Day 1 of the Eat Local Challenge

So, yesterday was supposed to be Day 1 of the Eat Local Challenge. But Saturday, a behemoth zucchini called to me so I made a batch of Chocolate-Zucchini Muffins. I work up yesterday and ate one. Most of the ingredients weren't local, and quite honestly, I wasn't mentally prepared for the Challenge yet, so I decided I'd start today.

Let me start off my saying that almost all the produce I eat is local (at this time of year at least). Most of the meat is. I exclusively buy local eggs. But I wanted to see if I could go the extra mile and only eat locally for the week. The group that organizes this effort locally plays by "Marco Polo rules"—i.e. anything MP carried on his journey, like spices, were fine. They also allow up to 5 wild cards per person. Well obviously coffee was one of mine!

The local localvores also had a kit you could buy with some basics. I picked mine up yesterday. It was packaged really nicely and had dried cranberries, Maine sea salt, sunflower oil, apple cider vinegar, wheat berries, black beans, oats and flour, all in a nice canvas bag. I defrosted a chicken I thought we'd roast for meat throughout the week and cooked up some wheat berries and black beans. I skipped my regular favorite bread for a whiter version from the same bakery that was all-local, bought a 1/2 peck of apples from a local orchard plus a pint of Italian (but locally-grown) plums.

I thought it would be easy but honestly it's just like dieting. You want what you can't have and you have to spend time to prepare. The chocolate zucchini muffins were on the counter this morning and I wanted one (but didn't have one). I made a wheat berry & black bean salad with leftover grilled veggies (from my CSA) this morning for Dan & I for lunch.

I have no idea what we're having for dinner--I'll most likely be at work too late to roast the chicken and Dan won't be home until 6:30 either. I used almost all our summer vegetables for dinner last night. My CSA pickup isn't until tomorrow and all I have for veggies are root vegetables, which I'm not really in the mood for. I'll scare something up.