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One Local Summer 2011 – Week 11

Posted on 19 July 2011
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This is absurd.. is it really week 11 already?  Anyway, husband took the lead on this one and combined Bison, Bacon, and Blue Cheese into a hamburger.  Pretty sure that guy is a keeper.  He mixed everything together and then hand formed the burgers and gently grilled them up to absolute perfection.  Topped off with a little blue cheese and served on a locally baked roll, with a few french fries on the side, it’s your classic but classy (bacon makes everything better) burger and fries.  All done locally too!

Bacon, Bison, and Blue Burger:
Ground Bison – Backyard Bison
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Onion – Hoagland Farm
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Potatoes – North Star Orchards
Tomato – Charlestown Farm
Roll – St. Peter’s Bakery
Non Local – Oil, salt, pepper

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One Local Summer 2011 – Week 3

Posted on 23 May 2011
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Husband was in charge yet again of this one.  We’d had a fancy blue cheese wedge salad at a restaurant and thought, hey, we could do this locally.  So, a big chunk of lettuce covered in blue cheese, blue cheese dressing, and most importantly bacon, add a slice of bread, and we have a meal.  The dressing came out REALLY well even though we didn’t have buttermilk and sour cream, but the yogurt is pretty tangy to begin with, so it worked out.

Wedge Salad
Lettuce – Jack’s Farm
Spring Garlic – Jack’s Farm
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Tea
Sesame French Bread – Sweetwater Baking
Riesling – Mount Hope Winery
Non Local –  pepper, worchestershire sauce

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One Local Summer – Week 24

Posted on 29 October 2010
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So this is almost getting so easy that I’m thinking I just might be able to continue this all year long. This past week (yeah, still catching up) was a Spaghetti Squash Carbonara. It’s definitely the time of year for the Spaghetti Squash and I’ve REALLY come to love them since discovering them this year. The recipe came from the Food Network and I only made one change, cutting the bacon amount in half (it just didn’t seem necessary to use a half pound!). The resulting dish was incredible and pretty easy to make. I did need to use a few more non-local ingredients than normal, but the dish was still 90% or more local.

Spaghetti Squash Carbonara:
Spaghetti Squash – Smith’s Produce
Onion – Maysie’s Farm
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Eggs – Smith’s Produce
Garlic – Maysie’s Farm
Non-Local – Salt, Pepper, Piave Cheese, Wine

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One Local Summer – Week 18

Posted on 15 September 2010
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Pizza.. AGAIN?! Oh yes, pizza again. It never gets old with the wide variety of toppings and ways to make the crust. This week we have a flatbread grilled pizza topped with Chevre, Red Onion, Asian Pears, and bacon. Bacon always makes everything better and again, no exception to that rule here. Asian Pears are FINALLY in season and I’ve been gathering them up from the market like the world is going to end, so they’ve ended up in everything I’ve made recently. Gotta love a pear you can eat like an apple. I’ll admit that the pizza was an experiment in combining flavors, but I liked how it came out – a little sweet, bacony, savory, pizza. The recipe is Bobby Flay’s for the flatbread and I’ve used this one a number of times, mixing half whole wheat pastry flour and half bread flour for the dough. Just make sure you’ve got the dough coated VERY WELL with olive oil before throwing it on the grill and it’ll work perfectly.

Grilled Flatbread Pizza:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Bread Flour – Mill at Anslema
Asian Pear – North Star Orchard
Onion – North Star Orchard
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Non-local – Yeast, salt, olive oil.

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One Local Summer – Week 12

Posted on 2 August 2010
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I came home from the Market at the Anselma Mill with a Spaghetti Squash. I’d never had spaghetti squash and I’ve been trying to broaden my vegetable horizons and try new things. Searching online, I found this recipe for spaghetti squash pancakes. Interesting, different, and easy! I didn’t quite follow the recipe as written. I baked the squash in the oven for an hour as the site instructs, let it cool and then scraped the contents into a bowl. Instead of adding all the ingredients, I just sprinkled flour in until I got a consistency that would stick together, slapped the little pancakes down on a pan with a little olive oil and put some toppings on. Clockwise, the front is just topped with cheese, next is tomato, cheese, and basil, then we have a cucumber, and finally the bacon, lettuce, and tomato spaghetti squash pancake. Bacon always makes things better and this was absolutely no exception. Ingredients list below, and this was a fantastic light lunch with PLENTY of leftovers!

Spaghetti Squash Pancakes:
Spaghetti Squash – Smith’s Produce
Tomato – Smith’s Produce
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Basil – My own deck planters
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Lettuce – Brogue Hydroponics
Cheese – Farmstead Fresh. This is their cheddar cheese.

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One Local Summer – Week 1

Posted on 10 May 2010
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I don’t think farmtophilly.com is doing the One Local Summer challenge again, so I figured I’d just do it on my own for the duration of the summer Phoenixville Farmer’s Market.  This past weekend was the first market for the regular season and wow was it incredible.  There were so many great vendors, and the market was PACKED!  So nice to see.  So, the meal!

Clockwise, starting with the pile of mushrooms..

Salad:
Portabella mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms.  Always delicious.
Mixed Greens – Jack’s Farm.  Crisp and clean.  Perfect.
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills.   This blue cheese is incredible and a household favorite.

Bread:
Bread – Sweetwater Bakery.   The ingredients may not be entirely local, but the baking sure is.  This is the first time we’ve tried their bread and we were definitely not disappointed.

Chicken Roulade:
Chicken – Mountain View Organics.  Pounded out thin
Bacon – Countrytime Farm.  Nitrate free, and if you’ve never had nitrate free bacon?  This stuff is amazing.
Mushrooms –  Oley Valley Mushrooms.  Same Portabella’s as the salad, and they cooked up perfectly.
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills.  Same as in the Salad.

Non-Local:
We marinated the chicken in  homebrewed beer, garlic, and spices, then added some BBQ sauce (mixed with Tangerine juice, maple syrup, and Good Ole Jack) and some other spices on the outside (paprika, Montreal Chicken Seasoning) while it was cooking up in the smoker.

This was a pretty easy one.  The bacon stayed soft inside the roulade and the fat also kept the chicken moist, not to mention the slow-cooking in the smoker aided as well.  The Husband decided to not use mushrooms in his (blasphemy, I know), but did come up with an excellent BBQ sauce and spiced the outside just right.

I’m so excited for another Local Summer to get started, I’m already planning a whole bunch of meals in my head for the next few weeks until my backyard vegetable garden gets growing!

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OLS: Week 5

Posted on 5 July 2009
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One Local Summer rolls on into week five.   I figured I’d switch it up a bit and do a breakfast meal this week before we left for the Dominican Republic.  Why yes, I spent most of June out of the country.   :)

Potatoes in front are basic home fries in the skillet with potatoes (there were lots of potatoes) from last week’s run to the Anselma Mill Market.  The bacon on the side is from Country Time Farm and is becoming a fast favorite probably because it’s almost fresh off the pig with no nitrates.  In the back is a slice of frittata containing eggs picked up at Willow Creek Orchards from Pleasant View Farms, Tomatoes from Lancaster County, Garlic Scapes grown at Willow Creek, and Hendricks Swiss Cheese, and more bacon.

Non-Local ingredients used: Olive oil, salt, pepper

This was my first time visiting Willow Creek and I just love the store and the pick-your-own vegetable patch.  We brought home some turnips, snap peas, and carrots as well that I hope to use this week.  As previously mentioned, we were away most of the week in the Dominican Republic since I was flown in for a friend’s wedding to be the photographer – LOTS of great photos and I can’t wait to post them.  We had a lovely time and may even go back for a proper vacation maybe in the winter when it’s hopefully not quite so warm!

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OLS: Week 3

Posted on 22 June 2009
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I’m a little late on this one, but we spent all of week 3 in Scotland.  So, I think that’s okay, right?

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For the record, this was a lunch meal and I tend to go heavier on the green things and lighter on the meat for lunches, hence the big blob of green on the plate and little bitty blob of chicken.  In the back is red lettuce from Kimberton Whole Foods, marked as grown locally, unknown farm.  On top of the salad are little turnip chips – dehydrated turnip slices from turnips found at the Phoenixville Farmer’s Market during Week 1.  In the very front is that delicious back-porch dill and goat’s milk yogurt from Week 2 (frozen while we were away, and then thawed to enjoy again).  The chicken roulade is made with chicken again from Eberly Poultry – pounded out thin.  Inside the chicken is dill and basil from the deck, bacon from Country Time Farm, sundried tomatoes from last year’s garden, and ‘Dillicious’ cheese from Clover Creek Cheese Cellar.

Not Local: Olive oil for cooking the roulade and the salad dressing.

This meal gave me a whole lot of leftovers since I used the whole pound of chicken for the roulade and will likely keep me well fed for the week.  I still have the leftovers from last week’s meal in the freezer too!  I think I’ll make a trip to the Anselma Market on Wednesday to find ingredients for Week four.  If anyone knows of a source of local flour, I’d love to hear about it!  I might be up to try my hand at home made pasta for something different.

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