Allow me to introduce myself…this being my first post on the NittyGritty Blog I wanted to let you know a little about myself. My name is Megan, I live in Northeast Wisconsin, with my wonderful husband David. I am a full-time college student and a part-time Early Childhood Coordinator at a church (so I get to plan all the fun crafts for preschoolers!). I started blogging mainly because the more I learned about what it meant to “go green” (I have been doing this for about 6 months now), the more I wanted to tell others and let others know how easy it is to incorporate “going green” into my own lifestyle (which was far from it before!). I also strive to live a more frugal and simplified life. But all of that is written on my blog. I was very excited when Jeff & Joyce opened up NittyGritty for contributors - and was excited to come on board! I am not as good of a cook as Joyce, nor as adept in a kitchen, but I still wanted to contribute to show others (who are just like me!) that it is possible to do this. It is possible to “go organic” and “go local!” So, enjoy!

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Ever since we started ‘eating green’ and trying to eat whole foods, local foods, and organic foods - this means I had to learn to cook. I can cook (I had a mother who taught me well), to an extent, but I still have a ways to go (if I want to make things from scratch). Our meals used to consist of: frozen pizza (2-3 times a week), Kraft Mac’n’Cheese, Frozen Hamburger Patties…um, yeah - that’s pretty much it. We were so lazy and didn’t cook anything!

So now I have been planning out our meals and cooking at home. Part of eating healthier means no going out to eat. When we do, it’s usually Noodles, or Panera’s. Panera’s bread is made fresh and their cheese (on grilled cheese) is organic. Noodles sells organic milk, the iced tea is organic, etc. but I don’t know about the main ingredients…but we try to eat out at a minimum, but sometimes it is necessary (ie travelling).

So I thought I’d give you a detailed (somewhat) account of what our meals looked like this past week. Granted, not everything we eat/purchase is local or organic, but I’ll let you know all that. We probably are still only 65% local or organic, we need to get better at it.

Monday: Spaghetti
- noodles were $1 at Aldi’s
- sauce $1 at Aldi’s
- Garlic Bread ($1.50 at Aldi’s)
We are short on cash (since we’re moving), and we were going to be having some people over for dinner, so we wanted something easy that could stretch the dollar as far as it could! We served 4 people easily.

Tuesday: Roast in Crock Pot
- Chuck Roast was from Festival Food’s (local grocery store), and was labelled “All Natural” so I was a sucker and picked it up (I really shouldn’t have, they can label anything natural - there’s no regulation but I already had it in my freezer, bought a few weeks back).
- The potatoes and onions were from the Farmer’s Market.
- The carrots were frozen crinkle cut carrots (from a long time ago, purchased at Cub Foods, usually $1 a bag) - so not very nutritious (but why waste them?).
It was so easy, I threw in a little Beef Boullion, some water and let is cook in the crock pot all day. It was so juicy and tender. And we had leftovers for lunch.

Tuesday: Cookies
I picked up a premade cookie mix (just add oil, eggs, water) at the Amish Store in Shipshewana, Indiana. So I used that and made some cookies. My dream is to have all Stoneware to bake with (I have been drooling over these), but so far all I have is a round pizza stone. But you can cook cookie’s on it too (anything you’d use a cookie sheet for really), so I used that. I just didn’t bet on how it would keep cooking the cookies once you take them out of the oven. I took them out, and usually let them cool 2 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack - but I was watching TV (my last night!), and lost track of time - so though the cookie’s were great when I took them out, the stone retains the heat so long, and I didn’t take them off soon enough so they ‘baked’ some more and were rather crispy. Still edible, but overdone. So it is still a learning process.

Wednesday: Enchilada Casserole
- 1 lb. ground beef (bought for $3.50 a lb. from our local farmer at the Farmer’s Market)
- 1 Can of Enchilada Sauce (around $2, not organic, but bought at our local natural food store, the closet I could get to ‘organic’)
- 1 bag (2 cups) of cheddar cheese (not organic, but local, bought at Woodman’s Grocery Store)
- Tortilla Shells ($.79 at Aldi’s, not organic at all)
- Sour Cream (already had some in fridge, not organic, from Aldi’s)
We love this meal. So easy to throw together! I thawed the meat and browned/drained it. Then added in the Enchilada Sauce (you can also buy the powdered packet, just follow the directions). I thought it seemed too spicy, so added some lemon juice - but I like my spicey food bland (so not spicey at all!) - but it ended up too bland - good for me, a little boring for David. Then mix the sauce/meat and in a 8×8 pan layer tortilla shell (sometimes I do 2 shells at a time), meat, cheese and continue until the meat is gone and meat/cheese is on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. We actually packed up most the kitchen, and I had the meat/sauce all ready when I realized I didn’t have a pan! We had a Corelle bowl (ceramic) still out (that is oven safe), so I made our casserole in the bowl! It looked funny, but it worked!

Thursday: Leftovers
David has a late meeting, and I have late school - and since we’re moving we’re going to try to clean out the fridge as best we can.

Friday: Spaghetti
Spaghetti again, because it is cheap and fast, and I have all the ingredients. We’ll be moving, so things will be hectic - and we could have people over - so that way I can make tons for all of us. The noodles are organic (bought at Cub Food’s for $1 since they’re closing), and the sauce is organic (bought at Woodman’s for $3 I think?), if we get garlic bread, it will be from Aldi’s again.

Saturday Lunch: BBQ (aka sloppy joes)
Nothing will be local or organic - we are going to be feeding anywhere from 10-15 people (who are helping us move), so I will be picking up what ever is cheapest. All will be made in the crockpot and the BBQ recipe is from my mom.

Saturday Dinner: Simon’s Pizza
Pizza from a local cheese factory (yes, we live in Wisconsin, so we locals even shop at the cheese factories!)

(originally posted on That’s Swell)

So, things have gotten a little behind here at Chez Nitty Gritty. Let’s see how quickly we can recap this past week and get it caught up.

Sunday, we did tossed salad. Local hydroponic lettuce, local greenhouse tomatoes and green peppers, organic carrots, local hard-boiled eggs, and homemade croutons from the tail end of a loaf of bread machine bread. (I don’t think I’ve talked about croutons yet. Cut up whatever old, stale bread you have that’s not green yet into cubes - I like large, restaurant style ones, but one of the great things about making your own croutons is that you can do whatever you like - and toss on a baking sheet with a little olive oil and whatever spices you care for. Bake in the oven somewhere between 350 and 400, depending on what else you need to bake, for 10 to 15 minutes, or until brown and toasty. Dead easy, and much cheaper and better for you than croutons from a box.) Dinner was around a dollar apiece and took about 20 minutes to put together, including boiling the eggs and making the croutons. Jeff also had some leftover lasagne.

Monday night, we did chili in the crockpot and cornbread. Monday was a late class night for me, so I made the cornbread in the morning before I headed up to school.

- 1.25 cups milk, buttermilk, or yogurt (you can fake buttermilk by mixing 1.25 cups milk, gently warmed, and 1 tablespoon white vinegar. It’ll sour in about 5 minutes)
- 2 tablespoons butter, olive oil, lard, or bacon drippings
- 1.5 cups cornmeal
- 0.5 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 egg

Heat the fat in a small skillet, and pour into your baking dish (I used an 8×8 Pyrex, which I put into the oven at 125 to keep the fat warm.) Meantime, combine the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another; mix the wet into the dry until everything is combined well (if the mixture seems a little dry, add a little more milk). Pour over the fat in the baking pan, set the oven for 275, and bake about 30 minutes, until the whole thing is slightly browned and firm.

This was pretty good; it wasn’t perfect - my ideal cornbread is more moist and sweeter than this turned out. However, it wasn’t at all bad. We have about half the pan left, that I think I want to turn into cornbread stuffing for lunches this week.

The chili was as simple as chili gets - about a pound of ground beef in the crock pot with half of a 28 ounce can of tomato puree, a little water, and some garlic powder, salt, pepper, and chili powder. There was just enough left for a lunch portion the next day, and Jeff said I should make more next time. The beef, milk, cornmeal, and egg were local, and the flour and tomato puree organic. Total active prep time was 15 minutes, and it ran about $3.50 for the two of us, including the leftovers.

Tuesday, we did a repeat of the tofu salad tacos, along with wild rice and a simple carrot and apple salad. Organic ingredients included flour, tofu, carrots, and apples, and the lettuce was organic. The rice was some that we’re using up from our previous eating habits, so I’ve no idea where it was from. Cost was comparable to the last time we did this dinner, but the time was longer, partially because the rice takes awhile to cook. I wasn’t tracking the time very well, because I drafted my cousin into helping, and we were socializing while we cooked.

Wednesday was a pseudo-new recipe. I say that because it wasn’t much of a recipe. I took a 3/4 pound pork tenderloin, sliced it up into medallions about a quarter of an inch thick, and pan-fried them in a little olive oil, along with a liberal dousing of black pepper, salt, and thyme. I served the medallions up with a topping of garlic butter and sides of roasted potatoes. The potatoes, pork, and butter were local (from our own homemade butter). Active prep time was about half an hour, mostly accomplished while the potatoes were baking. There were enough leftovers for me for lunch the next day and for breakfast the day after (I minced the pork finely, and tossed it and the potatoes in with a bunch of other stuff and two scrambled eggs), and the whole thing cost about $7.

Thursday, I was supposed to have a late class, but class got canceled. We did tossed salad again.

Friday, we were scheduled originally for pizza. However, our cheese vendor wasn’t at the market by the time we got there on the 24th, so we decided to do beef ribs, which had been on sale. However, we had friends coming in from out of town, and the flight got rescheduled from a midnight arrival to noon, and our package of ribs was just enough for two people, not four. We updated to taco pie, and decided to just bite the bullet and buy some decidedly non-local cheese, before one of our merry band remembered that another of our merry band doesn’t much care for ground beef. Being picky on a few select food items myself (I hate beans, to name one), I try very hard to serve people food that they like. We decided to fix lasagna. However, as it approached dinner time, a sudden craving for Thai food descended, and so our friends took us out and fed us a veritable feast at a locally owned non-chain Thai restaurant. Dinner was delicious.

Last night, Saturday (the 3rd), there might have been a frozen Tombstone pizza incident, but if there was, I’m not telling. :) If there was such an incident, it was our first in about 6 months. Plans are underway to experiment with making our own frozen pizza, since that would be infinitely superior to Tombstone. (One good thing about the Tombstones is that they don’t use hydrogenated oils.)

This week I’m on spring break, which means that blog posting (hopefully) won’t be neglected, email will be caught up on, and there’s some new recipes coming up. The week after, we’re going to do a week of make ahead meals with mostly local and organic foods, which should prove interesting.

Thursday night, we were scheduled to do burgers, but we got invited out to a concert with a friend at the last minute. The hamburger bun dough went into the fridge, and we ate with the rest of the group at Weaver Street Market, a cooperative market down in Carrboro. There was a ton of reasonably priced, healthy food on both their hot and salad bar (I got cold marinated tofu, marinated mushrooms, tabuleh, and a big bowl of chocolate pudding for $5. Not bad at all; cost wise, it was comparable to fast food, and much healthier.) If we find ourselves in the area around dinner time again, it’s good to know there’s healthy options for us.

Friday night, we did homemade cheese pizza. It was our normal cheese pizza, nothing fancy, so there isn’t much to say about that.