Category Archives: Gardening

Making the Most of a Full Share CSA …

Posted on August 8, 2012 by AnnieRie

… along with my large garden of tomatoes. How am I doing at using up a full CSA share and using my tomatoes? I have been in the kitchen quite a bit this summer.

Processed veggies and fruit

From left to right, there are refrigerator dill pickles, made from CSA and garden cucumbers. Rhubar-b-q sauce, made with CSA rhubarb a few weeks back. Blackberry puree, made with Larriland berries picked last week, which becomes blackberry vinaigrette every couple of nights. The first jar is gone already. The last of the parsley and pine nut pesto, made a few weeks ago also.

On the lower shelf is a container of oven roasted garden peach tomatoes. They were roasted for an hour at 300 degrees, with salt, pepper, sugar and olive oil, and were used in a risotto last night. These are the second half of the batch, which will become part of dinner this weekend.

Today I also made salsa to use my glut of pineapple tomatoes. Here are two of them. They ripened Sunday through Tuesday, too late for the fair.

Heirloom Pineapple Tomatoes

The large one weighed a pound and a half. I sliced them up. Let them drain and took out the seeds. Mixed them with sweet onion, cilantro, garlic paste, salt, pepper, key lime juice, jalapeno and chipotle Tabasco sauce.

Salsa before blending

The finished product is in the refrigerator waiting for dinner tonight. The rest of the tomatoes and the onion are being roasted in the oven and will become another freezer container of ingredients to be used in sauces this winter.

Pineapple tomato salsa

The best investment we made this year was the freezer. It is slowly filling up with fruits, veggies and pestos made with garlic scapes.

We have been pretty diligent about eating those items in the CSA that don’t freeze well, or in the case of getting a huge amount of potatoes, I took some of them to my mom’s last week.

Mixed organic potatoes from the CSA

Haven’t seen this week’s CSA list yet, but from the other sites it looks like there will be corn and tomatoes again this week. Now I need to get the canning equipment out. Come winter, I will be glad I did. I need to process the newest haul of little tomatoes before they get overripe. This is three days worth of my miniature tomatoes.

They will be oven dried and made into small bags for use in sauces and vinaigrettes. Can’t let these beauties go to waste.

hocofood@@@

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

Recipes, and Why I am Bad at Them

Posted on August 6, 2012 by AnnieRie

Many times for my SSFC posts I have posted pictures of dinners made to use local foods for the food challenge. Since our current challenge to use local foods for one meal is heading into the season of tons of squashes, I have been trying to find ways to use them creatively.

Last week I made two dinners using almost completely local items, with a few additions. One was my eggplant parm, and another a baked chicken dinner.

Eggplant Parm

Baked chicken thighs with Amish egg noodles and roasted veggies

If I needed to document what exactly went into these two dinners, I would be in deep trouble, because when I cook, I don’t measure. When I bake, yes, when I cook, it is just whatever seems to look and taste good, and whatever I have around the kitchen.

These dinners were from Monday and Wednesday last week, mainly using up CSA items before I got my Thursday pick up. The eggplant Parmesan recipe started out from a web search that went into a half dozen places, including Martha Stewart. I think I used parts of hers but improvised because I had no mozzarella in the house.

The eggplants were a mix of Italian and Japanese. Sliced, salted and allowed to drain out moisture. The sauce was made by mixing all my overripe tomatoes with half a jar of Wegmans organic sauce and a squeeze of tomato paste from the tube in my fridge. See what I mean about measuring? I have no idea how much went into that base.

I didn’t have mozzarella so I mixed grated domestic parmesan from Roots with all the Firefly Farm chevre I had left in the fridge and the last of the Bowling Green Feta, grated. Added a little milk to make it creamier.

Dredged the eggplant in beaten egg, Panko bread crumbs and Parm, added a little salt and lots of pepper.

Coated the bottom of the baking dish (a small deep dish) with olive oil, added sauce, eggplant, cheese, sauce, eggplant, cheese, sauce and topped with the last of the Parm. Baked it for over two hours on a slow cook setting on my oven until it was dinner time.

As for the chicken thighs, same sort of thing. Put olive oil, tomatoes, onions, peppers and chicken in a casserole, Covered the chicken in herbs, salt and pepper. Put it all in the oven on slow cook setting for three hours while doing chores around the house.

Served it with Amish egg noodles. The noodles were homemade by a vendor that sells at the Briggs Chaney farmers market. The chicken came from them also. The egg noodles were quickly boiled at the last minute.

Accompanied this SSFC meal with a local wine. We belong to a cellar club at Breaux. This wine is wonderful with chicken and with seafood. I love the blend.

Breaux Wine served with Chicken

Getting back to recipes. We got a huge eggplant this week. Along with lots of lovely tomatoes, garlic, white peppers. This week’s eggplant dish may actually be a stacked version using the tomatoes and mozzarella I bought at Roots.

Veggies inspiring a variation on Eggplant Parm

Who knows what I will cook next? And, if I will remember what I did put in it? That’s the fun of being in a CSA, getting creative with What’s in the Box.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Gardening, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, SSFC, Wine and tagged cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Prepping for the Howard County Fair

Posted on August 2, 2012 by AnnieRie

The Howard County Fair starts Saturday. I am in the final stages of choosing my entries in the tomato and potential other categories. It is a frustrating exercise when Mother Nature hasn’t cooperated. Last week there were many ripe tomatoes.

Assorted heirloom and hybrid tomatoes

This week I have dozens of green tomatoes on the vines, and just a handful that are at their peak. The stink bugs, as usual, have ruined quite a few, putting holes where bacteria will grown and blacken spots. You can cut these spots out and eat the tomatoes, like we used to when we didn’t demand perfect tomatoes (devoid of taste but pretty), but these aren’t show tomatoes.

Amana Orange with a stink bug created spot

I also have dozens of what would be lovely great whites, legend and chocolate stripes, all with large dark circles that the stink bugs have created, all just destined to become salsa, and not ready for prime time. This year the stink bugs were late in arriving, for whatever reason, and seem to be peaking just when I want to harvest for the fair. Earlier harvesting tomatoes seemed to be fine, and were lovely to eat and process.

Legend, chocolate stripe and great white, all perfect for eating in July

Right now, I have one lovely great white, but I need two to enter. All the chocolate stripes show stink bug damage. I have a handful of Amish paste that look to be close to perfect, and a handful of very small legend tomatoes, perfect in shape, but not the size that they normally achieve. My early July Amish paste were all processed and reside deep in my freezer as a base for winter tomato sauce. I had a dozen lovely early produced tomatoes, that were way too early for the fair.

Amish Paste

Here are some of those, just picked and ready to join the rest to be blanched, peeled, processed and frozen. They have been one of the stars of this year’s garden, and there are dozens more on the four plants out there. I should be able to process and freeze at least three or four more batches this year. I don’t like to attempt canning the heirlooms, as their low acidity makes them a more difficult vegetable. You would need to adjust the acidity upwards by adding it, and pressure canning is recommended by many people. I don’t have a pressure canner (yet), and I am just getting into canning using small simple batches.

I find that for my winter soups and stews, freezing vegetables that can be loaded into a crock pot and cooked all day is the way to go. Now that I got a dedicated freezer for my fruits and vegetables, I am using that method.

Now that I have checked out my heirlooms for the fair, I am also deciding which cherry tomatoes to enter. I need fifteen good samples of cherry tomatoes. I am also considering whether I should enter my plum tomatoes.

As for herbs, many of mine are doing well this year.

Grey Santolina (Cotton Lavender) and Chives

The herb entry calls for three varieties. Some do better than others in water, and some just get so bug eaten that they look awful, but still taste great. I really enjoy the luxury of picking herbs just before dinner. Snipping chives for eggs or potatoes. Tarragon and marjoram for chicken. Rosemary for potatoes, or for lamb. Mint for salads and tzatziki. The four or five varieties of basil I grow are all doing great this year, with some of them turning into bushes.

African Blue Basil

Same thing for all the thyme varieties. Decisions. Decisions. I need to make my choices soon. Entries are accepted Friday night or Saturday morning. All this anxiety just for a little strip of ribbon, right? I don’t know. It must be that Olympic influence that makes us compete. Here’s hoping my tomatoes and herbs do OK for me this year.

See you at the Fair!

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Howard County, Weather and tagged Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hoco loco, Howard County, Locavore, tomatoes, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Eating Locally Recap

Posted on July 30, 2012 by AnnieRie

A week and two days. Dedicated to eating at least one item a day from MD farms. We did it. It is easy with the goodness from Howard County Farmers Markets, and from a few local farms like England Acres, and from the case at Atwater’s Bakery in Catonsville.

Some of the items I used:

Corn, from England Acres and from TLV Farm, bought at the market

Chevre, from Firefly Farms

Eggs, from TLV and England Acres

Add to that watermelon, cantaloupe, spring mix, feta, smoked cheddar, ground lamb, ground beef patties, onions, and such a variety available here in MD.

Good meals like this one, from Saturday night. Breezy Willow spring mix and Firefly Farms chevre with my tomatoes and basil. Yes, the sockeye came from Alaska, not a local fish, but a great dinner.

Buy Local Week may be over, but the markets are still here. If you want to see great foods available for you in the future, it always helps to buy from our local farmers.

This weekend is the start of the Howard County Fair. There will be local produce and local cheese at the Fair. Support your local farmers and buy from them, if not at the fair, at the county markets.

See you at the Fair. We will be there at least four of the days. A season pass is a bargain if you want to enjoy all the entertainment and just absorb the atmosphere.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, SSFC, West HoCo and tagged community, cooking, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, tomatoes, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Three More Days into Buying Locally

Posted on July 28, 2012 by AnnieRie

The nine days will be finished tomorrow. The other two posts for how I started have shown it is simple to find good food from around the Howard County area, by shopping at farm stands and the markets.

Here is the update for Wednesday through Friday. Does farming include crabs?

We did get a few to have as an appetizer Friday night. This is with local lamb from England Acres, served with chocolate stripes tomatoes from my garden coated with a gooey smoked cheddar from Eve’s Cheese.

And yes, I did char the lamb while searing it, but the inside remained a lovely pink. That was dinner Friday night, after the crab appetizer.

Thursday we grazed on homemade salads. Cucumber salad from the garden, with onions from Butler’s Orchard. Ratatouille also included one of their candy onions. The watermelon is from Catonsville market, and feta from Bowling Green Farms.

The colorful potato salad included CSA potatoes and green beans, and was finished with hard boiled eggs from TLV Farms.

In my CSA post prior to this one I talked of making gazpacho on Wednesday which showed up for dinner that night, along with the other two burgers from England Acres farm, and corn from their farm.

Three days. Three dinners. Lots of local foods. Here it is Saturday night and there will be local salad and maybe a dessert if I get the peaches done. The peaches were bought this morning from Lewis Orchards at the Glenwood market, along with some just picked spring mix from Breezy Willow. Both will serve in some way in dinner tonight.

It is one of the pleasures of living here. Hitting the market to see what looks good, and bringing it home to have for dinner the same day.

hocofood@@@

CSA Week 12, Tomato and Corn Season

Posted on July 26, 2012 by AnnieRie

My favorite time of year. The CSA starts sending us multiple varieties of tomatoes and we get sweet corn.

Sandy Spring CSA Week 12 Full Share

I had to take the picture on the island as the counter by the window is full of my heirloom tomatoes. Between them and the CSA I am officially in canning and freezing mode. What did we get today? Eleven items this week, all certified organic

6 Ears Bicolor Sweet Corn
1 Bag Purple Majesty Potatoes, 3 pounds
1 Bag Red Tomatoes, 2 pounds
1 Italian Eggplant
3 Green Zucchini
1 Bunch Fresh Red Onions
1 Pint Jumbo Cherry Tomatoes
1 Bunch Red Beets
1 Bunch Italian Parsley
1 Bag Heirloom Mixed Tomatoes, 1 pound
2 heads Garlic

The heirloom tomatoes were particularly beautiful this week.

Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes

They are destined for a salad with some chevre, just like the one I made the other night. As for tomatoes, the 2 pounds of red tomatoes went into the pot to be blanched and are already peeled and sliced in half and in the freezer.

I also blanched and froze the last of the green beans left from an earlier delivery, and oven roasted some of my yellow plum, yellow pear and green grape tomatoes to make an oven dried sauce that is bagged and frozen for use this winter.

Mixed tomatoes in oil, salt, pepper and sugar, prior to roasting

Tomatoes after roasting, at a low temperature for two hours

And, it wouldn’t be summer without gazpacho. I made gazpacho yesterday with my orange blossom tomatoes, augmented by a few from the Catonsville farmers market, a white bell pepper, scallions, shallot, lemon cucumbers and eight pieces of Wegmans Italian bread soaked in water. It all goes into the blender with white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. A cup for dinner last night.

Doesn’t get any fresher than that.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Gardening, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, wegman's. Bookmark the permalink.

Midway Through Buy Local Week

Posted on July 25, 2012 by AnnieRie

And how am I doing? It is so easy to make things from the farmer’s markets in the area. Summer goodness in every bite. Monday night these were the star of the meal. We did have a small naan pizza that I added ratatouille as a topping.

Local corn and my tomatoes

The corn was from England Acres. The goat cheese in the salad was Firefly Farms Allegheny Chevre, picked up at Atwater’s in Catonsville while I was buying bread. Tomatoes and basil from my garden. All my vegetable and herb plants were bought at farmstands, farmer’s markets, local farms or nurseries. That is an easy way to support the farmers. Buy plants at the Howard County markets in the spring, instead of Home Depot.

As for Tuesday, we went to an amateur radio club picnic at Centennial. The dish I took was my infamous watermelon, feta and mint salad. I forgot to take pictures. Here is an earlier version.

Watermelon, feta and mint salad

Watermelon was bought at the Sunday Catonsville market. Feta was not Bowling Green as I didn’t get there in time. You can easily make this salad after a visit to one of the county markets. Bowling Green Farms feta is awesome.

We also took England Acres ground beef to make hamburgers, and topped them with Eve’s Cheese smoked cheddar, bought at England Acres Farm Store in Mt. Airy. There are no pictures from the picnic since I forgot my camera. Just the package that is in the freezer of the same ground beef patties we used last night.

Local meats have become very easy to find these days. Besides England Acres, I buy much of my meat from TLV at the Howard County farmers markets. Like bacon, and chicken.

They go to almost every market from Wednesday to Sunday across the county. Freshly processed free range meat is so much better tasting. It is worth it to buy. The only place they don’t sell is Thursday East Columbia.

If you want another local treat worth the effort, search out local eggs.

The little ones are pullets from England Acres, hand picked right out of the basket the day that the hens laid the eggs. The really large one is an extra large from my dozen last week from TLV, bought at the hospital market.

The eggs were in my zucchini fritters earlier this week, and I made a frittata Saturday for breakfast, that also fed us lunch Monday.

You have Thursday through Sunday to stop at one of the local markets in the county and support Buy Local Week.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Farmer's Markets, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore and tagged cooking, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

A Window Full of Sunshine

Posted on July 18, 2012 by AnnieRie

Varieties of tomatoes ripening on the sill

This is my favorite view in the kitchen. Dozens of almost perfectly ripe cherry, grape and pear tomatoes all reaching their peak of ripeness in the morning sun.

And, yes there are larger ripe ones these days.

Orange Blossom Tomatoes

Caspian Pink

The Caspian Pink is a new one for me. It looks wonderful, but I did have to pick it a bit early because it was cracking and I didn’t want a storm to water it down.

Detail of small cracks forming on top

I don’t have any chocolate stripes ripe yet, but they are getting close. They have the most tomatoes on each plant so far. I have three plants of them. Crossing my fingers that they ripen before that forecasted four or five days of rain late next week. The rains last year really watered down the flavors of the heirlooms.

Two weeks from this coming Saturday, the Howard County Fair starts. I will be picking which heirloom has the best taste. That is what I will enter. Taste, not looks, does better in the heirloom category.

The sweet olive is my most productive small tomato so far. They are predominant on the windowsill picture above. They also have a wonderful flavor, but cherry and grape tomatoes are judged on looks alone.

Have you ever entered anything in the fair? This year, besides tomatoes, I will again enter herbs. Definitely the basil, but haven’t chosen the other two yet.

African Blue Basil

This year I am also considering entering some of my photographs, particularly my little feathered friends, like these.

Bluebirds Rule the Bath

Put the Fair on your calendar for something great to do. It runs August 4th through 11th. We get a $20 pass for the entire fair and go almost every day. If you want to see a real hoot, go watch the zero turn mower competition. If you want to see something amazing, go watch the 4Hers show their animals.

hocoblogs@@@

Eating Locally: The Fruits of the Vines

Posted on July 16, 2012 by AnnieRie

This week is a fruit themed week in the challenge ten of us are taking to cook seasonally and locally all summer and fall. For me, fruit has to include grapes. At least, the liquid, fermented version of grapes.

Hardscrabble Chardonnay grapes

My Challenge Page with all the SSFC links. We have been blogging since the beginning of June about our experiences with cooking locally. This past week, it was warm and muggy and the summer fruits have been coming into many markets.

Last night after going to Linden to visit, we decided to make a simple fruit related dinner. Fruit salad with watermelon, cantaloupe and tart cherries was the main component. On the side, olive bread with herb butter. The herb butter would also be used on the fresh corn on the cob. A light wine from Glen Manor.

My tomatoes. After all, tomatoes are also a fruit. This plate included orange blossom, red fig, yellow plum, sweet olive and green grape tomatoes, all from my garden. Served with homemade tzatziki using cucumbers and mint from the garden. The yogurt was organic Greek, my free container from the last visit to Wegmans. With South Mountain not at Glenwood Market, I have lost my local source for dairy.

Heirloom tomatoes

Sometimes the simplest freshest meals are the best. Summer fruit and vegetables need little more than salt, pepper, fresh herbs and maybe a drizzle of oil.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Farmer's Markets, Food, Gardening, Locavore, Real Food, SSFC, Wine and tagged cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, heirloom tomatoes, Linden Vineyards, Locavore, tomatoes, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

CSA Value Assessment

Posted on July 14, 2012 by AnnieRie

I didn’t post my savings until I got some updated numbers from local markets and vendors. Week Ten CSA was delivered Thursday. It looked like this

Sandy Spring CSA Delivery Week Ten

and I wrote about it here.

With this week’s savings, of $9.65 over weekly cost of $29.75, I am now $89.80 ahead in total for being 40% through the 25 week season. If anyone doubts the value of joining an organic CSA, they just need to look at what organic foods cost in stores, markets and at farm stands.

The breakout from week ten is this:

Corn, 5 ears, 50 cents an ear, $2.50
Carrots, $3.50 a bunch for heirloom varieties
Fennel $1.69 each for 2 of them, rounded to $3.40
Pickling cukes, white variety, a bargain at 2/$1, there were 8 of them, so $4
Slicing cukes, 3 large ones, $4.50 total
Garlic, two heads, $2 each at market, so $4 total
Heirloom red radishes, $2.50 a bunch
Blue Viking potatoes, 3 lbs at $1.50 a pound, $4.50
Zucchini, one very large, over a pound, so $2
Green beans and Rattlesnake beans, $3 each basket, so $6 total
Jalapenos, 5 medium to large size, $.50 each, so $2.50

What is missing in all this number crunching is that intrinsic value. That freshness of taste. That discovery of a new and interesting variety of vegetable not encountered before. For me this week, rattlesnake beans are a new addition. I read up on them and found that young and tender, treat them like green beans, older with heavily developed beans, take them out of their pods and cook them.

Young rattlesnake beans

As for the garlic, I love getting organic garlic, and later this year, I will put aside a few heads in order to plant them this fall. Victoria over at The Soffrito planted hers in pots and heavily mulched them over the winter and got lovely garlic, including scapes prior to digging up the garlic to cure. Supermarket garlic won’t sprout; it is treated with an anti-sprouting agent.

Organic garlic, perfect for planting in October

This week with my other CSA goodies, I will be making potato salad, pickling some cukes, and also making tzatziki using some of Wegmans Greek yogurt and their organic lemons and mint from my garden. And, yes, I will be grilling some corn. I love it when corn season arrives.

Oh, and if I get a few more large tomatoes in the next two or three days, there will be gazpacho on the menu. Maybe on one of those hundred degree days that might come next week.

hocofood@@@

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