Farmer's Market Pasta

I envy those chefs on TV when they talk about going to the Farmer's Market, picking out what looks good and then just throwing a bunch of ingredients together at home to create this fabulous meal. I'm a strict "follow the recipe" kind of gal myself. So I was quite pleased with my budding culinary prowess when I did just that with this pasta dish. 

Ok, so I may be fibbing just a titch.  I kind of sort of borrowed the basic premise from Betty Crocker but only sort of.  If I can do it, you can, too. And as I always say, if the ingredients are local, fresh and tasty it's really hard to mess up anything you try. 

To try the recipe, go to the Recipe page on my blog.

"Nowledge" is Power

I have always loved the boneless skinless chicken breasts that the Good Foods store sells.  They not only look pretty, all pink, bright and glossy, but they taste far superior to that funky tasting crap Tyson puts out that you can buy for a song at Wal-Mart. I have been happily buying my Good Foods chicken whenever I feel the urge for poultry and naively went on my way thinking I was buying locally raised fowl.  After all, it is right next to the Montana raised steaks and pork tenderloins. 

So you can imagine my dismay when I actually bothered to read the label and realized that the chicken is not only not from Montana but, horror of horrors, NEBRASKA!  I’m from Oklahoma and being the good Okie that I am, I was raised to believe nothing good comes out of Nebraska.  Here’s one of my favorite Nebraska jokes: What does the “N” stand for on the helmets of University of Nebraska football players?  Answer: Nowledge. 

The new me, who’s trying to eat more local foods, wondered why it is that people can raise chickens in their backyards here in Montana but I can’t find locally raised chicken in my favorite grocery store. So I decided to ask.  (As a side note, you can buy a locally raised chicken from Choteau or St. Ignatius at Good Foods but it’s the entire bird.  No neatly broken down parts.)   

According to the very nice gentleman behind the meat counter at Good Foods with the very nice Australian accent, there is no chicken manufacturing here in Montana. It seems that no one has really made a serious effort to try and get an operation set up and if someone did, there probably wouldn’t be enough chickens raised locally to supply the buyers.  I had no idea.  He agreed that it was an interesting situation and I assumed that with all the knowledge he had to give he had this question before.  

So the moral of this story is threefold.  One, always read the labels and make sure what you’re buying is local. Two, if you want to see some changes in your local food supply, ask questions, contact your local grocery store, research local small scale chicken farmers.  Maybe you can be the one to change the system.  The third and most important, don’t sweat the stuff you can’t immediately change.  I’ll continue to buy those cornhuskers’ chickens without any guilt knowing that it’s the best I can do right now.  Remember, any small effort you make toward supporting local foods can in turn have a profound impact on our local economy and your long-term health. 

Nebraska. Of all places. 

Seniorita's Specialty Foods

When I first began to consider eating a predominately local diet I thought I would have to give up the convenience of quick low-effort meals so I am always happy when I discover foods that break that misconception. I am finding that there are Montanans out there that have taken the time to perfect and distribute ready-to-eat (or at least ready to heat up) foods that are not only very tasty but also use local ingredients when available.  One such example is Senoritas Specialty Foods in Manhattan.

Vickie Perkins started Senoritas in 1989 by selling fresh salsas at the Bozeman Farmer’s Market. They now make 24 products from their flagship salsas to bean dip to, my reason for this particular post, their tantalizing tamales.  I came across the tamales in the frozen food section of the Good Foods store when I was looking for a quick dinner one night.  What I found was a delicious meal that required very little preparation and one that I could feel good about buying in my quest to eat local. 

As I corresponded with Peter from Senoritas, I was delighted to discover a company that shares my passions about promoting local food, not simply to promote themselves but to promote as many local growers and producers as possible. Senoritas proudly uses Lifeline Produce and Lifeline Dairy, Spencer Valley Eggs, Wheat Montana, Trevino’s Tortillas, Meat Montana, Fisher Spices of Bozeman, Bozeman organics and products from the Western Montana Growers Co-op in their products. I’ve got a wealth of blog topics just from this list! 

When explaining the reasons for buying local, Peter says “the drive and enthusiasm comes from, ‘Why are we only able to buy food from out of the state and/or out of the country? Why are our best agriculture/ livestock products all being shipped out of Montana?’ Let’s think what we can do locally to help our citizens right here in Montana.”  I couldn’t agree more, Peter.

It sounds like Senoritas has hit on one of the main reasons I choose to eat local in that the ingredients are fresher and you aren’t consuming unknown mystery ingredients large “foreign” companies use to keep foods preserved over time and distance.  You may pay a little more for a package of two of Senoritas fabulous tamales than the 24 pack of Jose Ole’s frozen taquitos at Albertsons but the health and taste rewards are so much greater.  Ok, I confess, I really did buy Jose Ole’s but it was only for a comparison taste test. To sum up the results, all I’ll say is that I easily recognized the food within a Senorita’s tamale.  I don’t know what the hell you call what was in those taquitos.  I love Peter’s saying “pay a little more today for healthier food and pay a lot less later for health care”.  The ex-sorority girl in me is dying to put that on a T-shirt!

Visit http://www.senioritasspecialtyfoods.com/ for a complete list of products and where you can find them including farmer’s markets.  Steam up a pair tonight for a quick delicious meal that actually makes you feel good about “convenience foods”.