Has it really been more than a week since I posted? Sorry about that. It’s been a bit nutso around here what with packing and house shopping and everything else. But more on that tomorrow.

It’s been almost 3 months since the launch of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge and what a journey it’s been. When I look back I’m amazed at the variety of foods we all managed to find and cook over these days leading up to New Year’s and the winter solstice. I’ve enjoyed doing the recaps and reading everyone’s thoughts and posts. I’ve also really enjoyed the challenge of putting together a couple of 90% local meals each week especially when I don’t have an easily accessible farmer’s market right now.

The past two weeks for us have been filled with lots of things not related to our food or where it comes from. The only truly 90% local meals that we’ve eaten have been a couple bowls of soup from the freezer stash and breakfast almost every day this week. The rest of the time we’ve been eating here at home, but I’ve been indiscriminately mixing local and non-local ingredients just to get food on the table.

Although to our credit, and thanks to our freezer, all of our meat has been local pasture raised pork, beef and poultry. A great variety of our veggies have either been from the freezer or from Central Market where they’ve been either USA / Canada organic or marked “Pacific Northwest”. We’ve been eating healthy quick meals - and they’ve been great.

I realized today that we’ve finished off the ragged ends of the farmer’s market produce from the fridge, the last of the potatoes and onions went into Sunday night’s pot roast (which became tonight’s beef stew), and all that’s really left of the fresh local produce in our house is squash. And you all know how Mike feels about squash.

With everything going on here, I’m going to call this the last formal wrap-up for the DDWELC. I’m still going to keep it up here with our cooking and I’ll try to post what we’re eating that’s interesting, excellent or unusual. If you decide to keep going with it, please drop me a note or leave on comment on my weekly notes. I’d love to keep hearing from everyone.

I think Nicole is going to launch another challenge for going into spring so be sure to drop by and see what she’s got up her sleeve. Nicole, I tried to send you an email back but it kept bouncing - drop me a note at urbanhennery at comcast dot net if you want.

And now for the final wrap-up. And a final thank you to everyone that participated. You truly were an inspiration to me and many others. Best wishes to you for 2008 and beyond - hope to “see” you soon.

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The West:

Week 10 found Anita focusing on lunch (and carnitas tacos) and her wonderful local options. I’m so jealous as there are no good options within 15 minutes of my office, so the only time I get a local lunch out is when I’ve got time for a long lunch…  As like all of us, the holidays threw her plans off a little bit, but she still found time for budin azteca, pizza and ribeye’s with all the fixings during week 11. If you haven’t been following along with her Drink of the Week Friday posts, be sure to tune in for them if you’re a cocktail lover.

Donna found a use for eggs in her week 10 meal, making egg strata in honor of her alma mater. Her week 11 meal was a favorite of her’s, beef stroganoff over mashed potatoes with raw veggies. She also finally found grown in Oregon bread flour and to me the ultimate use for butternut squash!

Ellen turned in a pretty impressive round-up the last couple weeks. Her meals included vindaloo, no knead bread with roasted veggie soup and root salad and a bonus meal from tonight of pot pie and persimmons. The pot pie looked delicious, but the persimmons really got my mouth watering!

Week 10 for Melinda included french toast for dinner, egg scramble for breakfast, fiesta night and local oatmeal. Her past week was spent celebrating the holidays with family and eating their traditional holiday foods far from home.

Katrina finished up her challenge before heading out of town by baking a green squash and serving it in a blue bowl - and then writing a haiku about it. She also wrapped up her 25 green days of Christmas ideas for the year.

Saara rejoins us with some great information about local nuts and what to do with them (the eating kind of course). She also announced the launch of her companion recipe blog Skagit Cooks.

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The Middle:

FarmMom’s last two weeks of meals included that UP specialty the pasty made with beef stew meat and skillet lasagne with all the cheese you could ever need. The Christmas gourds she made are beautiful - I can’t wait to try making them myself!

Week 10 found Anne enjoying home made meatballs, or meatlumps as she dubbed them, and served them with spaghetti. They also made a brunch of local eggs, bacon and purple potato pancakes and Anne enjoyed a solo dinner of potato pierogi with onions and butter. The holidays found her making some compromises and mixing non-local left-overs with local foods for some solid meals including roast chicken with all the fixings, chicken curry and another brunch.

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The East:

Kim reminded us that sometimes consistency is just as important as originality. Her last few meals included this beautiful squash served with baked pork chops and mashed potatoes and local holidays featuring ham, kale and watermelon radishes. Kim also reflected on the challenge, the new sources she found and her plans for using up the rest of the food in her pantry.

Christy’s last couple of meals included vegetable indian vindaloo curry and and spaghetti with sauce canned during the summer. She also finally achieved her goal of a 100% handmade local pizza!

Just before the holidays Ed cooked a very expensive pork butt into stew and served it with braised Savoy cabbage. He very rightly pointed out that local foods, meat in particular, is currently too expensive for low income Americans, and even for most of us to buy for every meal. Perhaps my next project will be to explore the ways we can all change that.

Wendy wrapped up the challenge going into the holidays with a week of meals including barbeque pork sandwiches, meatloaf sandwiches, french toast and a complete Solstice dinner party. She even figured out how to make her traditional “wish bread” with maple syrup instead of brown sugar.

Danielle wrapped up her challenge with an amazing meal of braised chuck roast, mixed greens with pecans, potatoes and roasted root veggies. It was so good she was smacking her lips for 5 minutes afterwards. She also posted a whole series of thoughts on sustainability.

Nicole turned in a whole series of posts to finish out the challenge. Her meals included hominy grits with leeks and butternut, kale and sausage with wine-cooked lentils and Cavi-art with baked potato, porterhouse steak and roasted cauliflower. I think Nicole is launching her own challenge - so keep an eye on her blog just in case.

For her final meal, Jasmine made local greens with couscous using a recipe adapted from Whole Foods. I totally agree with her that store bought pasta combined with local ingredients is better than Lunchables!