Category Archives: Food

Odds and Ends from West County

Posted on October 29, 2012 by AnnieRie

Just some random thoughts as we head into the storm. Not many cars on our roads. Usually there is some traffic in the afternoon.

The mailman came early today. Out here with unprotected mailboxes, it is important to go out and get the mail before it blows out of the box. During the snowstorms a few years back, the boxes blew open and we had mail scattered all over our neighbor’s fields.

We got a few emails today about CSA’s. Sandy Spring canceled Tuesday deliveries and have no idea if the Thursday or Saturday will happen. The farmers all will be affected by this rain, in many low lying fields. They can’t pick in this weather either. We hope they come through with minimal damage as we know how hard they work. There are 80 farmers in the cooperative, but all of them in the same area of PA.

We also received an email from Breezy Willow, as we have signed up for their early bird CSA starting in late winter. This week is canceled for them in their summer/fall CSA. Keep our local farmers in your thoughts as this weather affects them just as they are finishing up their harvests and heading for winter.

We had two quick power glitches so far. Taking our oven off line while I am slow cooking dinner in it. Crossing our fingers here, that my pork and roasted veggies get done. Right now, we still have power. Winds are whipping trees left and right. Thankfully, we had a local business, Oasis (Ten Oaks Nursery), aggressively cut back our property line trash trees after they were damaged during the derecho.

We did put ice in two coolers and moved the fridge items there. The meat in the freezer is covered by six bags of ice, and I am freezing plastic containers with water to move over to the coolers if I need to replenish. Dumped all the ice maker ice in the fridge cooler since I learned after the derecho how much mess we get with melting ice. Ice maker in the top fridge is a pain sometimes.

On an interesting note, my Menu magazine from Wegmans arrived in the mail. With Christmas cookies on the cover. And, a recipe for honey glazed roasted root veggies. That is what I did with all the turnips, beets, a rutabaga and a sweet potato from the CSA.

I will try and keep posting what is going on out here as long as we have power, or I may do short posts from the iPad. See how well the UPS up here keeps my iPad charged if we lose power.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in CSA, Food, Howard County, Weather, West HoCo and tagged CSA, Food, Howard County, hurricane sandy, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

A Chicken in Every (Crock) Pot And Ready for Sandy

Posted on October 28, 2012 by AnnieRie

While we run around filling bath tubs and clearing leaves out of the rain gutters, and positioning a trash can near the sump pump, and all those lovely other things, my crock pot is happily making dinner. I put half a chicken in it with CSA veggies and it is close to being done. I will microwave a few potatoes and we have a quick easy dinner before getting back into the waiting game. I will have a local dinner tonight. Open a VA wine and relax now that all the preparations are done.

frozen half chicken from tlv tree farm

I need to thank howchow for letting us know Harris Teeter wasn’t crazy crowded. We decided to err on the side of caution and get six more gallon jugs of water. Some fruit, since I didn’t get to the farmer’s markets, and a gallon of honey crisp apple cider from Zeigler’s. Not local, but still family made. The bath tubs will be filled tonight with water to flush toilets, and the coolers are ready to go if needed. Ten bags of ice are in the freezer now. Two will come out tomorrow into the cooler with the refrigerator foods we want to consume if the power goes out. That way we won’t be opening the refrigerator at all, or the freezer if we lose power.

All day today the birds went nuts trying to buzz feeders that aren’t there. Finches were sitting on the patio chairs (left out there since we can’t carry them far and there is no free place to put them) looking for the bird bath and the feeders. Ever watch a bird make a beeline for the feeder pole, then find nothing there but the pole. Very confused. The furniture was all moved over to the far edge of the patio near the area where the feeders and bird bath were located, and which now are all safely in the shed. I did remember to spread as much food as I could on the ground so the birds get something. They really are accustomed to coming here for food in the fall and winter.

The antennas are all down. The side of the house looks weird with no wires. This is the view from a few months back. Spring when the cherry trees were blooming. All the wires had to come down and tension taken off the ropes so they won’t snap. Here’s hoping the trees all hang in there the next two or three nights.

amateur radio antennas off the attic

On the local 2 meter repeater, we are reminded that CARA will appropriate the frequency tonight to support RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service). Amateur radio operators will be supporting the county in emergency communications traffic during the storm. We will have our hand held transmitters here at our house available with charged batteries so we can monitor communications (and communicate if we need any assistance in our area).

All in all, we are now even more resigned to a long, frustrating, series of days watching this storm cross over the east coast and impact our lives.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Birds, Commentary, Community, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Nature, SSFC, Weather, West HoCo and tagged amateur radio, birds, commentary, community, cooking, crock pot cooking, hoco loco, Howard County, Locavore, West HoCo, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Finishing the Eat Local Challenge

Posted on October 27, 2012 by AnnieRie

Monday is the last reporting day for our Summer Challenge, to eat at least one meal a week using locally sourced ingredients. Who knows how crazy it will be around here by Monday, but at least I know there will be a number of local meals consumed by us. Many of them involving local eggs.

farm fresh eggs

I made eggs for breakfast today and used up the last of the Canela wheat bread for toast. I will be hardboiling a dozen eggs and putting them aside to make egg salad in case we lose power. We set up a small cooler for lunch foods, placing all the condiments and salad makings in it, the way we ate breakfast and lunch after the derecho in June.

I always have my tuna, cannellini bean and onion salad ingredients on hand, but they aren’t local. Well, the onions are, but not the rest.

Tuscan tuna and bean salad

Hmmm, Tuscan tuna and bean salad, served with local breads and a few of my dill pickles from the jars. Mostly local. I have a loaf of potato onion bread in the freezer from Stone House. I can warm it in the oven tonight to defrost it and save a few hunks to have with a simple salad. Egg salad, or tuna salad. I have celery from the CSA. The only non local items as usual will be condiments like mayo or olive oil.

I am cleaning out the most perishable (and the more pricey) items in the meat/fish freezer, so I will be baking a large whack of wild Alaskan salmon tonight. Since I have been so diligent here in getting ready for this storm, the odds keep getting higher that it will pass us by.

It is only when I have no ice, no water, no batteries and ignore the frantic admonishments on the TV, that we end up with no power. Still, we are crossing our fingers. At least the temperatures aren’t bad. No real high temps, and no subfreezing temps in the future that would make us miserable without A/C or heat.

The SSFC Eat Local Challenge is ending, but the ten of us are talking about how we will address winter eating, using locally sourced items. Sometime in the future, our google reader will have the details, and we will continue finding ways to eat local foods year round.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, SSFC, Weather and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, Locavore, real food, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

The View from 20,000 …

Posted on October 26, 2012 by AnnieRie

… views, that is, not feet. 20,000 views. Yesterday morning the geek in me saw my dashboard on wordpress read 19,999 total views. I was going to write a post next Friday when my blog is one year old, but who knows, with Sandy heading in our direction, and the talking heads on TV telling us power outages possible past November 5th, I may or may not have power next Friday.

20,000 views in less than a year. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but it does tell me that there are definitely people reading what I write. I am also happy to say I still have new things I want to write, and have been pretty good at posting almost every day.

I was a mathematician (my degree major) for many of my early career years, and numbers fascinate me. Statistics of course can always be interpreted the way we want. Still, it is nice to see my numbers increase as my blog “ages”.

Thanks mostly to hocoblogs and to howchow, in the beginning, who linked up my blog when it was just one month old. HOCOBLOGS is where I went to find local readers.

And, there was the Dark Days Challenge, where I found fellow locavores.

local ingredients for dinner

Setting up a local resources page was a good move, too. I found many people came there to search for grains, products, and farms in the area.

local foods

I have to admit though, being interested enough to check out my most read posts, that I did not expect which ones continued to gather views. If you are new to blogging in Howard County, and want people to find you on google or other search engines, I can tell you two phrases that guarantee traffic around here.

brighton dam azalea gardens

and

tractor supply baby chicks

The most read posts on my blog. I still get hits every week on the tractor supply post. And, I had hundreds of searches registered for azalea blossoms being at peak, or still blooming. Weeks went by and they still were being viewed. I know that I will be monitoring those blossoms again next spring. They are only five miles down the road and we go there often.

Besides those, the series on amateur radio in Howard County got a huge number of views thanks to being placed on a feed for amateurs around the country and the world to see. W3AO gets lots of hits still, when clubs and operators look to see the Field Day records for one of the biggest radio operations in the country. Right here in Howard County.

Here’s hoping this hurricane fizzles out, far from land, or just glances us. Now, off to fill up a spare propane tank and get a few more gallons of spring water. I know if we are totally prepared for “Frankenstorm” as they are calling it, then it will definitely become a non event. It is only when we don’t get ready, that we get slammed.

Stay safe and dry, all our friends near and far.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Commentary, Community, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore and tagged amateur radio, commentary, community, cooking, Food, foodie, hoco loco, hocoblogging, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore. Bookmark the permalink.

The End of the Summer … CSA

Posted on October 25, 2012 by AnnieRie

Week 25. The last week of the summer CSA from Sandy Spring. It ended with some really good stuff, although I am not sure what I will do with the rutabaga.

what Lancaster Farm Fresh gave us the last week

The list:

Bunch Celery (we got two bunches)
1 Pint Mixed Cherry Tomatoes (I swapped Chinese cabbage for a second pint)
1 Bunch French Breakfast Radishes
1 Bunch Baby Scarlet Turnips (OK, if these are babies, I want to see the big ones)
1 Bunch Green Mizuna
1 Head Broccoli
2 Leeks
2 Rutabaga
1 White Kohlrabi (humongous)

OK, this kohrabi is huge. It was interesting as the swap box was full of kohlrabi and mizuna. I must be weird. I love both.

kohlrabi and heirloom cherry tomatoes

As for the tomatoes, what can I say? My husband was eating them out of the box, until I made him take them over and wash them. Since they are organic, I don’t worry about pesticides, but they do need cleaning. There is nothing like a treat of tomatoes in October. These were probably green house grown. They still have oodles of flavor. They showed up in dinner tonight, along with a few of those lovely breakfast radishes.

As for the turnips, as I said above, if these are babies, wow. I found a recipe for winter root veggies with polenta. I will be breaking out the roasted corn meal this weekend. Stand by for pictures and recipes.

As the wrap up, I also am preparing a summary of what we got this summer. Here’s to many more happy years in CSA, and to the eight weeks of fall CSA still to come. Off to In Her Chucks to link up my CSA post.

hocofood@@@

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Howard County Farmers Markets

Posted on October 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

Good News! Three of the five markets will be extending their season until the week before Thanksgiving. That’s right. East Columbia Library on Thursday, Glenwood on Saturday and Oakland Mills on Sunday.

The hospital market ends this Friday, and Miller Library next Wednesday. Make sure you stop by and buy from Love Dove at their last two markets.

When we were at TLV two weeks ago, they told us the weekend markets were extended. Add to it the Thursday one, and I don’t have to go to Catonsville to get meat from the local farmers. I can get it from TLV. Plus eggs from Breezy Willow. And, cheese from Bowling Green. And fruit from Lewis Orchards. With my CSA and these markets, we can continue to eat fresh food grown or raised locally.

Obviously, this news makes this locavore very happy. Make sure you head out and visit the markets to get really fresh lovely veggies for your holiday meals.

Oh, and by the way, make sure you order your Maple Lawn farm turkey soon. We order ours to be picked up at Boarmans. They start taking orders on November 1st.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore and tagged cooking, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore. Bookmark the permalink.

The First Fall Clean Up Day

Posted on October 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

At least the first major clean up. We have been puttering around doing little odd jobs, but today it begins in earnest. I have been researching the long term effects of using pine needles to mulch areas of the plant beds in the back of the house. Today I wanted to gather pine needles to create a winter bed over the rhododendrons and the azaleas. This analysis that I found a while back is what prompted me to look into pine needle mulching in certain areas. We certainly have enough pine needles.

carpet of pine needles

The leaves are just starting to come down. Add to that, the grass under the shrubs and around the raspberry bushes needs its final cutting of the year. We use a clear bag method to collect green material, brown material, and pine needles. Then, using the county rake and take program to be matched to a neighbor we divide the bags to use in our compost piles. Getting that right mix of browns and greens. This is our second year doing rake and take. We get enough from our trees to keep many compost piles going. If you want a way to see your leaves put to good use, consider contacting rake and take.

As for the rest of my clean up I went into my neglected garden to start pulling out the tomato cages, and to bag the tomato plants to take deep into the woods to leave them. They do not get into the compost bins, as they can spread disease from year to year. For example, from late blight. I hadn’t been out there for two weeks, and surprise, there were dozens of green tomatoes all over the garden.

I think I will put these away in a paper bag and let them get close to ripening, then make one last batch of green tomato pasta with pesto.

Tonight dinner will be fairly simple. Although we had to resort to plan B. I had intended to pop a chicken in the crockpot to cook while we were working outside. They don’t make them like they used to. The crockpot gave up the ghost. Would not let me program the temperature and turn on.

As soon as you let up on the button, the lights went out. And, you could not advance it to the longer low cooking times. Thankfully, I never gave up my original crockpot from my first apartment thirty some years ago. You know, one of these antiques.

So, I loaded it up with half a chicken in tomato garlic sauce, over collard greens and onions. Let it go, and soon dinner will be ready. This chicken is falling off the bone, and I started it at 10 am, directly from the freezer. The best way to cook chicken.

Now I need to find a good programmable replacement crockpot as ours gets lots of work making soups, stews and chili. This old one is too small to do brisket, or turkey, which we like to make also. I also like the programmable options not found on my original. I am glad I kept it around though, to save the day today. Off to dinner and to watch Monday night football.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Community, Food, Gardening, Howard County and tagged azaleas, community, cooking, crock pot cooking, Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hoco loco, Howard County. Bookmark the permalink.

Eating Locally: Zuppa!

Posted on October 21, 2012 by AnnieRie

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!

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Posted in CSA, Food, Locavore, Real Food, SSFC, Wine and tagged cooking, crockpot soups, CSA, Food, foodie, local businesses, Locavore, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Woo Hoo! Black Walnuts

Posted on October 21, 2012 by AnnieRie

Without the hassle of shelling them myself. I know I could forage them, as they are everywhere in this area. But, Baugher’s does the hard work and I get the walnuts.

Baugher’s black walnuts

They have a very different taste. They make wonderful cookies. I will be putting these away in the freezer for a few weeks until I do the Christmas cookies. If you have seen black walnuts on roadsides or in fields, you know how hard they are to crack. Plus, the stain on the outer parts of the nut will take weeks to fade from your skin. They are all over the conservancy. I am amazed at how the squirrels manage to get into them.

Here are some of the walnuts from the conservancy, that the squirrels have been working open. There is a large tree on the entrance walkway where the staff does occasionally pick them up and take them. The ones all over the fields are left for the animals. The ones on that pathway become a hazard if you step on them. They are like big marbles and you slide over them. Not fun when covered with leaves.

We saw a huge pile of them on the side of Rte. 340 in Virginia last week. If we weren’t heading for the wine tasting at L’Auberge, we would have stopped and gathered them. Any of them on the right of ways along the highways are perfect for foraging. Like we do in the area when we find wild asparagus in the spring.

Besides the walnuts, today I got the box full of feed corn at Baugher’s. This box is a bargain, and I will be using some of it at an event next month at the conservancy. Right now though, it needs to stay out in the garage. Protected from the squirrels but allowing all the tiny moths to leave and find their way elsewhere.

feed corn to use for a craft project

It was a lovely fall day in Westminster. We headed out early to catch an amateur radio hamfest at the Agricultural Center. It was mostly local radio amateurs tailgating. Sort of a “vintage electronics” flea market. Just so you know, if you ever need tubes for old electronics, these hamfests are the place to find them. Oh, and lots of military surplus stuff. We met numerous friends from local clubs, had breakfast and coffee there and picked up the last of the cable needed to bring all the feeds back from the permanent and the crank up towers that are being assembled on our back meadow.

“hard line”

It was pretty popular there today. Lots of people browsing the tables on a sunny cool morning. With beautiful views of the countryside, and the adjoining farm museum.

All in all, a good day. I found walnuts. They also have chestnuts for those who love to cook with them. I picked up some mutsu apples, a variety that isn’t all that common around here. Got a few small spaghetti squash, as we are having them with dinner often, and I did pick up this winter’s supply of roasted corn meal. The walnuts and corn meal are available in the produce market by the restaurant and not out at the farm. The corn meal showed up last year in one of my “Eat Local” challenges. It makes a killer polenta. Plus, I used it in making scrapple.

roasted corn meal polenta with bison

If you want a day trip about 30 miles north of Columbia, Baugher’s is worth the drive. If only for their homemade ice creams. I was looking for their holiday ice creams, but they still have peach and berry ones in the case. Have to get closer to Thanksgiving before you see peppermint.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Dark Days, Day Trips, Food, Foraging, Local Businesses, Locavore, Nature, Restaurants and tagged amateur radio, cooking, day trips, Food, foodie, foraging, howard county conservancy, Locavore. Bookmark the permalink.

A Fall Saturday in West HoCo

Posted on October 20, 2012 by AnnieRie

Just some random pictures and suggestions for fun things to check out, and some of the early leaf pictures. With all the festivals out there, we could pick and choose what we would like to do today. Don’t forget the local farms still have mazes and pumpkins galore, through the rest of the month.

I started out the day organizing the groups out at the conservancy for a family hike. We had about three dozen people show up this morning, including a dedicated group of volunteers. Dividing the attendees up into age appropriate smaller groups is the way we conduct these fall and spring family wanderings. No real topic for these. Just an appreciation of what you can find on the trails.

A recent addition to the natural play area is the carved owl. The detail is stunning.

Two of the naturalists took families with little ones on a loop around the farmhouse and out on the edge of the grasslands. They got an up close look at one of the abandoned nests in the bluebird boxes. They could see exactly what birds use to make their nests.

They all visited the barn and learned more about the local farms, as there are now exhibits of early farming tools inside, courtesy of a local Girl Scout troop.

The farmhouse is surrounded by brilliant fall color. We seem to be getting near that peak where the colors are brightest.

It seems everyone had a great time. There were also other small groups of visitors, going birding, playing in the field, gardening, having engagement photos shot by a photographer, and checking out the building for future use for a wedding. It was a pretty full parking lot this morning.

After I left at noon, my husband and I decided to indulge in a Saturday brunch at Bistro Blanc. Marc, the chef, started at 3 am today to roast a suckling pig. He really has a great time doing special events like this. They had a wine tasting and a wine sale going on today. We enjoyed the “pig” buffet. It was set up with some interesting, seasonal mostly local side dishes, like Southern style greens, some biscuits, root veggies with chestnuts. Casual, informal and a chance to see some of our fellow west countians.

Then, home to do some minor clean up. We will be doing major leaf clean up this week, with the leaves going in our compost, and some for the rake and take program. Our partner in this, a neighbor down the road, comes and gets what we don’t use, for her compost piles. The yard really exploded in color this week. That frost a week ago is what did it.

Unfortunately, my mums got beaten down by the rain.

There were lots of runners and bikers out on our roads today, getting some exercise while enjoying the scenery. It will get better out here for the next few weeks, so head out and visit the local farms, or just take a ride. Me, I am waiting patiently to capture this year’s peak at sunset, like this one I got a few years back. I need the perfect light to do it though. It looks like the woods are on fire.

Have a great fall weekend, wherever you wander. We are off to Baugher’s tomorrow to pick apples. A bit beyond west hoco, but still a great place to visit. Particularly if I get some of their black walnuts for baking this fall.

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