Crabapples

Yesterday a member of the local food challenge group posted an event to forage for crabapples that were on trees on the campus. While they are frozen you can shake the tree with minimal bruising to the crabapples. They are smaller in the winter but you can still eat them and use them for apple butter, apples sauce and jelly. As long as they frozen before processing they are good. They begin to ferment when they have too long to warm up. 4 of us showed up in the early morning with tarps and buckets. Security guards were watching us during some of it and didn't care. We all got a bucket full and will meet soon to process them. They are sitting outside right now frozen and I will sort through so I can freeze them in the freezer until they are ready.

Local Food Challange

I will be writing a lot about a local food challenge I will be starting this summer. I was a vegetarian for a few years and now eat fish and would eat game meat if we had any. Food is one area that I need to improve in despite that. I am a terrible cook and rely on processed food which I have no problems with in moderation. Living in Alaska not much of my diet is local. It is an area I would like to improve in so I was excited to meet people who were part of a local food challenge.

I'm hoping to improve on the gardening this summer and increase our vegetable crop from that.  I know there is local barley and I heard there are some oats and possibly wheat too. I want to improve the garden and forage for berries and mushrooms. The past few years I dragged my friend on berry picking adventures with not much luck but this year I am determined to get lots of berries. I know there are lots of crab apples in town and some bigger apple varieties you can pick. I also would like to grow micro green sprouts. I eventually like a greenhouse for pumpkins, tomatoes and peppers.

We go dip netting every year and get lots of red salmon from that. We are on a list for moose that get killed on the road. I wouldn't mind hunting but we never did it and don't know people who do. I don't think I could do it and Mike has never hunted before.

I would eventually want to get chickens for eggs and would love to get a goat but I don't know if that is allowed. We have local milk and eggs.

I found some good barley flour recipes through the cooperative extension. They had recipes for breads, noodles, crackers, brownies and cookies They also have info on making yogurt and fruit leather. Some people are looking into getting sugar beet seeds and making sugar from that.

I don't know if I will be able to have a mostly Alaskan diet by this summer but I am going to work towards it. In the meantime I am enjoying convenience foods and trying to think of ways to get close to some of the food we eat locally on the cheap.