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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 21

Posted on 30 September 2012
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Just something simple for this week.  I’ve had an overload of tomatoes and STILL zucchini from the garden, so I figured I’d go with it.  The sauce is the 4th batch from the tomatoes we grew, and the zucchini, I can’t even count how many pounds I’ve eaten this year, not to mention the pounds of zucchini that I’ve given to friends and neighbors!  The pasta is home made, using the same recipe I always use – 1 cup flour to 1/4th cup liquid (water in this case).  With this post, I’m finally caught up on my backlog of posts and we’re nearing the end of our local summer.  There are still a few good weeks left – all the fall squashes are coming out, but it’s slowing down a bit.  I’m not sure if my zucchini plant is aware of this though.

Pasta with Roasted Zucchini:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Tomato Sauce – Tomatoes from our Garden
Onion – Jack’s Farm
Zucchini – Our Garden
Non local – salt, olive oil, pepper

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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 – 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 23

Posted on 27 October 2010
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Here’s where I admit that we were a few days late getting this one done, but I’m catching up! This is a local version of Shepherd’s Pie using ground beef and local vegetables. It’s a really simple comfort food to make, easy to put together, bake, and voila! Local dinner. No real recipe on this one, just brown the beef, add vegetables, top with mashed potatoes and bake in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Shepherd’s Pie:
Ground Beef – Bethany Farm
Radish – Maysie’s Farm
Onion – Maysie’s Farm
Carrots – Maysie’s Farm
Potatoes – Smith’s Produce
Non-Local – Olive Oil, Spices.

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One Local Summer – Week 22

Posted on 11 October 2010
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The husband decided that we ought to use up some ground bison and make his own special on-the-fly version of Italian Wedding Soup. This was a collaborative effort, and what we came up with is absolutely incredible. It’s far from traditional, but it was incredibly delicious and definitely something that will be made again. We had made chicken wings the night prior (boil wings, then throw on grill to crisp) so we had the chicken stock on hand already. Other than that, the recipe is below, feel free to print, use, and enjoy!

Italian Wedding Soup:
Bison – Backyard Bison
Red Onions – Maysie’s Farm
Garlic – Maysie’s Farm
Egg – Mt View Organics
Bread – LeBoon’s Homemade
Cilantro, Sage, Basil – My Garden
Carrots – Maysie’s Farm
Potatoes – Smith’s Produce
Chicken Broth – Boiled down from Mt View Organics wings (Tuesday Night’s dinner!)
Non-Local – Salt

Italian Wedding Soup Print Print
Ingredients – Meatballs Ingredients – Soup
1 lb ground bison 10 cups Chicken Broth (from 2lbs chicken, boiled)
2 cloves garlic, minced 2 Small Red Onions, Diced
1 egg 2 Carrots, sliced
1 slice Italian Bread, crumbled 8 Small Potatoes, cubed
Cilantro, Sage, Basil to taste 1 tsp Salt
12 large leaves of Spinach, chopped
Instructions:
  • Preheat oven to 350F.  Break egg into bowl, add bison, garlic, crumbled bread, and spices, mix together well with hands.
  • Roll into 1″ round meatballs, place on greased cookie tray and bake in oven for 20 minutes.
  • Heat broth on medium-high in large stock pot.
  • add onions, carrots, potatoes, and salt and simmer while meatballs are cooking.
  • Add meatballs to pot and simmer for 15 minutes.
  • Add spinach and simmer until wilted.
  • Top with your favorite grated cheese and enjoy!
  • Makes approximately 14 1-cup servings
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    One Local Summer – Week 20

    Posted on 21 September 2010
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    Pumpkin, again. Yeah when I get on a kick, I get on a kick, but at least here there are plenty of other ingredients involved. The recipe took a lot of searching – I wanted to use both bison and this little Long Island Cheese Pumpkin I brought home last week. Finally, I came across a recipe for Potato Topped Beef and Pumpkin Casserole which ended up being the perfect recipe to use for my new little casserole dish. Naturally, there were a few modifications. I didn’t have any carrots, so I used turnips instead. Left out the beef stock cube, and used three types of potatoes. The pumpkin makes for a great base, but the sweet pumpkiny flavor is mostly lost in the recipe – I suppose this works out okay, since the flavors all run together well, but I was expecting more smack-you-in-the-face pumpkin. Still, it’s delicious, and VERY much edible.

    Oh and if you’re curious, the dish comes from Karin Lorenc on etsy.

    Potato Topped Beef and Pumpkin Casserole:
    Bison – Backyard Bison. Sirloin
    Flour – Mill at Anselma. Bread Flour
    Onion – North Star Orchard
    Turnip – Maysie’s Farm
    Long Island Cheese Pumpkin – Smith’s Produce
    Red Wine – Paradocx. Barn Red
    Sweet Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
    Purple Potatoes – Unknown Vendor at Anselma
    White Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
    Non-local – Olive Oil, spices

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    One Local Summer – Week 19

    Posted on 17 September 2010
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    Well it’s feeling more like fall and there were some GREAT squash and pumpkin choices available at the Anselma Market this week. I stopped by the Smith’s Produce booth and found a funny green pumpkin that I was told was a Kabocha pumpkin. The producers even had a recipe ready for Kabocha pumpkin soup, so the inspiration belongs to them! Going back to one of my favorite food blogs, I found a recipe for Pumpkin Soup with Smoked Paprika. Sadly we didn’t have smoked paprika on hand, but we did have the regular kind. I’m sure the smoked variety would’ve added an extra kick, but this turned out just fine. I left out the cream since I couldn’t find any locally, but the one cup of goat’s milk created the texture I was looking for. Also, I’d be LOST without our immersion blender – it got a solid work-out with this recipe and did a fine job. I added on some grilled cheese to make this dinner and sprinkled some chevre and the toasted seeds from the pumpkin on top of the soup.

    Pumpkin Soup with Grilled Cheese:
    Kabocha Pumpkin – Smith’s Produce
    Onion – North Star Orchard
    Garlic – North Star Orchard
    Apple – Unknown Vendor at Anselma (forgot to grab the name!)
    Goat’s Milk – Shellbark Hollow Farm
    Sage – My Garden
    Bread – Saint Peter’s Bakery. Whole Wheat
    Yogurt Cheese – Farmstead Fresh
    Non-local – Butter, Paprika, Cumin, Salt

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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 17

    Posted on 8 September 2010
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    Sister-in-law Brenda was in town this week and was flipping through the Cook’s Country compilation book for 2008. The husband had bought the book on super-sale at Amazon.com and we haven’t really made any of the recipes so far. So, when Brenda stumbled upon a recipe for Thin-Crust Skillet Pizza (August/September 2008, pg 18), I was more than happy to pull out the cast iron skillet and get cooking! The recipe calls for beer as the liquid in the dough, and we happened to have a homebrewed Hefeweizen on tap in the kegerator. It proved to be a good choice! The dough came out nice and crispy, and we had plenty of vegetables available for the topping. For me, this was easier and quicker than heating up the pizza stone, we didn’t have to wait for the dough to rise (no yeast – just beer and baking powder), and it was a delicious lunch to enjoy out on the patio.

    Thin-Crust Skillet Pizza:
    Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
    Bread Flour – Mill at Anselma
    Zucchini – Smith’s Produce
    Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms. Crimini
    Tomatoes – My Garden. These are Super Italian Paste Tomatoes
    Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm.  Clipper variety.
    Sharp I Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
    Basil – My Garden
    Onion – North Star Orchard
    Non-local – Baking powder, sugar, salt, beer, olive oil

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    One Local Summer – Week 16

    Posted on 6 September 2010
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    I got a little backed up with putting in posts, so here’s the catch-up! This week was a Summer Garden Galette. I pretty much threw in any vegetable I could find that would fit in the crust and wow was it good. There’s a decent amount of prep work involved since everything has to be cooked before it goes in the shell, but all that can be done while waiting for the crust to chill in the fridge. I guess it sounds easier than it is, but if you’ve made a pie crust before, it’s really the same process. The bottom layer is sweet potatoes covered by tomatoes and squash, mushrooms and onions, and then topped off with a heavy dose of goat cheese. YUM!
    Summer Garden Galette:
    Onion – North Star Orchard
    Summer Squash – Smith’s Produce
    Zucchini – Smith’s Produce
    Sharp I Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
    Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes – My Garden
    Sage – My Garden
    Sweet Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
    Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms. Crimini.
    Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
    Non-local – Butter

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