Stacey: Cooking Local in Week 9

Dan    Ask Dan     calgary, cooking, Kick The KD, learning, Stacey, thoughts

This week we took a look at using local ingredients for every day recipes.  We made a roast chicken from Spragg’s Meat Shop, ‘smashed’ potatoes using King’s Orchard purple potatoes and honey apple tarts using apples also from King’s Orchard (grown in Strathmore, AB) and honey from Golden Acres Honey (Three Hills, AB).

Dan’s hope for us was to develop a ‘feel good’ connection with our food by supporting local, sustainable and natural ingredients.  My response is that I did feel good supporting farms from around the city since you can almost see your money put to work.  You are not paying some bureaucratic chain; you are supporting your neighbours.  Additionally, I think food that is almost ‘fresh off the vine’, as it were, just tastes better.  It’s like picking carrots from your backyard.

Our special guest this week was Dan’s grandma, Evelyn.  I think it is a rare privilege to get to share something like KTKD with your grandma and having her there for us to display our new cooking knowledge too was a real treat!  She wasn’t so sure about the purple potatoes or the chili powder in the apple tarts, but she was very proud of Dan! (and rightly so!)

With ‘local’ in mind, this week’s homework was to recreate a meal from a recipe already seen in class this time with local ingredients and then reflect on if being aware of where the ingredients came from helped us give pride in what we had cooked.  I think I already knew the answer to that, but was excited to treat it as homework nonetheless.

I decided to make the alfredo sauce because it was an easy recipe, we loved the taste in class and because the ingredients were as ‘in season’ as anything can be right now.

Unfortunately, I did not get myself together in time to make it to the Farmer’s Market where I could have found the onions, garlic, chicken, butter and cream from farmers near the city so I instead settled on finding ingredients that were at least from Canada.  Going to the grocery store and being conscious of the producer made me feel savvy and I noted that the prices were comparable to the imported products.

The alfredo sauce garnered excellent reviews however I am getting a little worried that my family is catching on to my one trick pony (I always choose the pasta sauce recipes!)…but it doesn’t seem like they are complaining

I would like to try this again (once exams are over) but instead make it to the Farmer’s Market as I do believe there is strong merit in being food conscious and supporting local businesses.  It’s all a part of Kicking the KD!

- Stacey

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