Category Archives: CSA

Accidental soup. That is what happened. It started out as sausage and cabbage. A little too much liquid in the crock pot. It ended up a lovely local soup served with a Maryland wine. The summer local challenge is in its next to last week. The ten of us are still using market and CSA veggies, plus what we grew, to make local meals.

Here is mine. TLV Farm sage sausage. Cabbage, turnips, purple potatoes from the CSA. Apples from Lewis Orchards. Cider from Lewis Orchards. Chicken stock from the freezer, made from TLV chicken. Canela bread with South Mountain Creamery butter. Most of the ingredients can be sourced by following my local resources page.

sausage and cabbage soup

The spices and seasonings were the only non local items in the soup. The wine. A Viognier Gruner Veltliner from Black Ankle, a MD winery.

The crispness of the wine cut the sweetness of the soup. I did add caraway, nutmeg, seasoned salt and pepper to the soup, but the cider really kicked it into more of a sweet zone. VGV, from Black Ankle is an interesting blend. The Gruner tones down that tartness of the Viognier.

This dinner is my weekly contribution to the Southern SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) Food Challenge with my cyber “sisters” that I talked about in a recent post.

One week to go in this current challenge. I believe we decided to continue working together to show how we source and cook from local ingredients all winter long. For me, come January, I have no winter CSA. It is freezer, farmstands and the two local year round markets.

I will be able to pick up things at our winter market fest at the Conservancy in January, and at the couple of farms that will be open on Saturdays. One or two trips to Silver Spring should round it all out. Eating locally is so much easier in this area than it was a few years back. Add to that, I will be doing the Early Bird spring CSA with Breezy Willow. Local cold storage veggies and green house lettuces, citrus from FL and all I need to do is survive January and February without a CSA delivery.

I have become so used to weekly boxes of fresh organic veggies, those two months will be an experience. But, I can still eat the rainbow. Use those frozen goodies like my pesto and my tomato sauce, and plow through my massive amount of potatoes sitting out in the cooler part of the mud room. Who says we have to suffer with processed foods in the winter? I remember getting root veggies like these last December.

Here’s to local eating!