The 4th Dark Days Challange Basic Rules are simple,  Make four meals per month out of sustainable, organic, local, ethical food. You can eat any and all local foods from within 150 miles of your home, my extra’s are olive oil and Salt/Spices, my added extra rule is that each meal needs at least one thing raised or processed that was raised on the farm per meal. Anytime its a ZERO mile food in the meal it will be listed in Italics

Week One:

•  Lamb Stew Meat, Lamb Stock, Onion,Garlic, Pototo’s, Cream Corn, One big bag of whole frozen farm grown tomato’s, frozen diced Green Peppers, Brick Top Mushrooms Salt, Pepper, Bay Leaf Basil, Parsley, Stinging Nettle, Horseradish leaves and Minxed Horseradish.

My offical Zero Mile Food for this week is our wonderful Lamb! Having said that, as you can see we thought we would go all out for this first meal and other then a bit of spice, everything in the meal an for dessert is all Zero Mile Food!

Now, I had to laugh, as I don’t tend to follow recipes, I just tend to cook and taste as I go, but today, I wrote out the stew and then had to come back and redo the changes I made to it.. Note to self.. wait till you are done making it before writing it out.

So a few extra in regards to info, if you want to make Lamb or Beef Bone Broth, I would recommend that you follow the same steps given to make Turkey/Chicken/Rabbit/Duck Broth

But for the big bones, first bake them uncovered in the oven till they get a dark rich brown on them, then add them to the pot and follow the same as the other.. the roasting of the bones will give you the same wonderful deep brown color naturally that you get in store bought cubes, otherwise, you lamb broth will come out a light brown/grey.. it won’t look as good or have the same depth of flavor as Roasted Bone Broth will..  If you are worried about time in the oven, work in batches, make bread, roast veggies at the same time as the bones.. it will be worth it..

Second tip.. you know when you are working in the fall and get to the point after several hundred pds of tomato’s that you are so tired of processing and you want to go to bed.. Here is my tip.. core (top and tail) your tomato’s, these need to be nice big ones, and throw them whole into your freezer baggy and freeze laying flat, you can stack them afterwards.. then when things have slowed down (use these up fairly soon, within 3 months is best), you take the bag out, and while the tomato’s are still frozen solid, you place under warmish running water, the skin will just peel off, and can be feed to pig/chickens or composted and you are left with a whole skinless tomato, very quick and easy.. these will of course turn to mushy paste when thawed out, but that works very well for soups/stews etc. You can see them above after I have removed the skins and here they are ten min later thawed and blended in their pot with the stick.. perfect tomato sauce to go in a stew!

Now I have seen in the few other folks that have posted their meals, that they tended to have a number of dishes and I can see that if I had done leg of lamb or a chicken etc but I am staying “normal” for us, and that means we will serve up a heaping bowl of stew for dinner and finish off with a dessert of Apple Sauce.

• Crabapple/Apple Sauce,
• Cinnamon, Ginger, Cloves 

The Apple/Crabapple Sauce was made this fall and frozen, I added the above and simmered it till thick for the dessert.

Week Two Menu

Breakfast Meal -Our offical Zero Food this week is a staple-Fresh Eggs

1. Beef Breakfast Sauage-Beef from three farms down the road, Onion, Barbaque Sauce, Garlic, Horseradish, Salt, Pepper, Italian Herbs
2. Roasted Potato’s, with fresh green Onion, Olive Oil
3. One Dippy Egg, Fried in half tsp butter-St.Albert Butter
4. Cup of Mint tea, Local Raw Honey

Runner up meal that was not “planned” as a Dark Days Meals but in the end fit it to a T..

One and half cup Flour, one fresh egg, 1/4 cup roasted butternut Squash, a pinch of Salt. Sauce was homemade pasta sauce with diced lamb patties mixed in.