Tag: <span>sugar snap peas</span>

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 1

Like I mentioned in my last post, we just haven’t had the time to dedicate to a full One Local Summer this year.  Recapping, the One Local Summer challenge was started by the Farm to Philly blog years ago.  Ever since that first year in 2009 when I joined the challenge with Farm to Philly, we spent every  summer making one meal a week using only local ingredients  (spices and oil being acceptable exceptions).  This is now our 6th year of doing local meals, and while we won’t rack up 20+ weeks like we have in prior years, I’ve found that we’re doing local meals almost by default because it’s easier to make one trip to the farmer’s market and get delicious, fresh produce at its peak freshness rather than get questionable produce that may have been on a truck for days.  It’s just easier, and the local farmer’s market happens to be closer than any grocery store.  Plus, the point is to save “food miles” by buying from local farms instead of getting food that’s been trucked in from across the country, and support local businesses and farms at the same time.  I’m aiming for at least 14 meals this summer, and I’m counting meals this time around instead of weeks because we have a really crazy schedule this summer and it’s not likely we  can fit in a local meal every week on schedule.  Anyway, without further babble, here’s meal number one!

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The ever classic vegetables in a foil pouch!  Here we have sugar snap peas, red onions, and fennel, covered in olive oil, salt and pepper.  I also did another foil pouch with mushrooms (UNNGGHH MUSHROOMS *drool*) and onions.  Surprisingly, the fennel worked well with the peas and onions and blended together nicely without overpowering the peas.  Its worth noting that we happen to live near the Mushroom Capital of the World, and we get the absolute best mushrooms ever at our farmer’s market.  The ones I had were the Crimini variety and have so much flavor, it puts store-bought mushrooms to shame.

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Here, I’ve got some pork loin tips pounded out thin with a dollop of locally produced cream cheese (honey and sea salt flavored) with some thinly sliced onions on top.  Pork loin tips, you ask?  It sounded like these might have been mis-cuts at the butcher, but they were plenty big enough to stuff and roll up.  The cream cheese is SO neat, and I’m glad our resident cheese lady makes this.  There was apparently quite a history of farmers making cream cheese (or farmer’s cheese), and its great to see our local farmer keeping up the tradition.

 

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Here are the pork loins all rolled up and wrapped with slices of bison bacon.  Yeah, pork loin with bison bacon instead of bison filets with pork bacon.  Sometimes you have to mix it up.  The ties are these neat silicone ties made by Mastrad that I picked up somewhere online.  So much better than toothpicks (if you ever ‘lost’ a toothpick while cooking, and later found it with your mouth, you know what I mean), and easy enough to throw in the dishwasher and use over and over again.  Popped these on the grill until the internal temp hit 160F along with my foil pouches of vegetables and fungus.

DSC_9556The final plate!  I added some salad (so fresh and crispy omnomnom) with some non-local dressing, then there’s the onions/fennel/peas, onions/mushrooms, and the meat in the back.  Pork can be so tricky to grill and can dry out, but the bison bacon and cheese inside kept it SO nice and tender.  I’m so glad I have leftovers of this one because it was really incredible.

Ingredients:
Pork Loin Tips – Countrytime Farm
Bison Bacon – Backyard Bison
Fennel – Charlestown Farm
Salad – Charlestown Farm
Snap Peas – Jack’s Farm
Onions – Jack’s Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Cream Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Non Local – Olive oil, salt, pepper, salad dressing

 

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 6

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The bad blogger has gotten behind again.  Never fear, meals were cooked and consumed, I’m just behind on posting.  Thanks so much, Central Air Conditioning, for breaking on July 3rd at 5pm.  No, I’m not bitter. AHEM.  That out of the way, here’s week six.  There’s a magic overlap when dill and cucumbers are both in season at the market and I end up making some variation of this meal every year.  Chicken with a local version of tzatziki and TONS OF VEGETABLES.  Those snap peas made another appearance (because I really can’t get enough of them), along with some squash and scallions.  It’s a pretty easy meal to make, and I just love tzatziki.

Chicken with Tzatziki and Vegetables:
Chicken – Deep Roots Valley Farm
Squash – Charlestown Farm
Snap Peas – Jack’s Farm
Scallions – Jack’s Farm
Dill – Jack’s Farm
Cucumber – North Star Orchard
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Non Local – Olive Oil, salt, pepper

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 5

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Another week down.  This week’s inspiration came from a few different sources.  I want to say it was on Google+ that I heard someone talking about putting chicken in the crock pot and then shredding it like pulled pork.  Brilliant!  I found cabbage at the farmer’s market and decided to combine the two to make cabbage wraps.  Pitas or other types of wraps won’t be local so this is my substitute for wraps.  Works WAY better than lettuce since lettuce can be a little fragile, but the cabbage held up really well.  Sugar snap peas are a big favorite around here and we tend to just eat them raw (and they disappear quickly that way).  The chicken was stuffed in the crock pot with some homebrew beer and spicy peanut satay-like sauce for a few hours, until it shredded apart easily.  The drink in the back (frozen fruit smoothie) is not local, but it was a part of dinner, so I let it hang out in the photo anyway.  We had a lovely bit of weather this week, so dinner was outside on the patio.

Cabbage Wraps:
Cabbage – Charlestown Farm
Zucchini – Jack’s Farm
Garlic Scapes – Jack’s Farm
Fat Cat Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Chicken – Deep Roots Valley Farm
Non Local – Sauce, beer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 8

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Another meal by the husband, and the last one for a few weeks, unfortunately, as he’s back out to sea.  This one is pretty basic, but I just cannot get enough of those grilled vegetables.  We have a pork tenderloin and then carrots, potatoes, snap peas, and zucchini all tossed into the grill.  The vegetables were cooked toether in the grill wok with some salt, pepper, and olive oil, and the tenderloin was covered in a seasoning blend that isn’t local (Maple Jalapeno seasoning from Cabela’s), but is OH SO VERY GOOD.  Hopefully our little garden will be producing some vegetables soon.  The zucchini plants both have wee little baby zucchini on them, there’s a teeny watermelon, and loads of marble-sized tomatoes.

Pork and Vegetables:
Pork Tenderloin – Countrytime Farm
Zucchini – Jack’s Farm
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Snap Peas – Charlestown Farm
Carrots – Charlestown Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Non Local – Olive oil, Salt, Pepper, Maple Jalapeno Seasoning

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 9

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The bison vendor at the Phoenixville Farmers Market caught my husband’s eye this past Saturday. We decided on brisket for this week’s meal, and brisket it was.  He decided to cook it in the smoker (the temperature is around 200-250 constantly) and lay on the smoke (applewood and hickory) pretty thick in the beginning.  It was also coated with a dry rub of a whole bunch of spices/seasonings (some non local, but I think that’s okay).  I think it worked out really well – the smoky flavor came out, but the meat was still tender and juicy.  The veggies were steamed quickly and tossed with some olive oil.

Bison Brisket:
Bison – Backyard Bison
Sugar Snap Peas – North Star Orchard
Carrots – Charlestown Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills (Fat Cat & Matilda’s Summer Tomme)
Sesame Semolina Bread – St. Peter’s Bakery
Maple Sugar – Miller’s Maple
Non Local – olive oil, paprika, pepper, garlic powder, salt

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 5

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We had an unexpected trip away from home, but still managed to hit the Anselma Farmer’s Market, and with some help from our freezer, got a meal together for One Local Summer.  It’s pretty basic, but was nonetheless delicious.  The husband cooked the steak to perfection (read: brown and fully cooked the whole way through – I like my steaks WELL WELL done) and topped it with some delicious goat cheese, threw together a salad, and found some sugar snap peas to add as a vegetable.  It was all last minute, but we made it!

Bison Delmonico Steak w/ Salad:
Bison Delmonico Steak – Backyard Bison
Sugar Snap Peas – Brogue Hydroponics
Mesclun mix – Maysie’s Farm
Strawberries – Brogue Hydroponics
Cucumbers – Brogue Hydroponics
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Italian Herb Goat Cheese – Yellow Springs Farm
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Wine – Chaddsford Pinot Noir
Non Local – Olive oil, Pepper, Salad Dressing

OLS: Week 6

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Week six of One Local Summer and it’s almost the mid-point of the thirteen week challenge. The husband decided to take the lead on this week’s meal with no objection from me.   In the back is a pile of mashed turnips and carrots with maple sugar added for flavor.   Clockwise, next is a Bison Meatloaf using ground bison, tomatoes, garlic scapes, swiss cheese, an egg, and last year’s frozen tomato sauce.   Finally, sugar snap peas finish the plate.   In the wine glass is a Strawberry wine.   It was a great meal, and even better, I didn’t have to cook it!

Rundown of ingredients:
Turnips: Willow Creek Orchards
Carrots: Willow Creek Orchards
Maple Sugar: Miller’s Maple
Bison: Backyard Bison
Garlic Scapes: Willow Creek Orchards
Tomatoes: Lancaster County (via Willow Creek)
Tomato Sauce: My garden, last year
Egg: Pleasant View Farms (via Willow Creek)
Swiss Cheese: Hendricks (via Willow Creek)
Snap Peas: Willow Creek Orchards
Wine: Mount Hope Vineyards

OLS: Week 2

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?