cucumbers – Sheetar.com

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 12

By Sheetar 19 August 2016 19 August 2016

Yep, still playing catch-up. It should be week 15 as I’m posting this, so I’m still behind. Life just keeps getting away from me and the first thing to go when things get to be too much is cooking. But hey, I’m still here making the effort, and I have to wonder if I’d even bother cooking at all if it weren’t for this challenge! So, this meal was a ham steak with grilled onions and eggplant and a cucumber and tomato salad on the side. Everything was cooked on the grill, so it was great to not have to heat up the house on a day that was already too hot to begin with! I may have ever so slightly overcooked the ham steak, but it was still delicious since it was given a little rub down with our own honey before it was introduced to the grill. I need to remind myself that I don’t have to be fancy, and it’s okay to slap meat and veggies on the grill and thats good enough (and better than a microwaved boxed dinner).

Ingredients:
Ham Steak – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Tomato – Kimberton CSA
Eggplant – Kimberton CSA
Cucumber – Jack’s Farm
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Peach – Our Tree
Honey – Our beehives
Non Local – Olive Oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 5

By Sheetar 14 June 2016 14 June 2016

I actually have TWO this week for One Local Summer, so I’m jamming them into one post instead of splitting them into two. This week was husband’s final week home before going out to a ship for quite a long while, so he took advantage of the time home to cook up a storm. This is me, not complaining. First up! A house favorite, biscuits and gravy with a side of yogurt and strawberries and of course, coffee. We made our biscuits with lard – I have no idea where the recipe came from, but if I find out, I’ll add a link – and they come out so delightful. We had the buttermilk for the gravy and it felt like it would be a slight not to include it in the biscuits as well. The flour is probably my favorite part of this. We actually have an old stone mill locally that buys their wheat from PA farmers and then mills it with a gigantic water wheel just a few minutes down the road. They sell it, along with cornmeal, to help fund the mill’s educational programs and it’s SUCH a delight to have locally grown and milled wheat available to us, not to mention the historic aspect of the fact that it was ground in a mill that’s 250 years old! In order to make the meal just a little more healthy, we added the side of strawberries and yogurt. The coffee? Not local, but I dare you to tell me that I can’t have it with breakfast.

Ingredients:
Lard – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Sausage – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Strawberries – Hoagland Farm
Yogurt – Seven Stars Farm
Buttermilk – Maplehofe Dairy
Non Local – Coffee, Salt, Pepper

I did mention this was a two-fer, right? Second local meal for the week features ribs with grilled vegetables, a cucumber salad and CHEESE. The ribs were cooked in the slow cooker first and then given a quick roast in the oven with our own homemade fruit ketchup using tomatoes and apples from the farmers market and peaches from our own tree. Pretty sure this is the same recipe we used from the Ball Canning Book for the ketchup. The veggies on the side were carrots, snap peas, and zucchini. Then there was the classic cucumber salad – cucumbers soaked in vinegar making not-quite-pickles, but a nice refreshing not-lettuce sort of salad for the side. Then there’s the CHEESE – I believe that’s all Birchrun Hills cheese between Fat Cat, Red Cat, and some Clipper. REALLY a good dinner – the ribs were absolutely perfect and it was a nice way to end a stormy evening.

Ingredients:
Ribs – Countrytime Farm
Cucumbers – Jack’s Farm
Zucchini – Jack’s Farm
Snap peas – Jack’s Farm
Carrots – Charlestown Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Non Local – Homemade Vinegar, Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 21

By Sheetar 14 October 2015 1 October 2015

Husband has returned home and cooked up this classic summer meal – a pulled pork sandwich. A good part of this one was a long time in the making. The sauerkraut was made months ago, fermented from fresh cabbage in a huge stoneware crock. The pickles were started a month ago and came out as terrific sour pickles. The buns were made last year and pulled from the freezer. The cider in the glass was also made last year and was just kegged and ready to drink this past month. The only thing new on the plate is the pulled pork which cooked up in the crock pot all day with some cider, peppers, onion, vinegar, and tomatoes, and came out DELICIOUS.

Ingredients:
Cabbage – Jack’s Farm
Pork Butt – Countrytime Farm
Cucumbers – My Garden
Peppers – Steer Vegetables
Tomatoes – My Garden
Onion – Clover Hill Farm
Cider – Fermented from apples picked at my grandparents’
Buns:
Flour Mill at Anselma
Egg Deep Roots Valley Farm
Butter Spring Creek Farms
Honey Baues Busy Bees
Non Local – Salt, pepper, spices, homemade vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 18b

By Sheetar 16 September 2015 14 September 2015

The husband isn’t terribly fond of mushrooms, so what do I do when he’s gone? Put mushrooms in ALL THE THINGS! There are only a few foods that he’s not particularly fond of including mushrooms and fennel most notably, which happen to be two of my favorite things. If fennel happened to be in season, it would be in this meal, but I had to settle for making a galette with mushrooms, onions, chorizo, and blue cheese. I added a half an asian pear to the side, a salad with blue cheese dressing, and a glass of homemade cider. We actually pressed and brewed that cider ourselves using apples from the house where my grandparents lived. We have no idea what variety the apples were, but the trees gave up an incredible harvest last year and made for a tart, dry cider that’s exactly how I enjoy them most. For the galette crust, I used a recipe from here that uses yogurt, substituting honey for the sugar. I also added a tablespoon of lard instead of milk to help lighten the crust since goat’s milk yogurt is rather low in fat in comparison to a cow’s milk version. It came out not quite flaky enough, which means more lard next time! All in all though, the spice from the chorizo, paired with the onions and mushrooms came out incredible and I’m super happy with this one!

Ingredients:
Mushrooms Oley Valley Mushrooms
Cheese Birchrun Hills, Smoked Blue Cheese
Dressing – Birchrun Hills
Onions – Jack’s Farm
Tomatoes Full Circle CSA
Lettuce – North Star Orchard and Charlestown Farm
Cucumbers – Our Garden
Asian Pear – North Star Orchard
Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Lard – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow
Flour – Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Honey – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 16

By Sheetar 4 September 2015 1 September 2015

PASTA! One of my favorites. We had a few leftover jalapenos from prior dinners and husband thought, hey, jalapeno pasta! I thought hey, that sounds like a fun thing, until I realized, later, that when you puree jalapenos, you basically make liquid pepper spray and aerosolize a little bit of it into the air when using the stick blender. Suddenly, it was not such a fun thing. However, already having the jalapeno puree in progress, I soldiered on and finished the pasta which did lend a nice spice to the dinner. Not something I’d do again (I learned my lesson the hard way). The sauce was made from local tomatoes in a gigantic batch along with peppers and onions. The plate was completed with pork Italian sausage. It’s a pretty basic, classic sort of meal, but this is comfort food to me, coming from an Italian background. Add that now almost mandatory tomatoes and cucumbers salad and a glass of wine and that’s a meal!

Ingredients:
Tomatoes Full Circle CSA
Cucumber – My Garden
Flour Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Jalapenos – Charlestown Farm
Tomatoes – Clover Hill Farm
Peppers – Clover Hill Farm
Onions – Clover Hill Farm
Wine – Chaddsford Winery, Proprietors Reserve
Non Local – homemade vinegar, salt, pepper, olive oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 15

By Sheetar 2 September 2015 1 September 2015

Another backlog entry – this was photographed August 5th, almost a month ago! Bad Blogger! Catching up though, slowly but surely, even if some of the details of these catch-up posts have gone missing from my brain. Perfect to follow the breakfast crepes tacos are actual tacos with home-made flour tortillas. Clearly I need a little more experience making flour tortillas before I’d do this for a meal made for anyone else other than me and the husband – most of them came out oddly misshapen, sticky, and weird, but, they fit the bill regardless of appearance. On the side are a summer favorite, corn fritters, and to top everything off, yet another cucumber and tomato salad. There’s a glass of wine there too, but neither of us can remember which wine it is and I neglected to get a photo that included the bottle (oops). Thinking back, it may actually be a glass of our homemade cider using apples from my grandparents’ house out in central Pennsylvania. Regardless, the whole lot disappeared quickly and was delicious.

Ingredients:
Flour Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Cheese Birchrun Hills, Equinox
Ground Pork – Countrytime Farm
Jalapenos – Charlestown Farm
Onions – Clover Hill Farm
Corn – Clover Hill Farm
Cucumber Full Circle CSA
Tomatoes Full Circle CSA
Eggs M&M Creek Valley Farm
Non Local – Taco seasoning, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 13

By Sheetar 24 August 2015 1 September 2015

Home alone again, so I decided to try something a little fancier than usual. Most of the recipes I use are really basic, and for a good reason. I’ll admit it, I’m a lazy cook. I like to be finished quickly and be stuffing my face full of delicious food rather than spend two hours creating something that’s gone in under 30 minutes. I just don’t see the point! (Some of you do see the point, and cooking is an art form, and that’s wonderful as I do enjoy eating such creations, but dude, the fact that I’m even actually cooking every week is such a big jump from when the microwave was my best friend, that making complicated dinners may never be my thing, and that’s cool too) Such is the case with this meal. I got the recipe from here, and it’s one of those ridiculous food blogs with more photos than actual recipe content (20 photos for a recipe that takes up only two pages). Sadly, I was out of spaghetti squash from the neighbor, so I used the unnamed bumpy yellow generic squash that arrived along with the spaghetti squash the week prior. Roasted that up in the oven while I prepped the crepes which were actually fairly easy. Cooked up the mushrooms, combined them with the pureed roasted squash and a little maple syrup while the bechamel sauce cooked down. BTW, you can halve the recipe for the sauce because it made half a pot full and I needed about maybe a cup’s worth for the amount of crepes the recipe makes. It’s really absurd, the amount of sauce this made. Anyway, after the crepes were filled, I crisped them up in the pan, popped them on a plate, drizzled on some of the sauce and called it done. They were indeed delicious, but took SO long to make, I’m not sure I’d do this particular recipe again (or, at least, skip the bechamel and just grate some cheese on them and call it done). Also featured are some cheese, a nice juicy peach and another bowl of tomatoes and cucumbers as is become usual around here!

Ingredients:
Cucumber Full Circle CSA
Tomatoes Full Circle CSA
Flour Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Milk – Shellbark Hollow
Butter – Handmade by Abby
Cheese – Birchrun Hills, Red Cat
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Onions Clover Hill Farm
Maple Syrup – Miller’s Maple
Non Local – Olive Oil, salt, pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 12

By Sheetar 19 August 2015 19 August 2015

This summer has gotten ahead of me so quickly, but I finally have time to sit down and catch up on the blog backlog! This one goes back to June 24th when I was on my own again. A neighbor had dropped off a spaghetti squash since their garden was going wild with them. Never one to turn away free vegetables, I steamed the squash, scraped out the wonderfully nutty and delicious spaghetti strands, added some Italian sausage and tomatoes, topped it off with blue cheese, and called that a dinner! On the side is a tomato and cucumber salad along with a bowl of raspberries from our backyard invader raspberry bush. The neighbor isn’t fond of raspberries, but the plant has special family meaning (I believe it propagated from another family member’s garden and has been passed down and around a bunch), so she’s more than happy to let us collect all the berries we can have. This past year it took off under the fence and found a nice spot in our yard, so we’re happy to let it stay.

Ingredients:
Spaghetti Squash – Neighbor’s Garden
Italian Sausage – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Tomatoes – Full Circle CSA
Raspberries – Our Yard
Armenian Cucumber – Full Circle CSA
Non Local – Vinegar, Salt, Pepper