Mmmm...granola

I've been wanting to make granola for a while now. I picked up organic rolled oats, milled here in Maine, when I picked up my order from KLFI and collected other odds and ends when I remembered, like golden raisins, dried cranberries, almonds, pecans, flax seeds, sunflower seeds and mini chocolate chips (because I like a little chocolate in my granola).

I read about 6 different recipes and eventually said to hell with it and did it my own way.

I threw the rolled oats in a bowl, added honey and melted butter (no idea how much, but kept adding until I felt that the oats were coated), mixed it all up, added pecans, almonds and flax seeds, mixed it up again and put it on a stoneware baking pan in a 350 degree oven.  I baked it for about 40 to 45 minutes, stirring it up every 10 minutes or so to get an even golden color throughout.

After I took it out of the oven, I let it rest for a bit, let it cool and put it back into the bowl so it could go into the fridge for an hour to really chill down (didn't want to be adding chocolate chips to mildly warm granola...talk about messy if I did!).  When it was finally cold, I added the raisins, cranberries, sunflower seeds and chocolate chips, and transferred it all to a giant glass container with a tight fitting lid (to keep the air out and the freshness in).

Talk about YUMMY! I've been eating this for breakfast and its really tasty.  Plus I have the added pleasure of knowing that I made it and that I have enough left over ingredients to make up another big batch...well, minus the rolled oats, but I'll pick up another pound or two of those with the next KFLI order. So the initial cost of making it gets spread out between two batches, which is better than spending nearly $5 a box for a granola cereal that will barely last me a week!

Breakfast of Champions

Last night I picked up my order of yummy Maine farm products from the KLFI Buying Club.  I ordered:

• Organic Salted Butter from Moo Milk Co, which has farms all over Maine
• Sharp Cheddar Cheese from Sonnental Dairy of Smyrna, ME (this is an Amish dairy that produces amazing cheese!)
• Organic Raw Milk from Tide Mill Farm of Edmunds, ME
• Nitrite free Pork Bacon from Farmers Gate Market of Wales, ME
• Maine Grown Desiree Potatoes from Sparrow Arc Farm of Unity, ME

So my breakfast this morning was nearly all Maine-made/home produced.  Except my toast.  I didn't have time to make bread.  And my tea is a rugged Irish Breakfast...but with raw milk, it was the best cup of tea I've had in a long time!

I’m so thankful to live in Maine, where we have such an abundance of small farms producing a vast crop of products.  My ultimate goal is to not have to hit the grocery store every time I need food (which can be two, sometimes three times a week, depending on if I’ve forgotten something).  I want to grow what I can, bake my own bread, get my eggs from my own poultry and maybe start raising broilers for the freezer.  I’ve already started making calls about purchasing freezer beef and pork from local farms.  And I’ll get my dairy products (and whatever else I can’t produce myself) through KFLI and/or the Wednesday Farmers Market in town.  I want to learn how to render pig fat and bake with lard like my great grandmothers used to in Newfoundland.  I want to milk a goat, make cheese and handmade soap. I want to make a root cellar, can more veggies, make jams and sauces and store crops for winter.

I am weirdly, deliriously happy at the thought of doing these things. I am beyond help, so I’m just going to go with it!

KLFI

Today, I volunteered with the Kennebec Local Food Initiative (KLFI) for the first time...the first of what I hope will be many!

KLFI is an organization promoting local food, local farmers and community.  They have the ultimate goal of bringing a natural, local foods store that houses a cafe and an educational kitchen to our downtown.  This is something I have longed for for a very long time.

I learned out KLFI last year, when I was doing a bit of research on local farmers markets and stumbled upon their website.  They had a sign up for their newsletter and I thought, “What the heck?  They sound like a very worthwhile organization.”  Not long after, a coworker and I were talking about the Co-Op in Belfast (one of my favorite places!) and how we needed something like that around here to give the one little health food store in the area a little healthy competition (no pun intended…no really, I only just realized how lame that sounded as I was rereading this before posting). Then a KLFI newsletter went out with a survey, asking how interested people would be in a healthy foods storefront, how likely we would be to frequent it, etc. etc.  It was like they overheard my conversation.  I knew I needed to be involved somehow, but I just didn’t think I had the time…or rather, I didn’t know if I was willing to make the time.  I’m very much not a joiner, very much a homebody.  But then something clicked last week and I found myself just sending them an email, telling them I wanted to volunteer. Once it was sent, there was no turning back! And I'm glad I sent that email!

Sarah, the director of KFLI, met me at the door of the old bakery downtown and we just got chatting.  I immediately felt welcomed and when I told her about my conversation with my coworker, she started nodding and smiling, because they are looking to base the KLFI storefront on a cross between the Belfast Co-Op and another place in Waterville called Barrels Community Market.  It just seemed like one more nudge telling me I'm supposed to be involved this organization.  The experience was everything I hoped it would be; everyone who showed up was so friendly that I just felt like I was in the right place!

So right now, KLFI is doing an online buying club...kinda like a CSA share, only you choose what local, organic foods you want to purchase from what is available from the Maine farmers and producers that they work with. They offer organic beef, chicken, pork, seasonal fruits  and veggies, raw milk, grains, honey, bread, yogurt, butter...the list is long and everything looked so fresh and yummy! I was really wishing I had signed up for the buying club when it first began.  But better late than never, right?  The next round of ordering is Sunday and I can’t wait to see what awaits me!