Eat Locally - Part 10 Day 5 - Let's Party!

Well, I made it to day 4.5 without cheat eating! WOW! But there is a good reason for the cheating at dinner. Read on my friend.

What did I eat today:
Breakfast: coffee and milk, rice and 2 strips of bacon
Snack: going to the dentist for a filling
Lunch: chicken, herb, shitake mushroom, slivered greens and rice soup
Snack: leftever bitter greens
Dinner: a bunch of samosas (see recipe below), and non-local industrial food. Believe me, I really did not need to eat off the Eat Locally plan, but what are you going to do at a party.

In the non-fiction book Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally, by Alisa Smith and JB Macinnon, they write about eating locally for a whole year. The 1st chapter, they set up the rules, eat locally - within 100 miles of their apartment. They also had exceptions, like lunch meetings at a restaurant, or being invited over to friends for meal or dinner. I agree with those exemptions to the plan. What if they completely shut out the rest of the North America while they did their year long experiment? Then how would their friends and family support them, and learn from their experience? Humans are community oriented in nature, and I think that they did the right thing to bend the rules and allowing themselves to break bread with their neighbors, friends and family.

The Potluck Dinner Birthday Party
I had a potluck birthday party dinner to go to, and I really had no desire to eat off the Local Grown chuckwagon, but to be polite I ate foreign. What was I going to bring to this party that would not be just baked sweet potatoes or spinach? I had to stray off the path to make this potluck party work for me. I made mini sweet potato samosas, and I strayed by using wonton skins and canola oil. I was going to brush these puppies with my locally made butter, melted first, but I got really selfish, and wanted to hoard the butter for my own personal consumption because it tastes so good.

Anyway, here is the recipe:

Baked Eat Locally (mostly) Sweet Potato Samosas
the stuffing
boil up 2 cubed sweet potatoes (no skin), drain well and set aside
in sauce pan add 1 tablespoon butter
sautee yellow curry powder, grated ginger, and cumin until fragrant
add coarsely minced giant scallion and sautee 1 minute
add thinly shredded spinach and sautee 1 minute
add sweet potato chunks and stir well
add salt to taste
add crushed red pepper to taste

Take small square wonton wrapper
put 1 teaspoon of filling in the middle
slightly moisten 2 edges
fold over into a triangle
put on greased pan
spray topside with oil
Bake for 10 minutes at 350F, or until really golden brown
Serve with real plum sauce or mango chutney

I have to say that I found a piece of ginger in my freezer that I forgot I had. Last year, I grew ginger in a pot on my back deck, and harvested the root before winter came. I am thrilled to be able to use the ginger in my cooking this week!

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