A Locavore Summer...

These days of a small day camp where kids come home for lunch, we are definitely cooking three meals a day, and wait, I am only two days into it, and I am feeling like I've been doing this forever. I am finding a lot of locally grown foods and some local pre-made foods (hummus and tortillas, etc.) but a few of our regular standby brands did slip in as my children are such big bean and lentil consumers.

Here is just a quick overview of our lunches and dinners so far:
Lunch: Refried beans on a rice tortilla with guacamole and stir fried vegetables*. Also, cilantro, parsley and olive oil on rice tortillas. Luke did all of the tortilla frying, quesadilla style and we cut them all into eighths (wedges) for easy eating.Cherries, blackberries* and grapes on the side.

Dinner: Pizza on a tortilla. Thinly sliced mushrooms*, caramelized onions*, regular onions*, grape tomatoes, basil, green peppers*, olives and capers. I added olive oil, balsamic vinegar and nutritional yeast to Luke's and then he eventually showed up at 8 o'clock to eat it. All kids had Muir Glen tomato sauce on it as well. Some were designer masterpieces; some were not.

Lunch: (On a farmer's market day) black beans (they had been soaking a while) with taco seasoning, avocado, corn* (raw, cut off the cob), romaine lettuce* (a good deal from the farmer), cucumbers*, light green banana peppers*, raw peas* (which no one liked), red onions*, tomatoes*. The beans were hot but everything else was cold and made a good sort of taco salad (no grains / taco shells). Kids had freshly picked black raspberries* (really tasty!!), raspberries* (which had spilled in my purse and caused a problem earlier, uggh, I am very unwilling to accept plastic bags yet I do see how they would come in handy. Maybe I can tie dye my phone cover) and more cherries.

Dinner: I turned some lunch leftovers and some farmer's market finds into an Indian curry. We used chick peas, kale*, peas* (which still no one liked!!!), peppers*, half a red onion*, two ears of corn* (cut off the cob), Indian sauce (from the store) plus added coconut milk. We served it with plain simple brown rice. Luke stopped home for thirty seconds to eat it.

In the meantime, I have been cooking separate vegetables for myself, mostly watercress*, mushrooms* and a variety of sprouts*. And I made a batch of broth to drink out of a bunch of local mushrooms* and vegetables (swiss chard*, kale*, celery, cilantro, etc.) but I can tell it will only last a couple of days.

Tomorrow's lunch: Old Bay hummus* and Asian Fire hummus* by the Wild Pea (local Baltimore brand) baked on rice tortillas and served as dip with cucumbers* and peppers.* To be prepared by our babysitter!!!!

*indicates locally grown sourced from either the farmer directly or Whole Foods.