Homestead Eating: From The Freezer

I spend my summers trying to harvest (from garden or woods or seasonal grocery store offerings) and preserve more food than I did the year before.  But invariably I end up with only one quart of frozen purple cauliflower, or fewer blueberries than would be necessary to have a blueberry pie every week.  I so easily trip over into a scarcity based poverty mindset.  I get fixed into the idea that we can only have such things as pie from frozen wild blueberries or canned peaches on really really special occasions.  This then leads two thing: firstly, I end up with years-old bags of lingonberries in the freezer and secondly, I rarely eat local food in the winter.  These things together make me feel like a failure of a homesteader.  I get trapped in a mind swirl of "real homesteaders eat all winter long on food they preserved in the summer.  I never make a meal like that, therefore I'm still an imposter homesteader."

Well, I looked through the odds and ends of leftover CSA produce that I'd managed to preserve over the course of the summer and stash in the freezer.  Combined with the berries and the salmon and the caribou, there was actually a lot of food there! So in the last couple of weeks I've been making a conscious effort to allow myself to actually use and EAT this bounty! 

Last night, we had a ground caribou (from the freezer) and sweet potato saute over pasta.

The night before that, we had Chitina Salmon steaks (from the freezer) with Calypso CSA broccoli (from the freezer) and quinoa.  I also made a wild Blueberry (from the freezer) crisp that was the perfect balance between not-quite-tart intensity and sweet.

A couple of weeks ago I made a Peach-Raspberry pie with Peaches (from the pantry) and Raspberries (from the freezer).  I also made a Cranberry Cake - the recipe courtesy of "Sundays at Moosewood" which was very good, but next time needs to be baked with a tinfoil cover to keep from burning - with wild Lingonberries (from the freezer).  And I made Zucchini-Cornmeal skillet cakes with grated Calypso Zucchini (from the freezer)!  And before that we had a meal of Chitina Salmon fillet (from the freezer!) with sauteed Purple Cauliflower (from the freezer) and Snow Peas (from the freezer). 

Next up:  A quart of bok-choy, more salmon, more berries, more snow peas, moose and caribou.

Not only is it a cheaper way to eat - what with the miniscule grocery bills of the last couple of weeks, it is in alignment with my concept of our little homestead and the life we strive to live on it.  And it is my practice of moving into an abundance mindset.

How do you incorporate local or seasonal eating into your life in the late winter/early spring before anything is sprouting out of the cold cold ground?

Homestead Eating: Moose and Veggies

Saturday night for dinner, we had Rosemary and red wine moose with rice and veggies.  Early in the day, the Darlin'Man cut off a piece of moose meat from the hindquarter we have in the freezer.  I let it thaw on the counter in a marinade of olive oil, red wine, garlic, rosemary, and salt and pepper.  I sauteed it in cast iron, till the larger peice was rare in the center and smaller was medium rare.  If you ever get a chance to cook your own moose, try it rare even if you usually like your meat more well done.  It really serves the moose well!
I braised a mix of onions, carrots and turnips from Calypso's CSA in some chicken stock and served it over brown rice.  

Bear Creek Winery Black Currant Wine

We had it with a very nice bottle of Alaskan wine.  A few months ago, I bought this bottle to save for a nice meal (disclaimer* I did not receive any incentive from Bear Creek!).  I had planned on breaking it out the next time I got pork chops from Homegrown, and I do think this light red sweet wine would complement pork better than it did the heavier flavors of the moose.  But it was lovely!