Blupdate

Hello internets!  No we have not perished due to local food induced starvation. We are just bad at blogging.

So how have we managed to not starve? Here are some discoveries/compromises we have made:

Completely locally sourced bread, to date, seems to be impossible to locate. While ACE bakery originally had seemed like a good option, I learned that they are owned by Weston, the people who own Loblaws, so supporting them went against the whole, "support small local business" plan. So now we are buying bread and bagels from small local bakeries. Sourcing local flour overall has been a bit of a challenge but, with some guidance from a friend, I found The Healthy Butcher, and they carry Ontario flour, woo!

Crackers! Even more difficult to find than bread as it's not something a lot of bakeries do. This is why I was very excited to discover Vicky's flatbread (available at the Big Carrot). Not only is it locally made, but the majority of the ingredients are local as well! 

Finally, in the grainy department, I also found locally made granola which I like to eat with local yogurt for breakfast. MMM.

On a saucy note, Chris and I love to have spaghetti so we were distressed to discover that using canned tomatoes might become tricky. We were both very excited to learn that Unico sources all of their tomatoes from Ontario. Win!  Finding local pasta is another story...however, we have a ridiculous stockpile from before our resolution...so hopefully that will hold out for a while!

Since this resolution began I have been making lots of soups as I find it's a good way to use the random Ontario vegetables I find at the grocery stores. The only problem is broth. We have been lucky(?) to have some definitely-not-local chicken broth powder (from dollarama, AH!) which is still holding out, but I wasn't feeling great about using it with all my tasty local ingredients. So I've also started making broth! I've made chicken broth a few times and just found some locally grown beef bones on sale and plan to make beef broth today.

And I will end my foody updates there for now. I am excited to see what our diet will look like as the seasons change!

~.~.~

Coming to you in our next blog:

Perhaps you have heard of the pig of happiness? (he is soooo happy).  How about the cow of happiness? When Chris first started talking about local food he talked a lot about how farm animals are treated very differently on smaller scale farms than large commercial farms. So I got into the habit of asking whether the milk or beef he bought was from happy cows. While it may sound morbid that I prefer to eat happy cows, I must say I am quite pleased with the fact that that is what we are doing now. Want to know more about happy cows? Chris will be posting his first blog soon and it will be all about local beef and dairy. Stay tuned!