Day 26: Sustainable Ag

Name: Emi

School: Rice University

Greenest

I couldn't make it to the farmer's market today, because it is only open on Tuesdays. But what I did was to create an all-local Mexican meal using ingredients that can be found at the Rice Farmer's Market, and visited a free-range chicken farm!

Loco-Local Chips con Queso, Tacos, y FlanIngredients

(Chips con Queso)

Fresh cheese Tomatoes Serrano Peppers Cilantro Tortilla chips

(Tacos)

Tortillas Ground Beef Lettuce Tomatoes

(Flan)

Condensed sweet milk Sugar 3 eggs Vanilla

Can provide:

Fresh cheese (chips con queso) Condensed sweet milk (flan)

Story:

Real Food Revolution at Rice frequents the Blue Heron farms and plays with the goats and learns about why goat cheese is a great alternative to conventional dairy products. Starting as a small-scale farm in 2006, this local Houston farm takes care of its small herd and produces great-quality cheese.

Christian and Lisa, the owners of the farm, both grew up in the city-life style, going to college, listening to punk rock, traveling the world as sound engineers, and getting jobs as greeting card writers. Eventually, they decided to settle down in the country life and see experience the satisfaction of caring for a farm.

Christian and Lisa with one of their long-eared goats

Can Provide:

Ground Beef (Tacos)

Story:

Pearl's Pastured Beef started as a family farm in Twin Creeks Ranch in Franklin. Their cattle spend their whole lives in low-stress, peaceful environments and are hormone and antibiotic-free. 98% of their diet is grass and the other 2% consist of natural breeder cubes made in Bryan, Texas.

Can Provide:

Tortillas Tortilla Chips

Story:

Angela’s Oven is a family owned and operated bakery in the Houston Heights area. All of their bread and pastries and are handcrafted without the use of preservatives or dough conditioners. They use only unbleached, unbromated bread flours.

Can Provide:

Eggs Cilantro Tomatoes Lettuce Serrano Peppers

Story:

Mike, Theresa, and Bobby work to manage their 4th-generation farm. Although they started off primarily growing tomatoes, their variety grew with demand throughout the ages. Now they have a tremendous variety of vegetables, fruits, and even chickens, and sell their produce weekly at the Farmer's Market. Their 7 principles of successful farming are preparation of land, soil fertility, proper equipment, variety of seed, good weather conditions, neat and clean harvesting fresh, and proper marketing.

Cooking Instructions

Chips con Queso

1. Lay out the chips in a deep-dish pan. Preheat the oven to 275 F. 2. Boil 5 Roma tomatoes and 4 serrano peppers until soft. 3. Shave cheese thinly on top of chips, place in oven for 10 minutes. 4. Pluck the stems off of the boiled peppers and place both the peppers and Roma tomatoes in a blender. 5. Take two stalks of celery and add to blender. 6. Add a dash of salt, cumin, and garlic powder to blender, and blend until smooth. 7. Take chips out of oven when finished, and enjoy with fresh salsa!

Loco-Local Tacos

1. Brown the ground beef, add salt if desired. 2. Dice Roma tomatoes and lettuce. 3. Take leftover cheese from Chips con Queso and set aside. 4. Warm tortillas on stove-top pan. 5. Set on table for an assemble-it-yourself meal!

Flan

1. Preheat Oven to 325. Fill deep roasting pan with boiling water. 2. In a saucepan, mix sugar and water on medium-high heat. After about 8 minutes, immerse in ice water bath to halt cooking. 3. In small saucepan, heat milk with 1/4 cup sugar over medium heat for about 5-6 minutes. Do not boil. 4. Whisk egg yolks, and combine with 1/4 cup sugar and a pinch of salt. 5. Add ladle of hot milk mixture to egg mixture and whisk. Continue gradually. 6. Strain mixture through a sieve into a large bowl, add vanilla. divide custard among container to be placed in boiling water. Bake for roughly 35 minutes until set. 7. Chill after baking, and enjoy!

BONUS: Chicken Farm Visit at the Olvera Family Farm!

Here is me with a chicken at the Olvera Family Farm! Their chickens are free-range and just run around the place! I even got to pick a couple up :)