Foodie Glee

Now, a few days I probably would not have known what these two items are.  Now, not only do I know, I have them!!

Yesterday, Mom wanted to go to the valley so the kids and I went with her.  This time of year, the farm stands are all closed but I thought it would be a good time to go to Ran-Cher Acres.  The last few times, we did not have time to stop since it is a ways in from the main road (as most treasures are).  So I asked her if we could go.  I think she was kind of hesitant since it was more than 8kms off the main road and everyone had to pee (lol!) and when we got there, "it's just a house" but we made it.

Randy, one of the owners, came down and let us in.  I was asking for kefir grains since I knew they had them.  When he was showing them to me, he mentioned something about kombucha.  Well, I nearly jumped out of my skin in excitement and asked if they sold scobys!  He went upstairs and came down with a huge pickle jar filled with brown liquid and a huge scoby on top.  There was one on the bottom and he (ever so carefully with gloves) peeled it off for me!  It was all I could do not to explode when he said I could have it!

He asked how I got interested in this stuff and I said that I have been sick and I'm trying to eat for health, including lots of probiotics (well, it probably didn't come out that way since it was like the first time I got to talk to a real person about these things).  He gave me a Weston A. Price foundation brochure as well as the number and email address of their local chapter leader (it's the closest one to me, over 2 hours away).

As I said, it was so nice to talk to a real live person face to face about these things.  I could tell he was just as excited as I felt.  Mom and the kids probably weren't too happy I was taking so long, lol!  Randy was so nice, I wish I could of talked to him all day and afforded to buy tons of things.  He only charged $3 for the grains and I left feeling so blessed!  I have bought some of their products at other markets and I will continue to knowing that the people who made them are wonderful and kind who love what they do.

I forgot to mention, the grains were used with goats milk.  He told me to divide them by half, half for milk and half for water kefir and they should be fine.  I am so excited to be making real kefir, especially water!  I never thought I would have access to these things.

Usually I come home with a lot more produce (I bought 3 bags of dulse, 4 or 5 squash, bananas, carrots, spinach and a few things I forget in addition to the kefir grains and scoby) but I feel like I came home with a lot more!

Now, I just need to get cracking on doing something with them!  I am a little timid about the kombucha.  Being LDS, we don't drink tea (other than herbal) but I think I will get either green tea or roobios, I'm not sure yet.  I need to clean my disastrous kitchen before I do anything.  Not feeling well and recovering from our trip yesterday (in addition to not being home much for almost three days straight, broken washing machine and some other crisis-es) have left the cleanliness of our apartment much to be desired!

Monday Market Report October 4th

I think this is my favorite market report ever! I had so much fun shopping this week :). I didn't report what I got at Bulk Barn because I decided that from October on, I would be accountable for all the groceries that I buy, not just what I buy at the farmers market. I am trying to build up our storage with healthy food and hopefully posting it all will give me motivation to stay on track.

Good news! This week we are getting our quarter of grass fed and finished beef! It was the last one and I almost didn't get it. I feel it was a great blessing that it was freed up for us, with God knowing how important it was to me and our health to buy it. It is going to the butcher on Thursday so it should be interesting to see how much it is and how I handle placing the cut order (I never know how to do it!).

This is what our kitchen looked like when we got home late Friday night. It was a full day of shopping and buying lots of yummy vegetables (and other things). (don't mind the mess; things just kind of got thrown around and I've been slack in the housekeeping department lately :) ).

I was so happy to go to Meadowbrook meat market. They were having a sale of buy two get one free shoulder bacon and frozen sausages. We got 6 packs of the shoulder bacon and 6 sausages. 3 packs of sausages were breakfast sausages and the others were donair, maple and honey garlic. We also bought a slab of salt pork (Mark loves this fried up but it's also good on bacon and rappie pie), a couple packages of back bacon plus a little pack of goats milk Parmesan cheese. Now I really don't care much for goat milk products so I'm taking a leap here trying the cheese. I think it will be interesting. I don't want to break down the cost of each item but all this plus a $2.50 bag of ice to keep it cold was $49. We've had some of the bacon and a pack of breakfast sausages and it is really good!

I love Forsythe's Farm Market but didn't get much. At this point we already had most of our produce (even though carrots were $3 cheaper a bushel here but we didn't know). 2 spaghetti squash $2.50 and two zucchini for $1.50. Total: $4. They had 2 liter jugs of real maple syrup for $27-something so I may get that our next time through. They only take cash and I didn't have that much on hand.

Here are our Foote Family Farm findings, a gallon of unpastureized honey and a gallon of fresh pressed cider (we had to have some before we got home, lol! It's the one in the red cap ;) ). $26; $5 for the cider and $21 for 12 lbs of honey.

The next two pictures are from Gouchers Farm Market. I wanted to go back and get more! So much wonderful food at great prices. The acorn and butternut squash were 49 cents a pound and I wish I had bought more! 50lbs buttercup squash $15, 4 acorn squash $2.11, 2 organic garlic $2.17 ($10 a pound), 1 butternut squash $1.79, 2 sweet dumpling squash $1.50, 2 pie pumpkins $2 for both, big bag of dulse $1o, 5 cucumbers $1, 3 bunches of green onions at 69 cents each, mushrooms $1.99, romaine lettuce 89 cents, red onions 50 cents a pound (my favorite and usuall $2 a pound! 2.25lbs so $2.25 for onions), bunch of bananas for $1.10 and we each got an ice cream that were $1 each, cheapest around for real local ice cream (Mark and I had Oxford blueberries and cream, so divine on such a hot day!)

This was from a neat farm. The farmer was old, probably in his 80's. He looked like what you expect an old time farmer to look like. I wanted to buy everything he had as his prices were very reasonable and he was pretty nice. The bushel of carrots were $7.75, 25lbs of turnip $7. 50, 2 lbs of green peppers at $2.50, 5 gourds for 20 cents each ($1), tomatoes were 70 cents a pound (3lbs so $2.10) and no spray strawberries were $2.50 a box. The strawberries aren't there because it wasn't until we got home I remembered I sat them down to carry stuff out and didn't go back to get them. Grrrr. I was so looking forward to nice fresh strawberries! Total spent: $24

We usually get a lot more at Avery's but they didn't have much and we didn't want to shop around the other ones. 3 bunches of celery at 77 cents each and two grapefruit at 59 cents each.

These aren't really a farm goodie but they are the best chips! I especially love the burlap bag they came in. These chips are made in New Brunswick (technically in our 100 mile zone even though it is across the Bay of Fundy) and can be hard to find around here (Bridgewater's Appleberry's is the closest place I know that stocks them). They make awesome sweet potato chips! Small hand batches of kettle chips are the best (even though they are made with canola). These were $3.99 at Winners (at Pete's Frootique they are nearly $5 and you don't get an awesome burlap sack with them!).

This is what I got at the Saturday farmers market. Almost 2 dozen pullet eggs for $3.75, 2lbs of grassfed beef for $5 and a pound of ground pork $2 (I think it's pastured but probably fed grains/feed too). I got the meat before I knew we were getting the beef, otherwise I wouldn't of bothered!

And finally, I got this at Sobeys. 2 blocks of cheese ($3.99 each) and a bag of spinach ($1.99). No one had spinach in the valley and I still crave greens. There weren't even any at the farmers market because it was pouring rain and the lady I usually get them from wasn't there. I will buy more cheese when they don't only have skim mozza. I also need to get milk and go to bulk barn again.

So an extremely productive shopping week! If I can remember how, I am going to put our grocery tally in the sidebar so I can keep track of our expenses. Remember that this isn't just for the week, but I am attempting to store up some food for winter. I have been doing a lot of reading on how to store food for winter use, even if it is different in this modern day than it was over a hundred years ago.