June 2010 – Sheetar.com

One Local Summer – Week 7

By Sheetar 30 June 2010 30 June 2010

Another week is on the books. Or Blog. I’ve always been a big fan of Greek food and gyros in particular. So, this week, with dill running amok in the planter on the deck, I decided to prune it back a little, make some tzatziki and work up some chicken gyros. This was also the first meal we had on our brand new patio, and what a way to start many summers of relaxing dinners! MANY thanks to Ryan Steckel of Steckel Building for his amazing work on the patio. We’re positively thrilled with the results. Onto the ingredients!

Chicken Gyro:
Pretty basic, when you get down to it. Pitas were homemade using this recipe and really were more time consuming to make than difficult – I did substitute one cup of flour for whole wheat pastry flour and used plain old bread flour for the other two. I decided to throw them on the super-hot pizza stone on the grill since it was just so incredibly hot this past week and I wasn’t going to heat up the house with any baking. Turns out, it worked out perfectly, once I got the hang of it. The thinner the dough is and the hotter the stone is, the better the pitas puff up and shrink back down. The chicken was marinated, skewered, and grilled while the pitas cooled a little, and the vegetables were in the grill wok on the next burner.
Bread Flour – Anselma Mill
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Anselma Mill
Chicken – Mountain View Organics
Oregano – Back deck planters (used in marinade for chicken with Olive Oil, Vinegar, and Lemon Juice)
Tomatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Onions – Smith’s Produce
Sharp II Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm. Used this as the base for the Tzatziki
Cucumbers – Smith’s Produce
Dill – Back deck planters
Non-Local: Salt, Sugar, Olive Oil, Yeast, Pepper, Lemon Juice

Vegetables:
These cooked up and were so tasty. The first zucchini of the year are always my favorite.
Zucchini – Smith’s Produce
Yellow Squash – Smith’s Produce
Carrots – Jack’s Farm
Non-Local – Salad Dressing as a marinade

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 6

By Sheetar 19 June 2010 7 February 2012

I finally made it out to the Anselma Mill Farmer’s market this past week to get flour and a few other things. I don’t think all the flour is grown locally, but it’s definitely ground at the mill using the centuries old equipment. It’s really pretty awesome to think that this mill has been around for so long and is still useful today. Here’s a link with more information about the flour, if you’re interested. I also met the woman who runs Pure Blend Tea and came home with the Fruit Boost tea which made one heck of a batch of iced tea. Anyway, onto the ingredients in the meal, starting in the back.

Salad:
Lettuce – Charlestown Farm. Nice and crispy!
Cucumber – Smith’s Produce. I was so psyched to see cucumbers already, I had to bring some home.
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm. It actually made a really great dressing for a simple salad.

Ravioli:
For the ravioi pasta, I used a basic recipe I had found ages ago on the web and have modified a bit. It’s one cup flour (here, there’s 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour and 1/4 cup buckwheat flour), one egg, one teaspoon olive oil, and water to make consistency. I roll it out using the good old KitchenAid pasta roller set which makes the process SO much easier. To form the individual ravioli, I found a form that pasta sheets are laid over, filled, then sealed with a rolling pin. First batch using this was a little off, but the second batch came out perfectly.
Hot Bison Sausage – Backyard Bison. Just the right amount of spice!
Cheese – Birchrun Hills. Used the Equinox cheese inside the ravioli with the sausage.
Flour – Anselma Mill. Used Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Buckwheat Flour – Anselma Mill. They said this was a new one for them and I heard that adding buckwheat flour into the pasta dough mixture made it different, and it did, in a very good way.
Egg – Mountain View Organics.
Sauce – Homemade. We found a few bags in the freezer left over from our 2008 amazing tomato year.
Spinach – Charlestown Farm. Put a bunch of leaves in the steamer for just a minute.
Non-Local – Spices, Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil.

As a bonus this week, there was also Jam! Two types.

Yellow Cherry Jam
A friend and I went to Walnut Springs Farm to pick cherries. I LOVE yellow cherries and when the folks running the booth let me know there were two types available to pick, my eyes must have lit up like I had won the lottery. I immediately knew that they were destined for a batch of jam, and sure enough, three pounds turned into 5 jars of sunny yellow jam. I sort of want to go pick some more, add in a few blueberries, and see if I can make green slime jam because that sounds like fun.

Black Forest Preserves
I did actually pick some red cherries too. Three pounds of those (I came home with about 10 lbs, but did a lot of taste testing while we were there too) became Black Forest Preserves. It’s a recipe out of the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving and involves cherries and cocoa powder. I have to admit that the chocolate doesn’t really come out in the recipe – the jam just tastes RICH – but it’s destined to be a part of thumbprint cookies when cookie baking season kicks into full gear.

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 5

By Sheetar 16 June 2010 16 June 2010

Dear friend Abbie was over for a long weekend so I subjected her not only to the farmer’s market, but also to cooking a One Local Summer dinner with me. Reflecting back on the food coma we were in afterwards, I dare say that she didn’t mind the experience one bit. Dinner consisted of a bison burger stuffed with mushrooms and blue cheese on some thick slices of wheat bread. There’s a little bit of salad at the back too (yep, salad, again). We probably made the burgers a bit too thick, but it didn’t seem to matter much since they both disappeared.

Burger:
Bison – Backyard Bison. Just your plain old ground bison.
Egg – Mountain View Organics. Just one, to help bind the burger together.
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills. Not only was it inside the burger, but we melted some on top too.
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms. We decided on Shiitake for the burger, and put a few on top too.
Spinach – Charlestown Farm. Just for a little crispy crunch in between the burger and bread.
Garlic Scapes – Charlestown Farm. Chopped these and sauteed them with the mushrooms.
Bread – Saint Peter’s Bakery. Wheat bread cut into thick slices
Zucchini Pickles – from my garden. Canned these last year and they’re still incredible.
Non-Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil.

Salad:
Lettuce – Jack’s Farm. Looseleaf lettuce, delightful. We topped this with some more blue cheese
Non-Local – Salad Dressing

Wine:
Gewurztraminer – J Maki Winery. I don’t know what he does to this grape to make such a unique Gewurztraminer, but boy is it ever delightful.

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 4

By Sheetar 5 June 2010 16 June 2010

My sister-in-law was visiting this past weekend so I took her to the market and we cooked together this week. Bockwurst with mushrooms, asparagus and a salad. Delicious! We both had fun cooking and gobbling down the dinner as a nice way to end a long day.

Bockwurst & Mushrooms:
Bockwurst – Birchrun Hills Farm. We boiled these on the stove with some homebrewed beer and then tossed them on the grill to finish cooking.
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms. Crimini mushrooms cooked in Chamborcin wine from Kog Hill.
Non-local – Olive Oil, spices.

Asparagus:
Asparagus – Hoagland Farm. Tossed on the grill in a tin-foil package with some non-local olive oil, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese.

Salad:
Spring Greens – Jack’s Farm. One bag of greens seems to last me quite a while. Topped off with some non-local salad dressing.