$10 Grocery Challenge

Farmgal over at Just Another Day on the Farm came up with this challenge last year and it's pretty much like it sounds; for the month of January we'll try to spend only $10/wk on groceries. Canadian Doomer is in, as well as a few other folks. Two years ago, many of us participated in a Pantry Challenge in which we bought no groceries at all in the month of March and lived on only what we had in the house. March probably wasn't the best month to attempt that since a lot of the food I preserved from the previous summer was already long gone but it was a good test to see how long we could last with food we had on hand. By comparison, the $10/week challenge feels like it will be a breeze and it's good time for us to think lean because we've both been on extended (unpaid) holidays. I'd been putting aside a lot of staples while I had a regular paycheque and we've only just started to dip into last summer' s preserved bounty. I currently have about 50 lbs of potatoes stashed in the greenhouse at work, lots of home canned stuff, and the pantry and the freezer are still pretty full. If there's a weak spot, it's in meat/proteins and fresh veg.With that in mind I went shopping at the nearest cheap chain grocery store this week and blew pretty much the whole month's budget in one shot. The veggies were the easy part - Ontario onions, carrots and cabbage are still readily available so I grabbed a 3 lb bag of each of the former and a large cabbage. Meat is always little more challenging- buying from a chain store means not knowing where the meat comes from and without a doubt it's mainly factory farmed. But when utility turkeys are on sale for $.87/lb it's hard to say no. I picked up a just under 10 lb bird for $7.67 and that will feed us for many meals. I also picked up some pork ribs and tenderloin on sale, a 10lb of unbleached flour, a block of cheddar and some canned chickpeas. The total came to just under $35 which leaves me just $5 for the remainder of the month. Just enough to choose between free range eggs or a couple lbs of ground beef from the local halal butcher but not both. These are the times I am envious of all the bloggers on my reading list who have chickens and dairy animals, who raise goats, lambs and rabbits for meat. I would love to be making my own cheese this winter but whole organic milk is too dear to purchase in the quantity needed to make cheese and raising my own meat animals is not even a possibility even if I wanted to.


So what to do when the best resource you have is time? Make pierogies! I made up a big batch of filling using potatoes, cheddar, bacon, sauteéd onions and leeks, and roasted garlic. Then I made an even bigger batch of pierogie dough. I did up about 5 dozen pierogies and froze them, then used the rest of the dough to make squash ravioli with some leftover butternut squash. If I have any pork leftovers I may make a batch of potstickers as well. Everything tastes good in dumpling form!

Now if only I could make my own sour cream...

Dark Days Challenge Week 1

I've been curious about the Dark Days Challenge for a number years but this is the first year I've signed up to participate. Started in 2007 by the folks at (Not So) Urban Hennery, the idea is simple: cook one meal each week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients, during the lean months of the year,and write about it on your blog. This year the challenge is being hosted by Not Dabbling In Normal and the post round ups are being split between the two blogs. It runs from the beginning of December until the end of March.

There are some basic guidelines to follow:

Local- Local is defined for this challenge as 150 mile radius. Now I'm not a stickler for rules in any case but this graphic that I stole from Joel and Dana at Well Preserved kinda demonstrates why that is a tad impractical and that's just a 100 mile radius! (If you are interested , they did a whole series of posts of how they define local for the Toronto area but be warned- there's geometry and other nerdy stuff going on here!)

For the purposes of this challenge I'm defining local as primarily Southwestern Ontario but in a pinch I'm okay with anywhere in Ontario (and for maple syrup only, I include Quebec- don't get me started on Ontario syrup).

Sustainable- this one's bit trickier to pin down. There's so much information (and misinformation) that it can be difficult to know what constitutes sustainable practises in food production. If I figure out why something is sustainable I'll post about about it in my recap.

Organic- I'm not a huge proponent of the organic labelling system so I tend to ignore it. The only time I pay attention is at the Sorauren market and only because I am speaking directly to the farmer/producers. I rarely buy organic unless it is reasonably priced or the only option.

Ethical- I'm going to assume this applies to meat, dairy and eggs and try to obtain these from sources I know to raise animals in an ethical manner.

Somethings I use frequently will not fall under any of the above: olive oil, sugar, sea salt and spices are the four most common but I will note any others as I use them.

I signed up for the challenge back in October and then promptly forgot about it, as I do frequently. So when I got my reminder email this week past week I was happy to see that I haven't missed any post deadlines. And I was even more delighted when I realized I inadvertently prepare a meal on Friday that fits the above criteria for the most part, so I didn't have to scramble to come up with anything before today (sometimes I am my own fairy godmother!) The only part I didn't manage to take care of was take any photos of the meal so a shot of the ingredients and some of previous meals will have to do for this round.


Back in Sept when local produce was cheap and plentiful we loaded up on potatoes and onions. I made a few batches of pierogies and froze them. The basic ingredients for them included local garlic, potatoes and onions, with goat cheddar from Monteforte in the filling, and Red Fife wheat flour, free range eggs and olive oil for the dough. On Friday I cooked a batch of them with local smoked bacon and more onions. The store where I purchased the bacon has an in-house butcher who cuts and prepares all of the meat they sell as well as sausages, bacon, and other charcuterie. I did not inquire where they source their meat however which I will try to ascertain on a future visit.


I also made beet roesti which I discovered during a different challenge last year. I grated local beets (the ones I still haven't gotten around to pickling) with the above flour, salt and chopped fresh rosemary from the plant that's overwintering inside for a fourth year. I fried these in store bought butter and served everything with homemade horseradish and sour cream produced by Western Creamery. Although I know little of where the milk is sourced, Western Creamy is family run creamery located in Brampton (about 30 minutes from Toronto) who use no additives, preservatives or stabilizers in their products. Once I connect with a recently discovered source for raw milk I hope to make my own butter and sour cream in place of the store bought.

All in all I think I did pretty well for my first attempt, especially since it was without any forethought or planning. It will be interesting to see if all the meals come together as easily!