Liz over at Pocket Farm is hosting One Local Summer again this year. If you’ve been wanting to ease into eating more locally, this is a great event to help you get your feet wet and see what other folks are doing with local foods. Go check it out!

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)

Liz over at Pocket Farm talks about growing paprika peppers to make your own paprika. I had no idea it could be so easy.

Spotted over at Groovy Green, a post that’s right up our alley: Killing the Organic is Too Expensive Argument, wherein Beo prepares a 100% organic pizza for four at a cost of $1.73. Beo breaks the individual ingredients down by price.