Category Archives: Dark Days

Dark Days The Ninety Percent Solution

Posted on January 23, 2012 by AnnieRie

Today was miserable.

It was definitely a soup day.

So, I took out the leftover brisket from yesterday and added it to the leftover greens and potatoes from a dark days meal two weeks ago. Added some beef broth from the freezer and let it simmer. Added a can of organic tomatoes, not local. Brisket from Boarman’s market. Slow cooked the other day.

I made a salad with the Mock’s greenhouse Bibb lettuce, arugula, tomatoes and CSA microgreens. Added South Mountain Creamery cheese. Made a vinaigrette from my newly delivered oil and vinegar from St. Helena Olive Oil Co. mixed with ramp mustard from my farmer’s market trip.

Opened a 1998 Allegro Cadenza. May John and Tim Crouch (RIP) know that they made exceptional wines in PA. Sliced an olive loaf from Atwater’s bakery.

Voila, Dinner. With a few non-local ingredients, but not many.

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Dark Days One Pot Meal Challenge

Posted on January 17, 2012 by AnnieRie

So this week we are challenged to make a one pot dinner using local ingredients. I decided to make a frittata, since I have too many eggs at the moment.

The ingredients are ready to go.

The first step was to get the onion, collard and beet greens, all from my Zahradka farms CSA delivery, wilted down in the Trickling Springs butter, in the heated cast iron skillet.

I mixed six eggs from the CSA together with salt and pepper, to add to the pan after I added half the container of Bacon Jam from Virginia Lamb and Meats to give it a lovely bacony flavor. I bought the jam at the Dupont Circle farmer’s market in December and really needed to use it. I also grated some Baby Swiss from South Mountain Creamery over the top before adding the eggs and tomato.

Poured the eggs around it all, and arranged on top of it all a locally grown Hummingbird Farms hydroponic heirloom tomato I picked up at Roots Market during a recent visit down to Columbia.

After it cooked for a while on the stove top, I placed it under the broiler to finish the top and brown it off.

The finished product being plated. The only non-local items in the meal were salt, pepper, and parsley. The parsley was organic, and came from Roots. Not local though. Dinner also included a 2010 Sauvignon Blanc from Glen Manor Vineyard, from our visit earlier this month.

A very satisfying and tasty Sunday night dinner, with the earthiness of the greens, the brightness of the tomato, and the unmistakable melting bacon jam adding the right touch to the dish. Another successful venture into cooking with foods from 100 miles or less from our doorstep.

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Dark Days Week Seven Sunday Dinner

Posted on January 10, 2012 by AnnieRie

Honestly, if I didn’t get the salsify from the CSA the end of December, I would never have found my newest favorite vegetable.

Ugly looking vegetable, isn’t it? But it ended up in a lovely dinner of beef sausage, baked red cabbage and apples, and fritters made simply with the salsify. I do need to work on my photography skills though, as the cabbage and apples had juices running all over the plate. I suppose I can’t qualify for cooking magazine photographer, can I?

The salsify recipe came from vintage recipes and I chose the salsify fritters recipe from the Boston Cooking School Cookbook. I made it using local butter from Blue Ridge Dairy, and the spelt flour from The Common Market Coop bulk foods bin. It was really great tasting, just like described, reminding us of oysters.

The sausages were placed in a small pan in the oven to brown. The red cabbage from the last week of our fall CSA were placed in a deep baking dish with apples from the Leesburg Farmer’s Market (I forgot to record which farm we bought them from), apple cider from Heyser Farms Colesville MD, honey from Baugher’s Westminster MD, and baked with the sausage. Baked it all at 300 degrees, for about an hour to get the beef sausages to caramelize.

Finished it all off with some pumpkin ice cream left in the freezer from our earlier trip to Baugher’s.

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Dark Days Week Six Happy New Year!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by AnnieRie

We ended up staying home on New Year’s Day. We had been out three of the last five nights, and were not in the mood to drive to relatives. We wanted to finish some outside work before it got windy so I decided to make a crockpot beef dinner.

I turned it into a Dark Days Meal. All thrown together in the crockpot. I made:
Local Beef Short Ribs
Potatoes
Leeks
Red Onion
Tomato Sauce
Kale
Napa Cabbage
Carrots

First though, I browned the beef ribs. They were from Triadelphia Lake View Farms, and bought at the farmer’s market earlier this year.

The tomato sauce is from Quaker Valley in PA. I used it to augment the tomato/veggie sauce I had made earlier this week using stuff from my garden and the CSAs that I found in the freezer. It made a rich sauce that coated the kale and cabbage. I placed the beef on top of it all with salt, pepper, cinnamon, garlic, dried peppers (grated), and a touch of local honey. All the veggies were CSA veggies from Zahradka Farm or Lancaster Farm Fresh Coop.

Served it with a Linden Hardscrabble Bordeaux blend, from VA. Great comfort meal on a cold night.

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Dark Days Challenge Week Five Christmas Dinner

Posted on December 27, 2011 by AnnieRie

I suppose I subscribe to the philosophy when I accept a challenge to go big or go home. Being somewhat crazy, I decided to make Christmas dinner be our dark days meal for the fifth week of the challenge. I am leaving the easier dinners for when I am really running out of vegetables. Besides, I can’t believe the lovely romanesco cauliflower that was in our first Zahradka Farm CSA delivery last week. All ready to roast, it looks just like a Christmas tree, doesn’t it?

Dinner ended up being:
Roasted Cauliflower
Hydroponic tomatoes with goat cheese and basil and balsamic
Stuffed butternut squash
Virginia country ham on sweet potato biscuits
Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay

The biscuits and ham came home with us from my brother’s house, so I do know that the biscuits were made using regular flour, one of the few non-local items in the meal. I just warmed them up in the oven.

The squash were stuffed with a honeycrisp apple, squash I roasted earlier in the week, local black walnuts, local honey, and local butter. The squash were from the Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA that just finished before Christmas.

The tomatoes came from the nearest grocery store, but Hummingbird Farms on the Eastern shore of Maryland grows lovely flavorful tomatoes year round in their greenhouses, hydroponically. The cheese was the end of the Firefly Farms chevre log. The basil from Mock’s Greenhouses in Berkeley Springs, WV.

The balsamic is not local, but bought from St. Helena Olive Oil Co., when we went there in 2006, I brought back three bottles of their aged balsamic. This is the last bottle. I need to order their oil and vinegar again, while it is cool enough for them to be shipped without damage. I buy their Napa Valley olive oils by the half gallon.

The wine is one of my absolute favorites from Virginia, Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay. This was the 2008 vintage, the second year of our hot dry summers, and this wine is big and beautiful. It is made in the Burgundian style. Jim Law is a master of terroir, and his wines show his love of the land. If you meet him, he will tell you he is first and foremost a farmer, who happens to grow some of the most amazing grapes on his land that borders the Appalachian Trail near Shenandoah National Park.

Dinner doesn’t need to be fancy. Just flavorful. The wine, the salad, the roasted veggies, and the salty tang of country ham, all came together to make a lovely Christmas dinner for me and my husband. We do cherish the quiet times, far from the rat race we lived through in our journey to retirement. Our first Christmas since he retired, and it was a special one.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Accidental Crockpot Dinner

Posted on December 22, 2011 by AnnieRie

In my haste to make room in the freezer yesterday, I accidentally left the frozen turkey carcass left over from Thanksgiving out on the side counter opposite the work area in the kitchen. Two hours later I found it, happily defrosting itself and making a puddle on the counter.

So, after dinner, a crockpot soup, I had to adjust my plans for the evening and begin an overnight slow cooking turkey stock. Into the just emptied and cleaned crockpot, I dumped the carcass, partially defrosted. I rummaged around and cut up a few onions, leeks and carrots. Into the pot with assorted dried and fresh herbs from the garden and cupboard. Copious amounts of water, some salt and pepper, and a ten hour low temp setting.

Off to read, then all night long the turkey cooked down to an aromatic rich stock ready for use this morning.

I strained off enough to fill three of my one pint freezer containers for later this winter, put a quart in the little fridge where wine and beer usually co-mingle with whatever doesn’t fit in the kitchen fridge, and added all sorts of veggies to the rich thick soup left in the crockpot. This afternoon I will throw some egg noodles in for the last hour of cooking, and dinner tonight will be turkey noodle soup.

Almost but not quite a Dark Days Dinner for the second time this week. The turkey was local, from Maple Lawn Farm. The carrots, leeks and onions were from the CSA. Herbs from my garden. The egg noodles are from the Shrewsbury Amish market, but aren’t made from local ingredients, so I ended up with a 90% locally sourced meal. If I open a Breaux semillon/chardonnay blend, from Virginia, and defrost some Atwater’s bread, I am pretty much eating a locally produced meal again.

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Dark Days Challenge Week Four

Posted on December 19, 2011 by AnnieRie

It’s Sunday night. The night I usually cook my local meal for the Dark Days Challenge

I went way out there this week. Making gnocchi with local spelt. My local sources are on my page linked above on the blog.

Dinner:
Heirloom tomatoes with goat cheese, basil, olive oil and balsamic.
Sweet potato gnocchi with maple syrup and sage brown butter.
Maple pork sausage with onions and peppers.
Boordy Reserve Chardonnay.

Besides the salt, pepper, cinnamon, olive oil and balsamic, everything else was local.

Tomatoes and basil from Mock’s Greenhouse. 70 miles
Sausage and butter from South Mountain Creamery. 35 miles
Maple syrup from Patterson’s Farm, PA. 200 miles (yes, outside my 150, but one of the nearest sources of maple syrup to MD)
Sweet potatoes, onions and peppers from LFFC CSA. 100 miles
Goat cheese from Firefly Farms. 140 miles.
Spelt from The Common Market, Frederick MD 20 miles.
Ricotta from Natural by Nature. 100 miles.
Sage from my garden, 10 feet

Spelt was difficult to source, but The Common Market sells it in bulk, as well as in bags from Shiloh Farms. I bought bulk. I can also get it from Atwater’s by buying bags of Daisy, or by mail from Rodale or Small Valley. I saved the postage and bought bulk, even though they don’t know whether each batch is from PA, OH or maybe NY. In my rules, if I can source it locally, I will sometimes substitute if I can’t easily pick up the item. Having it shipped adds greatly to the cost. Same for maple syrup. There is a place in MD that makes it and sells it. Buying it when I am out costs less than ordering and paying for shipping.

The wine is from Boordy and went very well with the gnocchi. I have to admit, the white spelt which is a pastry flour is way finer than wheat flour, and the potatoes were also very fresh and almost melted when baked. I had to greatly increase the amount of flour to make the gnocchi, but they came out beautifully.

The recipe was from Food Network, with my changes to use spelt.
1 1/2 pounds sweet potato, baked in the oven, then peeled and smashed
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

Mix together. Add 2 cups of spelt, 1/2 cup at a time. You may need even more spelt as you are rolling out the gnocchi. Form a large ball. Divide into 4 pieces. Put more flour on the board. Get the right consistency by feel. If they are too wet, add more spelt. Keep on the side on a baking sheet. Heat salted water to boiling. Drop in enough at a time not to crowd them. Fish out after 5-6 minutes, and put under a foil tent to stay warm.

In the meantime, make the maple cinnamon sage brown butter. I used 3/4 stick equivalent of my dairy’s butter, 12 sage leaves, 2 TBSP maple syrup, 1 tsp cinnamon.

Bring the butter to a boil in a large pan, add sage and stand back. Stir and continue browning butter, then remove from heat and add cinnamon and maple syrup. Caution: it does foam up quite a bit, so be prepared to stir vigorously. Pour over the gnocchi and the sausages, which were baked in the oven with a little butter, two small onions chopped, and a few of my last CSA peppers.

Enjoy!

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Lazy Saturday Mornings

Posted on December 17, 2011 by AnnieRie

Today started out nicely, and then only got better at the Silver Spring Farmer’s Market.

This week will be interesting, and it was nice to have a lazy sleep in day, with a local breakfast, and a trip to the market for apples and greens.

Turns out we got way more than that. But first, breakfast. We have eggs to use, as this week starts my new CSA on Friday that includes eggs. The egg bin needs attention. These are South Mountain Creamery eggs.

Their butter, their eggs, Atwater’s spelt bread and the only non-local items were the salt and pepper.

Then off to the market, where I discovered the wonders of Mock’s Greenhouse fresh produce grown year round in fourteen greenhouses. The heirloom tomatoes just jumped up and called to us so we had to buy some. And, their basil as well. With Firefly Farms goat cheese, these will be tomorrow’s appetizer for my weekly Dark Days Meal.

I know there will be many more visits to the markets where they sell these lovely tomatoes.

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Reading the Labels

Posted on December 13, 2011 by AnnieRie

Today, after Christmas shopping for a while, I stopped at The Common Market in Frederick to find a few local items for the Dark Days Challenge. They advertise quite a bit of stuff that is from a 150 mile radius of Frederick. But that does not guarantee that the source of the ingredients meets that criterion.

Labels tell you lots of things. I know mango isn’t local, but a jar of chutney boasts the 150 mile claim, and mango is an ingredient. Their bulk foods also don’t always give the origin of the item, maybe the producer but not where it was grown.

Still, a productive trip. I got a little spelt to experiment with, for making breads. I can get organically grown local spelt from Small Valley and from Rodale Institute. This spelt may be from Ohio, which is a little farther than 200 miles away.

Do I use it in a Dark Days Challenge since I can source it locally, or be a purist and pass? If it works out, I will order some from Rodale.

I found corn meal the other day from Burnt Cabins. Mixed with white spelt, I can now do polenta. I can also do pasta. I also found a local source for emmer. The Common Market also sells it, but no idea of the source. I may be doing an order from Small Valley, where they sell emmer kernels.

I also found raw Virginia peanuts. Woo Hoo! Stir fry here I come!

This challenge is enlightening. I have greatly expanded my sources of food.

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Dark Days Challenge Week Three

Posted on December 12, 2011 by AnnieRie

I find Sundays to be the best day to do the Dark Days Challenge as I am home watching football, and dinner can be made around games and halftime. I promised the OM (old man) in amateur radio lingo (as an aside I am the XYL or X young lady, single women are YLs) that he wouldn’t suffer with bad meals because I am doing this challenge. So far I think I am delivering really good food while staying within the parameters of the challenge. All of my sources are now being listed on my local resources page.

It all started with sauerkraut. I made my first batch of sauerkraut two weeks ago. This is the last of it.

I put a new batch together in the pail and will have more for meals over the holidays. Probably taking some to my brother’s house for Christmas Eve. The cabbage is from our CSA.

The sausage I bought Saturday at the Silver Spring year round farmer’s market.

Sausage, sauerkraut, and a honeycrisp apple from Quaker Valley. Ready to bake.

I made a spinach salad. Spinach from Our House Farm, rest of the veggies from the CSA, and cheese from Bowling Green Farm in Howard County. Vinaigrette from Catoctin Mountain Orchards. Spelt bread from Atwater’s. Butter from South Mountain Creamery. The wine is a 2000 Linden Hardscrabble Cabernet Blend from VA from the cellar. Virginia has some phenomenal wineries, and Linden’s wines are some of the best here. This wine is still a baby after 11 years.

The finished dinner, including a side of roasted root veggies left over from earlier in the week. The veggies were all from the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market or the CSA, and all were local and organic, including the huge roasted black radish which was wonderful after slow roasting. It also included plum tomatoes, celery, carrots, onions and greens. After roasting the veggies earlier this week I strained and saved the veggie stock to use later for other meals.