Day 38 & 39 – 100-mile Diet : Busy last few days and prepapring for a partial “break” off the challenge.

So 2 weeks ago we received a very unexpected phone call from my mother-in-law announcing that they were planning a long week-end up in Quebec. Being from Pennsylvania, they would be driving up all day on the Friday (today), spending the whole week-end with us and leaving to drive all day back on Monday.

We were THRILLED! They haven’t been able to come up and visit since the wedding almost 3 years ago so we got busy making the place nice and ready for guests.

First : Busy nights and this challenge don’t exactly mesh well if you don’t have pre-prepared foods – which we were out of – which meant lots of quick cooking staples that didn’t really spark the imagination.

But I still managed to whip something nice that I thought you all might like :

White bean and roasted butter nut squash spread

• Soak about 1 cup of beans over night and then cook them until the flesh cracks. Drain and set them aside to cool.
• Cut about 1 cup’s worth of buttenut squash in cubes, lightly cover with oil and set on a baking sheet in the oven. Roast for about 30 minutes at 400’F. When they are done, set them aside to cool.
• When everything has cooled down, in a food processor, put the beans and squash, a couple of table spoons of your favorite local yogurt - we used plain goat - and add whatever fresh herbs you have. We added chives that we had frozen and dill.
• Refrigerate to let the flavours blend in and serve on bread or crackers.

Where does the BREAK thing come in?

Well, as you can guess, having company over that is hoping to be out and about doesn’t really go well with this challenge. We figured, this was a happy surprise and this is a social life amendment situation if there ever was one!

Now, while we are at home, we are planning on being as 100-mile as possible. All veggies and fruits will be local, all cheese, eggs, milks, yogurts… That won’t change. All oils, vinegars, flours, herbs will be the ones we have used for the last 5 weeks. I’m gonna be working on a couple of loaves of bread tonight – which should be ready to bake tomorrow – so that should go over pretty well too. I plan on making pancakes and eggs for breakfast, home made frozen fruit smoothies instead of juice. We were smart and froze local berries and melons for the coming month. We are even having my parents over Saturday night and are planning a big market fall veggie type stew for dinner.

But while we are out visiting the town, we can’t run home all the time to have lunch. My in-laws were here for 3 days and busy with wedding stuff the first time and I want them to enjoy the city this time around without stressing them out about our challenge.

So there it is.

I’ll be back next week to tell you about our week-end. I’m really curious of HOW MUCH local foods we will be able to “sneak in” during this week-end. It’s almost a new challenge in itself.

We are so looking forward to their visit. It will be amazing to see them!

Have a great week-end everyone!