Search Results for: tidbit tuesday

Just Another Tidbit Tuesday

Posted on February 13, 2018 by AnnieRie

Amazing. Two days. Two posts. I haven’t done this in ages.

Because. BREAD!

That’s right. I haven’t slacked off on making the famous NoKnead Bread and I have been modifying it left and right. Rosemary bread. Olive bread. Parmesan garlic bread. And, the latest here. Cinnamon raisin bread.

Have to use all this flour and grain I am getting in my winter CSA share.

This week, though, we just got spelt flour, which I will need to research to see how it does in a NoKnead recipe.

As for that cinnamon bread. This recipe is so easy and so forgiving. I messed up and was pouring the 360 grams of cool water into the flour and boom, the scale went from 430 to 830 before I could stop it. No problem. Eyeball it and add a couple of spoons of flour. It still worked perfectly. I use the ratio of 400 grams of flour to 360 grams of water. 1/4 teaspoon of active yeast. Teaspoon of salt.

All into the bowl on the scale. Before adding the water, I add the seasonings. Yesterday it was 20 grams of raisins and a few shakes of cinnamon and a teaspoon of sugar. Made the bread without that overly sweet taste that commercial raisin bread has.

This recipe calls for the bread to sit for a minimum of 12 hours before pouring out and shaping. Second rise of 2 hours. Baked in a 475 degree oven in the covered pot that spent 30 minutes heating before dumping the bread into it. 30 minutes baking with cover on. 15 minutes uncovered. Take out and let cool one hour on a rack. Enjoy.

What else interesting around here? Uniquely shaped sweet potatoes in the CSA box.

This one will be interesting to peel and cook.

The rest of this week’s veggies.

I am officially tired of potatoes and carrots. The Hakurei turnips on the other hand. They are destined to become a side dish for tomorrow’s Valentine’s dinner.

We never go out on Valentine’s Day. I make a nice filet mignon. I am steaming shrimp. Small bottle of bubbly for the appetizer and with dessert. Glass of good red wine with the steak. I got a tiny box of chocolates at Roots today. Dinner and the Olympics.

Some other ideas of good things for Valentines Day. Head to Clarksville Commons for ice cream from Scoop and Paddle. Indulge at the newly opened Victoria and Albert Hair Salon there. Kupcakes and Co. for a special dessert.

Tomorrow morning. I will be opening a new jar of Neat Nick Preserves to go with fresh cinnamon raisin toast.

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Posted in CSA, Food, LFFC, Locavore and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, Howard County, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

The Tidbit Tuesday Post

Posted on July 11, 2017 by AnnieRie

Yes, I promised to post on Tuesdays. About something. Anything. Maybe food. Maybe events. Maybe activities. Maybe the weather. Who knows.

Let’s start with tomatoes. We have tomatoes.

Lovely little cherry tomatoes. Ripening on the windowsill. I still pick them just about when they are ready, to avoid bug damage.

The crazy little ones on the left are called tomatoberry garden. They look like strawberries, with a pointy end.

I did get one Scarlet Red tomato the other day. Other than that, lots of green tomatoes on the main plants. I put in 30 plants this year. I know that is obsessive, but I still try to achieve that blue ribbon for heirlooms at the county fair.

Changing the subject.

Why doesn’t grocery store celery look like this?

Why do they cut away the leaves, which add so much flavor to soup? I will quickly blanch, then rinse and freeze these beauties in order to make chicken stock this winter.

The final tidbit? Cauliflower cake.

An Ottolenghi creation. From his book, Plenty More. One of the highlights of a month long cooking spree using any of his books. The recipe is here.

It’s a show stopping recipe that will impress anyone when you serve it.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Gardening, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

Tidbit Tuesday

Posted on November 17, 2015 by AnnieRie

Here we are heading full speed into the holiday season and there is quite a bit happening.

Like this weekend, the holiday Colonial Celebration over at Belmont. I hear there aren’t many tickets left. Absolutely beautifully decorated, and with good food and libations, it is the only fund raiser that the Howard County Conservancy holds at Belmont to raise funds to support the educational programs held there.

Meanwhile, tonight at Mt. Pleasant, another of the meteor shower events. The Leonids. I will be there setting up and we are crossing our fingers that it isn’t too cloudy. The event is from 10pm-1am.

Here on the home front, I am trying to get ready for Thanksgiving, as one by one, appliances in my kitchen keep having problems. First, the dishwasher only intermittently drains. Even taking it apart and cleaning it out hasn’t solved the problem. Guess it’s time to find a new one.

Add to that, my microwave knob no longer functions. The microwave works, but you can only use the express button and push it enough times to get the number of minutes you need. Since I only use it for potatoes, pop corn and reheating coffee, it’s not a big issue for Thanksgiving, but it is just another place where we see quality is lacking.

Last week our CSA had pop corn in it. I like to pop it in a paper bag for three minutes in the microwave. No need for butter or oil or clean up.

As for the “last straw”, so to speak, our oven door shattered. This is the second one. The top oven did it a few years back. The lower one, late last month when I put it into cleaning mode.

Thankfully, it was fully contained in between the outer shields. I suppose I could still use it for a while as it shattered at the beginning of a two hour cleaning cycle, and I didn’t know it until it finished and unlocked. I had heard a “pop” and couldn’t figure out where it originated, until I opened the door.

So much for having a fancier oven. It seems bad glass is bad glass so matter who the manufacturer is. I guess this means I get to hand clean the ovens from now on. Or, I keep having to replace the glass. Annoying. Particularly as we get into my busy baking season.

Cookie baking time is fast approaching.

Tomorrow, if I get a chance to sit down, I will be writing about Thanksgiving plans, including getting the turkey and the wine.

Get outside tonight, and look for meteors.

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Posted in Adventures, Community, Day Trips, Food, Hobbies, Howard County and tagged community, day trips, Food, holidays, Howard County, howard county conservancy, nature, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Tidbit Tuesday Again

Posted on October 13, 2015 by AnnieRie

Doing a fly by. Quick information because there is too much going on, and I haven’t updated the blog in a few days.

Did you know that the Farm Academy is simply awesome?

The first session was at TLV Tree Farm. Two more. UMD farm, and Gorman. If there is still room, you should sign up. I learned quite a bit and I thought I knew much about our local agricultural business.

I did learn more about the Roving Radish. For $28 you can get two meals for four people, or four meals for two, like us, with all the major ingredients and the recipes. When it first started, they used about 10% local sourcing, now it is close to 70% local. Want to have better food, easy to make? Affordable? Check them out!

More later, when I get all the information about the local farms, but you really need to see how much the county is doing to promote local vendors and farms. I am seriously impressed.

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Posted in Community, Farms, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, West HoCo and tagged community, farms, Food, Howard County, local businesses, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Tidbit Tuesday Again

Posted on June 16, 2015 by AnnieRie

Just some random thoughts on a Tuesday evening.

The zucchini are officially out of control already, less than a week after finding the first few. The behemoth in the picture weighed 24 ounces and was hiding (the usual ploy of zucchini not wanting to be harvested). All told. 84 ounces in 8 zucchini. And, this is just the beginning.

Notice the two little mini white cucumbers. My first cukes of the season. Pickling cukes. They are far ahead of the other cucumbers. All of these vegetables came from my #grow100 challenge area. What can you grow in 100 square feet? Obviously, beaucoup zucchini.

Moving on to other pictures from my camera since the weekend, congratulations to the volunteer of the year at the conservancy, Woody Merkle. We swear he lives there, we see him all the time.

We had our volunteer appreciation strawberry social on Sunday. Well attended. Lovely berries from Baugher’s and ice cream from Hoffman’s.

Today after harvesting for the food bank and for the winners of the auction basket at Wine in the Garden, I got those zucchini and cukes and headed off for my CSA pick up.

Something new. Red Leaf cheese. Not just any cheese, but an award winning goat cheese with attitude. The joys of our CSA. Finding things like this.

This week we also got something new in our meat share.

Country spare ribs from the heritage hogs at Razorbacks and Barbed Wire Farm. We have gotten pork chops from this farm. Very tasty. I am thinking ribs tomorrow night.

As for the fruit share.

Stayman apples and strawberry jam. I just finished the raspberry jam from the winter CSA. Am so happy to see a new flavor to try. Heaven on toast in the morning.

My veggie share?

Completely insane. Almost too much to photograph. There will be lots of cooking going on. I am thinking of using the massive escarole in a soup with the last of the green garlic. Romano beans and snow peas.

OK, another new one.

Dandelion greens.

We are slowly transitioning into summer, with a mix of squash and beans, and many different greens.

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Gardening, LFFC, Locavore and tagged CSA, Food, foodie, gardening, howard county conservancy, Locavore. Bookmark the permalink.

Tidbit Tuesday Again

Posted on September 16, 2014 by AnnieRie

Lots of random small talk today.

How about housekeeping? As in cleaning out the garden, getting ready for fall, and cleaning up my web pages.

The Malabar spinach is going to seed. The big question is whether I will save seeds and replant in the spring. I didn’t use much of it. It did act as a very strong pollinator attracter though. Well, so did the basil.

I imagine that the Conservancy bees got lots of pollen from the basil in the garden. Some days it was covered in honey bees.

Sometime this weekend I will be harvesting all the basil and there will be a pesto making marathon in my kitchen. I hit Whole Foods Sunday morning to get almonds and Parmigiano Reggiano for my pesto. Go early before the breakfast crowd shows up.

It is almost time to plant the garlic. I have about two dozen cloves ready to go into my back yard garden. Once the trees start dropping leaves, they will get enough sun all winter and spring to grow and be harvested in early summer.

We are completely reconfiguring the Conservancy community garden plot. There will be four large squares instead of four rows. One for herbs. One for tomatoes. One for peppers, leeks, shallots and onions. And, one for everything else. I did plant some arugula and lettuce for fall. We learned quite a bit this year.

Keep the onions away from the corner where the hoses are. The excess water rotted a few of my onions.

Put paths around the outside. It keeps down on weed infiltration.

More on gardening in the near future. Let’s now turn to the other trivial things I have done. I updated a few items on my pages. Adding a couple of blogs I read. Making sure the farm page is up to date. Checking that I didn’t forget anything on my food preservation page. I still need to update my local resources, and to add my new page, still in draft, on HOCOBIZ. This will be my page that highlights small businesses in the area where I find really good service. These businesses are mostly family owned, but aren’t my food sources. Places like Kendalls, Clarks Hardware, British American. Oh, and restaurants. I will be putting a restaurant category on that page.

Yep, it’s time to do that fall cleaning. Like leaf raking. And weed removal. And, putting those wintery things in the cars. Where are those stupid ice scrapers anyway? Just hoping not to find too many days like this.

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Posted in Farms, Food, Gardening, Local Businesses, Restaurants and tagged cooking, farms, Food, foodie, gardening, howard county conservancy, local businesses. Bookmark the permalink.

Tidbit Tuesday

Posted on July 15, 2014 by AnnieRie

Where I run off in all directions and have no single thing to say in a post.

There were 75 pounds of vegetables collected today for the food bank. A lighter day for squash, and the tomatoes aren’t ready yet.

I was up at the Conservancy gardens this morning, “basking” in the 70something degree temperatures with about the same amount of humidity. I hadn’t been there since Saturday, which was fairy house building day.

This is what 118 people look like before they headed off into the woods.

Creativity, a great time, and lots of pictures for this year’s album.

Now, on to the next events, and the continuous harvest of my garden.

The bulk of the five dozen little tomatoes I harvested. Fifty supersweet 100s and 10 sungold. Mixed with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, basil, chopped onion and banana pepper, and a touch of sugar. Roasted at 250 degrees for a couple of hours. Destined to be frozen and used as one of my recipes in my presentation next month on preserving food.

Then, there were the onions.

I had to harvest a number of them today, as they were getting mushy at the top. We had 1.5 inches of rain in the rain gauge at the garden (in a 36 hour period). It is driving us nuts, splitting tomatoes and washing away my mounded soil over the onions, leeks and shallots.

Some of those onions, along with new red potatoes and bacon from England Acres, roasted along with the tomatoes. There will be a very nice salad made from this.

As for zucchini, I did make that lemon blueberry zucchini bread. Thanks to the Lean Green Bean.

I did substitute, as usual. Used all AP flour. Upped the sugar to about 4/10ths of a cup. It tastes wonderful.

There is more shredded zucchini sitting in the fridge so that tomorrow I can make zucchini fritters and freeze them. Another project for that preserving food program scheduled in late August.

I have been a busy bee today. Time to head off and watch the All Star Game.

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Posted in Community, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Real Food, Volunteering and tagged community, cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, Howard County, howard county conservancy, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Another Tidbit Tuesday

Posted on November 19, 2013 by AnnieRie

So many little things happening today and this week. Much of it locally driven, but some of it really interesting.

So, what is happening?

I am waiting to see if they launch the Minotaur rocket from NASA. The new time of launch is 2015 EST. We saw the last one from the back deck. Skies look clear enough to see this one, too.

I am checking with the NASA Facebook page for Wallops to get updates.

Today is my better half’s 63rd birthday.

When he gets home from his regular radio club dinner meeting, we will share the dark chocolate sea salt bar with the rest of the lovely red I got with my dinner at Bistro Blanc. It is half price wine night there.

I went up there for a few reasons. A quick perfectly cooked medium rare lamb burger, and a delivery to Chef Marc of a dozen long stems of my rosemary, and a huge bouquet of three kinds of sage. Cleaning up the herb garden.

While there, I sampled something new. Two words I never thought would go together. Chocolate. Grappa. Hey, don’t knock it! It isn’t bad.

Since my husband went off with his fellow radio friends, I postponed his birthday dinner until tomorrow night. Currently, I am marinating a strip steak from Clark’s farm.

It will be pan seared and finished in the oven tomorrow, to be served with roasted romanescu. And, I think I will open a really nice Virginia wine.

Speaking of wine, Big Cork announced on their Facebook page that their production facility will be open for tasting this Friday and Saturday. We hope to get there to see what they are offering. Their facility is in Frederick, just off I-70. Tasting time is 12-6.

Last but not least I have been working on scheduling the farmers who will be offering goodies at the Conservancy Natural Holiday Crafts fair on Dec. 7th. We hope to make your holidays special with goodies from local farms, as well as all those local crafters who will be there.

Tuesday Tidbits

Posted on November 12, 2013 by AnnieRie

Odds and ends about food and wine.

Like the grand opening of Petite Cellars.

Owned by the former owners of Perfect Pour, the store in Turf Valley has been completed and the ribbon cutting ceremony was this afternoon. Courtney Watson was on hand to cut the ribbon, along with Chamber of Commerce representation. We enjoyed the event, wishing them well and picking up a “local” gin, from Loudoun County VA (Catoctin Creek). Love having a specialty liquor around to use for entertaining, and finding locally produced items complements what is important to me.

Two days in a row, we have been out and about. Last night we attended the opening session of “Iron Bridge University”, this time the first of six tastings featuring the wines of Italy. Vince does a great job of leading the educational series. This one highlighted Tuscany.

The events are hugely popular. All 36 seats were taken, and there was a waiting list of dozens of people. The entire six event series is a sell out. Good to see another family owned local business doing well.

I also was impressed with the local farms providing the Bridge with meat and vegetables. Farms like Clark’s and Valley Haven, in Howard County.

At home today for lunch, we enjoyed locally sourced items, paired with a few new finds. Like these wonderful crackers we found at COSTCO.

These crackers are perfect with our ajvar, and my newest spread I made. I used the Bulgarian recipe as inspiration, but then just went off in my own direction.

The eggplant spread is in the small bowl. I used two eggplant and four green peppers, roasted and peeled. A few cloves of garlic, some lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Processed in the “food pro” until the right consistency. Sharper in taste than the red pepper spreads I make, but still very tasty.

The salad on the plate was made with the Tuscan kale in our CSA box. Some scallions, pecorino, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice and avocados I picked up at Boarman’s when I was ordering our Maple Lawn Thanksgiving turkey. None of it measured. Whatever looks good, is the way I make salads.

All in all, a very pleasant Monday and Tuesday to start our week. Crossing my fingers that it warms up a bit, so I can plant garlic.

Hmmm, food and wine and cooking. I need to find some other hobbies. Nah, I don’t think so. These keep us busy enough.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Community, Farms, Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Restaurants, Wine and tagged community, cooking, farms, Food, foodie, gardening, hobbies, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

CSA Tidbits

Posted on October 19, 2017 by AnnieRie

It’s been a while since I talked about my farm share from Lancaster Farm Fresh. Our spring/summer 26 week season is about to end next Tuesday, and then fall shares begin. We have already transitioned to fall vegetables, which I love, but the official “seasons” are off by a few weeks.

Some of the favorite things we get these days.

Radishes.

Exotic ones, like the watermelon radishes. I swapped this week to snare some of these. The medium shares got them, and we didn’t. Radishes come in spring and fall, and some of the hardiest ones, the daikon for example, come in the winter. These more delicate radishes can be enjoyed raw, with a sprinkling of salt. Those daikons, and the really heavy black radishes of winter, they have to be roasted to bring out their flavor.

Turnips.

Hakurei are my favorites. They can be eaten raw, and unpeeled, but I like to roast them or cook them with their greens, like Vivian Howard, of the Chef’s Life fame, has in her cookbook, Deep Run Roots. The “pot likker” alone is worth it. Yesterday I cooked up a mess of greens and added these roots to the pot. Nothing like intensely flavored greens, and buttered turnips. No pictures of those. They weren’t that photo worthy.

What is photo worthy? This.

Restaurant quality, if I say so myself. Greens from the CSA. A Cherry Glen Monocacy Ash cheese, picked up at Evermore Farm when I got my meat share. The blackberries? From Baugher’s in Westminster, right down the road from Evermore Farm. I love to stop there after getting my monthly allocation of meat and eggs. The blackberries were end of season, and a bit mushy, but still bursting with flavor. I ended up mixing some plain yogurt with lime juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and mint, for the dressing.

There are a few slivered almonds there, too.

Finally, the first soup of the season.

Lentil soup. Made using some fresh stuff, some frozen stuff and a bag of French lentils. Started with celery, a leek, carrots and onions, all from the CSA. Added a quart of turkey stock made in the spring and frozen, using Maple Lawn farm turkey drumsticks. The bag of lentils. A bay leaf from my plant. French thyme from Penzeys. Salt. Pepper. After it cooked about an hour, I blended part of it to make it creamy. Added a cup of milk at the end of cooking.

Enough for at least three dinners. One Tuesday night. One this weekend. One will be frozen for later this winter. It was the first time I made lentil soup and it won’t be the last time.

Before I sign off on this CSA update, I have to include the picture from Tuesday.

$33 a week. All organic. If I priced this out at Roots, I know it would be much higher, even if I could find all these items there. Watermelon radishes are hard to find. So are Hakurei turnips. French breakfast radishes.

I love getting the tops of the radishes and the turnips, too. They made that dinner last night. Rainbow chard, radish greens, turnip greens, all cooked down for a long time. The lettuces will be gone by the weekend. Salads at lunch and dinner. I will be roasting cauliflower this weekend. Tuscan kale. Destined for a salad on Sunday. The sweet peppers? Stuffed with goat cheese and Canadian bacon. Served with short ribs this Sunday night. With a little planning, a CSA share can give us a week of healthy eating.

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Posted in CSA, Food, LFFC, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, farms, Food, foodie, local businesses, real food, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

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