Category Archives: Real Food

That New Page in My Book

Posted on August 12, 2014 by AnnieRie

The work in progress as I get ready for my August 23rd event at the Howard County Conservancy.

It makes me pay attention to how haphazard my blog posts are. How I can’t just focus on one item or one recipe. Trying to show people what I have done to preserve foods. While feeling like I am herding cats.

Yes, I mostly freeze foods. But, I also dry them. And roast them. And slow cook them. And occasionally when I am feeling feisty, I actually can things. Like that awesome jelly.

Pineapple habanero, as a matter of fact. This year, the habaneros aren’t producing so there will be some jalapeno pineapple jelly made later this week.

In the mean time, I am doing nothing but processing tomatoes and peppers. Since I really am drowning in them.

Yes, I believe most horizontal surfaces in this kitchen are covered in some sort of tomato. Tomorrow, there will be oven roasted yellow plums. And sauce from Early Girl and Big Boy. And, tabouleh from the thousands (has to be that many) of the Supersweet 100s and the Sun Gold tomatoes in the big bowl on the counter.

The processing frenzy continues. I will be happy in February. Now, I am just frazzled.

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Real Food and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

Anniversary Weekend

Posted on August 9, 2014 by AnnieRie

Yes, 34 years have passed since that Saturday, in stifling heat and humidity, not conducive to wearing wedding finery, when we got married. No, I am not posting pictures of the wedding.

I will post at least about the celebration dinner we had this evening.

I slow cooked two tuna filets covered in my latest home made tomato sauce. It happily sat in the oven while I made all sorts of other goodies. Like this one.

My first ajvar (Serbian roasted red pepper, eggplant and garlic spread) of the season. This was served with crostini as an appetizer. There are also two jars of it. One will be going to an amateur radio club picnic later this month. The other one. On a day trip picnic to some new winery we haven’t visited yet.

For the wine.

We pulled out a Turley 2004 Petite Syrah from the stash in the basement. Absolutely lovely with the tuna.

For dessert.

Berry peachy frozen yogurt. The pops aren’t ready yet, but we did have two little containers that were a perfect size for dessert while finishing the wine. This mixture was made with the final package of last year’s frozen peaches, blended with three or four cubes of blackberry simple syrup. A cup of vanilla yogurt. Using up what was left in the freezer from Larriland picking in 2013.

Not a bad way to celebrate over a third of a century together. A leisurely meal on the patio. Savored after another big Orioles win. Now, while I type, I am slow roasting peppers to freeze. Up tomorrow night. Slow cooked caramelized onions.

Harvest, the fair, and our anniversary. All in the same week. I need a vacation.

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Real Food, Wine and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Food Processing Friday …

Posted on August 8, 2014 by AnnieRie

… and Saturday and Sunday.

As shown we are drowning in tomatoes. And, other things. Which are “pickle-able”.

I pickled shallots, cucumbers and peppers today. Did Peter Pecker pick those peppers? No, and neither did I. They were in the CSA share this week.

I made a simple pickling spice mix. Added it to a mix of four to one, vinegar to water. Got it boiling. Blanched the veggies first. Sterilized the lids and seals. Came up with a few jars of “refrigerator’ pickles. These are easy to do. No canning techniques necessary. Just consume them in a week or two.

As for tomatoes. I did two pints of sauce today.

This is a chunky tomato sauce. A number of blanched tomatoes stood by while I sweated onions, carrots, minced garlic, basil, thyme and oregano. Oh yeah. Salt and pepper.

I ended up with two pints ready to go into the freezer, to make those cold winter nights remind me of summer.

More tomorrow, when I blanch and fill green peppers with a sausage mixture. A feast that makes Stouffer’s look pathetic.

The freezer is filling up. That’s for sure.

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

My Out of Control Kitchen

Posted on August 7, 2014 by AnnieRie

It happens every August. The tomatoes get way ahead of me. I can’t keep up with the processing. I have to dedicate an entire weekend to plowing through the produce and filling the freezer.

Add to it the CSA glut.

For $19 a week you too can be overrun with fresh beautiful vegetables. OK, so there are also some fruit shares here. They are a slight additional cost.

Lancaster Farm Fresh delivered some pretty heavy boxes this week. We got:

FIVE zucchini (seriously? in a half share?)
A bag full of baby sweet peppers
A bag full of hot Hungarian wax peppers (not pictured, more below)
A bag full of baby eggplants
Two heirloom tomatoes
Three slicing tomatoes
Four golden beets with greens
Two heads of garlic

The sugar baby watermelon was part of our fruit share. Along with more of these.

Eight more incredibly juicy luscious sweet peaches.

I swapped those peppers. For a reason to be revealed later.

I did get this.

Three ears of sweet corn from the swap box. You can never have too much sweet corn.

My chicken share this week was a 3.5 pound heritage bird.

As for Friends and Farms, I am glad we moved to an individual share for the summer. That way we aren’t completely overwhelmed with produce.

This was bread and cheese week for the individual share. I picked pumpkin pecan bread from the Breadery. Ewe cream cheese from Shepherds Manor.

Spring Mix. Donut peaches. Nectarines. Sweet potatoes. Heirloom cherry tomatoes. A yellow onion. Green beans. An eggplant.

As for the protein, not pictured, we got catfish, and sirloin steak.

Definitely enough to keep us from the grocery stores for a while.

I just need to get out there and start freezing food.

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Friends and Farms, GGSAC, LFFC, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, farms, foodie, gardening, GGSAC, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

Putting Food Away

Posted on August 6, 2014 by AnnieRie

As in “What Do I Do With All These Tomatoes?”

My preserving food program is under construction. Due to be presented at the Howard County Conservancy Mt Pleasant, on August 23rd. Details here.

I have been dealing with excess CSA veggies and fruit for a number of years. Plus, I do a number of pick your own excursions, looking for those staples, like tomatoes, berries, apples. I do many techniques, other than canning, that are simple to use to prolong the local goodness well into the winter.

I have been creating a new page for my site. It will be the go-to page for recipes and tips and places to find affordable fruits, veggies and herbs to put away for the winter.

All this is taking time. Time I have being retired. But, simple techniques like ice cube trays used to make individual fruit or pesto portions, or maybe my blanch and freeze technique for tomatoes and peaches, will inspire people to keep a few special favorites on hand. To make peach pops in the winter. Or add strawberry ice cubes to a glass of wine to make sangria. Or defrost a pesto cube to make summer tasting pasta.

Keep checking here to see when my new page goes live. And, come see what fun we can have with the fruits of our labor (for all us gardeners out there). August 23rd, 10AM at the Conservancy Mt Pleasant. Free program.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Gardening, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, howard county conservancy, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

Home Grown Goodness

Posted on August 1, 2014 by AnnieRie

Tonight’s dinner traveled less than 100 miles, for the most part, to our table.

I realized as I was cooking that most of the ingredients, except for oil and spices, were from our CSA, our Friends and Farms basket, my garden, or England Acres.

We got a few medallion steaks from England Acres. These were the last ones. I pan seared, then oven finished the steaks. Each was petite. Just the right size. About 4/10 of a pound each.

The vegetable mix was easily made, as well.

It is so simple to pan fry a mix of fresh vegetables. Start with a good light olive oil. Get it really hot, but not smoking. Add the onions first. Then I added the specialty squash. Then the baby eggplant. Then the tomatoes. I sprinkled these with fresh thyme from the garden. A little salt and pepper. The best part. A small slab of unsalted butter.

The other component of this dinner was a microwaved potato. Covered in pan juices after taking the steak out of the pan.

You can eat locally all the time. Not just during the Buy Local Challenge. Oh, I forgot. The wine was local, too. But I didn’t remember to take pictures. It was a Glen Manor Petit Verdot. From Virginia.

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Posted in Farms, Food, Friends and Farms, Locavore, Real Food, Wine and tagged cooking, farms, Food, foodie, Locavore, VA wine, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Tabouleh Time

Posted on July 31, 2014 by AnnieRie

Sometimes one item in a CSA box or a Friends and Farms basket will inspire me. This week, in our Friends and Farms individual share, there was a huge bunch of parsley. All I need to make tabouleh, that I don’t have, is red onion.

Tabouleh only requires parsley, bulgur, tomatoes, onion, lemon, mint, olive oil and cucumber. Salt and pepper. I actually have bulgur in the pantry. This weekend I will be making my version. We will see how it turns out.

As for the rest of the basket, a peak into the insulated bag.

This week is my eggs and yogurt week. I chose vanilla yogurt, to use up some of the fruit around here to make popsicles. More on that later, too. We got one large pork chop (in an individual basket, there isn’t that much meat, which is a good thing). We also got a small package of “party wings”. Grilled wings next Monday or Tuesday, I think. The pork chop was seared, then finished in the oven, for dinner tonight. A little lemon pepper and olive oil. That’s all.

Two ears of corn.

They were also served at dinner. Can’t get much fresher than this.

The rest of the basket.

One Savoy cabbage. One container of Baby Bellas (which will become mushroom sauce for a special dinner with filets of beef). Two green peppers. Three potatoes. Three Lodi apples. Four yellow and four purple plums from Catoctin Mountain Orchards. One cucumber (for that tabouleh).

I like the size of this basket. I like the fact that we only get bread every other week. Three weeks of eggs for us, as we get eggs instead of milk. Cheese once a month. Breakfast meat once a month. Yogurt once a month. A good rotation, so you can use it up and not waste it.

And, the plums are delicious. Can’t decide my favorite. But I love Catoctin Mountain Orchards. We like to drive up there and find little treasures in their market. They are just north of Thurmont, off of US 15.

A good basket this week. A way to use up some of my tomatoes, that’s for sure.

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

Olive Oil and Pasta …

Posted on July 24, 2014 by AnnieRie

… and so much more.

I have written about Secolari before. And, used their products in many of my favorite meals. Products like their oil and balsamic, their flavored salts. Plus, that lovely pasta from Pappardelle that they carry.

Now, I can add chocolate mint honey to my latest finds. I am thinking about the suggested use in iced lattes.

Last night we had a bloggers’ get together at the Columbia Mall location with the owners highlighting some of their products. A “perk” so to speak of being a blogger around here.

Goodies like popcorn with Black Truffle salt and Lime Olive Oil.

There was a good crowd there. Tasting the oils, the vinegars, the honey, and enjoying small bites from Zoe’s Kitchen, located across the promenade from Secolari.

You don’t have to be a blogger to taste their products. Whenever you visit, you can sample before choosing your favorites. Barth and Mary deRosa have a wonderful shop here.

If you aren’t into oil and vinegar, but love pasta, they have a product for you. Pappardelle.

Another favorite of mine.

This orzo, with the lemon infused oil, will be paired with these little gems.

A baking sheet covered with my tomatoes and shallots. Slow cooked in a 200 degree oven. Tomorrow they will be mixed with the orzo and drizzled with oil. A very tasty salad.

Check out Secolari. Buy some pasta and olive oil. Indulge. Much better and so much cheaper than dinner in a restaurant.

Thanks Barth and Mary for hosting us last night.

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Posted in Community, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Real Food and tagged community, cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

The Harvest Begins …

Posted on July 22, 2014 by AnnieRie

… in earnest. Before today, it was just ramping up. Now, we are moving into the period of time where I will be harvesting, roasting, freezing, canning and processing to fill the freezer for winter.

Today’s community garden harvest. Minus the chard and the chives that I harvested to donate to the Food Bank. That was part of the 131 pounds we collected this morning.

The above food is just from my plot. The tomatoes! The first Big Boys.

All in all, fifty ounces of tomatoes. Ten ounces of sungold and eighteen of supersweet 100s alone.

I also got my first three cubanelle peppers. With the weather changing to sunny and hot, I hope to see the peppers kicking in.

I did make the pesto with all the basil.

Two cups of a mix of lemon and African blue basil. One cup of a mix of toasted pecans and almonds. 2/3 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Salt. Pepper. Olive oil. I got one whole ice cube tray plus about six ounces in an eight ounce container. All in the freezer now. In the dead of winter, nothing screams summer like pesto.

As for those Big Boys!

They went into today’s lunch. A small side Caprese salad. With greens and blackberries there, too.

The next few weeks will see a mess in my kitchen. Canning jars. Food Saver bags. Vegetables. Fruit. Herbs. My favorite time in the summer. When it all gets enjoyed or saved for the winter.

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Growing Onions

Posted on July 16, 2014 by AnnieRie

This is the first year I have attempted onions in the garden. I have white onions, yellow onions, plus I have shallots and leeks, both related to the onions.

The onions look great as they are growing. I am still in that learning curve though. I didn’t stop watering them when the tops started falling over. Then, we got 1 1/2 inches of rain. So, some of them look to be soggy and beginning to rot at the top.

I took eight of them out today. Trimmed them back. I hope to dry half of these, and I have a couple in the pot with the chicken carcass, making stock.

My Tractor Supply starter set had eighty onions in it. They were bulbs, which are easier to grow.

I have to admit. These have been a really good producer. I know in the future there will be onions in the garden.

Tomorrow I get eggplant, eggs and bacon from Friends and Farms. I have squash. I have mega amounts of zucchini. I have onions and shallots. I have garlic. I have tomatoes. Sounds like ratatouille pie to me.