Category Archives: CSA

Whey Out There!

Posted on April 23, 2013 by AnnieRie

OK! Mozzarella was a success.

Eight ounces of cheese, close to half a gallon of whey left over. Don’t throw it away!

Instead, make soup with it. All from the freezer and fridge. Potato corn chowder. Look into the crock pot. Frozen foods in it.

I dumped about two pounds of Yukon Gold CSA potatoes, boiled, sliced and frozen in October. And, about 10-12 ounces of sweet white corn from TLV, blanched and cut from the cob. The corn is the blob on the right bottom of the pot. All the whey in there.

Plus, green beans from the CSA. Turnips from East Rivendell (they buy wholesale from Lancaster Farm Fresh). Greens and turnips. Baby Hakurei turnips.

Added some scallions and carrots. Carrots from Breezy Willow. Scallions bought at England Acres when I picked up my half a lamb (another topic for later this week). Oh, and some of that bacon from TLV bought Saturday.

Popped some basil from my new plants in it. Some veggie blend from dried herbs. At some point, I fished out the potatoes and pureed them in the blender. Salt and pepper and garlic powder to taste. This came out very well. Rich satisfying soup.

Served with a salad medley. And, a lovely white wine from Linden.

hocofood@@@

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Early Bird CSA Week Seven

Posted on April 17, 2013 by AnnieRie

Lots of greenhouse and high tunnel goodies this week. Things we crave, and now due to the proliferation of high tunnels and greenhouses, are ready to harvest early in the season. Breezy Willow delivers the freshest goodies, as always.

We got:

3 grapefruit
3 pounds red potatoes
1/2 pound salad mix
1 pound spinach
2 pounds zucchini
1 pound green beans
1 bunch beets with greens
1/2 pound mushrooms

We had a note this week about the citrus. It seems oranges were adversely affected by the cold weather this winter in Florida, so our citrus was limited to grapefruit.

I also picked a big parmesan sourdough bread from Great Harvest, and we got the dozen eggs. These are from Nature’s Yoke. I do miss the pretty colored eggs from Breezy Willow, but with the size of the CSA, they have to use eggs from more than one farm.

They still taste wonderful, and have those lovely deep yellow yolks.

I already put some of the spinach in tonight’s dinner.

Spinach, along with the rest of the bean sprouts from last week, some onion, garlic, ginger, water chestnuts, sesame oil and soy sauce. Served with sweet spicy spare ribs from Boarman’s.

I am loving these beets.

I dry roasted last weeks, and they went into salads. This week, I will probably do the same, as beets with spinach and cheese, and vinaigrette made using my frozen fruit. Yum! Doesn’t get much better.

The green beans and red potatoes will become a lunch salad.

As for the bread, this parmesan sourdough is dense and chewy and really tastes wonderful. If it does cool down this weekend, I am making a stew and sourdough dipped in gravy is heaven!

I already ate the crusty end with dinner tonight. Love fresh bread with butter.

hocofood@@@

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Breezy Willow Farm, In West Friendship

Posted on April 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

I know I first encountered Breezy Willow at the Glenwood Farmer’s Market, but I don’t remember when. The market was small when we first moved out here, but as a Saturday market it was easy to attend while we still had day jobs in DC. I buy quite a few veggies from them on Saturday mornings and still do much of my purchases of items I don’t grow in my garden from their stand. Things like the sweet corn, the radishes, the summer squash, peppers, and more. And, of course, their lovely free range eggs.

market closing day 2012

Breezy Willow offers all sorts of items, including eggs, honey, breads, soap, herbs, rare veggies, and fruit. They are a certified organic farm. Here is a very detailed description from their website.

Besides, who can resist the alpacas? And, the sheep, the chickens, the dog, any or all of them will greet you when you pick up your Community Supported Agriculture “basket” in the farm store. Visits weekly to the farm really do create that connection between us and the source of our food.

They also make and sell other goodies, like handmade jewelry, alpaca scarves and socks, felted soap balls, scented soaps, the list goes on. It is truly a labor of love on a family run farm. I love to buy the soaps to give as Christmas gifts.

RJ, Ken, Casey and Jason are all out and about. You may run into them at the markets, on the farm, and CSA pick up points beyond the farm. The farm does offer work for your CSA options, for those who staff the CSA pick up points, or the market. They work for their share, instead of paying for it.

This is an incredibly popular CSA in the county, one that has been adding pick up sites every season, and now has more than 700 members.

For the summer and fall CSA, which runs 24 weeks, starting in June, the vast majority of your items come from surrounding farms and from Breezy Willow. They do bring in goodies like mushrooms from PA and a few farms are outside of the county. To me, that is a good thing.

The success or failure of CSAs depends on happy customers. Some people are leery of taking risk if weather could wipe out part of a harvest, and the only source of their veggies is one farm. By diversification, and use of a cooperative venture among small regional farms, CSAs like Breezy Willow are a very good value for those looking for healthy foods to serve themselves and their families. The diversification mitigates some of the risk, and by paying up front for your future “shares”, you assist the farm in getting cash flow in spring when they need it for planting. It is a good thing for both sides of the transaction.

In the early spring, Breezy Willow added an “early bird CSA” a few years ago. It runs 12 weeks from March through May, and supplements cold storage fruit and vegetables with greenhouse grown, high tunnel grown, and some shipped in items from the South. Items like fresh Florida citrus at the height of the Florida growing season. For those of us weary of winter and ready for spring, this CSA gives us really fresh outstanding veggies and fruit from small farms along the coast. I can’t wait to see if we get some early berries from Carolina or Virginia.

Breezy Willow also works with the other farms in the area to offer their dairy products, and meats out at the farm. I am partial to the yogurt, and if they have Bowling Green Farm feta in the fridge, I grab it. The farm store was open on Saturdays this spring from 10-2, and is open for CSA members on CSA pick up days.

Now that they have added an extension to the farm store building, we were told that the CSA will pick up in the extension and the farm store will take over the entire original section.

If you want a real treat find out what flavors of ice cream are in the cooler. My personal favorites, salted caramel, honey graham and maple bacon. Yes, maple bacon ice cream. The sweetness of maple with the saltiness of tiny pieces of bacon.

If you get the chance, check out the farm on one of their open days. Call ahead if there isn’t a notice on the web site. You can see what they offer by browsing on the site, and if you want to order, they will arrange a convenient pick up time.

You can’t miss them on Old Frederick Road (Rte 99), just west of Rte. 32 and the West Friendship fire station.

Or, stop by when they begin their participation in the Glenwood Saturday market at the library and community center parking lot. Last year, they started selling in early June, once they had a good supply of veggies to bring to market.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Community, CSA, Farmer's Markets, Farms, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, West HoCo and tagged community, CSA, farmer's markets, farms, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Week Six of the Breezy Willow CSA

Posted on April 10, 2013 by AnnieRie

Tomorrow I will be writing about the farm, today was CSA pickup day.

Week Six. Halfway through the Early Bird. I know why people love this CSA. The trip to the farm alone is worth it. The sheep need shearing! It was 88 degrees up there!

This week we got some new items. I know this value added CSA for early birds brings some items in from farms further south of here, but I have no problem with that as I get very fresh veggies that haven’t been sprayed or transported thousands of miles from foreign countries.

We got:
1/2 pound salad mix
1 pound bean sprouts
1 pound brussels sprouts
2 pounds beets
1 bunch rainbow carrots
3 pink grapefruit from Florida
1 bulb garlic
1 pound collard greens
1 bunch radishes
1 dozen eggs
Toasted Sesame Seed Bread

We could have swapped eggs for cheese, and of course, there were at least six different bread choices out there. I already used some bean sprouts with the last of the spinach, the last of the sugar snap peas, some garlic and onion to make a stir fry for dinner tonight.

I will be making pesto. Sort of like this one. I will be using the carrot greens, the radish greens, some basil from my windowsill pots, and maybe some of my baby arugula from my seedlings in the patio doorway.

basil growing on the windowsill

The picture directly above is my starter tray that contains arugula, kale and mesclun. If I thin out the arugula, it will add a touch of that peppery bite. If I wait only three or four days to make this, I will also have enough mint in the pots out on the deck to add. Pesto just needs that ratio of greens mixed with the nuts, parmesan, garlic and olive oil. I started experimenting using this post about not wasting food as a starter.

I also picked up a container of blueberry yogurt today, to mix with some of my Butler Orchard blueberries picked last summer and frozen. I am using these berries in all sorts of things.

Spring is definitely here. My cooking will be getting lighter. More salads and less stews. Grilling quite a bit, too. This week’s basket will easily get consumed with little leftover. We already started nibbling those gorgeous radishes as an appetizer tonight.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Weather and tagged cooking, CSA, farms, Food, gardening, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

The Sunday Night Eat Local Report

Posted on April 7, 2013 by AnnieRie

It’s Sunday, the day our small group of bloggers puts up our latest meals made using mostly local ingredients, bought from farms and artisans in our 100 mile radius.

As for the farm reports, which I am working also, I hope to do at least two farms a week, and make them part of my Eat Local Challenge. They will be spaced out to take advantage of visits once they open for the spring and summer seasons.

Tomorrow I will talk about Clark’s and later this week, Breezy Willow. Clark’s just opened their Elioak site last week, and I stopped by today to see how they were doing. Busy, busy, busy. As I said, more tomorrow, but how can you resist such a beautiful scene?

Today I want to showcase some local foods from my Breezy Willow Early Bird CSA, which found their way into dinners the past two nights.

And, since wineries are farms, too, I will touch on the wines from VA that made their way to the table.

Friday night stir fry.

The Napa cabbage, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, onions and spinach all came from Breezy Willow. The Canadian bacon in there came from Orchard Breeze Farm in PA, bought at the Olney indoor winter market. Orchard Breeze raises Berkshire hogs. This bacon made its way into many meals the past few days. The Japanese sweet potatoes that you see in the pan came from my fall CSA, Sandy Spring, which uses Lancaster Farm Fresh Coop, a nonprofit Amish coop from PA (80+ farms). I divide my CSAs between the two, using the strength of each one to keep me in fresh foods most of the year.

Looks good, doesn’t it? The shrimp came from the new Harris Teeter in Marriottsville, and the noodles are from Nature’s Yoke. I picked them up in the farm store at Breezy Willow when I got my CSA.

Served with one of my favorite wines for slightly spicy dishes. Since this dish also included some of the red peppers from the olive bar at Harris Teeter, some garlic from last week’s CSA, and grated ginger (another Harris Teeter purchase), it had a little kick to it. Enter Linden Vidal Riesling, a slightly sweet yet acid balanced white perfect for Asian styled foods.

I include Linden and his wines in my farm categories, as if you ever meet the owner of Linden, Jim Law, he will introduce himself as a farmer. To him, growing the grapes and tending his land is extremely important in the success of his winery.

Last night we had another local meal. Venison tenderloin. From my stash of venison. The farm across the way from us. My neighbor helps them in herd management and we got one of them for the cost of processing. This was the tenderloin, a prized part and one that demands careful handling.

I did a dry rub with RubJoeMeat. I can’t explain it. Read it on their web site if you really want to know. Trust me, though, it is a great rub for beef and for venison. I found the recipe to use for the tenderloin here.

I did not use a BBQ sauce, I made my own sauce from my berry vinaigrette, local PA maple syrup, balsamic, cinnamon and cayenne. Grilled it on that lovely evening yesterday.

The sweet potato is from last week’s CSA. The salad made with eggs, spinach, mushrooms, onions, all from Breezy Willow, the last of the bacon from Orchard Breeze. Perfectly cooked venison, not tough or gamey at all.

It looks great, doesn’t it? I will definitely use that web site again, for other venison recipes. As for the wine last night, I mentioned wanting to use a really good wine, and decided on a very old lovely Barboursville Octagon. From 1998, as a matter of fact.

Luca Paschina makes exceptional wines near Charlottesville. And he is one of the sweetest people to talk to, we spent 15 minutes in a buffet line at RdV last fall talking about his winery and his love of Virginia, coming here from Piemonte to be the winemaker at Barboursville.

1998 was the vintage year for the third edition of Octagon. Beautiful wine, that stood up to the venison and had that smokiness that matches grilled food so well.

You don’t have to buy imported wines, or food shipped halfway around the world to have first class meals. This weekend we celebrated the arrival of spring, using some of the best in the area.

hocofood@@@

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The Demise of the Dark Days Challenge

Posted on April 4, 2013 by AnnieRie

And, the rise of local choices year round!

It was a great idea six years ago. To start a challenge for the dark days of winter. To try to find local ingredients to cook one meal a week for four months. Not Dabbling in Normal hosted it last year, and it is where I began my journey to look for locally sourced foods. It is what inspired me to start my local resources page, and to change what I ate, where I bought it, and how I prepared meals. It was not that difficult, thanks to all the resources here.

It seems to have outlived its usefulness, and it no longer was a challenge to cook a local meal in February. It became very easy in this area. High tunnels, greenhouses, hydroponic growing. Year round markets, indoors and outdoors. Farm stands open all winter. CSAs that deliver in the winter. Residents of Howard County are indeed lucky to live surrounded by farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs that keep us in local ingredients.

The challenge is gone, except for the few of us who still keep in touch, and blog every Sunday about our latest local meal. With me, most meals contain at least one locally sourced item. Breezy Willow CSA and Sandy Spring CSA provide me with fresh veggies and fruit for 44 weeks of the year. My freezer does duty to preserve some items so they are available in winter. The farm store at England Acres, the indoor market in Olney, and I don’t have to travel far to get what I need. For only ten weeks a year I don’t have local veggies provided to me from a CSA (yes, I can count, 44+10 equals 54 but my CSAs overlap). Look at these lovely winter selections, begging to make a chicken soup.

February Zahradka half share CSA

I think it is amazing that every year we expand the times for the Howard County markets, and add more farms. There are now five days of markets here in the county, from May until Thanksgiving.

We have at least eight CSAs dropping off boxes at pickup points, or being picked up at farms like Love Dove, Gorman, Breezy Willow, Shaw Farm and Roundabout Hills. Sandy Spring drops off in Columbia. Zahradka has at least two pick up points in the summer, and delivers to your door in the winter. One Straw Farm has been here a long time, too. People pick up at MOM’s or a private residence.

Add to that, South Mountain Creamery delivering milk, meat, eggs, other local products every week year round, to your door. And, now Friends and Farms is actively adding to the choices to find year round.

When I started all this writing, I didn’t know it would take me on a path to a new way of shopping, cooking and caring about the small local businesses here. Glad I took the challenge, and so glad I found all these wonderful people to sell me my food.

Ah yes, bison and polenta. Gunpowder Bison short ribs, Burnt Mills roasted corn meal made into polenta, one of those carrots from the above CSA delivery picture glazed with local honey, and the ribs topped with McCutcheons tomato preserves. Think eating locally is hard? Not here in HoCo, it isn’t!

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Community, CSA, Dark Days, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, West HoCo, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Colcannon on CSA Day

Posted on April 3, 2013 by AnnieRie

It’s week five of our Breezy Willow CSA. Mostly spring veggies with a little fruit and citrus. I did need to use up older stuff so colcannon came to mind.

I’ll add my recipe at the end of the post, but let’s start with what we got today.

Six juice oranges
Four Fuji apples
One pound sugar snap peas
Half pound white mushrooms
Two pounds onions
Three pound sweet potatoes
Half pound salad mix
One pound spinach
One dozen eggs
Sesame Seed Bread

This value added CSA brings us local veggies and fruit, along with not quite local but still not across the southern hemisphere when it comes to sourcing the items. I can handle that. It is all so fresh. It lasts all week and then some.

After picking up our veggies and checking out the alpacas, we headed off to Marriottsville. My husband does think the alpacas are amazing.

They are cute, aren’t they? So, we went off to the new Harris Teeter, that opened last night. The one in the west edge of Turf Valley. I used to go to Maple Lawn after picking up my summer CSA in Columbia, so this is a welcome addition to west county.

I wanted some seafood to pair with our latest veggies. And, to use up those older ones. The sockeye salmon on the plate above was picked up today. I also had considered getting some spring rolls but the sushi counter isn’t open yet. They were making balloon animals for the little ones, and doing a brisk business in VIC card sign ups. Even at 3 pm, it was crowded. Lots of checkouts open, though. No wait. I picked up seafood, olives, a red onion and fennel bulb to use with those gorgeous oranges for a salad.

They are 7 miles from us. Giant is 5.5 the other way. Looks like this Harris Teeter will be my local store for staples, seafood and those items I need to round out real food recipes with my CSA foods. Convenient, too. Double that trip. Conservancy and HT. Or, landfill and HT. Or, Woodstock snowball stand and HT. I can see the possibilities.

As for the colcannon recipe. I had two ounces of spinach left from last week. Six Brussels sprouts. Two parsnips. I also had six tiny new potatoes bought at England Acres. Potatoes and parsnips parboiled until tender.

Pan started with butter, olive oil and onion. Shredded sprouts and spinach added. Garlic, three cloves grated over them. A pinch of salt. Let it all cook down. Add the potatoes and parsnips. Mash them and add another pinch of salt and of pepper. And a splash of milk.

With dinner, we opened a bottle of Rappahannock Meritage. Old red wine goes well with salmon. It does have that characteristic cab franc nose from VA, but still a lovely bottle.

Mostly local for the veggies. Local wine. Great CSA. A good Wednesday night.

hocofood@@@

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April Fool’s Day

Posted on April 1, 2013 by AnnieRie

No jokes. No pranks. No weird posts. Just the third anniversary of my last day of working. The day I left Federal service was thirty years and one day after starting it. Somewhere in my mind I kept thinking, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. I am really retiring.

I can’t believe three years have flown by. Always busy. Loving the gardening, volunteering, wandering, and other hobbies like my cooking and wine interests. Today, we ushered in April. A different weather pattern than a year ago. Still breezy and cool. No flowering trees or shrubs.

I did do a mostly local dinner, like I do many nights. Today I used up my CSA basket items to make a veggie stir fry.

Add to that a local wine, from Linden.

Good wine. Good food. Success in my seedlings. Check out how the squash are doing.

And, yes, the pot on the left has two new ones. I now have seven plants of the heirloom Thelma Sanders squash. Retirement gives you that freedom to revel in crazy little things, like success in planting seeds.

April is the beginning of planting, nurturing, harvesting, and enjoying the fruits of my labor. Different from a year ago, when the March heat had the plants all early blooming and I was recovering from surgery. It looks like this year will be a typical mid Atlantic spring. And I am ready to start putting plants in the ground. The mesclun, arugula and kale are getting bigger and need to be transplanted soon.

Stay tuned for me to check out how the azalea gardens are doing, out at Brighton Dam. It is definitely the beginning of spring. If you think of retirement, my advice is, do it in the spring. You will never miss the office and working.

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Mixing It Up

Posted on March 31, 2013 by AnnieRie

It’s time for the weekly Winter Eat Local posting, a Sunday night thing. Yes, today it’s Easter and I was off to my brother’s house to eat traditional foods, but I did take local Virginia wine down there to share with the family.

As for my weekly local meal, it was last night, and another crock pot meal using some of the venison in the freezer. The reason I am calling this post, mixing it up, is because I mixed all sorts of items to make this meal. It tasted great, just had weird combinations. And, was a mix of local fresh, local frozen, and organic canned items.

Basically, a salad and a stew. The stew, made with venison rump roast, spent all day getting tender in the crock pot. I started with the roast placed on top of one of those huge carrots from the CSA, two of the parsnips, and an onion, again Breezy Willow CSA veggies. Then, the weird part, one pint jar of a root veggie puree made with last fall’s CSA, and taken from the freezer. This gave substance and thickness to the stew. One pint jar of heirloom Amana orange tomatoes from the freezer. Home grown tomatoes, blanched and frozen. Some frozen organic peas from last year. Two tablespoons of tomato paste. A bunch of dried herbs and spices, like cinnamon, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, parsley and oregano. Salt and pepper, too. All plopped in that pot for six hours on high. Oh, almost forgot, for the last hour, add a splash of chicken stock and some whole wheat egg noodles. Mine were picked up at Breezy Willow. They sell them at their farm store. Really good noodles.

It came out tender and juicy and full of flavor. Paired with it was a very simple salad. I made the croutons Saturday morning with the last of the Great Harvest old fashioned white bread. The greens were CSA greens. Olives from Wegmans. Dressing from Roots. Neither of those were local. Still, this salad is so satisfying. Almost stole the show from the venison but not quite.

The croutons are really easy to make. I used one of my spice mixes, and some St. Helena Napa Valley grapeseed oil. A neutral oil, great for making dressings. I buy it by the 1/2 gallon. Mix bread cubes with the oil and spices, and a little salt. Put into a hot oven for five or six minutes. I used 400 degrees on the convection setting. Careful not to burn them, but get them dry and crunchy. I now have enough for a half dozen salads for the two of us.

The wine. An excellent pairing with venison, a cellar selection Malbec from Breaux in Virginia. 2010 vintage. Just the right touch of weight to compliment the venison. By the way, you could cut the venison with a fork, it was so tender. And, cinnamon and garlic powder. A spice combo that is a winning one.

VA Malbec and MD venison. Nice dinner, and still enough left for another dinner this week. That’s why I love my crock pot. Easy to use. Makes enough for multiple meals.

hocofood@@@

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CSA Week Four, Greens Galore!

Posted on March 27, 2013 by AnnieRie

Lots of spinach and salad mix this week. A pound of spinach and 1/2 pound of salad greens. Fresh, peppery arugula mixed in those greens. Loving that spring-y quality creeping in among all the winter root veggies.

This week it was still breezy out at Breezy Willow, but worth the wait.

We got:
1 pound spinach
1/2 pound salad mix
3 pounds potatoes
1/2 pound bean sprouts
1 bulb garlic
3 parsnips
1 pound humongous Brussels sprouts
3 grapefruit
1 Napa cabbage

Bread: I picked the High Five Fiber bread.

Value Added Week: this isn’t an egg week, so we got fresh cheese, I picked white cheddar. The other choices were colby or Monterey Jack.

I picked up some Trickling Springs fresh butter, to use in making this recipe for Brussels Sprouts. Just pull all those large leaves off the sprouts. Save the centers to steam another night. Get fresh butter and a little olive oil in a pan. Get the butter nice and frothy and brown, add the leaves. Keep them moving unless you like them crispy. Add a dash of salt and pepper. Just simple browned butter sprouts.

Although with the huge potatoes, I could make colcannon again. Add the parsnips to it also, maybe.

Last week we ate everything but two grapefruit, and the carrots. And, a third of the bread. Bread was the item I worried about. We don’t eat lots of it. I did decide that this weekend I will make croutons with the last of the white bread, to use on salads.

Looks like two people who love veggies can utilize all the CSA items. It does take planning, and making veggies the star of the dinner plate. Not a bad thing.