Posts Tagged ‘local farmer’

1 May

How I Shop For Groceries

Posted by Crunchy Hot Mama in Crunchy, Food, Grocery Stores, Organic, Paleo. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

In my ongoing attempt to help my family eat better and ward off an early period for dear Emma, I have drastically changed the way we eat, which entails shopping smarter.  I’ve had several friends ask how and where I buy my groceries, so I figured it warranted a detailed post for any others that might be interested.

No to Monsanto

You’re probably saying, ‘Duh, you go to the supermarket and get what you need.’  Au contraire.  I hardly ever go to an actual grocery store, unless I need a few toiletries that I can’t get at Natural Grocers.  This seems like a no-brainer, but when you try to eat better, you have to do your research.

Here’s how I shop:

  • Farmer’s Markets/CSAs

  • Food Co-ops

  • Natural Food Stores

Farmer’s Markets/CSAs

Remember this post about Farmer’s Markets and CSAs?  Well, that’s where I get the majority of my produce along with my meats.  And now that market season is in full swing, I try to go every weekend to stock up on what I need for the week.  My favorite place to go is called, Earthwise Gardens, in Denton, TX.  It’s a store started by Ryan Crocker who grows and sources exclusively Texas-grown organic fruits and vegetables. I am very lucky to have access to a place that has local produce, eggs, and meats, all in a one-stop shop.

Earthwise Gardens in Denton produce

What I get from there is pastured-raised eggs, fresh veggies, fruit, and meat from Local Yocal.  I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing, but when I went by their tent at the Denton Farmer’s Market last Saturday, they recognized me and said we’ll see you in the store soon.  Should I leave a note?  Ha.

For the past few weeks it’s been somewhat of a routine: Emma and I go by the chiropractor to both get adjusted, head to Earthwise Gardens to pick up eggs (and give back our empty egg cartons), then swing by Natural Grocers for anything else we might have missed.  I actually like the routine and think Emma does, too.  It couldn’t be that when I buy a carton of fresh strawberries (from Earthwise) we sit in the parking lot and eat the whole thing, could it?

eating strawberries from Earthwise Gardens in Denton

I will also go down to the Dallas Farmer’s Market to pick up grass-fed beef and pasture-raised pork from Northstar Ranch.  Apparently I like to drive as far as possible to get what I need.

Food Co-ops/CSAs

I used to be a member a few years ago of a CSA, but that was before I went Paleo, so I wasted a lot of good produce not knowing what or how to cook a lot of it.  CSAs are a great way to support local and organic in your community.  Plus, they’re an easy way to get all your produce for the week without having to go to the store.

csa

Another idea is a food co-op.  This is kind of the same as a CSA, but they have different items besides food.  Through my holistic group on facebook, I have taken part in a coconut oil co-op along with a colloidal silver co-op.  This is basically where several people go in on an order to bring the cost down.  You could buy it yourself from certain sites or stores, but this saves you some money especially if you use it often.  The lady who organizes it has an ongoing co-op every month for both, so it’s a matter of picking it up when it comes in.

I’m lucky in that my chiropractor is part of the group, so I can just pick my goods up from her when we get adjusted. Check around online to find a local CSA or co-op in your area…I guarantee they are out there.

Natural Food Stores (Natural Grocers/The Cupboard/Etc.)

One of my favorite natural food stores was featured in this post.  You may recall that I professed my undying love for the new Natural Grocers in Denton, TX.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I love that store.  All the produce is organic and they only sell naturally raised meats.  I even buy recycled paper towels and toilet paper (don’t judge) from there, and recently bought some compostable straws that I can toss in my compost bin.  It makes me feel like I’m doing a little bit of good-trying to buy recycled, non-bleached items for our home when I can.  I know not everyone will switch to this, but I want to teach Emma to try and buy reusable items that get tossed so easily.

Natural Grocers in Denton Texas

*Yesterday I just discovered The Cupboard in Denton, which is just like Natural Grocers, so I was super excited to find yet another local store to help support.

The Cupboard in Denton

So, that’s pretty much how I shop: Farmer’s Markets/local produce markets, Food Co-ops, and Natural Food Stores.  I’m not trying to endorse these places, I just happen to have access to them and love what they stand for.  I will try my darndest to get the best foods I possibly can, even if that means spending a little more.

No excuses people…find local sources close to you here!

Eat Local

What about you?  How do you shop?  Have you discovered the beauty of Farmer’s Markets or ventured out to pick your own foods with the family?  Do some searching and support local-I promise you won’t be sorry and the farmers will love you.

Note: Photos from here, here, and here.

29 Oct

Grass-Fed Beef: Northstar Ranch

Posted by Crunchy Hot Mama in Food, Organic, Paleo. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

First, I’d like to send out my thoughts and prayers to everyone encountering Hurricane Sandy.  As a girl from South Texas, I understand the scariness and uncertainty of hurricane season, so my heart goes out to them-especially my ENTIRE family in New York.

Now where’s the beef?

I found yet another local place to buy grass-fed beef and naturally-raised pork, called Northstar Ranch.  We came across this beauty when perusing around the Dallas Farmer’s Market-which is at least three times as bigger than the Denton Community Market (see that post here).

My mission was to find Rehoboth Ranch since a fellow blogger, Alta, informed me they were there year-round (and the trip out there was intense).  We happened to walk past the guy at Northstar and grabbed a flyer that has his pricing.  They had individual cuts of meats along with packaged deals if wanting to buy in bulk.  But after much debate, we decided to go with one of his package deals.  We figured that would last us longer than getting a few cuts here and there.  The multi-meat pack was out so we went with solid beef for $135.

I also got brave and asked for some marrow bones, since I heard they were delicious AND had huge healing benefits.  I followed Mark Sisson‘s approach to cooking them and I’m pretty sure Emma ate about 3/4 of them for breakfast one morning.  Seriously, that kid will eat anything!

The part I’m most excited about is eventually buying our own cow (or splitting it with a couple of people since they are pricey, around the tune of $1,200!).  I figure it’s cheaper in the long run and you can customize your cuts with the butcher in the process.  You can’t beat having a farmer who’s 26 miles away, (in Krum, TX) who stands by his cows.  Brian did give us a head’s up about getting to know your butcher, too.  He has one that he trusts and would recommend to us once we do decide to get a whole cow, which luckily can be bought year-round.  Brian let us know that some butcher’s will process both grass-fed AND grain-fed cows at the same time, so you may not go home with the right meat…like what happened to Brian.  I’m pretty sure you can’t fool a rancher once they know the taste of their own grass-fed cows.  Shame on you, butcher!

So for now, we will enjoy our somewhat-full freezer of grass-fed AND grass-finished beef from a local source.  Just gotta work on putting a whole cow into the budget so we can be stocked for the upcoming year.  Wouldn’t that be nice to run to the freezer for dinner instead of the grocery store every.single.day?  I think so.

Do you have a local source for meat, eggs, dairy, etc?  Do you raise your own, when possible?  If you need some resources or just a place to start, check out U.S. Wellness Meats and Local Harvest to find what’s close to you or order online.  After watching Genetic Roulette, my mom is disgusted and ready to gut her pantry, so hopefully these sites will get her going.

Happy meating!

25 Sep

Farmer’s Markets and CSAs

Posted by Crunchy Hot Mama in Crunchy, Food, Gardening, Paleo. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Farmer’s Markets

Last weekend, Emma and I made a trip to a local Farmer’s Market in a city 15 miles away, called Denton.  I’ve had my fair share of doing the HUGE Dallas Farmer’s Market but I thought I would find somewhere local closer.  We don’t quite live in the sticks but we are 30 minutes from downtown Dallas.

Since Josh was at his cabinet making class all day, and I wanted to hit up the market before the season ended, we hoped in the car and headed north.

If you’ve never been to a Farmer’s Market, they’re actually pretty fun.  You get to see what local crafts, soaps, food trucks etc. abound along with actually meeting a farmer.  What’s that?  You haven’t met the person who grows your berries that come allll the way from Guatemala?  That’s bizarre.

I figured it was high time to start living the way I want while getting baby girl acclimated to my whims.  Not that she doesn’t love her weekly trips to the store, with her ‘Emma-sized shopping bag,’ but we needed to branch out.  Down the road, I’d like to make this a weekly tradition with the whole family (if we’re not growing our own).  You can’t beat spending a little QT with the fam on a cool Saturday morning, traipsing around for some local produce.

Emma seemed to have fun and even let me babywear her around the booths…until she saw doggies.  I really wasn’t there to get any homemade toys or soap, so I honed in on the produce and EGGS!  For what seems like forever, I have been wanting to get my mitts on some farm-fresh eggs.  We usually buy the cage-free ones from Costco, but once again, I wanted them straight from the source.

I was stoked to find these little beauties for $3.50/dozen.  Another booth had them for $5/dozen.

Yes, it seems crazy to pay that much for a dozen of eggs that will only last us half a week, but you can’t beat knowing the source.  Also, who knew that NOT ALL EGGS ARE THE SAME COLOR!  That has me wondering what’s going on there and how many good eggs are being tossed because they don’t look uniform…things that make you go hmm.

Since I was trying to be good with our budget, I only planned to spend the $15 cash I had in my wallet.  This is what we came home with and I don’t think it’s too shabby.

Look at the size of those plums!  I swear I’ve never seen a plum that big yet be as juicy and sweet as this one was.  Emma couldn’t help herself and wanted to sit at the ‘little table’ to enjoy herself.  Oh, we also picked up a little aloe plant since I’m wanting the fresh juice from that as well.

CSAs (Community-Supported Agriculture)

‘A CSA refers to a particular network or association of individuals who have pledged to support one or more local farms, with growers and consumers sharing the risks and benefits of food production. CSA members or subscribers pay at the onset of the growing season for a share of the anticipated harvest; once harvesting begins, they receive weekly shares of vegetables and fruit, in a vegetable box scheme, and also sometimes herbs, cut flowers, honey, eggs, dairy products and meat, as well. Some CSAs provide for contributions of labor in lieu of a portion of subscription costs.’ -Wikipedia

Let’s just say these, along with food co-ops, are awesome.  After my friend Casey went to a Weston A. Price meeting, she told me about a local farmer who ran a CSA.  She said they were willing to offer work shares to people since they were behind on transplanting and were being over taken by weeds.  The work share would basically supplement your share of produce by you working in the garden.

2.5 hours worked=a mini share

5 hours worked=a full share

Heck ya!  Work for your food and learn some tips along the way, sign me up.  I also thought this would be a great opportunity for myself and Emma; so I put a call in to see if they needed some help.  Farmer Pete, from Red Wheelbarrow Farm, said he did need help, since people kept bailing out, but that he couldn’t offer any shares at the moment.  I told him that didn’t matter and if you need help, we’re your gals.  I made sure it was okay for the doodle bug to tag along and he said of course.  We decided to make into two separate shifts during the week so as not to make her go crazy bored.

Today was our first day doing it and I had a blast!  Granted, I’m the girl who loves meaningless tasks in an office, but that’s beside the point.  After Pete gave us a little tour of the 2 acre garden, literally on a busy street in Plano, we got to work.

Our job was to transplant some lettuce he had grown in trays into the actual garden.  Emma did pretty good the first hour, but then lost interest, feigned tiredness, and wanted a snack.  I don’t blame the girl-I get pretty cranky when my belly is empty.  So, after an hour and a half of work, we I planted about 100′ of lettuce.  It didn’t look like a lot of work but boy did it get my feet to going a little numb.  My takeaway was that I need to learn to plant straight.  Poor Pete is going to have to go back and fix my curvy lines.  That’s okay, lesson learned.

As we were about to leave, he brought us this.

I wasn’t expecting to get anything but was excited to get something grown from his two hands!  He also let Emma snack on a few sun gold tomatoes that had just ripened…that totally made her day.  All and all it was a great experience, and I have to say I respect the heck out of people who grow and raise our food.  They literally work from sun up to sun down, year-round.  Of the many different jobs I’ve had, I can never say I was able to take off without a substitute (well except maybe at the theater).

Much to my surprise, Farmer Pete said he could use our help again.  We will head back out on Thursday and I plan on getting a few garden tools for Emma along with a dump truck to keep her occupied.

All and all, it was a very peaceful and eye-opening experience.

Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Do you and your family regularly go to Farmer’s Markets, or are they even close to you?  Have I sparked your interest in joining a food co-op or CSA?  Check into it if you’re curious.

Now go, get out there and start buying local!

Note: Photos from here and here.

11 Sep

Grass-Fed Beef: Rehoboth Ranch

Posted by Crunchy Hot Mama in Food, Organic. Tagged: , , , .

Who’s up for a road trip?  Anyone?  Apparently I was.  Lucky for Emma she just gets to tag along and hang out in the backseat checking for horses and cows.

For quite some time, I have been wanting to get my mitts on some grass-fed beef from a local source since you don’t exactly know where it comes from in the store.  And if you catch me in the right moment, I can be found ranting about how girls are getting their periods too darn early these days…at the tender age of seven!  Yes, you read that right, seven.  This is atrocious to me.  I know there are multiple factors that go into why girls are getting them so young, but my thought is that part of it comes from the added hormones in milk and meat.  I keep Emma milk free (we use almond or coconut milk) except for some cheese every now and then, but even that got me thinking that there’s still hormones in cheese.  Shootfire!  What’s a mouse girl supposed to do?

I lovingly told my hubby we will pay the extra cost to get as much hormone-free meat as we can.  I will be darned if Emma gets her period at five (seems like the rate it’s going)!  As I’ve said before, Aunt Flow isn’t welcome in this home for another 10 years.  I think Josh will be okay with that.

This led me on a mission to buy local.  My friends Alta, at Tasty Eats at Home, and Casey, at A Healthy Spin, both told me about a local Ranch that sells meat at a few Farmer’s Markets around Dallas.  So Emma and I loaded up the car and took an adventure last week to pick up some grass-fed beef.  The name of the place is Rehoboth Ranch, located in Greenville, TX and after an hour and a half, we arrived.  Please pardon the cell phone pictures.

Here is some info from their site:

  • HEALTHY ANIMALS – NO ANTIBIOTICS OR ANY OTHER DRUGS
  • NATURAL GROWTH – NO GROWTH STIMULATING ARTIFICIAL HORMONES OR ANY OTHER GROWTH PROMOTING CHEMICALS
  • GRASS FINISHED – NO FEEDLOTS OR CONFINEMENT HOUSES FOR ANY SPECIES. BEEF AND LAMBS ARE NEVER FED GRAIN
  • PASTURE RAISED – ALL SPECIES HAVE CONTINUOUS ACCESS TO GREEN GRASS. POULTRY AND PIGS ARE FED ORGANIC GRAIN WHILE ON PASTURE
  • CHEMICAL FREE – NO HERBICIDES, PESTICIDES, SYNTHETIC FERTILIZERS
  • ALL NATURAL – NO PRESERVATIVES, NO GM GRAINS ARE EVER FED

Our beef and lamb is raised on organically managed pasture forages only, NEVER GRAIN. Our poultry and pork are raised on organically managed pastures, and fed a custom mixed ration of ORGANIC grains and organic supplements. Beef, Lamb and Pork is processed at a USDA inspected custom processing facility, and poultry is processed at Rehoboth Ranch in Greenville, Texas 40 miles northeast of Dallas. Meats are also sold at the downtown Dallas Farmers Market, and at two area seasonal Farmers markets – Coppell and McKinney.

After going to their website to see what to order and what was available, I learned they prefer pre-orders when doing a pickup.  So I put my order in for 2 pounds of Ground Beef ($6.99/lb), 1 pound of Beef Breakfast Sausage ($7.69/lb), and 1 pound of Jalapeño & Cheddar Smoked Links ($8.99/lb).  The prices were comparable to what I get at Sprouts so it didn’t put a huge dent in my budget.

They do offer a tour once a month, on the first Tuesday, but we were unable to fit that in our schedule.  And seeing how long it took to get there we probably would have been late.  I was starting to panic because my gas was getting low, Emma had to pee, and I forgot the cooler.  Seriously, I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached!

We did make it and sadly only saw a group of chickens and turkeys huddled under their coverings for some shade.  I don’t blame them-it was toasty.

I don’t have any pretty pictures to show you of our provisions, since it was all frozen, but I promise to post photos and recipes once they get thawed and cooked/grilled/sautéed/smoked/etc.  I will tell you I was worried we wouldn’t make it back since the closest gas station was in the next town.  Luckily, just as I watched the low fuel light flash for the 3rd time, a station came into sight.  Phew, that was close!

It wasn’t an epic fail and I’m sure there will be others knowing me.

What about you?  Do you buy local or are you stuck in the middle of a booming metropolis?  I definitely want to support my local farmers as much as I can and get into a routine of picking up our groceries on the weekend with the entire family.

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