Shop Local, Eat Local + Healthy!

We can all use a little health boost after the Holidays, right! Bonus if we’re feasting on food grown close to home. Yes, even in January Minnesotan’s can enjoy local food. Like fresh greens, locally and humanely raised meats, fresh eggs and cheese- along with local honey, storage vegetable crops, breads, soups, and our furthest sourced food: wild Alaskan caught salmon!

Thanks to our neighbor farmers using high tunnels, greenhouses and indoor lights we can enjoy fresh food through the Winter. We’ll also have a wide variety of canned and frozen produce, jams and herbal products available. We welcome the “Brick Oven Bus” food truck and Platense handmade Empanadas to tide you over while shopping.

January Gift Basket Giveaway!!

Vendors have come together to offer an amazing assortment of local love- Register to win the day of. Details HERE!

Community Driven Market

This market is a true community driven event, bringing together many local community organizations. Pine Tree Apple Orchard donates free Cider tastings, which the White Bear Area Foodshelf volunteers serve up.

Our own White Bear Lake Seed Library will be sharing seed saving ans starting information. Ramsey County Master Gardeners will be onsite answering gardening questions and giving out free “table top” organics recycling kits. The Pollinator Friendly Alliance will have info on how to help our wild pollinators! Tamarack Nature Center will be sampling their honey and maple syrup and have a take home “seed art” project.

The coordinator of the market, Michelle Bruhn, also runs Forks in the Dirt and will be sharing some vegetable garden planning techniques. You can also register to WIN a One Hour “Veggie Garden Planning Session” with Michelle right HERE.

January Market Vendors

All Good Organics: variety of fall and winter vegetables, spices, sauerkraut.

Bell’s Maple Syrup: Pure Maple Syrup tapped from Sugar Maples in Cushing, MN.

Dahl Hobbie Farm:  Raw honey, honey-based 12 spice cough soothing formula, jams.

Eichtens Cheese & Bison:  variety of locally sourced cheeses, sausages and wild rice.

Gilbertson Farm: humanely raised beef and pork, chicken and eggs.

Great Harvest: yeast breads, rolls, scones, cookies and scruffins.

Hart & Soul Herbal: quality controlled, naturally sustainable herbal products.

Ingredients Cafe: scratch made soups and handmade gnocchi to go.

Platense: Tasty Argentinian handmade frosted nuts, popcorn + serving ready to eat Empanadas.

Morsels: Handmade granola bars + bites, cookies, cupcakes and caramels

Sailor Mercy: Hand crafted batches of immune boosting Elderberry Syrup.

Sassafras Health Foods: Promoting Healthy Living as a way of life with supplements and other whole food based items.

Unity Farms:  A variety of popping corn, spices and cold processed soaps.

Weeds Greens: High quality and huge variety of locally grown microgreens.

Wild Run Salmon: Wild caught Alaskan Salmon sold by the fisherman.

As market coordinator, my mission is to help us all make healthier, more sustainable food choices. Our choices result in healthier lives for us and our planet! Follow the WBL  Winter Market Facebook Event Page for up to date information and specials. Full vendor and community table list on Forks in the Dirt on the WBL Market page.

*Don’t forget to bring Cash as not all vendors take cards*

Dig Into the New Year with me and our local growers and vendors!

Michelle

The post Winter Market: January Refresh appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

Some of my stash from the Market!

Holy Holiday Market Haul!

In case you missed it, White Bear Lake was host to a winter farmers market last weekend, and it was a huge hit! So much real, whole, local food under one roof. It was a blast to see everyone getting excited about local foods – thanks so much for making it a great success: for the farmers, vendors, White Bear Area Food Shelf, Tamarack Nature Center and BearPower. What a vibrant community to be a part of!

If you’re like some of the over 500 people who shopped local at the recent Winter Farmers Market, you may have an abundance of lovely late season/storage/root crop produce hanging around staring at you… I’ve been cooking up a storm ever since and have narrowed this blog post down to two must try recipes.

One for a quick healthy family friendly dinner; Warm Salad: Roasted Squash & Crisped Kale.

One fancy enough to impress at a Holiday Meal; Winter Veg Lasagna.

You will quickly see that these two recipes use many of the same ingredients, and in fact these two dishes  ‘share’ ingredients quite well. But the two flavors are distinct enough to keep your taste buds happy all week long (these both make perfect leftover meals). They can also both work as vegetarian or vegan entrees (if you sub in some vegan cheese). Hello “Meatless Monday”!

Using the old stand-by winter vegetables of butternut squash, potatoes, kale and red onion with a few tweaks; these are some of my new favorite meals- you’ll have to let me know which one wins out at your home!?

Kind of like a ‘capsule wardrobe’ these recipes make the most out of some time tested veggies- that can sometimes go to waste because no one wants to eat the same tasting things all week. So, between these two recipes you’ll use a whole large squash. Use the top skinny part of the squash for the lasagna recipe and the bottom part that you scrape the seeds out of for the smaller chopped pieces in the warmed salad.

My last harvest of curly kale, last week…

**At first my kids only wanted to eat the potatoes out of the lasagna- but the next night they ate more and more without realizing it. I love it when they eat healthy in spite of themselves**

So, Kale. Yes, I’m obsessed; eating kale makes me feel good, so I’m not going to stop anytime soon- but my garden has sadly stopped producing it now. We had a really good run this year, mid-June thru mid-December. While I still have one bag of the fresh stuff left, I have many gallon bags frozen. Both of these recipes work well with either frozen or fresh.  I like options, lots of kale options. Keep in mind that even kale gets flown in from far away.

Kind of like tomatoes. So in the interest of keeping the Winter Veg Lasagna recipe more local, try the hot house grown “Bushel Boys” during MN winters, Grown in Owatana- which is just under 19,000 miles closer than California, the largest producer of tomatoes in the US.  I think the greenhouse grown versions are not good for eating raw but they are perfect for this recipe. Unless you have whole frozen tomatoes you can slice…

Let’s get cooking!

Warm Salad: Roasted Squash & Crisped Kale

Heat oven to 400F

Ingredients:
1/2 Butternut squash chopped into 1 inch pieces
½ Red Onion sliced in rounds
1 big bunch Kale (OK to sub frozen kale!)
2-4 garlic cloves- pressed (or 1-2 tsp garlic powder)
1 cup cooked garbanozos
S&P to taste
Pepitas/Pumpkin seeds- optional, for serving

Dressing: your choice- or come up with your own!
Simple Citrus
½ lemon juiced
2 TBSP EVOO
S&P (white pepper works too)
Garlic Powder
Dash cayenne
shaken or stirred

Tahini Dressing
2 TBSP tahini
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 TBSP white wine vinegar
1 tsp honey
½ teaspoon salt

Directions:
Toss the Butternut pieces with EVOO and S&P, spread onto rimmed baking dish. Bake 25-30 minutes at 400F. Check on squash 15-20 minutes in and stir pieces to help brown evenly.

Make Dressing if using.

Remove stems and shred or chop the Kale into bite size pieces. (If using frozen you may be able to break apart chunks, as stems have been removed)

In a large skillet heat more EVOO on med-high heat, add onion rounds and char, add pressed garlic stir for under a minute, add in kale, S&P ‘stir fry’ for a few minutes, until kale is slightly charred and crispy at edges. Add in cooked garbanzos. Turn off heat once garbanzos are warmed through. Stir in roasted squash pieces.

Add pepitas and toss with dressing or drizzle on as wanted (My kids do not like it!)

This makes a hearty lunch on day two. And three

The next recipe is a lasagna so like all good layered and baked comfort food, go ahead and prep everything before you get started layering.

Seriously, that took me way too long to figure out.

Winter Veg Lasagna 

Ingredients:
EVOO, S&P
½ small butternut squash
1/2 medium Red Onion
1 small bunch kale
2 medium Yukon gold potatoes,
6-8 oz. provolone cheese
2 small tomatoes
¼ c. grated Parmesan

Heat oven to 425F

Get all the ingredients prepped:
Peel and slice the butternut, (I like half circles)
Slice potatoes into rounds
Slice red onion into rounds,
remove stems and shred or chop kale into bite size pieces

 

Slice provolone
Slice tomatoes
EVOO in bottom of pan and start layering:

Squash, then onion, then kale-
drizzle EVOO S&P
Then Potatoes and halff the provolone
Then more kale, more EVOO S&P
Then onion, tomatoes
Top with rest of the squash and last of provolone

Bake for 30 minutes.

Drop temp to 400, and add parmesan to top bake for another 10-15 until potatoes are cooked through.

These are my two new favorites- give them a try at home or for the holiday pot luck coming up. Let me know what you think! I always love to hear when people substitute ingredients too!

Go ahead and Dig In to this Holiday Comfort food!
Michelle

The post Holiday Market Meals! appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

The first White Bear Lake Winter Farmers market is tomorrow, Saturday December 9th from 10am-2pm, at Tamarack Nature Center. Link to map and directions HERE.

This is a one day only event and a great way to fill your holiday tables and check off gifts with sustainable items from your neighbors.

HERE is a previous post all about the market, from vendors and community tables to the donated apple cider.

The Facebook Page, HERE will continue to have updates, like this  basket of goodies I’ll be raffling off at the market!

Thanks for following along on this journey to find good, simple, local food- I truly appreciate it.

Can’t wait to Dig Into the food this Saturday!

**Looking forward to sharing recipes made with all the local food I bring home from this market!**

Michelle

The post Winter Farmers Market Tomorrow! appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.

The WBL Winter Farmers Market:  December 9  
10am – 2pm at Tamarack Nature Center

So many local people and groups have made this event a success even before the first shopper sips hot cider or scores a squash…

BearPower, The  “community-wide movement helping White Bear Lake area families eat well and be active”.  I applied for one of their Ambassador Grants and wouldn’t you know it, they saw the value in holding a local foods winter market.  They agreed it was one way to help people eat healthier, less processed foods a little longer in to the ‘off season’ and inspire more home cooked meals along the way.  Big thanks to Julia of BearPower, who was always encouraging and dependable.

Then, of course there are the farmers & food producers (listed and linked below) who know their customers well enough to know they’d be supported at this market. But some didn’t know me, or even where the market was going to be at first. They took a chance and committed to the event.

Pine Tree Apple Orchard,  wanted to come and sell cider and pies, but couldn’t stretch their staff to make it work (because serving their orchard store customers had to come first) and was almost lost to the market.

But, once our White Bear Area Food Shelf committed to having volunteers available to help serve up cider, Pine Tree generously agreed to donate cider instead, giving the Food Shelf a chance to bring in donations.  Please consider making a stop out to Pine Tree for one their amazing apple pies!

Tamarack Nature Center Building in Summer

Tamarack Nature Center made renting the facility easy as pie! (I’m obviously still thinking of Pine Tree’s apple pies) Thank you Joyce and Marcy! What a perfect location for a health focused farmers market. The building is just right and there are miles of walking trails right out the door!

KaytJoyceDesign …and then to make it all look legit, I wrangled a White Bear Lake newcomer, Kayt. She whipped up a logo that wowed us all!! I mean, let’s look at this logo again

Is it just me, or are you all feeling the Christmas spirit too?!?

…and we haven’t even gotten to talk about the food yet!!

I’ve had so much fun (and learned so much) hand picking this unique blend of top notch local vendors. You’ll find small start-ups to established family farms. It was my goal to gather an intimate, yet well-rounded group of local foods to shop, and I think we’re there

Our Local Farmers & Producers:

All Good Organics: variety of winter storage vegetables, frozen summer vegetables, homemade canned items, eggs

Dahl Hobbie Farm: jellies, jams, raw honey, chutney

Douville Bakery: quick breads, pastries, granola, trail mix, maple syrup

Eichtens: variety of locally sourced and crafted cheeses

Gilbertson Farm: humanely raised beef and pork, variety of variety of winter storage vegetables

Great Harvest: yeast breads, rolls, scones

Ingredients Café: scratch made butternut & apple puree, and tomato basil soups

Olive Branch Oil & Spce Company: olive oil and vinegar blends, spice blends

Weeds Greens: micro greens, fresh herbs, baby greens

As if you needed more incentive to come and shop after that list, BearPower is giving away reusable bags to the first 100 shoppers!

There’s a little something for the kids too- Chomp the BearPower Carrot mascot will be walking the market giving out high fives and photo ops.

 So get ready to sip some cider, shop local and walk (off that extra pastry you couldn’t turn down) all in one place.

See you on December 9^th!

No really, I’ll be there too!

I’ll be ready to talk all things local food: backyard chickens, composting, raised garden beds, seed saving, growing your own, preserving your own, and/or finding the best local food resources. I’ve even got a fun little basket of my garden grown goodies to raffle off!

My mission in getting this winter market (and my website) together is to help us ALL make healthier, more sustainable food choices- one step at a time.  One key point I learned early on was that I can’t grow it all. It is also way more fun, tasty and inspiring to eat what other local farmers grow. It feels more natural, being part of the cycle of food. We all have a place in the food system.

There I am with Betty, one of my four girls.

I began cultivating relationships with local farmers long before I decided to start the blog and social media spaces last spring. My love of growing good food and buying local stems from growing up in my parent’s gardens, on the north side of White Bear Lake.

As newlyweds we raised chickens, but had to send off our hens to a friend’s farm when we found our new home in White Bear Lake. But I still wanted chickens… So, in April of 2016 I worked with City Council member, Bill Walsh and the great city staff, to change the city’s ordinance- allowing for raising backyard hens. Here’s the link to finding out more about backyard Hens in WBL .

Join me as I explore the many paths to eating healthy local foods. You can subscribe (in the  sidebar) to get new blog posts or follow the White Bear Lake Winter Farmers Market Facebook event page to see more vendor information.

There really is something special about “bloom where you’re planted”– I believe that truth holds for “eat from where you’re planted” too.

Can’t wait to Dig In to all the food I’ll be bringing home from the market- wonder what I’ll make first!?!

Michelle

*Bring cash, as not all vendors take credit cards!*

The post A Winter Farmers Market is Coming to Town! appeared first on Forks in the Dirt.