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One Local Summer – Week 7

Posted on 30 June 2010
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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

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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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OLS: Week 2

Posted on 11 June 2009
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Week 2 of One Local Summer is cooked and consumed already.

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I did say dill last week right? I should’ve said yogurt would be the theme of this week’s meal.  Let’s go over what’s on that plate.  In the front, Sugar Snap Peas picked up at Kimberton Whole Foods (KWF) in Kimberton, PA.  They were labelled as being grown locally, but didn’t mention which farm.  The skewered chicken, also found at KWF is from Eberly Poultry and was marinated in olive oil and lemon juice before being tossed on the grill.  The sauce over the chicken is a sort of cucumberless tzatziki sauce using goat’s milk yogurt from Shellbark Hollow Farm and dill from the deck planter.  In the back is wilted turnip greens from the Phoenixville Farmer’s Market with a few sun-dried tomatoes from last year’s garden (roasted and then frozen, thawed, dehydrated).  Dessert is the same goat’s milk yogurt with some fresh Lancaster County farm-stand strawberries blended in.

Non-local ingredients: Olive Oil, lemon juice, spices (marinade for the chicken)

Now let’s go over why I LOVE LOVE LOVE this meal.  First, my obsession with dill – it’s limitless.  I pretty much believe that dill belongs in everything and I love the Oregon Herb bread that the Great Harvest Bread Company makes because the herb pretty much means dill.  Sadly, I don’t think cucumbers are in season around here yet, but even without the cucumber, that tzatziki sauce was delicious.  MMMmm dill.  And the chicken with the marinade worked out perfectly – so soft and juicy and DELICIOUS.  But, my new find of the week and a new favorite is that goat’s milk yogurt from Shellbark Hollow Farm.  There’s something about the goat’s milk that gives the yogurt a little extra zip or zing or pizzazz.  You should go and check out the website for Shellbark Hollow and watching the “awwwww” inspiring videos on the goat of the month page.  I have a feeling that the goat’s milk products will be making a regular appearance in my diet now that I’ve found out how incredible they taste.  And now, as I sit here and digest that wonderful meal, I’m already making plans for the leftovers.. Frozen Goat’s Milk Strawberry Yogurt anyone?

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