Dark Days Challenge Finale! (Breakfast)

There will be no Garden Best/Worst post this month. Blogging time got away from me, and I want to focus on the Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge, which ends today.  We were tasked with coming up with an all local breakfast, so for my last meal of the Challenge, I made a two-cheese-spinach omelet with hash browns:

Omelet Ingredients:

eggs -- organic and from PA (which falls within the 150 miles rule)

mozzarella cheese -- Blue Ridge Dairy, VA

sheep's milk cracked pepper cheese -- Everona Dairy, VA 

red and purple peppers -- my garden

spinach -- local farmers' market (purchased in December and frozen)

potatoes -- local farmers' market

butter -- Blue Ridge Dairy, VA

Salt was the exception to the local ingredients rule. I also had a steaming cup of coffee, which was not locally sourced either.

{Those bites of mozzarella cheese were A.Maz.Ing.}

I cannot believe it has been four months since I started the Challenge! I'm very glad I did it. It was a fun experiment, and I learned a lot. First,  I learned that the farmers' market close to my house is actually not a producers-only market; they allow re-sellers. This was disappointing to learn, but it led me to FreshFarm Markets a network of producer-only farmers' markets in the DC-area. The market at Dupont Circle is open year-round, and this gave me access to meat, winter veggies, and even other veggies that farmers had in storage (it's how I scored potatoes in January). One of the markets in the network is near my office, and it just re-opened for the season, so I won't have to deal with the crowds at Dupont anymore.

Second (and it's kind of obvious, but goes hand in hand with #1), I learned that eating locally also means eating seasonally for the most part. We shouldn't see asparagus or peaches in January, which is what they have at the resellers market near my house. I have certainly become more aware of what it means to eat locally, organically, sustainably, and ethically.

{potato and chard gratin}

Third, I tried a lot of new food. I ate rainbow chard for the first time ever a few weeks ago, and I also made my first gratin ever!

I was also forced to try new food combos or get creative with meals in order to meet the Challenge rules, like when I had apple-sage-chicken, apple-potato hash, and shell-less tacos. I don't know if I'll do shell-less tacos again. There are a lot of things that I like in my tacos that cannot be sourced locally, like avocados, limes, sour cream, and a ton of spices. But that was the fun of the Challenge. It forced me to think creatively about my meals, and you REALLY appreciate things like citrus when you suddenly can't have them.

I found new local vendors that I plan to support from now on, like the Blue Ridge and Everona Dairies--I am now a big fan of their cheese and butter. We also liked the bison meat from Cibola Farms, ground beef from Lamb's Quarter, and chicken from Eco-Friendly Foods.

{Virginia has some great vineyards. Local wine rocks}

It was a fun experiment, and not really much of a hardship to create one local meal a week. Of course, I had the benefit of a freezer stocked with some home-grown veggies and year-round access to local meat and produce from the farmers' market. I've been trying to educate myself for quite some time about the benefits of eating in season and from local sources. This Challenge helped focus those efforts by making me document my progress.  Although this Challenge is over, I will continue to try to make entire meals using only local ingredients. This will become much easier when the warm weather brings the summer veggie harvests. The last thing I learned was the importance of planning ahead so that my freezer and pantry and stocked for next winter. I'm looking forward to next year's Challenge!