Blog Archives

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 19

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Another week all on me.  We finally got a REALLY ripe watermelon from the garden.  So ripe, it practically burst open the second I started to cut. The watermelon naturally has this glowy orange-yellow inside, so no, your monitor isn’t off.  The garden is pretty small, so I usually only get one watermelon, but that’s enough for me.  A local farm was offering a new product, veal kielbasa, so I jumped on it and got the last package.  It was delicious!  Spiced just right.  I decided to pair it with some zucchini (we’re STILL getting zucchini from the garden) cooked with onions and shitake mushrooms.  The neighbors and I have a little garden exchange program going on, so I picked up a bunch of peppers from them which I sliced, grilled, and stuffed with cheese from the same farm that had the kielbasa.  The beer is a maple porter, homebrewed with maple syrup from the state, even if the malt and grains aren’t locally sourced, I’ll call it part local.

Kielbasa with vegetables and watermelon:
Kielbasa – Birchrun Hills Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Peppers – Neighbor’s Garden
Watermelon – Our Garden
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Onion – Jack’s Farm
Non local – olive oil, salt, pepper

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 14

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Here’s where I admit there was a little cheating going on with a few of our ‘weeks’ in the challenge. We had a two week vacation to Scotland, so these weren’t exactly cooked during the exact week listed. It’s pretty close, but I figure we’re still making the local meal, even if it’s later, so it counts in my book.  This meal is particularly interesting.  The sausage is from a little farm in New Hampshire, so it’s not local to where my home is, but we passed through while on vacation, so I’m saying it works.  The farm is a small farm, run by a lovely couple, and every time we vacation up that way, we stop in usually to feed my yarn and fiber habit, but decided to bring back home some meat this time.  Husband wasn’t as impressed with the taste of the goat meat – the texture is more firm than other sausages – but I liked it well enough.  The meal is your basic sausage and peppers, with tomato sauce we made using tomatoes from our garden.  It’s been a really great year for tomatoes, finally, given the last two were pretty dismal.  Here’s the ingredient rundown, and I’m still catching up on posts for the last few weeks, so bear with me!

Sausage and Peppers:
Goat Sausage – Riverslea Farms
Onion – Maysie’s Farm
Peppers – Maysie’s Farm
Melon – Smith’s Produce
Tomato Sauce – My Garden
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 10

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Yup. Ten weeks already! Our garden is finally giving us a whole bunch of zucchini, so I made the best of a pretty insane situation. The zucchini in question is the 8 ball zucchini which grows in a round, softball shape/size instead of the typical elongated shape of a normal zucchini. They’re much more seedy than regular zucchini, but once hollowed out, they’re perfect to stuff with all sorts of good things, which is what I did here.  I know I did this in prior years, but it’s just so easy (and delicious).  The zucchini is stuffed with chorizo, pepper, tomato, onion, garlic scapes, and topped off with a few slices of goat mozzarella.  I had leftover potatoes from last week, so I put those in tin foil on the grill and used them on the side.  Not bad!  And, there were two whole zucchini, so I’ve got a TON of leftovers.  Also, I have a TON more zucchini, if you’ve got any recipes to recommend!

Stuffed Zucchini:
Zucchini – My Garden
Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Potatoes –  Brogue Hydroponics
Peppers – Brogue Hydroponics
Tomatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Garlic Scapes – Jack’s Farm
Goat Mozzarella – Yellow Springs Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 18

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This one was pretty simple. We were getting ready for vacation and I had little time to get something together, so I went with what I’d already stashed in the freezer. The pasta was made a while back and frozen, the sausage was frozen as well, and the peppers and tomatoes came from the garden. Pretty simple, but it counts as local, and even super local considering the maybe 100ft walk from the house to the garden.

Pasta with Peppers and Tomatoes:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Peppers – My Garden
Tomatoes – My Garden
Chicken Sausage – Mountain View Poultry
Non Local – Olive Oil

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 17

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Gnocchi!  This was my first time ever making gnocchi, and I think we did alright!  It was pretty simple – boil about 1lb potatoes for an hour, or until tender, then rice or mash or make them smooshy and non-lumpy as best as possible, add about a cup of flour, shape, dust with flour, and then boil until they float.  Husband worked up the sauce from our own tomatoes canned this year, a load of peppers from the garden (SO MANY PEPPERS THIS YEAR), an onion, and some Ground Bison.  This is really my idea of comfort food, and it fit the bill.  Most of the ingredients came from a farm stand we passed on the way home from a trip to Lancaster, and I neglected to get the name of the farm.  Suffice to say, they weren’t shipped in from California, but from just a county away.

Gnocchi with Bison Sauce:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Potatoes – Lancaster Farm Stand
Bison – Backyard Bison
Tomato sauce – My Garden
Onion – Lancaster Farm Stand
Non Local – Spices, Salt, Pepper

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 14

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I was having trouble coming up with ideas this week and was feeling pretty uninspired. I had pork in the freezer, but didn’t know where else to go from there. So I googled and found Pork Afritada.  Not bad!  I had all the ingredients on hand except for the carrot, so I went for it.  Really easy to prepare and it’s sort of like a stew with a tomato base.  I did use water instead of broth and sliced tomatoes instead of sauce, but we’ve got plenty of tomatoes, so that was no problem.  Served the whole thing over bread to soak up the liquid and it was delicious (and deliciously simple)!

Pork Afritada:
Pork Cutlets – Countrytime Farm
Potato – North Star Orchard
Tomatoes – My Garden
Pepper – My Garden
Onion – North Star Orchard
Garlic – Charlestown Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Bay leaves, olive oil

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 13

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This one is pretty basic, but sometimes something simple is all you need.  Plus, I’d gathered about 8 green peppers from our two plants in the garden and this seemed like the best idea, especially after I found the FrankenOnion at the farmer’s market.  Seriously, the biggest onion I’ve ever, ever seen.  Add in some yummy bison sausage, and folks, we have a meal.  Minimal cooking and prep time, and it was just perfect.

 

Sausage and Peppers:
Bison Sausage – Backyard Bison
Green Peppers – My Garden
FrankenOnion – North Star Orchards
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Bread – Sweetwater Baking
Non Local – Olive oil, salt, pepper

One Local Summer – Week 11

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I’m a little behind on blog posts, but better late than never! This week I fired up the grill and stuffed some chicken breasts. Lettuce, in July, you say? YES! Brogue Hydroponics grows it all year round, and by now, I think the One Local Summer readers know that I love my greens.  So, clockwise, starting on the left, we have grilled squash, in the back is a salad with lettuce, mushrooms, and my first cucumbers from the garden, and in the front chicken stuffed with chevre, mushrooms, and peppers and grilled with a peach slice on top.  Detail of the ingredients follows and this was certainly a delicious and filling meal!

Squash:
Zucchini – Smith’s Produce
Yellow Squash – Smith’s Produce

Salad:
Lettuce – Brogue Hydroponics
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms, Crimini variety
Cucumbers – My garden! White Ghost variety
Non-Local – Salad dressing

Chicken:
Chicken breast – Mountain View Organics
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms, Crimini variety
Peppers – That same producer at Anselma Mill that I can’t remember the name (still!)
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm. This is their Sharp II Chevre.
Peach – Northstar Orchard

Jalapeno Poppers

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My two little jalapeno pepper plants were VERY good to me this year. TWO POUNDS OF PEPPERS good to me. The first pound went to jalapeno pepper jelly which quickly became a favorite with the husband. The most recent pound was waiting for me in the fridge since I wasn’t sure quite what to do with that many jalapenos. Someone suggested jalapeno poppers, but since I’m not a big fan of frying and have never really been able to get that whole breading thing right, the idea was pretty much abandoned.  Then I happened upon this recipe and decided to give it a go. The process involves cutting and de-seeding all of the peppers, dipping them in milk, then flour and after a quick dry, two rounds through milk and bread crumbs. It’s time consuming (especially when there are 56 poppers to make), but the result is a PERFECT jalapeno popper. I’m really kind of shocked that these came out so well. Served up with a little sour cream, they make a great snack.  I plan on freezing most of them to save for later since there are 56!

OLS: Week 13

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One Local Summer’s last meal is on the table and consumed already.  I can’t believe we made it to the end of the challenge and participated in every single week!  This week, we threw a whole chicken in the smoker with some barbeque sauce leftover from the pulled pork sandwiches and let her cook up while some zucchini, garlic, basil, onions, and peppers were simmered together with last year’s tomato sauce from the garden.  I decided to pop open a jar of the zucchini pickles, and WOW are they delicious.  Definitely worth doing again next year.  Non-Local ingredients include some vinegar, mustard seed, turmeric (pickles), olive oil, and McCormick’s Chicken Rub.  Here’s the rundown of local ingredients.

Zucchini: My Garden
Basil: Back Deck Garden
Peppers: My Garden
Garlic: Willow Creek
Onions: North Star Orchard
Chicken: Mt. View Organics
Barbeque sauce: Leftover from Week 11
Wine: New Hope Winery’s Raspberry Wine

Final thoughts – I’m SO glad I participated in this year’s challenge and I can’t wait to do it again.  This challenge has gotten me into local foods and has actually gotten me cooking (something that shocked and amazed my family and friends).  I hope to continue doing one local meal a week since our Phoenixville Farmer’s Market is open year-round and I can get most items (except for seasonal vegetables) regularly.  Thanks to the folks at FarmToPhilly.com for hosting the challenge!