The History of the White House Garden

My hubby sent me this. Enjoy

Pork, Beef, Green Chili Stuffed Raviolis

I like to use wheat flour in pasta. This recipes is one cup wheat and one cup white. The local co-op carries local wheat and white flour. With the flour I put about a 1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt and mix

Whisk two eggs and two teaspoons olive oil together. Then while mixing with the paddle I add the egg mixture to the flour. After mixing it will look crumbly.

Take it out of the mixer and knead it til it comes together in a ball. I live in the desert so I had to add a couple tablespoons water to get it to form.

I used about a pound of pork and a half pound of beef. I had some left over so you could probably double your dough if you wanted to make it all at once. I found some local green chile goat cheese on sale so I added that, about a quarter cup of chopped pine nuts and a tablespoon of Cumin. Smoosh it up real good!

Roll out the dough.

Stuff the ravioli.

Pinch the edges. You can uses a little water if the layers are too dry to stick together.

Drop them into rolling boiling water with plenty of salt. I cooked them about three minutes to make sure the meat was thoroughly cooked. Take one out and test it to make sure that time works for yours too.

I served mine with some local pasta sauce that I found called Michelangelo Fresh Basil Pasta Sauce (very yummy) and topped it off with a little local shredded mozzarella cheese

They pasted the kid test with flying colors!

Next time I will make a double batch of dough and use up the meat all at once. Then I will put then on a cookie sheet and freeze them. When they are frozen they should store well in a ziplock in the freezer for a quick meal on a night you can’t cook. All in all it took me about an hour to make and was well worth it.

The Hungry Mouse

I found a great blog about food. It’s called The Hungry Mouse but don’t go there unless you plan on being hungry. Between the pictures and the recipes you will be drooling. Check it out if you dare!
While your at if check out Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice too.

Santa Fe Farmers Market – Winter

Here’s a great picture of some bread from the farmers market.

This was the crowd at the market yesterday. It is definitely bigger in the summer but there is still plenty of great stuff! We picked up beef, pork, parsnips, salsa, chili powder and some Gouda goat cheese.

This is the new building that houses everything in the winter months.

And this is were all the vendors are when the season really gets started and it warms up. The Santa Fe Farmers Market doesn’t allow vendors that aren’t within a 100 miles of Santa Fe so I know everything I got here was local.

Great Food Blogs

finger food, originally uploaded by まてぃあすMattias.

My sweety sent me a grat link to a blog called White on Rice and through them I found another great link called Foodbuzz. Great pictures and recipes. Check it out.

Local Spagetti Sauce

This is my local Santa Fe style spaghetti sauce. Basically I sauteed some onion and garlic in some olive oil, chopped up tome tomatoes and added a little honey and balsamic vinegar. Then I simmered it until it was thick added the corn and pine nuts and salt to taste. Sometimes I like this with black beans too. If you like meatballs you could make those too. Of course no meatballs is lower calories.

I always use cast iron pans as it added a little iron to my diet and I don’t have to worry about off gases or chemicals leaching from a scratched pan.

Picked up a few things from the coop today: bread from Chocolate Maven, eggs from Rancho Capilla, local pomegranates and some goat cheese from Colorado that was marked down.

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Make Your Own Butter

Homemade Butter, originally uploaded by SFHandyman.

We have a local dairy hear in New Mexico called Rasband Dairy. They have milk and cream but no butter. So again I am searching for an easy way to make my own.

I am not interested in buying equipment or anything new so I was hoping to find a way to make it with my Kitchen Aid. I found a great little tutorial on Bay Area Bites (I love the internet).

Homemade Mayonnaise

Homemade Mayonnaise, originally uploaded by kemih.

I don’t know about you but I don’t have a local source of Mayonnaise so I decided to try to make some. I do have a source for local eggs (year round) but I have not yet found a local source for veggie oil. I did however find a machine you can buy to press your own oil, but it is very expensive. So I have figured that I either need to go without oil or buy the most environmentally oil I can find.

Anyway here is a great site that shows you how to make your own mayo with eggs and oil. I am hopping that I can use my kitchen aid for this but will let you know if I end up whisking it by hand.

Cooking From Scratch

Macaroni and Chees, originally uploaded by David Recordon.

Mac and cheese is a lunch time staple in my house, definately one of my kids favorites!
OK, I have to admit it has been awhile since I made Mac and Cheese from scratch. So of course I just threw some milk, butter and cheese in the pan and poof it’s mac and cheese. NOT. Just like all cooking there is a little bit of a trick to making good cheese sauce. It’s not quite as easy as using powdered cheese from a box. As I learned with a little web research its best to mix equal parts butter and flour/starch together (melt the butter first) and then add milk to make a basic white sauce. After that take the pan off the stove and add the SHREDDED cheese. Let the heat from the mix melt the cheese. If the cheese is over heated it gets stringy (which was my problem). Tadah! creamy mac and cheese.
Of course mine didn’t turn out like the picture but I am sure it will next time.

Trying to Eat Local

La Montanita Co-op, originally uploaded by Heath & the B.L.T. boys.

OK, I have it a lot easier than some. Santa Fe has a great local movement. The local Coop carriers many local products. We also have a great farmers market in a wonderful new building. But January isn’t necessarily the best time of year to start trying to eat local.
I didn’t do any preserving this past year so the choices in the produce are limited.
So here’s what I bought. (spent $96.35)
LOCAL
1# lean beef, lamb and buffalo
3 Different Cheeses
1 doz eggs
salsa
corn tortillas
flour tortillas
Hatch enchilada sauce
tomatoes (hydroponic)
Whole Wheat Bread
2 jars apple sauce

NOT LOCAL
4 Lara Bars (love these)
Lettus from CA
Organic Frozen corn from OR
Organic Frozen Berries from OR
Organic Frozen Peaches from OR
Organic Butter from CA
Collard Greens USA

Here’s what I plan to make: meatloaf with red potatoes (availible local but am using up ones I already have), chicken enchiladas (local chix is available but am using up some organic I have in the freezer), spagetti and meat balls (will make the pasta and meat balls by hand), tacos, eggs (for breakfast), and I am also planning on using up stuff I have in the freezer. I will keep you posted.

Here’s a map with the locations my groceries came from. Of course a few things came from CA but I don’t know where exactly in CA it is from. Hopefully as we go along the markers will get closer to Santa Fe.

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