Corn Country

Greetings from South Dakota. What a BIG state!!! We decided to go out for a good steak dinner tonight in Sioux Falls. I guess a week of seeing corn and cattle made us hungry for a good hunk of beef. We went to a really great restaurant and had an enjoyable meal, but one thing on the menu jumped out at me. It said something to the effect of "we only serve midwest, corn-fed, premium beef." I didn't particularly expect the beef to be entirely grass-fed, but I was surprised to see corn feeding touted as a prized quality in the beef. This isn't the first time I've seen this either, so the question is...what am I missing? While many of us are seeking out beef that is not fed a grain cattle were never meant to eat, others are touting corn feeding as benefit.

I think this one will require some more reading.

I am a happy girl...

Parting is such sweet sorrow

I am an only child. Well, I'm an only child with four brothers, which makes me the only, the oldest and the token girl....I'm a total pain in the ass. It's complicated. But really, I spent my formative years as a full-fledged only child and I have the personality to show for it. I nee dmy alone time, I need to be entertained when I don't feel like alone time and I hate to share. Sure, I like sharing in the sense of bringing a dish somewhere so I can eat it too, but to full-on share something I really like in an way that causes me to sacrifice? No thanks.

I say this because we are leaving for our road trip tomorrow and I have an actively-producing garden. THIS is when I should be home, reaping the benefits of my blood, sweat, tears and farmers market purchases. My tomato plants are heavy with green tomatoes - I'm begging them to just hold on for a week and a half. I think they might. My blueberries, however, are another story. Thankfully, the harvest is close to over and I'm not leaving too many to be consumed by the birds or our house sitter (I know, I know, it's very nice that someone is checking in on the house and cats, but I can hardly share the berries with Western One). I've assiduously picked and frozen what I can't consume, and we will have pancakes and scones well into winter, but there is just something sad about the end of my blueberry season, especially when I won't be saving every last berry for myself.

Ideas anyone?

It's T minus one week until we set out on our great road trip. On the way to Wyoming we will be trying to drive as close to straight through as is possible with a pup and a spoiled brat (read: me) in the car. So lots of breaks, but rest stop breaks and I am determined to find a way to eat like a normal human being as I'm driving past all that corn that ends up in our processed food.

Impossible, you say? I'm up for the challenge.

I stopped at the co-op today and stocked up on car compatible munchies such as trail mix, dried apple slices and bottles of fruit smoothies. And these... not just because I love Macaroons (although I'm skeptical of a canned version) but because I couldn't resist a snack with some creepy guy staring back at me.

Any ideas for good roadtrip snacks?

Not just for breakfast anymore

What kind of crazy person decides to bake at 5:30pm in an A/C-free kitchen? This girl. I was picking my daily blueberry harvest and suddenly felt the urge to bake muffins. At 5:30. I've never been particularly committed to "time of day appropriate" foods and have justified pie for breakfast on multiple occasions (really, is it any different than a danish?) so why not muffins for dessert?

I think it was the fact that while I was picking, I got thinking about making muffins as a kid. This was back in my Betty Crocker days (I've already professed my love for King Arthur). I've always been a "just enough muffin to hold the blueberries together" kind of person, and my grandmother and I would ALWAYS use fresh blueberries when they were in season. Instead of wasting the preserved Maine blueberries in a can, they were stored in the cabinet so that out of blueberry season I could maintain that critical blueberry to cake ratio and use multiple cans for one box of mix. The thought of blueberry muffins as comfort food made me smile and I just had to have them. Maybe it's because there's nothing I can do for my poor injured puppy dog and his cone of shame.

Today's harvest only yielded a bit more than a cup of berries (I know I shouldn't say "only" when I'm picking almost every day) so I dug into my frozen stash to beef up the berry content a bit. I felt like I was on a winning streak at a slot machine, pushing it just a bit farther ("that's plenty" "no, it's not, just a few more" "wait, wait, no, one more handful...") The muffins aren't what I'd call pretty - lots of berries makes for a crumbly consistency but it's so worth it for the juicy, tarty goodness.

Oh.My.God.

Chow blogs always offer some fun tidbits, but this one floored me. Gross.

Fungi with a Fun Guy

(Western One is the king of bad puns...I couldn't help myself) Despite the staggering heat of late, I am here to inform you that Hell has indeed frozen over. I ate a mushroom last night. I ate two. And I'm not talking about the kind of mushroom eating where they're buried in a sauce and I don't discover them until it's too late, resulting in the kind of behavior exhibited by a four-year-old forcibly fed vegetables.

We went to NWBB for the birthday dinner last night and my summer pasta (which was out of this world) contained the day's fresh veggies. You can imagine my horror when, there mixed among the squash, tomato and fresh peas, were chunks of portobello and some other terrifying fungi. I was met with a look of disdain from Western One when I started sharing his seafood shell disposal bowl as a receptacle for the 'shrooms. "You're really going to pick those out?" - to which I responded "hell yes I am." But then I decided that at this stage in my life I should stop being such a big fat baby. I ate a small chunk of each mushroom in the dish, did not spit it out or otherwise embarrass myself and can proudly say I tolerated it. I'm not running off to order a beef stroganoff or anything, but I did it.