One Local Summer

I'm back! Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few months...I've just been lazy. I'll have some posts coming up about the recent adventures I've had, but for now I'm going to concentrate on the "challenge" I've signed up for. Its called One Local Summer, and it involves making a local meal once a week throughout the summer, and blogging about it. For the purposes of this challenge, I'm trying to use only ingredients from within a hundred mile radius, but I'll also be flexible -- salt, dried spices, and the occassional other minor ingredient may fall outside the local boundary, but the vast majority of what I make will be with local ingredients.

And that brings me to the first meal of the challenge!


Taco night!


Soft tacos with zucchini/onion filling, cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, and sour cream; and a gazpacho salad.


And a fresh strawberry tart for dessert!

Ingredients:

Tacos
- soft taco shells: whole wheat flour, canola oil (non-local: baking powder, salt)
- lettuce
- cheddar cheese
- pico de gallo: tomatoes, cilantro, garlic
- zucchini/onion filling: green and yellow zucchinis, canola oil, onions (non-local: salt, cumin, ground coriander, chilli powder, dried oregano)
- sour cream (semi-local; its from about 150 miles away in England)

Gazpacho Salad
- tomatoes
- cucumbers
- red onion
- basil and cilantro
- canola oil
- blackcurrant vinegar (only semi-local; I think the blackcurrants in it are local, but other ingredients included sugar and other vinegars that probably are not local)
- non-local salt

Strawberry Tart
- strawberries
- honey
- pie crust: whole-wheat flour, butter, (non-local: salt, baking soda, sugar (would have used honey, but this was leftover pie dough that wasn't made with the challenge in mind))

I also tried to put together a google maps thingy that shows where my local area is, and where each of the ingredients came from. Its a bit shoddy, but I'm not great with javascript. Check it out here.

I'll be posting weekly (at least) from now on with each of my weekly local meals. Feel free to join the challenge yourself; you don't have to take pictures or blog about it, but its a fun way to find local sources of food in your area.