Dark Days Eat Local Challenge - Week 1

Laura, of The (not so) Urban Hennery is sponsoring a Dark Days Eat Local challenge this winter.

The rules?
Cook one meal a week featuring at least 90% local ingredients
You define local - the standard definitions range from 100, to 150 to 200 miles
Ingredients can be things you grew and preserved yourself, sourced from local farms and markets, or purchased at the store
Write about the meals you cook, your challenges finding ingredients, why you’re eating local or whatever else strikes your fancy for each recap. Photos are optional.
Include friends and family in your sourcing and eating as possible

For our first local meal, we chose a breakfast of whole grain pumpkin pancakes, local ham from "happy pigs," local butter and milk from Picket Fence Creamery and homemade applesauce with apples from a local orchard. Even the maple syrup is from Iowa! The flour in the pancakes is from Paul's Grains and the pumpkin is from our own garden.

I spent the summer sourcing as many local (basically, Iowa grown/produced) products as possible and stocked up my pantry and freezer. We also have grown much of our food this year, again canning and freezing fruits and vegetables. What we haven't grown ourselves, we preserved from our CSA sources.

Also key to making local meals is knowing what I already have on hand and basing my meals on those ingredients.

The breakfast, cooked by my darling husband Michael, was fantastic!