past the half-way point: marketing, preserving, and peanut butter

So I think I am really getting the hang of buying most of my food at the Saturday Market. This time I waited until the last stretch to get the heavier things. I got more of the amazing honey-crisp apple sauce and talked a tad with the grower/producer. I also found peanuts, which is really exciting! I didn't realize they grow on a grapevine-type-thing. Again, the farmer looked at me strangely for being so overjoyed. The farmers in the next stand had hickory nuts. I noticed that Letoile restaurant uses local hickory nuts and am curious about their taste. Maybe next week. Bought all the other standards, as well as some pork chops and sausage (the same kind they sell to Greenbush). I'm excited to try-out some meat recipes, since I've been shying away from preparing anything red and bloody.

As I walked around the market I realized that the next couple weeks might be harder. Vegetables and fruit are getting more scarce, and fewer vendors tend to show-up the last couple weeks of the outside market. So I decided to stock-up on broccoli and cauliflower in order to freeze it for future use. I remember my mom teaching me how to blanch and freeze foods, so I put a pot of water to boil and got to work. I froze four large freezer bags of vegetables and now I feel better about my vegetable outlook.

Most of the weekend I was either eating at local restaurants or eating the leftovers. Bluephie's, Cafe La Bellitalia (on Sherman Ave, and SO good!), and the diner where I work. I felt like I was cheating a lot, but since the inception of this project I have neglected important things in my life in favor of cooking and doing the dishes. I still thought about from where every ingredient came and delighted in the fact that Madison has such amazing locally owned restaurants. Something my hometown has much fewer of.

The week ahead of me is more busy than usual -- filled with meetings and extra work hours. I needed to make some things in bulk that I could take along with me, so I made maple-apple bread and peanut butter! I was hesitant to replace and entire cup of sugar with maple syrup and honey, but the taste was perfectly sweet enough and I had to stop myself from eating it all immediately. Martha also called for bananas instead of apples, so I pretty much changed the recipe entirely. I was not about to abandon local apples for extrememly non-local bananas. Even though some bananas are fair trade certified, I can't help but think about how many miles they have traveled to reach Wisconsin.

The peanut butter wasn't a Martha recipe, but like I said, I was so excited to find local peanuts and I needed to make some things in bulk to get me through the week in a local manner. This was interesting. To start with, the peanuts were super dirty and I felt like I had to wash them. So I did. Then I was concerned because they didn't seem to be roasting quite fast enough. I ended up roasting them longer than I should have and they still seemed semi-raw. I figured it wouldn't matter too much and so I started to de-shell them. It took me two hours to get a cup of peanuts. The hard part isn't removing the larger shells, but rather removing the nearly-invisible red skins. Some of the peanuts were really wet and slippery. I was still hoping for the best. I finally put the peanuts in the food processor with some oil and things came-out okay. Not the best tasting peanut butter, but it'll have to do for now. Next time I will just let the dirt bake in the oven and avoid drenching the peanuts in water.

Half way there.