ sticks unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 ¼ cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 large eggs
• ¾ cup of stout beer (I prefer Young's Chocolate Stout or other chocolate stouts)
• ⅔ cup brewed coffee, cooled to room temperature

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 9 inch cake pans with butter and flour or line cupcake trays with paper cups.
2. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over boiling water, stirring until smooth. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until light in color and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time, beating after each one to incorporate. Add the stout and the coffee to the bowl alternating with the flour mixture in two additions. Mix thoroughly until smooth and creamy.
3. Pour batter into prepared cake pans or use an ice cream scoop to fill the cupcake liners ⅔ of the way full. Bake for about 30 minutes until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. For cupcakes, bake for about 23 minutes. Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes and then turn out onto parchment paper and allow to fully cool.
4. Frost the cake with your favorite frosting or our Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting below.

Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream

Method

In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, butter and Bailey's Irish Cream together until smooth and creamy. Gradually add in the powdered sugar at low speed until incorporated. Beat on high for 2 minutes. Frost cake as desired. Refrigerate frosting if not using right away and set out at room temperature before frosting your cake.

Genetically Engineered Alfalfa, why should we care?

Written by Juliann Zoetmulder, President WWFM

I receive a lot of action alerts in my inbox related to food and farmers and laws that affect them, but one caught my attention recently that I almost overlooked. It’s all about something that I don’t eat anyway so why would I care? Whatever side of the food politics fence you’re on, I think we can agree that we all must eat. The important thing is to know more about how the food you eat is grown and whether or not it is safe. Now, I don’t eat alfalfa sprouts so I almost hit delete on this news until I figured out that many things that I eat, eat alfalfa. This is true especially if you consume meat or dairy products.

What grabs me is that even if I buy things from farmers who don’t use genetically engineered (GE) seeds such as Monsanto’s Round Up Ready alfalfa seeds, the likelihood that these same farmers will end up with the GE seed through cross pollination is high. Farmers are concerned that this cross pollination could lead to new “super” weeds that would be even more herbicide resistant requiring harsher chemicals to eradicate. Furthermore, if an organic farms’ crops are affected by cross pollination of GE crops, the farm could lose its organic certification.

Small farmers, consumer and environmental groups contend that opening the door to GE alfalfa could lead to many other GE crop approvals and the safety data on GE crops is not good. Furthermore, there is no requirement in the US to label products that contain GE foods as is required in European countries.

I’m no expert, but if you’d like to do your own research or see what you can do to help, here are a couple links to some informative articles to get you started:

• Center for Food Safety
• Farm to Consumer
• FoodandWaterWatch.org
• FoodConsumer.org