Day 26: I ate goat

Today was truly an awesome day.  Well, it was an awesome day to experience, hopefully its also an awesome day to read about.

For the first time in at least a year, Jenn and I were able to go to the farmer’s market at St. Phillips.  Thats the same farmer’s market that I went to a few weeks ago and left after five minutes because I am boring.  It was a heck of a lot more fun with Jenn.  The market has nearly doubled in size since we first heard about it 3 years ago, I find that awesome.  There are not only a lot more vendors there, but now they are selling more than just lettuce and honey.  There is all kinds of grass-fed beef, mesquite flour, gluten free tasties, even somebody selling sprouted seeds.  Someone flies up to Alaska every fall and catches a ton of salmon, then freezes them and flies home and sells them.  Its great to see so many different kinds of locally raised and organic options available.

Jenn and I got some great lettuce, carrots, purple onions with long green stalks on them, and some mesquite flour.  Mesquite can be used a bunch of ways in the kitchen, is gluten free, and has an almost chocolate coffee sweet taste to it.  Organizations like Desert Harvesters collect what is cast off in our neighborhoods and grind it up.  If you are non-local and want to try some, go to mesquiteflour.com.  They are a southern Arizona company, and they can ship to anywhere.  We put it on some steaks last night as a flavor rub, and it was awesome.

Also at the market, we got to taste grass-fed goat.  I was astonished by how much I liked it.  The nice lady from Van Haren Meat Company was there selling her local product.  Realizing that the best way to draw in customers is to give away samples, she had a slow cooker of goat shoulder roast going that had just been salt, pepper and garlicked.  So very mild seasoning.  Jenn and I were hesitant, at first deciding to split a sample.  Jenn took a taste, and I was immediately told to get my own.  The flavor really is very similar to beef.  It had only a tiny hint of the gaminess that tends to mar non cow animals.  I have tried lamb many times and can barely eat it.  Goat I would eat knowingly and gladly.  I will probably order some in the future, as soon as I work through the ton of meat I got from Dickman’s.  I can already think of a bunch of ways to cook it, and its super healthy for you.  I was so glad I got the chance to taste it.

Breakfast:

2 cups coffee with cream and cane sugar

Lunch:

Round Steak

Grilled Purple Onions

Salad

The round steak we got from Dickman’s was incredibly tender for what cut it is.  We cooked it with mesquite rub and salt and pepper and it was awesome.  We also through the purple onions on the grill just like they do in Spain.  The outer layer chars up nice, and the inside cooks it its juices.  You just peel off the outside, and scarf.

Dinner:

1 small bowl of salt and pepper pistachios

Fruit Smoothie

We made the rest of our strawberries and bananas into smoothies last night.  We made them with more bananas this time, and they were even tastier.  I will have to keep fruit in the house just for that.

Weight: 233

I feel like I am going to start losing again in the next few days.  I can usually tell, so hopefully this takes me to 230.

Day 25: Long Weekend

I didn’t have much opportunity to be tribal today.  In fact, I didn’t really have any.  I had to work, and it was my last day before a nice long weekend.  So I didn’t really push myself.  I mainly went to work, came home, and relaxed.  I know I will get lots of chances over the next few days to learn and grow, so there was no need to cram them in while exhausted.

I did get to pick up my meat package from Dickman’s yesterday.  I got 44lbs of totally awesome meat, for about $3.50 a pound.  My decent sized chest freezer went from damn near empty, to actually containing some goodness.  That should help cut my food outlay down quite a bit for the next month or so.  Nothing is worse than me going in hungry every few days and buying more than I need.  When I was there I saw them get very busy, and a bunch of packages were being carried out.  It was good to see a local business getting that much attention.  If we all shopped that way it would be a more interesting city.

Breakfast:

2 cups of coffee with cane sugar and cream

Jenn pointed out, while drinking coffee yesterday, that the pasture raised cream that we were drinking tastes different than the regular kind.  Its still not as good as the raw milk, but it does have some of that “grassy” flavor that you expect from natural.

Lunch:

Skip

Dinner:

2 jalapeño cheddar brat patties

3 strips maple bacon

1 grilled onion

1 Giant heap of salad with sour cream and organic chipotle ranch dressing.

Jenn had an awesome dinner waiting for me, and an even more kick ass desert.  We had an awesome selection of grilled breakfast meats that were great.  The organic onions once again cooked up even better than the regular kind.  Lastly, colored peppers must be in season, because the yellow peppers we got for our salad were awesome.

Lastly, Jenn made awesome smoothies for desert.  I will list the recipe below, but suffice it to say, I could have drunk a gallon of them.

1/2 pound good strawberries (the small ones taste better)

1 banana

Silk Coconut milk

Ice

Blend till smooth

Drink the crap out of it.

Weight: 235

My weight seems to have plateaued for now, but I will start losing again once my shape catches up.

Day 24: Value is hiding, you just have to look.

You would never assume that running around on domestic errands yesterday would be fun, but it was.  It was good to have Jenn back in the house, and the house certainly needed some refilling.  Now I have food again, beyond the next 48 hours anyway.  My birds and my herd of yard rabbits also now have food.  I got a mirror hung up in our bedroom that has needed to go up for a long time.  It was good to get up off of my butt and be useful.  I also discovered two hidden values in the last day.

The first hidden value is my butcher shop.  Now, you might ask how the hell that could possibly be hidden since all I have done for the last three weeks is talk about how much I loved it.  Well, I do, but they have better product than even they realize.  When I first started going, I asked if they carried pastured chicken and pork.  I had seen grassfed beef in the freezer, but none of the other. I was informed that they didn’t.  That struck me as a little odd, especially given the quality of everything they had.   Either way, I still loved it and I moved on.

I had been purchasing lots of beef and pork, and I had noticed how much pinker the pork is there than in the store.  Last night was the tipping point.  Jenn and I bought a chicken.  Which she cooked beautifully.  In addition, it turned out to be a pastured chicken, and we didn’t even know.  It was a bit smaller than a regular fryer, which was a sign.  It also had a completely different texture and flavor, and it was amazing.  It had an extra think layer of fat under the skin, and the white meat wasn’t a lot lighter than the dark.  It was truly amazing.  You owe it to yourself to go try one.  The best part is, I found a supplier of pastured food, and they don’t even know they could be charging a hell of a lot more for it.

The second hidden value I found, is the value of sitting down to dinner with family.  In the nine years that I have been married, I think Jenn and I have used our kitchen table together about 10 times.  At least without other people in the house its that rare.  Well Jenn and I have decided to start eating at the table together now, and its awesome.  It really does give you a chance to forge a better connection.  I can only imagine how something like this affects us on a cultural scale.  We all need that time that we can be together and talk.  If we are filling that void with TV, instead of sharing a communal meal, what all are we missing out on?  I am enjoying it, and I think its something that should be more common.

Breakfast:

Coffee with cream and cane sugar

Lunch:

1 Pork chop

Cottage cheese

Salad

I wasn’t really hungry at lunch time, but I figured it would be good to eat.  Some leftovers hit the spot.

Dinner:

1/2 Chicken

Salad

Yogurt w/ preserves

The chicken was epic.  Cut the chicken in half.  Pan fry in coconut oil until golden brown.  Season with garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper.  Put in the oven for about 35 minutes.  It will be awesome, crispy and juicy.  It was great.

Weight: 235.