Category Archives: Locavore

America’s Main Street

Posted on March 26, 2015 by AnnieRie

Second in my series of posts on where to take visitors to Howard County. This post focuses on one of the two historic roads that travel through the county. US 1, the original “Main Street” from colonial times onward in the development of the United States.

Inspired by the book I found at my mom’s a while back. I decided to head out yesterday and document some of my favorite places, present and past, along the stretch of US 1 from Savage to Elkridge. Including Jessup, the third location located in our county. As usual, I will include some of my favorites to get breakfast, lunch or dinner, to keep my recommendations in line with my locavore tendencies.

US 1 isn’t the prettiest road in America, but for those of us born and raised here before the advent of super highways, it was certainly familiar to us for trips and for services. I lived within a few miles of Washington Blvd, in Baltimore. From a business standpoint, there were many places we frequented using that road. I even worked for a while after college in a bookkeeping and tax accounting business in Elkridge. Proximity to Baltimore and Washington. Elkridge was a convenient midpoint.

But, I am going to start with Savage. You could easily spend many hours with friends in Savage. One of the mill towns. It is home to a very significant historic landmark, the Bollman Truss Bridge.

The bridge is adjacent to Savage Mill. Restored and now a destination. Home to a few spots I enjoy, like the Bonaparte Breads and Renata’s Tasty Bites. Renata is only there a few days a week. Her savory pastries are awesome. I discovered both these vendors at farmer’s markets. Bonaparte at the Dupont Circle market, and Renata at the Owen Brown library market.

The Mill also has many shops to browse. Check out the Family Game store. For those inclined to work off those pastries, outside you can partake in Terrapin Adventures.

On the river side of the mill, there are walking trails. You can walk across the Bollman Truss bridge.

North of the Mill, Savage Park has wooded trails and is also connected to the Patuxent Branch Trail, which can be hiked all the way to Lake Elkhorn in Columbia. This is a very popular site in the summer, and parking can be a bit tricky. For us, we like to go there in the off season.

Getting back on US 1 and heading north, you pass through Jessup. Lots of wholesale food companies here. Including a newly reopened seafood market, which used to be Franks Seafood. Now, according to our friend HOWCHOW, it has become Wild Seafood, but still retains many of the former employees. Getting fresh crabs here, to serve to out of town guests, is another great thing to do.

Breakfast or lunch at the only Food Network covered “Diner, DriveIn or Dive”? Can be had at R&R Taqueria. If you have any relatives that are fans of the show, you can take them for some of the best grilled lamb tacos we have ever tasted. Or, maybe breakfast like their huevos rancheros or chilaquiles con huevo. Numerous times we stop and grab tacos to go. One of us staying with the car in the adjacent lot while hoping a legal spot by the Shell station opens up. We have been warned not to leave a car in the crowded strip mall lot. It may be towed.

R&R is technically in Elkridge, as Rte 175 is the dividing line for Jessup/Elkridge. Yes, hard to get in to the deli sometimes. This is our second gas station favorite in the county. The other one is Town Grill in Lisbon, that I mentioned in my previous post. Don’t count out these small family owned sites. Way better than a Taco Bell taco.

Further up just before crossing the Patapsco River into Baltimore County, turn right onto Levering Avenue to head back to the Elkridge Furnace Inn. Civil War History Marker just before the parking lot.

The Inn itself is now a fine dining establishment, where we tend to celebrate major milestones. They also have afternoons teas periodically, and are open for lunch. A good place to celebrate a special event with out of town relatives. OR, for history buffs they often have suppers with a speaker, like the upcoming 150th anniversary Lincoln dinner.

And, speaking of the Thomas Viaduct. The B&O railroad, so important in the development of this area, is highlighted again in the Patapsco State Park area reached from just across the county line by way of South St. $2 a car to enter. The Viaduct looms ahead of you as you enter, the oldest multi-arched stone railroad bridge in the world.

There are miles of trails in the park. My favorite is the loop to the Swinging Bridge and back. Half in Baltimore County and half in Howard County. This park, when I was growing up, was the location for school picnics, for reunions, for birthday parties and much more. River Road unfortunately was never fully restored after Hurricane Agnes, but it is still a walking trail for those who love the river as much as we do.

If you’re lucky you even get to see the commuter trains on the viaduct, proof that when it’s built right, it can last for centuries.

US 1 may be a hodgepodge of many “flavors”. It still inspires us to get out on those lesser traveled roads. I haven’t even touched on Ellicott City, or the other national road in the county — US 40. More to come this weekend.

Happy traveling!

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Posted in Adventures, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Travel and tagged day trips, Food, foodie, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Illusion of Springtime

Posted on March 19, 2015 by AnnieRie

Compliments of our weekly food baskets. Which are changing slowly into springtime items. Like arugula.

A pound of baby arugula. Also known as rocket. Peppery. Fresh. Just the perfect green to evoke memories of last spring. Too bad it’s going to snow tonight. We still think we are getting closer to springtime around here.

Then there’s microgreens.

I swear microgreens are one of those prized items created by farmers. You know, “hey, let’s thin the seedlings and sell those thinnings for major amounts of money to unsuspecting consumers.” I have a garden. I know all about thinning the greens. Still, I do love the intensity of them.

How about lamb?

An Easter tradition in my house. Lamb always reminds me of springtime.

This week, here was the total Friends and Farms basket.

I had the salmon marinating even before I took the pictures. It ended up like this.

With the green beans from my Lancaster Farm Fresh basket. Corn from the freezer, and a cut up carrot.

My favorite thing this week. That lovely ham steak. I am thinking of saving it for Easter. I may be waiting for snow tonight, but there are definitely signs that spring is coming.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Friends and Farms, LFFC, Locavore, Real Food, Weather and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, Locavore, real food, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Catching Up

Posted on March 14, 2015 by AnnieRie

One of the things I put together ever since I started my blog was my weekly catalogue of What is in the CSA basket. Somehow I have been shirking my “duty” the past two weeks. Maybe it’s that time of year when we get so tired of winter, and those boring stretches of root vegetables, stews, soups and crock pot meals.

We yearn for the weather to stay nice enough to grill, for a change. For many winters we did manage to grill a few times, but the brutal cold, and the snow covering our grill for weeks, made that impossible. Until, hopefully, this week, when we want to do something, ANYTHING, out there. I have a couple of petit filets I would love to make one evening, or my favorite, kofta.

Yesterday we cleaned the grill, since the snow has finally melted all around it. Thankfully, no little critters took up residence in it this winter. Last winter a chipmunk decided the side burner was a perfect spot to store everything they could carry up there.

As for what has been coming from the CSA for two weeks, here it is.

The highlights from Lancaster Farm Fresh were the pantry item, maple sugar and the new goat cheese. We also got some kielbasa sausages in our omnivore add on. The vegetables. Standard except for the green beans. They were a treat. I swapped radishes to get double the carrots. There has been cole slaw made more than once the past two weeks. I made root vegetables again, to take to a Slow Food dinner this week. They must have gone over well, as there was almost nothing left. I still have a bag with the collards in it. They have to get cooked soon.

A few days ago, the latest basket.

I am calling this the year of the celery root. Never had it before a CSA share delivered it. Now, we get it two or three times a month, it seems. Yes, there are two of them. I swapped the rutabagas for the second one. I like the celery root in that roasted honey glazed medley. This week we got honey. We got chicken. We got a new cheese. Pecora. Smoky and tangy. Good with a glass of red wine.

As for the rest. Beets in a salad. Chard as a side dish last night. The shiitake mushrooms, with the other ones from Friends and Farms a week ago, became a very lovely mushroom soup for dinner.

Speaking of Friends and Farms, they were invited to present to the Slow Food Dinner group. They brought their latest basket and they talked about how they operate, and what made them the company they are today.

The basket from the 4th of March looked like this.

The best part of this basket. The rainbow trout.

Simply cooked. We enjoyed that dinner, for sure. The Individual Quick Frozen corn is also very good. Makes us yearn for summer.

The rib eyes would have been great to grill, but not to be, due to the weather.

As for Wednesday, the basket that I picked up hours before the slow food dinner.

Yes, there’s chard in there. Yes, there’s a chicken. And kielbasa. And sauerkraut. And carrots. Notice those similarities.

YES, I am officially tired of winter vegetables. I want to plant that garden, and go to farmer’s markets for fresh greens.

We still are eating well, even if it is getting a bit boring these days.

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Friends and Farms, LFFC, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, Locavore, real food, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

Going Whole Hog

Posted on March 9, 2015 by AnnieRie

Sort of. Not completely. We haven’t gone for buying whole or half portions of beef or pork. We did once do half a lamb. It was more than we expected.

But, I have seen where we are now using more and more of the pork products available at our local farms. And, we are stretching our food dollars by making meals that use 3-4 ounces of meat per serving. Getting better quality meats from the farmers and butchers in the area. Yes, and paying more than that $1.99 a pound stuff out there.

I find it interesting to see McDonald’s and COSTCO both touting their changes. Where once I thought our local farmers and small organic markets were going to suffer, now I notice quite a large turning away from factory farmed, overly processed meats.

Quite an increase in CSA and Friends and Farms members. An increase in farmer’s markets. An interest in my web pages with links to local sources. All of this is a good thing. Besides lowering our exposure to antibiotic and hormone laden meats, we are decreasing our carbon footprint when we buy locally. We are keeping our local farmers and small butchers in business.

Remember when you could go into any grocery store and have a butcher wait on you, to get you the cuts of meat you wanted, in the quantities you wanted? So many of the stores today have removed that position.

I am grateful we have good butchers in the area. Boarmans. Treuths. Wagners.

We also have good farms selling meat. Copper Penny. Maple Lawn. TLV Tree Farm. Breezy Willow. Carroll Farm. England Acres. Clark’s Elioak. Wagon Wheel.

I did this post over a year ago. Since then, I have expanded the database to add more farms. But, I still love picking up very fresh items from these farms.

I have also learned to use those lesser used items. Ham Hocks. Bacon ends. Lamb shanks. Turkey drumsticks. Pork lard. Heck, I even ventured into the world of making my own scrapple.

I could do better the next time I do scrapple. I need to increase the pork part of it, and decrease the cornmeal.

It was a wee bit pale. Not as dark and crispy as the scrapple of my youth.

As for those other goodies. I have made countless soups using the ham hocks, smoked mostly. That pork lard from Carroll Farm. It’s been used instead of butter in cooking. Most of it was put in small containers and frozen for later use. I will be trying a Pennsylvania Dutch biscuit recipe this week with it.

Bacon ends. The most economical way to have bacon around for flavoring.

I have found bacon ends many places. Ask at any of the local farms if they have them. A good bargain. Freeze them. Take out as much as you might need to make excellent greens, soups, frittatas, spinach salads. Lots of possibilities.

Moving 100% away from grocery stores. Using less per meal. Using locally produced items. It can be done, and it really isn’t difficult at all in Howard County.

But, I admit, I’m not quite ready to do Pig’s Feet – Toe On, or Pig’s Tail. Wayne Nell. You do have some interesting items there.

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The “New” Farm in Town

Posted on March 5, 2015 by AnnieRie

Or, at least the newest farmstand. Opened in October. Providing beef, pork and poultry. In small and large quantities.

Carroll Farm to Table. Off Frederick Rd. past Kiwanis-Wallas park. Owned by descendants of Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

We first heard about them being there in our fall Friends and Farms newsletter. You could purchase whole or half Berkshire heritage pork. Also in the works was a potential for chicken to come to us sometime in 2015.

We finally got to the farmstand when they were open a few Saturdays ago. At least my husband got there. The stand is open Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays. He asked for a price sheet, and as he was really interested in some of the cuts of Angus beef, they talked a bit and gave him a free sample of their pork lard.

Which found its way into tonight’s dinner.

A wee bit of lard mixed with the cider and chicken stock to flavor the cabbage and kale and apples under the kielbasa links.

I am fascinated with trying some traditional recipes from a Christmas present from my mom.

She gave me a couple of Pennsylvania Dutch cookbooks that she’s had for decades. I am interested in trying the pastry recipes that call for lard.

Now that we all know lard is better for us than vegetable oils, it should be fun to test the taste difference.

I am also interested in trying the brisket, and the filets, from their stand. It is hard to find brisket from the local farms. Not that many of them around, when you are only processing a small number of cattle at a time. I always had to cross my fingers and hope to find one from the local farmers.

Happy to see a “new” farm in our vicinity. Particularly one that specializes in meats that we usually have to go much farther to find.

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Shared Risk

Posted on March 3, 2015 by AnnieRie

In Community Supported Agriculture, known otherwise as CSAs, there was always this message given, that by buying into a CSA as a shareholder you were sharing the risk with the farmer who grew the crops. In good years, you got more. In lean years, you may suffer a bit, but you were always a part of the “family” that made it possible for the farmer to prosper.

Decades ago, the model was fairly simple. One farmer. Enough shareholders to buy most if not all of the produce and fruit that was planted and harvested from that farm. As CSAs grew, some of the farmers partnered with others who raised animals, adding dairy or meat into the packages.

These days, more and more regional and seasonal partnerships are available. Mitigating that risk. Making it easier to get the value, and reducing the risks on the suppliers and the customers.

This winter has been brutal around here. I am amazed that we are getting as much fresh produce from both of our sources. One, the winter CSA, has written in their newsletter that we may be seeing more regional produce as they have to reach farther from the cooperative to meet the needs of the very large community that Lancaster Farm Fresh serves.

Last week, we got this in our Omnivore share.

Our meat item was boneless skinless chicken breasts. Cheese was a lovely smoked gouda. Pantry item, a jar of applesauce. We had six vegetables in the box. Lots of carrots. Sweet potatoes. Spinach, turnips, russet potatoes and cremini mushrooms.

I made mushroom soup. I made honey glazed roasted root vegetables. I made chicken salad. All in all, we dined well during our bout of bad weather, without having to stand in long lines at the grocery stores.

Friends and Farms, a “mutant” from the traditional CSA, partners with regional food suppliers to give us baskets year round. Lots of seasonal foods, but also, some Quick frozen vegetables that a farm in New York prepares and provides during the dead of winter.

Last week, our small share included these items.

Pickles. Frozen green beans. Eggs. Bread. Cider was my substitute because we don’t get milk. I realized I had those “essential” pre-storm items here. You know. Bread and milk, if I had wanted the milk.

Sweet potatoes here, too. A different variety than those from Lancaster. I really enjoy the sweet potatoes because they are so easy to use in many ways. In soups. Stews. Chili. Like you can make using the jalapenos we got.

We had cabbage and pork butt. Perfect partners. Red onions. Hydroponic lettuce from Baywater Greens in Salisbury MD. Getting fresh greens in the winter is such a surprise, and really appreciated. Bacon this week. Chicken thighs, too. And, apples.

I did not need to buy much of anything at the store. I picked up a few yogurts from the refrigerated case at the warehouse. I get my butter there, too. You could have picked up beans or rice while there. The pantry shelves help us round out our baskets and make meal planning easier.

There are still traditional one farm CSAs out there, but the newer models really start to look like a full farmer’s market has shown up and given you your groceries.

Tomorrow is my next pick up. We did pretty well getting through our two baskets. We have also been lucky with the weather. It may be raining like crazy tomorrow. Between our ice events, and now predicting snow again Thursday, I am happy to use what we will get this week. Again, without having to brave the crowds in the stores.

Just hope we don’t get too much snow.

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Baby It’s Cold

Posted on February 26, 2015 by AnnieRie

Outside definitely. Inside, sometimes as well. Heat pumps can’t handle extended temps near zero degrees. We hit zero again on Tuesday morning. The heat pumps couldn’t hack that, so we had the resistive heat running continuously trying to keep it warm around here.

I decided, OK, I need to find something to do to keep us warmer, so I decided to bake and cook. All day. It kept the kitchen warm and made it easier for us to have quick meals the rest of this week.

At one point, I had both ovens going, and the large burner on the stove. Oh, and the dishwasher and the clothes dryer out in the mud room. All together, productive, while making it more comfortable in the house.

I hate heat pumps. Our house, like thousands like it in this area, was built during the moratorium on building using natural gas. Oil burners were also not used, as the price made them prohibitive. Heat pumps cannot take prolonged temperatures below twenty degrees, and we are suffering through the coldest February I can ever remember.

Two more days of this month. Today, even more snow came down. At least we got above freezing yesterday.

As for the cooking, what did I make?

Apple cake. Adapted from the Not Without Salt recipe. I substituted my crock pot spiced apples for the two cups of apples.

I like this recipe so much that I made a recipe card in Pages on my iPad. Since I like the extra spice, I used a pint jar from the freezer since I didn’t have any baking apples around. I also did decrease the sugar from the published recipe, to 1/2 a cup.

I had one oven making this cake, while the other made three things. At the same time. Beets. Chicken. Roasted root vegetables.

I was cleaning out the produce drawer before the CSA came on Wednesday. There are parsnips, celeriac, sunchokes, carrots, sweet potato, turnips, white radish, scallions, yellow onion and a jalapeno in there.

Heavily spiced.

No measuring. More of what I like. Less of the stronger stuff. Olive oil. Mustard. White balsamic. All mixed up in a bowl and dumped on the foil. Roasted at 350 degrees for an hour.

Add to all of this, I was making chicken stock with the bones and skin from the whole chicken. I got a quart of stock, that simmered most of the afternoon.

After all was said and done, we had chicken and root vegetables for dinner Tuesday. The leftovers.

Enough for a few days as a side dish.

Chicken leftovers for me yesterday while my better half went to an amateur radio club dinner. The last piece of chicken breast. Lunch today. The beets will be tomorrow’s salad. The apple cake. Dessert when we are in the mood for dessert. The chicken stock is in the freezer.

Not a bad way to spend a frigid Tuesday.

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Posted in Food, Locavore, Real Food, Weather, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, Locavore, real food, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Menu Planning

Posted on February 18, 2015 by AnnieRie

Sunchokes. For the third time this winter.

It seems this seasonal vegetable is best after a hard frost. Heaven knows we have had enough of those around here. The sunchokes are a Northeastern US native plant. They are the tubers from a type of sunflower. A perennial and if not carefully corralled they can become invasive.

They are a great probiotic for most people. They contain inulin, are good at promoting the healthy “gut bacteria” we need, and keep your blood sugar under control. If you aren’t one of those people sensitive to them, and then they cause discomfort. We do OK with them, but this is the third week out of five that they are showing up in our food baskets.

This week, they were in my CSA basket.

Our winter vegetable share. Week Five. Cabbage, sunchokes, portabellas, onions and garnet sweet potatoes. You will notice two cabbages, as I traded the black radishes. I am currently radished out, and we are in one of those food ruts, where we enjoy steamed cabbage as a side dish. Well, and making lots of cole slaw since we are drowning in carrots this winter. All this cold weather is good for certain vegetables. We seem to be getting quite a few of the hardy varieties that do well when the weather gets cold enough.

The omnivore share gave us these for a pantry item, a cheese and meat.

Daisy flour. Linden Dale raw goat milk cheese. Ground beef. I love, love, love Linden Dale cheeses. We used to buy them all the time up at the Lancaster Market. I am so glad they became a supplier to the cooperative, and that we get these lovely goat cheeses brought to us. Daisy flour is also a treat. I first bought their flour at the Catonsville Atwaters Bakery, and they really are different than what you may be used to baking with.

Friends and Farms this week.

This is the small basket, suitable for two people who eat at home four or five nights a week. The carrots, and those two turnips came to Friends and Farms via the same truck that delivers our Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA. More and more, they are using the cooperative to supply fresh organic seasonal vegetables. Cremini mushrooms (there will be mushroom soup this weekend). Hydroponic lettuce. Eggs. Apples. Kale, another hardy vegetable that gets sweeter after a hard frost. I love to sauté kale with garlic and bacon to serve as a side dish.

There is also a quart of Atwaters chicken stock this week. A new supplier. From one of our favorite lunch places in Catonsville. We got short ribs this week. And ground beef for me, as the substitute for dairy. Oh, and shrimp. Which only survived two hours in the house, as it was dinner tonight.

Shrimp over polenta. The last of the polenta from a very long time ago. Found it in the back of the little fridge, where I store flours and nuts, to keep them fresh. One cup left. Enough for two meals. Did you know polenta easily melts again when reheated. Tonight, I added some corn from an earlier basket. I store it in a container in the freezer, and pour out what I need.

What else will I do with this week’s stuff? Crock pot short ribs. Crab stuffed portabellas. Egg salad. Mushroom soup. Cole slaw. Spicy sunchoke dip. I will let you know if this dip is worth making. I wanted to try something new with the sunchokes.

Fresh vegetables all winter. Comfort foods. Who cares if we get negative temperatures the next few nights. We can be warm and have satisfying meals here at home.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Friends and Farms, LFFC, Locavore, Weather and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, Locavore, real food, value of CSA, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Making the Rounds

Posted on February 11, 2015 by AnnieRie

It was one of those picture perfect sunny “warmer” winter days here today. A day when you get out and do all those errands before the weekend comes. This weekend is chock full of things to do, so early preparations get me ready for Valentine’s Day. Oh yeah, and the Great Backyard Bird Count. And, the New Year program at the Conservancy.

The feeders are all stocked and ready. I did get to Kendalls for nuggets to fill up the woodpecker feeders.

I picked up my Friends and Farms, and my Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA baskets. With a quick stop at Harris Teeter in Kings Contrivance to fill in those items for my weekly menu planning, I am all set to spend Valentine’s Day here at home. Celebrating with a dinner worth hundreds at a restaurant, and that I only spent a small amount of money to purchase.

As for those baskets.

Friends and Farms gave us quite a bit of inspiration for cooking.

I particularly liked those chicken breasts in the shape of a heart. How romantic.

We also got pineapple oranges from Florida. Similar to Valencia, they will become a salad or two, with those beets and a red onion from a while back.

As for those sunchokes, they herald a new partnership for F&F with one of the farmers I frequented often at the Dupont Circle market, Next Step Produce.

I am thinking a really different interpretation of colcannon, using sunchokes, kale, and parsnips, along with a few potatoes. Why not? Who needs to be stuck in traditional recipes when we have so much fresh organic produce to inspire us?

The pork roast and the apple cider. Will be dinner Friday night. Along with cole slaw. See below for my CSA basket that makes this dish possible.

Here is the Lancaster Farm Fresh Omnivore basket today.

Green cabbage. Perfect for slaw. That fresh kale. Mushrooms for a salad with the arugula from F&F. Mega beets. I love dry roasting beets and using them in salads. That humongous celeriac is making me crave roasted root vegetables. Again, I find it motivating me to break out the cookbooks and try something new.

Who needs to fight the crowds at restaurants on Valentine’s Day. Certainly not us. We will be dining in style with minimum fuss, thanks to our local purveyors of fine foods.

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Posted in Birds, CSA, Food, Friends and Farms, LFFC, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Winter Eat Local and tagged birds, cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, holidays, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, Locavore, real food, traditions, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

Comfort Foods

Posted on February 8, 2015 by AnnieRie

What is your favorite comfort food? You know. The one you just want that brings back memories, or makes you happy, full and content for the rest of the day.

Me? I have a few. But my ultimate favorite is lasagna.

Yep. A wedge of lasagna with some crusty bread, a side salad and a good Chianti. Makes everything right in the world.

Today I did my not so frequent marathon to make lasagna. Using what I had here. Improvising. It still tasted awesome, even if I didn’t have ricotta in it.

A mix of freezer foods and CSA items. Plus, my favorite Pappardelle’s
bought at Secolari this week.

Pork and ground beef. Big boy tomatoes from the freezer. A can of tomato paste to thicken. Italian herbs. Salt. Pepper. Garlic powder.

Makes a basic sauce.

Then, we move into the nontraditional. Garlic scape pesto. Chevre. Milk. Eggs. Pecorino Romano.

Somewhere in the same world as béchamel, but not really. And, a block of fresh mozzarella, that I picked up at Friends and Farms Wednesday when I got my basket. The mozzarella was sliced and layered, I like those melty slabs of mozzarella in the middle of the layers.

Before it went into the oven for 90 minutes.

After it was done. Crispy and brown on top. Oozing mozzarella when you cut it.

And the best part.

All those leftovers. One in the fridge. Three in the freezer. Before I freeze them, I cover them tightly with plastic wrap to keep them from getting freezer burned. Pop them out. Into a baking dish. Way better than that Stouffer’s stuff.

The most expensive part of this meal? Those noodles. But, oh what noodles! If you have never tried Pappardelle’s noodles, you have to get to Secolari and buy some. The lasagna noodles are seasonally carried. They don’t have them in the summer. These noodles are so soft they almost melt in your mouth. Seriously. I used a little over half a pound in today’s large lasagna.

Make some memories. Lasagna is a great place to start.

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