The Cooperative Difference -- 14 reasons to shop at the Oklahoma Food Cooperative

This month's recipes:  Ricotta Breakfast Pudding,  Bacon beef rolls, Stuffed zucchini bake, Zucchini and Italian sausage quiche, Baked meatballs, Alice Springs chicken, Moonchild's Bacon Cheeseburger quiche..

What's the Cooperative Difference when it comes to the Oklahoma Food Cooperative?

Convenience -- Community -- Selection -- Trust -- Health --  Justice -- Sustainability!

When you buy food from the Oklahoma Food Cooperative --

1.  You can shop any time during the day or night, from anywhere in the world with computer access, and get your food at 40+ pickup sites across the state -- Convenience!

2.  You can choose from thousands of products -- Selection!

3,  You get the best tasting food in the Oklahoma marketplace -- Selection!

4.  You get the healthiest food in the Oklahoma marketplace – free ranging flocks and herds, organically managed pastures and fields -- Health!

5.  You get the safest food in the Oklahoma marketplace – absolute knowledge as to where your food comes from, inspections by the USDA and ODA -- Trust!

6.  You get relationships with the men and women who produce your food -- Community!

7.  You become part of a the solution to our modern economic crisis, by helping to reweave the economic connections that once characterized rural and urban Oklahoma -- Community!

8.  You help make the state more resilient in the face of major disasters, war, terrorism, economic collapse, and other negative black swan events -- Sustainability!

9.  You have a say in how the cooperative is governed -- Community!

10. You meet interesting new people and participate in a new and more enjoyable and convenient way of shopping for groceries -- Community!

11. You stop supporting exploitation in agricultural labor markets --  Justice!

12. You stop taking food from the mouths of hungry children in third world countries -- Justice!

13. You stop degrading the earth and polluting the waters and air with your food purchases -- Sustainability!

14. You get full transparency regarding the production practices of your food -- Trust!

Join or shop now at http://www.oklahomafood.coop .

Here's this month's recipes for some of our great Oklahoma foods.

Ricotta Breakfast Pudding

This is a very nutritious breakfast that cooks quick and has a high comfort food quotient.

• 1/3 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons cream
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seed or pecan meal or almond meal
• dash cinnamon
• droplet of vanilla extract

Mix the ricotta cheese, egg, and cream. Cook over medium heat until it thickens.  It will seem to not be doing anything, and then it will thicken very quickly, so don't turn the heat on, go away and do something else. Stir constantly while heating. Once it thickens add the flax seed meal or nut meal and let sit for a minute or so. Enjoy! You can add a dab of sweetener if you want, but it isn't really needed.

Nut meals, as well as flax seed meal, are somewhat expensive in stores and generally aren't available through the coop.  you can buy pecans, however, through the coop and turn them into meal with a coffee grinder. If there are a few bits that don't grind finely, that's fine, just through them in. Flax seed also grinds well in a coffee grinder. This is one serving. It is very filling.

BACON BEEF ROLLS

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup low carb ketchup 
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 
• 4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded 
• 1/4 cup onion, chopped fine 
• 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper 
• 2 pounds ground beef 
• 12 strips bacon

Combine everything except the bacon in a large bowl. Mix well then shape in two 6-inch long log shapes. On a large sheet of wax paper, lay 6 slices of the bacon side by side. Set one of the beef rolls crosswise at one end of the row of bacon strips; roll up, wrapping the meat with the bacon. Very carefully place the first roll in a 9x13" baking pan, lined with heavy foil, with the ends of the bacon under the meat roll. I recommend lifting it with a wide spatula so that it does't break. Repeat with the remaining bacon and meat roll. Bake at 375º 45-50 minutes or until the center of each roll reaches 160º. If the bacon doesn't look browned enough on top, put the beef rolls under the broiler for a minute or two. Makes 8 servings 

STUFFED ZUCCHINI BAKE

• 4 medium zucchini
• 1 pound ground beef 
• 1 clove garlic 
• 1 small onion, diced, 2 1/2 ounces or about 1/2 cup 
• 1/2 cup fresh mushrooms, diced, 2 large or about 3 ounces 
• Salt and pepper, to taste 
• 2 ounces freshly grated parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup

Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise. Scoop out the pulp, leaving 1/4" of the flesh intact. Discard the pulp. You can use a teaspoon to dig out the pulp and seeds, then once most of the pulp has been removed, use the spoon to scrape out any remaining seeds. Place the zucchini shells on a greased, foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle the zucchini with salt and pepper. Brown the meat, garlic, onion, and mushrooms, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper; drain the fat. Fill the zucchini shells with the meat mixture. Cover with foil and bake at 350º 45 minutes or until the zucchini is tender. Uncover, top with cheese and bake to melt the cheese, about 10 minutes. Makes 8 servings


ZUCCHINI & ITALIAN SAUSAGE QUICHE
1 medium or 2 cups shredded zucchini
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 pound Italian sausage, browned and drained
4 ounces Swiss cheese, shredded
1 ounce parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup
5 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash pepper


Sauté the zucchini in butter 5 minutes. Place in the bottom of a greased 10-inch pie plate and pat dry with paper towel. Top with the sausage and Swiss cheese. Beat the eggs, cream, parmesan and seasonings; pour over the sausage. Bake at 450º 15 minutes. Turn down the heat to 350º and bake 15-20 minutes longer or until browned and a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Check after 15 minutes because it will get quite brown. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.  Makes 6 servings. Can be frozen (freeze it in slices and then reheat them for breakfast).
BAKED MEATBALLS
1 pound ground beef
1 pound bulk Italian sausage
2 teaspoons dry minced onion
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, 2 ounces (I used the kind in a can)
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl using your fingers. Mix until the meat no long feels slimy from the eggs. Shape in golf ball size meatballs and place on a large baking sheet with sides. Bake at 375º for 15-20 minutes until the meatballs are done all the way through. Rinse in a colander to remove any egg and cheese that has leaked out.
Makes about 20-30 meatballs. Can be frozen.


ALICE SPRINGS CHICKEN
4 boneless chicken breasts
8 pieces bacon, coarsely chopped
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic, minced
4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded 


Season the chicken with the seasonings of your choice; grill until just done. Keep the chicken warm. Meanwhile, fry the bacon in a skillet until crisp; drain on paper towels. In the same skillet, sauté the mushrooms and garlic in butter, seasoning with salt to taste. Cook until the juices have evaporated. Place the chicken on a foil-lined baking sheet. Top each piece of chicken with 1/4 of the mushrooms and bacon, then with the shredded cheese. Broil until cheese is melted and bubbly. Makes 4 servings. 

MOONCHILD'S BACON CHEESEBURGER QUICHE
1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, chopped, 2 1/2 ounces
4 slices bacon, chopped
3 eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup heavy cream
8 ounces cheddar or Swiss cheese, shredded
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and pepper, to taste


Brown the hamburger with the onion and bacon; drain the fat. Season to taste. Spread in a greased pie plate. Whisk all of the remaining ingredients except the cheese. Mix about 1/3 of the cheese into the hamburger mixture and arrange the rest over the meat. Pour the egg mixture over the cheese. Bake at 350º for 35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let stand 15 minutes before cutting.  Makes 6-8 servings. Can be frozen


Recipes this month courtesy of Linda's Low Carb recipes, one of the great resources on the web of healthy comfort foods.

First worker coop meeting tonight!

Tonight (Thursday, September 29) is the first meeting of the A Better Way to Go to Work fall tour.  This is our Midwest City Presentation

 We start at 7 PM, at the Midwest City Library 8143 E Reno. I am tonight's presenter.

Come and learn how worker owned cooperatives can --

• help you create good jobs for yourself, your family, and your friends,

  -- gain job security for the future,

  -- Drive economic development for your community, 

  -- Protect your family from economic insecurity and calamities, 

  -- Increase your household financial resilience and sustainability, 

  -- Discover more fun, enjoyable, and profitable ways to work.

  See http://www.okie.coop for more information.

Tonight's bon appetitin' casserole

Tonight's casserole was certainly an example of eating what's on hand.

I fried hamburger in a cast iron skillet, with chopped onions and hot peppers, sliced zucchini and yellow squash, minced garlic, a dash of teriyaki sauce (actually 2 dashes).  After everything was done, I stirred in a tablespoon of flour, stirred that around a bit, added half a cup of heavy cream, a cup of my own beef stock  -- see my page at http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/4stock.htm  if you haven't read my instructions on making your own stock -- some yogurt cheese, some shredded mozzarella cheese, and voila, top of the stove casserole.  I suppose it could have gone into the oven at some point, but we were hungry.  And this was done in less than 30 minutes, starting with a frozen pound of grassfed hamburger.  Everything was from the coop.

We went to see the movie Contagion this afternoon, and I guess the scenes of looted/empty supermarkets and food riots and etc  stimulated our appetites.  That movie is one of the best arguments for food storage that I've seen lately.

Bob visits Sunflower "Farmers" Market and finds. . . Homeland!

Yes folks, that's about it.  Given all the hurrah about the new Sunflower "Farmers" Market, I decided I should go see it for myself, so I stopped by there on my way home from church today.  Me and a lot of other people, because the parking lot was crowded and the store was packed.

We should have been outside with signs saying -- Real Food -- Real Farmers -- oklahomafood.coop , lol.

But when I went in, all I found was basically a Homeland Store, redecorated in the latest West Coast faux farmer style, maybe a slightly larger produce section. they had a nice selection of organic produce (from the US and Mexico), several of the same brands that you see at Homeland.  The meat market was nothing to write home about. There were live butchers, but it is all mystery meat except for one tiny corner which had a farm "brand" grass-fed ground beef -- for $5.99/lb and it wasn't even certified organic.  I forget the name of the farm, but I thought it was significant that it said "brand" which suggests a certain amount of aggregating behind the label. 

They had a big sign on the wall showing off their label identifying "Oklahoma" products.  I didn't see any Oklahoma meat, dairy, or produce, one of the brands of eggs had Oklahoma on it, but their certified organic eggs were more expensive than coop eggs.

I take the crowd though as evidence of hunger among Oklahomans for a more natural and more local diet however.  But except for the expanded organic section, Sunflower has nothing that Homeland or Akins or the Health Food Center don't have.  And the meat markets at Buy for Less, Crest, or the Crescent market are better than the Sunflower.

What Sunflower does have going for it is marketing.

We should maybe think about getting some of that. 

September Bobaganda: More on caramelized onions, summer squash, and why food storage is important.

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In my  Bobaganda of August 1, I discussed caramelizing an entire crock pot of onions and then freezing them in meal size portions, as one way to ensure that the summer abundance of onions can be enjoyed this winter.   Oklahoma Food Coop member and producer Leslie Moyer posted this gorgeous picture of her crockpot of caramelized onions to her Facebook page.  Imagine how tasty this crockpot of onions will be over the next few months. Talk about a convenience slow food!  Anyway, there's still lots of onions available through the Oklahoma Food Cooperative this month. So now is the time to stock up and preserve this summer bounty for eating later.

Another common summer vegetable available through the Oklahoma Food Cooperative  this month is summer squash. I went to a potluck dinner at Allison Blanchard's house last night (she who manages the produce section so efficiently on delivery day), and earlier this summer she bought a case of yellow squash through the coop.  She cut off the ends, sliced them in half, boiled them for 3 minutes, then spread them out (one layer) on a cookie sheet and put the sheet in the freezer. When the squash (shouldn't the plural of squash be squish? ) was frozen, she put it in ziplock freezer bags. So if she needs one or two, she takes them out, cooks to perfection, and serves. By freezing them first on a tray, she avoids the problem of ending up with a large clump of frozen vegetables suitable only for a banquet not a meal ;).

I am seeing a bounty of sweet potato greens this month at the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, and while I know this sounds almost weird, if you like cooked greens you will love sweet potato greens. A common staple in African cuisine, read about cooking sweet potato greens at --
http://theslowcook.blogspot.com/2008/09/sweet-potato-leaves.html
http://marcsala.blogspot.com/2006/06/unusual-greens-part-3.html
http://www.kadirecipes.com/2011/03/29/how-to-cook-sweet-potato-leaves-recette-guineenne-des-feuille-de-patate/

I'm ordering some this month and intend to try them southern style -- chopped finely, cooked with bacon, onions, hot peppers, a dab of vinegar, and some liquid smoke.

Here's an interesting twist on breading fish.  Some of us have to watch our carb consumption due to problems with diabetes.  So instead of breading some tilapia with cornmeal, I used pecan meal.  I made my own pecan meal by pulsing the pecans in a coffee grinder.  Probably a food processor or blender would be better, but I didn't have one handy.  then I just dipped the fish filets in an egg wash, and in the pecan meal and  then into the frying oil.  Very Tasty.  As soon as the weather cools off a bit so I start cooking inside again, I am going to try to make a pecan meal muffin.  there are quite a few recipes in the online low carb communities for almond meal or almond flour muffins, and pecans are as low carb as almonds, or almost anyway. And pecans are an Oklahoma product available through the Oklahoma Food Cooperative.

Memo to producers: when are we going to see some Oklahoma-grown tilapia?  I'm tired of buying Chinese tilapia.

Speaking of counting carbs, yogurt cheese is a great low carb product, maybe 5 grams of carbohydrate per cup (and a cup of yogurt cheese is a lot).  Most of the carbs in yogurt are in the whey, and yogurt cheese is basically yogurt minus much of the whey.  So if you are counting carbs for weight loss or diabetes issues, yogurt cheese should be on your Oklahoma Food Cooperative shopping list this month.

This is a good month for eating what's available, which is, after all, the most basic premise of the Oklavore movement.  There is a tremendous amount of food available this month at the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, and even our prepared foods are for the most part less expensive than eating out.  So instead of spending seven to ten dollars buying an inferior lunch, stock up on prepared foods from our coop producers and take your lunch with you. You will certainly be healthier, and the food will be tastier.  It's a mystery to me why some people won't hesitate to spend seven bucks at a fast food restaurant but hesitate to spend a similar amount for some good wholesome food that they could bring from home for their lunch.

I also want to continue to remind us all of the great value of our non-food items, especially the body and laundry care products available through the Oklahoma Food Cooperative.  Many of these products from the big box stores create toxic stews in our water, and God only knows what they could be doing to your body. Many of them are tested on animals, who suffer greatly as a result.  Our artisan body and laundry care products are better for the earth, never tested on animals, and in fact offer great value. Sure, the sticker price on some of them might be a bit higher than at the big box store, but when you figure the "price per wash" or "price per load of laundry", you are saving money. Quality always counts.

Don't forget to pick up the plants you need for this fall.  Fall in Oklahoma is a great time to plant perennials and it looks like there are lots of plants available this month.

Any way you look at it, the prospects for the 2012 wheat crop are looking rather grim. This article from AgWeb -- Next drought victim: 2012 wheat crop? is "read and weep".

So how is your family's wheat storage program?  Did you reply -- "what wheat storage program?"  Well, here's the facts.  The US government used to maintain a strategic reserve of wheat, but that was all sold off long ago and not replaced.  So if you want to protect your family -- call it a "famine hedge" -- it's up to you to buy, store, and hold your own supply of wheat and other foods. Wheat has the virtue of staying good for 30 years and more when properly stored. I'll say more about storing wheat in my next post in a few days, but in the meantime, I want to say that those bags and buckets of wheat available on the September order at today's prices may look positively cheap and "value priced" if we don't get a wheat crop in 2012.

And we quite frankly might not get a wheat crop in 2012.  I know that is an alarmist statement, but we have been running close to the edge on food and energy for a long time --  so close that it won't take a big mis-step to send us sliding over an edge.  For years I have been writing to you and anyone else who would listen about the triple threats we face -- economic irrationality, climate instability, peak energy.  Those are real threats, they are not boogermen that I dreamed up in order to liven up my rhetoric with scary stories.

I know that every single one of us is absolutely invulnerable and will never have an accident or lose our job or fall victim to one or all three of those triple threats, but that feeling of personal invulnerability is an artifact of cheap oil, a relatively stable climate, and personal feelings of economic security encouraged by politicians and advertising. It seems to me that stable climate, cheap oil, and economic security are in increasingly short supply these days.  Just because we haven't slid over the abyss thus far does not mean it won't happen. The closer we get to the edge, the more likely the possibility of a "feeding frenzy" of numerous negative feedback loops reinforcing each other thus creating the risk of a dystopic downward spiral of devolution.

Note also that when it comes to food storage, meat is an important food to stock up on. With a good freezer, meat keeps very well.  Manual freezers are much better than frost free refrigerators, and be sure to develop a back-up system in case the power fails. A simple backup is a marine battery, an inverter big enough to power your freeer, and jumper cables to recharge your battery once its depleted from your car or pickup.  A better choice for recharging would be a small generator and a battery charger.  I'll say more about this later.  The long-term impact of drought will certainly drive an increase in the cost of meat.

• There will be smaller herds, since many ranchers are selling off their herds due to the high cost of feed and the drought impact on their pastures, and
• The costs of feed and other inputs are skyrocketing.

So now's a good time to stock up on all the meats.  Once you get your stock built up, rotate it regularly. Buy extra now to get to where you need to be on your storage program, then go back to buying what you typically use in a month, and rotate your supplies so you always have (for example) six months or more of meats in your freezer.

So ask yourself again -- "how is my family food storage program" -- and if you don't like the answer, now is the time to convert some of your family's savings into food.  Every household should keep some of its savings in the form of food.

If you think it is about time that you paid more attention to bracing for the on-coming storm, besides bulking up your food storage, I invite you to invest $10 in purchasing a copy of the permaculture design for my home, Gatewood Urban Homestead, available as a PDF delivered via email this and every month through the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. My producer name is Prairie Rose Permaculture, and if you want it on a CD, you can get it that way too but it costs a bit more since I have to buy a CD and an envelope to deliver it in.


Finally, I would like to say a word about the Oklahoma Worker Cooperative Network, which is my latest cooperative organizing effort. A worker cooperative is a business that is owned, controlled, and managed by its worker-owners.  We are going on tour in late September and in the month of October, to present an introductory evening participatory workshop.  We're calling our tour -- "A Better Way to Go to Work".  There will be presentations in Stillwater, Shawnee, Norman, El Reno, Edmond, OKC NE, OKC SE, OKC NW, and OKC SW.  See our Fall Tour page for the places and dates, all of the meetings will start at 7 PM.  They are free, and we invite anyone who is interested in the concept of worker cooperatives and participating in an economy of solidarity to attend.  In a sea of economic irrationality, worker owned cooperatives are islands of economic rationality and security. 

If you think that you would be interested in starting a worker owned cooperative -- and in the field of growing and producing local foods, there are many entrepreneurial possibilities -- or if you would like to help jump start this concept in Oklahoma -- I invite you to join the Oklahoma Worker Cooperative Network, which is itself structured as a cooperative. A membership share is only $25.

Well, folks, I have written myself into a storm of hunger. So I am going to take my own advice and have some egg salad, made with coop eggs and April Harrington's Most Delicious dill-zucchini relish and coop onions  (OK, the mayo and mustard came from Buy for Less, but I was out of yogurt cheese or I would have used that).

Y'all bon appetit, you hear?  

PS.  To join the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, click HERE.

On supporting your local producer community during really hard times.

The hardest times we've experienced since the beginning of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative are certainly upon us now.  The triple threats of peak energy, economic irrationality, and climate instability are sending three strikes on farm country.  Feed prices are climbing through the roof, the drought and heat is destroying crops, and meanwhile, the see-saw economic craziness that is beyond our control continues to run riot over the globalized markets.

And its not just in farm country.  Many of us in the cities are having to cut back on our expenses because of situations that are beyond our control.

What to do?  Well, here is Bobby Max Waldrop's  4 point program for helping our growing local producer community to get through these hard times that will also help you increase the quality of life of your own household. 

Part the First:  Eat What's Available.

In the past, I have often said "Eat what's available."  That remains good advice. I'm the first to notice the shortage of vegetables this summer, even though we have more vegetable producers than ever before. The climate is against us this year, my home garden is doing no better.  I am barely keeping some container tomatoes and hot peppers alive, and getting only a couple handfuls of small tomatoes each week off of 6 plants. So I buy what I can, and get the rest at the store. But I continue to buy my meats from the coop, since they remain in good supply. If you can't afford to buy all your meats from the coop, then buy your ground meat, or some ground meat from the coop.  Ground meat from the big box supermarkets is true mystery meat. Each pound may have meat from dozens of different animals from six different states.   Isn't it worth $30/month to help these farmers get through these hard times?

Part the Second: Cut Your Local Food Budget Last.

If you have to cut your budget, cut your local food purchases last. Some years ago, as the coop develop, I got a little behind in my personal economy, looked critically at my budget, and dumped my monthly cell phone contract in favor of a cheap pay as you go phone that I use as little as possible.  We shop a LOT in the after market -- thrift stores, flea markets, etc.

Part the Third: Buy Non-Food Items From Local Producers

What about your non-food purchases?  Are you still buying bath and laundry soap at the grocery store?  What about other body care products? The artisanal body care products offered by our coop's producers are true values. They may be priced a bit more than the supermarket, but they last longer -- "more wash per bar" should be the motto of all of our soap producers. Our producers' body care products are not tested on animals. Their production does not pollute the environment. The money spent for them does not go to giant soulless corporations but instead stays right here in our Oklahoma economy and supports our producers and their families.  If you want to feel good physically -- and emotionally -- after you bathe, then use soap from our coop's producers.

Here's one anecdote about using non-food products.  Early on, I bought some laundry detergent from Rowdy Stickhorse. It came with a tiny little scoop and said One Scoop Per Load.  I looked at that and thought, "This can't be right" and kept on using my usual quarter cup scoop.  When I told Paulette about that, she laughed and said she was fine with selling me all the soap I would be, but it really did only require one of those tiny little scoops per load.  So I tried it, and she was right.  I've used Rowdy Stickhorse and I've used Crosstimbers laundry soaps (the powders) and I like all of them and consider all of them to be great values. If you have never tried laundry detergent from the Oklahoma Food Coop, your clothes will thank you if you try it this month.

Part the Fourth: Keep the Faith.

Finally, the third point is simple -- keep the faith.  Everything that we have said about local food for the last eight years remains true and important.

• Our cities will only prosper as our rural areas prosper. 
• When farm country is hurting, everyone is hurting. 
• Developing local food systems is an important adaptation to the threats of peak energy, economy irrationality, and climate instability which are upon us in all of their crazed fury. 
• Local food is the best tasting food.  
• Local food is best for the environment. 
• Local food is best for you and your family and especially for your children.

In healing our environment and creating a more stable local economy, we can rank our decisions as good, better, and best.  "Best" of course would be to buy most of your food and non-food items from local farmers and producers.  But if you can't do that best choice, make a better choice, and buy a significant proportion of your household's needs from local producers. And if that isn't possible, make a good decision and buy something every month, say $30 to $40 worth, to keep faith with our local producers and help them get through these hard climate and economic times into a better future.

Each of us holds the future of our local food systems in our own hands. I hope you will join me this month, and each month to come, in supporting our local producers by purchasing something from them that your family can use.

http://www.oklahomafood.coop sign in and order today -- or if you aren't a member, sign up now!  If you are one of those members who joined and has never ordered, while we appreciate the support of your membership share, it is equally important that our local producer community be supported on a regular basis with some of your grocery dollars.  So take a chance, spend $30 or $40 and see what good food and non-food items we have.

It's TOO HOT to shop so I'm going to the COOP!

Cucumbers in yogurt. . . green bean salad. . . ham salad. . . Santa Fe chicken salad. .  . and thoughts on keeping cool in the extreme heat. . .

106 degrees today, 110 degrees tomorrow and the next day. . . IT IS TOO HOT TO SHOP! That's why I'm going to the online coop store for groceries this month.  Yes, it's true, the August order of the Oklahoma Food Coop is open and I can sit here in my nice cool house and order away online. It sure beats driving to a big box supermarket, parking and hiking across 60 acres of blazing hot asphalt to the front door, and then repeating that process when I am done.

The vegetable aisle looks a little lean this month.  But then, it is August, and this is the hottest and driest summer since modern record-keeping began in the last decades of the 19th century. We still have onions, and it looks like there are lots of potatoes available, so remember the first rule of local foods: Buy when in season and store for eating later. You will want some of those potatoes and onions in November and December for your Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, so plan ahead.  You could buy a whole year's worth of onions, and caramelize them by the pot-full in your crockpot, and then freeze them in recipe-size portions for eating later.

Remember also that it pays to shop the Coop often during the order period.  Producers with both eggs and vegetables will often wait until later in the order window to post their products, since they may not be sure what will be available 3 weeks from now right this very day.  But over the next week or so, it will become more evident to them and then we will see some inventories start to increase.

And then there is also the little detail that there is quite a bit of non-seasonal food available year from from the Coop.  Buffalo, Beef, Pork, Lamb, Cheese, Yogurt, Grains, Flours and Meals. . . you can certainly make many meals out of these deals. 

Don't forget your non-food items.  Laundry soap? Check. Bath soap? Check. Yes it costs more but yes it is also a superior artisinal product so actually, these body care products cost less than their store-bought cousins, if we could just figure out how to give a figure for "cost per bath", lol.  The hard part about buying our artisinal bath soaps and such is deciding which "flavors" you want. Which is fine, you could buy more than one you know. 

So what are we going to cook this month?

Well, once thing I like is cucumbers and yogurt, both of which are available this month. Sometimes I shred the cucumber into the yogurt, and add a bit of fire like a chopped jalapeno or cayenne or powdered or crushed red pepper. Those who have been reading my recipes for a while are well aware of my deplorable habit of adding heat to everything, so go ahead, add more than you think you need since the dairy tends to cut the heat of hot peppers anyway.

Or. . . I peel the cuke and quarter it, and then slice it into thin quarter moons. Add this to some yogurt and then if you are making (for example) one cup, add about a half tablespoon of your favorite home-made or locally made jam or jelly.  It adds just a bit fo sweetness and some fruit flavor, peach and strawberry both seem really nice for this, without adding a bunch of carbs and such.

Another summer favorite is green bean salad. so pull some of those green beans that you picked and canned earlier this year off the shelf, drain the liquid and dress them with vinegar and oil and just a hint of sweetness.  You could use sugar or Splenda. . . or here again you add a hint of fruit to the complex of flavors by using some peach or strawberry or grape jam. Jam making is much easier than most people think, but you can also buy great jams from our coop's artisanal prepared food producers.

What's that you say? You didn't put up any green beans, in fact, you didn't grow any green beans at all. Well you are certainly missing out.  Green beans are one of the best vegetables to grow in Oklahoma. You can raise them in the spring and in the fall. The more you pick them the more they produce, and you can pressure can them for eating later.  But if you don't have any on hand, you'll want to store-bought cans, a quarter cup each of vinegar and oil (extra virgin olive, please!), and sugar, Splenda, or jam to taste.

What else sounds good. . . hmmmm. . . how about some Minced Ham Salad?  Great hams are sold hereabout these parts, so get one and chop some of it very finely. Maybe about a half pound.  Then mince some onion finely, and add some good relish.  I highly recommend the varioius relishes available from our coop for this, including the zucchini relish, also for egg salad, deviled eggs, hot dogs, and anything else you would put relish on.  Many people think relish can only be made from cukes, and while fine relishes are made from pickled cukes, it is rather pedestrian to limit our choice to just cucumber pickle relishes when there are so many other fine relishes out there, like zucchini.  Then add some mayo and go ahead and get some organic celery from the store and put some of that in there too. 

If you're starting with a half pound of ham chunks, you'll want a half cup of mayo, 1 celery stalk, 1/4 cup relish, 1/4 cup minced onion. If you can't get organic celery, don't add celery, as conventional celery is one of the worst veggies in the supermarket for pesticide residue.  Celery is one vegetable that must always be bought organic, and it's not something that really will grow well around here. Lovage, on the other hand, has kind of a smoky celery flavor, and it will grow quite nicely hereabout these parts and is a perennial, which makes it a double value for the price of planting.  I have used lovage in just about everything that I would use celery and it was fine.

Extra chicken? Well, substitute chicken for ham.  Add some chili powder and a little heat and call it "Santa Fe Chicken Salad".

Let's say a quick final word about energy conservation.  As folks know, we've done a lot of work to make our house more energy efficient.  Because of the 9 inches of insulation in our walls and 14 inches in the attic, plus our R-20 interior insulated window shutters, we can cool our entire 1548 sq ft house with only 20K btus of AC equipment. that amount of AC equipment is designed to cool about 600 sq ft, and we rarely have all those btus going at the same time. So we're saving money every month on our electrical bill, and reducing our global warming emissions, and thus making out like a moderately fat rat during these hard times.  It also helps that we planted extensive landscaping outside that shades the house.  It hurt us a bit this summer when the city made us cut down five of our fruit trees due to their bogus claim of "view obstruction", but oh well, I forgive them for their sins just as O hope to be forgiven for mine, which are many.

So while the summer is brutal, never think that we are totally at the mercy of the elements. With smart work we can adapt our dwellings to meet the new extreme normals of this age of climate and economic and social chaos. But the thing is -- none of this happens on its own. We didn't wake up one morning and find our house adapted. We made a plan and we implemented it and now we get to harvest the fruits of those design decisions. 

Don't know where to start?  Caulk and weatherize. Caulk is cheap.  Heat always moves towards cold, so in the summer, all those leaks around your doors and windows and other places are letting HEAT in to turn your nice interior coolness into hotness, and thus forcing your AC to work harder and harder.  Next, shade your windows and doors, from the outside. Curtains are fine on the inside, but your goal should be to keep the heat from hitting your windows in the first place. Once the sun hits the glass or the frame, the heat gets inside by conduction, even if you have interior curtains.

So order up some tasty local foods, that do good as well as taste good, and start making your own household plan to adapt your own dwelling to meet the extremes of the future that is coming at us.

In 2005 I said that things were going to go from bad to worse, when we did our extreme green renovation, and I am sorry to say that I was write.  That process is going to continue. The sooner we adapt our dwellings to the looming realities, the safer we will be -- and the less money we will spend on energy.

For more details, see my printable flyer on keeping cool during the extreme heat of summer at http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/summer2007.pdf .