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We challenged people in Mission, B.C., to try local eating for 100 days starting June 1. Nearly 100 people signed up—and we couldn’t resist signing up, too. Can a community change the way it eats? It’s never too late to get involved: Join in for a month, a week, even a single meal.

DAY 66 - I think this puts us at two-thirds of the way through the diet. To be honest, in my imagination, I’m already looking back on the Mission Challenge experience with a feeling of nostalgia - and it isn’t even done yet.

While we were renewing our site, Angela, who cancels her cable TV in the summer, sent in some really interesting notes. First up, she did her home accounting - and came up with some numbers that blow away the argument that local eating isn’t affordable for the average family.

Thought you’d also be interested to know that I totalled my grocery bills for this month and I’m exactly where I used to be, which says a lot because Mike used to eat out for most of his lunches at work and he’s no longer doing that. So if you work the savings of his not eating out into the grocery budget, we’re probably ahead by about $200! That offsets the $600 extra we spent the first month. I don’t think things have gotten cheaper, I think we’re learning to cook and eat differently. Plus now everyone realizes how much work and effort goes into putting that food on the table and that really effects how much you eat and more importantly how much you waste!

Of course, you have to be smart about how you spend. My earlier blog gave some general principles for local eating on a budget, and below, Angela gets down to specifics on some of those recommendations.

Just a little cost cutting tip for all you local carnivores. I only buy organic meat and organic steak is sooo expensive. But if you buy a cheap cut of steak like a blade marinating steak, you can marinate it in buttermilk along with some local salt, herbs, and garlic. Let it sit anywhere between two hours to overnight. It is so tender it’s like cutting through butter, so much cheaper than the expensive cuts of grilling steaks, and in my opinion much more flavorful. So what are you waiting for get grilling! Hopcott in Pitt Meadows will frequently have it on sale for $3 a pound…so don’t tell me you can’t afford local, organic meat!

And here’s another tip - with a recipe - based on the important local eating rule, DO NOT WASTE FOOD.

The longer I’m on this challenge the more I’ve come to realize that much of the food we eat is actually a by-product of something else. Now I know this doesn’t sound appetizing, but give me a second and your wallet will have a completely different opinion! Butter was difficult to find and when we did find it, it wasn’t organic and cost $5.29 a pound. So I bought some organic whipping cream at about the same price and popped it into my trusty mixer on low and walked away. About 10-15 minutes later what do I have…butter, with a whole lot of buttermilk as a by-product! Now I have 2 lbs. of organic butter and it only cost me about $5 - a 50 percent savings. But what to do with all the buttermilk? Let’s see…use it in pancakes, marinate meat, make crème fraîche and cream cheese, what else? Never thought you could have so many uses for a mere by-product did you!

Then, the other day my mom gave me some Saskatoon berries. Let me apologize ahead of time to all you Saskatoon berry fans, but I thought they were awful! It tasted like a smoker had previously sucked on them and spat them back into the bowl. But being as frugal as I am I couldn’t waste them..what to do. I put them in a pot with some water with a bit of honey and boiled the stink out of them! The liquid was poured off and I mixed it half and half with apple cider. The transformation was amazing, I think it’s my favourite juice to date! Now I’m left with all the skins and pulp from the berries…can’t waste that (you’d swear I grew up in the depression) so I left about 10% of the juice in them, added a little more honey and popped it in the blender. Now I have Saskatoon berry jam with zero effort, and again it’s surprisingly good…yet another food item made from a mere by-product…I wonder how many more there could be?

Crème Fraîche

500 mls 10% or 18% organic cream
5 tbsp buttermilk

Pour room-temperature cream into a sterilized jar and add buttermilk, give a quick stir then let sit overnight at room temperature. That’s it! You’ll never go back to sour cream!

You can make spreadable cream cheese with the same recipe, but using whipping cream. When set, sit on a sieve lined with cheese cloth and let the whey drip off. The whey, yet another by-product, is great used in cream soups or fruit smoothies and is apparently really good for you.

Thanks, Angela!

–JBM

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