Being BOLD on a Budget!

Image Courtesy of Microsoft Clip Art

Although eating locally-grown, organic foods is great for your health, it’s often tough on your wallet. Organic foods can cost much more than the same foods grown using conventional farming practices. But, there’s no need to fear! Below is a list of our top five tips to help you and your family be BOLD on a budget!

·         Start Your Own Organic Garden! Even if you live in a small apartment and don’t have the space to start a large outdoor garden, you can still set aside a small area in your kitchen or on your patio for a small herb garden.

·         Use Coupons! Quite a few organic food producers offer coupons to help customers save money when buying their products. You just have to know where to find them! Web sites such as Earth Fare, Food for Life, and Whole Foods Market offer lots of coupons that can be printed or used online to purchase organic foods.

·         Shop In-Season! If you’re trying to be BOLD without going over your weekly grocery budget, buying organic tomatoes in the middle of winter may not be the smartest idea. Tomatoes, as well as many other crops, are not in-season in Maryland during the certain months. Because supermarkets cannot purchase their organic tomatoes from local farmers, they have to import them from other countries. Importing crops from other countries is expensive, and supermarkets do not hesitate to pass the extra cost along to their customers. Buying only those foods that are in-season and can be purchased from local farmers will save you a lot of money at the register.

·         Buy in Bulk! Can’t imagine going through the winter months without tomatoes? Buy them (as well as other organic fruits and vegetables) in bulk when they are in-season. At home, can, dry, and pickle them for later use during those months when they are not in-season. Never canned fruits and vegetables before? Not a problem! Visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation web site for tips to help you get started.

·         Join a CSA! Organic foods purchased through participation in a community supported agriculture (CSA) program are often much cheaper than when purchased at the supermarket. To learn more about CSAs and how they work, read our past blog post.

So, there you have it! Our top five tips to help you and your family be BOLD on a budget. We hope you find them as helpful as we do. If you have any personal tips or tricks that might help others be BOLD on a budget, please share them in the “Comments” field below. 

BOLD Recipe of the Week: Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Image Courtesy of localfoods.about.com

Nothing makes you feel more warm and fuzzy on a cold winter day than a nice bowl of chicken noodle soup. But you don’t need to run out to grocery store and pick up that signature red and white Campbell’s can to enjoy this family favorite. You can make it right in your very own kitchen using fresh, locally-grown organic ingredients. Check out the recipe below, reprinted from localfoods.about.com, for chicken noodle soup prepared the BOLD way!

Ingredients:

·         8 cups chicken broth, divided

·         2 stalks celery, thinly sliced

·         1 leek, white and light green parts thinly sliced (NOTE: Clean leek thoroughly to avoid gritty soup)

·         1 carrot, diced

·         2 cups shredded chicken meat

·         8 ounces egg noodles

·         Salt to taste

Directions:

1.       In a large soup pot over medium-high heat, warm ¼ cup chicken broth. Add celery, leeks, and carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Add remaining broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, undisturbed, until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.

2.       Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook noodles until tender to the bite. Drain and set aside.

3.       Add chicken to soup and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes. Add cooked noodles and cook until head through, about 1 minute. Add salt to taste. Serve hot.

According to the web site, this recipe will make six ample servings of homemade chicken noodle soup. You can find celery, leeks, and carrots at any winter farmers’ market in the area. In addition, you can purchase organic chicken to use in this dish from Ferguson Family Farm, a farm located in Baltimore County that sells organic meat products to local residents and was recently spotlighted on this blog.

Do you have any BOLD recipes you would like to share with us? Just drop us a note in the “Comments” field and let us know your thoughts. You might even see your recipe featured on the blog! Also, please be sure to check out more winter recipes on localfoods.about.com, which features recipes for many winter-themed soups, entrees, desserts, and snacks that use locally-grown, organic foods as part of their ingredients.

Delicious-ly BOLD!

Image Courtesy of Buzzom

Be BOLD Baltimore! loves reaching out to the community through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and this blog. But, there’s an interesting little site that you might not have heard about that’s also helping us spread our message. It’s called delicious.com.

Started in 2003, Delicious is a popular social bookmarking web site. This means that campaigns like ours, as well as individual people like you, can create accounts and share fun, interesting links with followers. Basically, if you find a cool web site that you think other people should know about, you log into your Delicious account and post the link to that site on your page. People who are following you will see what you’ve posted and can check it out.

Also, if you share a lot of links about the same topic, like organic eating, you can pull those links together and create a “stack.” That way, if your followers are interested in a particular topic, they can see all of the links you have posted about that one topic in one place. The most interesting stacks are featured on the Delicious home page and shared with all of the site’s visitors.

Since we launched our campaign, Be BOLD Baltimore! has shared 28 links on Delicious. These links contain information about all things BOLD -- from the opening of local, organic eateries in the Baltimore area to how organic foods help promote weight loss.

We’ve also created three stacks, all of which have been featured on the Delicious home page. We have a stack about local organic markets and products, a stack about organic diets and weight loss, and a stack about Baltimore destinations and restaurants that offer foods prepared with locally-grown, organic ingredients.

So, if you want more information about what you can do to include more locally-grown, organic foods in your diet, check out our Delicious page.

Also, if you have a link you’d like to share, drop us a line in the “Comments” section. We’re more than happy to add your recommended links to our Delicious page.

The Dogwood Restaurant: A BOLD Fine Dining Choice

Image Courtesy of the Dogwood Restaurant

Last week, Be BOLD Baltimore! featured the Woodberry Kitchen on our blog as a BOLD dining opportunity for couples and families who want to keep their commitment to being BOLD, but also want to enjoy a nice evening out.

This week, we want to introduce you to the Dogwood Restaurant, a Hampden area restaurant that is proud to offer residents “sustainable American cuisine.” The Dogwood Restaurant uses natural ingredients in all of its meals and buys its ingredients from local farms whenever possible. It offers catering and private dining experiences, as well as a unique training program that up-and-coming local restaurant professionals should definitely look into.

The Dogwood Restaurant offers a wide range of locally-grown, organic dishes. During Baltimore Restaurant Week 2012, try a dinner featuring the daily soup selection and wild-caught Virginia catfish, and top it off with a slice of cranberry upside down cake for dessert. However, because the Dogwood Restaurant cooks only with foods that are in-season, its menu changes from time-to-time in order to make sure its customers are served nothing but the best, freshest foods the area has to offer. For the most up-to-date menu, visit the restaurant’s web site before you visit. 

Be BOLD Even When It’s Cold!

Many of you might be asking why the organizers of the Be BOLD Baltimore! campaign decided to start our campaign during the winter months – a time with few active farmers’ markets and few locally-grown foods available. However, as the video above shows, it is still possible to be BOLD during the coldest time of the year.

Produced by Watch Mojo, this two-minute video features an interview with the owner of the Green Panther, a restaurant that focuses on preparing meals with only locally-grown, organic ingredients. The video explains the benefits associated with eating locally-grown, organic foods and talks about the types of crops that thrive during the winter months.

So, what are you waiting for? Go pick-up some locally-grown, organic potatoes, squash, or leeks and make a BOLD and delicious meal your family won’t soon forget!