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In N Out is a burger chain on the West Coast with locations in California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.  They’ve been around since 1948 and have long prided themselves on good, fresh food.  Their menu is delectably simple - hamburger, cheeseburger, fries, and shakes.  That’s it.

If you’re a conscientious food consumer, eating fast food probably isn’t even on your radar, but at In N Out fast food isn’t synonymous with bad food or huge portions.  The USDA recommends consuming no more than 6 ounces of meat a day (see website), and in an age when fast food joints are routinely putting half a pound or more of meat in their burgers, In N Out hamburger patties are a refreshingly small 2 ounces.

At In N Out, a meal of a cheeseburger and french fries is only 880 calories (800 total if you omit the Thousand Island-esque spread from the burger), significantly less than the 1000+ calorie combo meals pitched by other fast food franchises.  You can look at the Nutritional Information for In N Outs’ various products.  And not only is the above meal short on calories, but also on price.  A cheeseburger, fries, and beverage will run you just $5.

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A mindset of green gratitude emphasizes positive abundance, relishing the glass half full perspective.  An important concept to keep on the front burner, especially as tanking economies fuel table conversations that tend to serve up sentiments of fear, scarcity and deprivation.

Add a dash of green reflection and gratitude to your Thanksgiving table by throwing these three questions on eating and drinking better into the conversation mix:

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The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market:

“is a California certified farmers market operated by the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture“ ~CUESA

The market is open Tuesday and Saturday.

Below are spotlights on a few of their unique vendors in this city building, such as the Far West Fungi shop, and organics from the Farm Fresh to You store.

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A new web service, Local Dirt, is out to make the connection between the local farmer and buyer more convenient. Say you’re looking for local peaches during the season. Local Dirt’s interface allows you to set search criteria based on location, product, and even venue (if you choose), and find a farmer from whom you can buy online. Sleep in on Saturday, get to the market late, and your peaches are still there… the service provides you with a purchase order to take to the vendor. Some of the farmers may even deliver…

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That’s when these Fall Finale Muffins show up on our breakfast table.  Grab the last of the apples and pair them with shredded carrots for a hearty, healthy muffin packed with a nutritional boost.  Because of the high amounts of fresh carrots and apples, along with dried cranberries and nuts, these muffins take on more of a crunchy produce feel than a typical bread-like muffin.  Fall bounty you can hold in your hand.

Make an extra batch as these freeze surprisingly well.  Here’s the recipe:

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With seasons changing yet again, starting a garden might be the last thing on a person’s mind. Not so here in Madison, Wisconsin, where a local group is pushing for more community garden spaces in the downtown area. This isn’t especially newsworthy until you hear where they’re proposing to add the garden – the top of the Madison Public Library.

Community gardens and downtown green space aren’t new ideas, but at a public presentation on Thursday night, members of Downtown Madison Community Gardens, said if their proposal is accepted, the garden would be the first rooftop community vegetable garden on a public library in the world.

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Fall crops – from butternuts to beets – require taking out the big sharp knives, the cutting boards, and usually can’t go from garden to plate in ten minutes or less. (Case in point: the yummy, yet rather complex, Beet Burger recipe I wrote about last week). But there’s a reason for that: these types of fall vegetables are meant to store and be savored through the winter months, particularly here in through our Wisconsin winters. Tougher skins and harder insides hold up to seasonal and local eating booty through our lean Midwest growing months, providing the opportunity to still eat fresh year round.

Consider this Roasted Root Vegetable recipe my point of entry into the winter cooking season. Cooked in olive oil with some simple seasonings, this recipe showcases the distinct, hearty flavors of root vegetables. Potato recipes get temporarily bumped off the breakfast plate at Inn Serendipity this time of year as this flavorful, unusual recipe prompts folks to rethink their assumptions about rutabagas and other roots.

Roasted Root Vegetables (Vegan)

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Pomegranates contain almost half your daily quota of Vitamin C, an antioxidant that is required for at least 300 different metabolic functions in the body. Vitamin C is also a protector from free radical damage and a facilitator of good circulation, which is vital for sexual health and pleasure. They also contain vitamin B5, the anti-stress vitamin needed for proper adrenal function, and vitamins A and E, which help to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Pomegranate oil is now being used in many menopause products to help reduce symptoms, as well as in vaginal creams to help eliminate dryness, which can make sex painful. Pomegranate juice is easily found at your local grocery store, often mixed with other super-fruits, offering you an antioxidant cocktail that is easily assimilated by the body. The seeds are great in cold salads, on (soy) yogurt with some nuts or paired with greens for a sweet and tart delight. Do something good for your body today and try the greens recipes below to increase your overall health and feed your libido at the same time. It doesn’t get much better then that.

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This is a very adaptable, forgiving recipe—feel free to modify and experiment with ingredients.   Carrots can easily substitute for some of the beets.  The burgers freeze well (and taste surprisingly good cold), so we usually make a triple batch in a jumbo bowl.

Here’s the recipe:

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As a female farmer myself, running Inn Serendipity farm and B&B with my husband, John Ivanko, in Wisconsin, this increasing blending and crossover between new women farmers with a passion for raising both cabbage and change cultivates a hefty serving of inspiration. These new women farmers grow more than food for our table; they rethink the status quo approach to our food system and provide keen insights into what needs to change.

“As one of the fastest growing groups of new farmers, women can be the change makers that transform our agricultural system into one that provides organic, healthy and fair food to us all,” explains Faye Jones, Executive Director of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), a Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) member organization that sponsored two women farmers to attend this conference. Wisconsin women farmers Jai Kellum of King’s Hill Farm and Erin Schneider of Hilltop Community Farm attended the CFSC Conference on behalf of MOSES.“It is important to keep the voice of farmers represented in the national discussion on food and agricultural policy and priorities,” sums up Jones.

Here are four of their tips for politicians to policy makers from Kellum and Schneider to improve our agriculture and food system:

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Long roots include carrots, parsnips, burdock and daikon radish. Some of these are excellent blood purifiers and can help improve circulation in the body and increase mental clarity. Round roots include turnips, radishes, beets and rutabagas. Round roots are nourishing to the stomach, spleen, pancreas and reproductive organs and can help regulate blood sugar, moods, and alleviate cravings.

Read more for a delicious Meatless Monday Vegan Roasted Root Vegetable recipe.

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But as frosts linger and the cold winds start to blow, don’t punt and think your fresh local bounty will disappear till spring.  With a little strategic shopping and planning, you can preserve a local meal focus all winter long by taking advantage of those last farmer’s markets.

Here’s another perk of eating local year round:  you’re supporting the economic health of your community.  Just ask Cindy Torres, manager of the Longmont Farmers Market outside Boulder, Colorado, and an IATP Food and Society Fellow.  Passionate about using local food systems as a healthy economic development tool, Torres co-founded the Boulder County Food and Agriculture Policy Council to look at how her area can increase the local food supply to enhance the lives of community residents of all economic backgrounds.

“With a little bit of planning and preparation, we can readily eat local till the spring markets start up again,” explains Torres.  Here are her favorite five tips:

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Sweet potatoes have a lot of nutrition packed into relatively few calories. According to NutritionData, a single serving (1 cup) of sweet potatoes has 769% of the daily value of Vitamin A. They’re also high in vitamin C and several B vitamins, as well as minerals such as Manganese, Potassium, Copper, and others. The low glycemic load of sweet potatoes gets them into low-carb diets and many weight lifters include them in their meals.

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Apple harvest time arrives at the best and worst time on our Wisconsin farm and B&B, Inn Serendipity. As four bushels of apples sit on my front porch, I’m reminded of all those right reasons: the crisp flavor of fresh apples, appreciation of the harvest bounty and the tempting aroma of a pie baking in the oven.

Apple pies baking in the oven. That’s where I remember the “worst of time” mantra: apple season, like everything else on the farm this time of year, arrives during that crazy-busy, over-abundant time of year called “fall.” The final bounty of garden booty needs harvesting, along with a mile-long laundry list of farm chores that need wrapping up before the winter winds start to blow. Not ideal timing to be in the kitchen rolling piecrust. Actually, I can’t even see my counter top to roll a crust this time of year, as it is overloaded with tomatoes, zucchini and everything else in need of processing.

But don’t think this chaos of fall causes me to give up on pie making. The secret? Simplify the process. Our Inn Serendipity house favorite from our Edible Earth cookbook, Oat Apple Pie, serves up a good example of super simple pie making, as it doesn’t call for a rolled piecrust. Rather, the crust is pressed oatmeal dough, kind of like apples wrapped in a big, chewy oatmeal cookie. By rethinking the traditional pie model, you now have both cookies and pie wafting from the oven. Priceless.

Here’s the recipe, made from basic ingredients you probably have in your pantry right now. I easily adapt this for vegan B&B guests by substituting vegan margarine for the butter. This is also a great recipe for beginning pie-makers (and folks like myself with produce piling up on the counter) as there is no rolled crust.

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With all the news surrounding food safety, global pollution, misguided government food policies, and the myriad of other problems faced by consumers, it’s always comforting to occasionally read some good news.  Here’s a bit of uplifting news.  An organization, Edible Schoolyard, bringing gardening knowledge to junior high school kids in urban areas.

The program strives to teach inner city youth about gardening and consuming fresh, seasonal produce.  From its own website, Edible Schoolyard specifically defines its goal of involving students “in all aspects of farming the garden and preparing, serving, and eating food as a means of awakening their senses and encouraging awareness and appreciation of the transformative values of nourishment, community, and stewardship of the land.”

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No, this isn’t some crunchy, organic non-profit’s local food campaign or a new Slow Food slogan.  This message comes to us fresh from our United States Department of Agriculture.  “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” is a national effort collectively launching this week, designed to build vibrant local and regional food systems that provide healthful food and build the economic base of rural communities.  It showcases the importance of the connection between us and our food sources and includes $65 million in new funding initiatives.

The fact that this message comes from the USDA represents the fresh crop of vision under the Obama Administration.  Thanks to the efforts of USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, there’s a new ingredient at the USDA that has the potential to cook up something big:  leadership.  Harvesting inspiration from back in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln established the USDA as the “People’s Department,” this week’s collective efforts takes a transforming perspective on the relationship between our food and us:  personal responsibility.

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