Big. Bold. Local.

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Without any food challenges around, the Sunday night dinners, which used to be as close to local as possible to meet a challenge, had changed. Tonight I brought it back to local. Just because there was so much local good stuff in the fridge.

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The big part of this dinner. Definitely the Big Cork Chardonnay from right up the road. The winery in Rohrersville isn’t open yet, but the white wines are available at Frederick stores. Dave Collins is making lovely Chablis-styled Chardonnay, which stood up to the meal I put together.

The star of the meal. Bold. Had to be the mushroom risotto. When we aren’t rushed, I like that ritual of making risotto.

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Made with the cremini mushrooms from the CSA, and with Trickling Springs butter instead of olive oil, a very rich and satisfying risotto.

Made also using the chicken stock from that carcass of the England Acres fresh chicken.

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Thick stock, almost gelatinous. I got one pint plus three half pints. The pint went into the risotto and the half pints are frozen for future use. Because it was so rich, I added about 8 ounces of water to thin it, before using it in the recipe.

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Oh, and dinner. This is what it looked like. Leftover chicken, you could say. But jazzed up with the risotto, the wine, and roasted delicata squash (baked with butter and fresh thyme).

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Enough chicken left in the fridge to make chicken salad, which will serve us for two more lunches. Not bad, for the chicken to make it to two dinners, two lunches, and those three half pints of stock will be used this winter.

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Mezze

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Inspiration.

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If there was ever a moment that defined how my cooking changed, and how our view of dining also changed, it was a trip to Greece and the Islands in 2004. Third time lucky, I would say. We planned this trip three times. First, 9/11 canceled my 50th birthday present cruise scheduled for late fall 2002. The cruise lines pulled their ships from the Med. Our next attempt, on Windstar, was canceled due to the fact the ship caught on fire and sunk six months before our scheduled cruise.

Finally in 2004, we made it there. Right after the Olympics. There, in the islands, we learned to enjoy small plates of fresh food, simply prepared and eaten at leisure, with wine, a view and good friends.

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Doesn’t this view beat that of a parking lot, or a storm water management pond?

This trip, and our trip to Provence, greatly influenced how I cook, and how we dine. We love putting together a mezze assortment. Mezze being the Greek equivalent of tapas.

And, we love dining out back watching the birds, squirrels, bunnies and butterflies.

Tonight I grilled some old pizza dough I found in the freezer. It looked ugly but tasted great. Put out an assortment of tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, and a jar of my ajvar. Nothing really fancy, just “flatbread” to dip and pile. Mix and match.

With a side arugula salad with balsamic.

No pictures of dinner tonight. Sometimes those messy plates of leftover goodies paired with bread or naan, are all we need to remember trips from the past. And, how good the fresh seafood, veggies and fruit tasted. Bought and enjoyed in exotic settings.

I don’t have to go to Greece to eat well. I can’t come up with a view that compares, but love my ajvar spread on charred warm pizza dough. Watching the crape myrtle in the sunlight. Not bad.

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With a glass of old red wine. Loving the Saturday night. What’s your inspiration?

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Making Like a Squirrel

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Putting things up. Preserving them. Buying to fill the freezer. It seems most of August is spent getting ready for winter.

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Yesterday Breezy Willow sent us an email announcing the availability of bulk tomatoes, for you to can or freeze. $25 for 25 pounds of organic canning tomatoes. If I wasn’t drowning in roma and paste tomatoes from my garden, I would be all over this offer. Organic tomatoes for $1 a pound? Amazing! This is a bargain.

Also yesterday England Acres posted the availability of the next batch of roasting chickens. Pasture raised chickens. 4-6 pounds each. Plus, corn for freezing. I headed out there today to get chicken and corn.

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One of those chickens went into the oven tonight.

I have been using up tomatoes almost every two or three days, making sauce, or oven dried.

The freezer is getting full again.

Discussion today on facebook about what to do with hot peppers. I think there will be pepper jelly made this weekend.

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Larriland keeps sending notices. The newest fruits to ripen are the apples. They are starting to trickle in.

I have to admit, I am glad the weather has been mild, as my stove and my oven are going every day. This winter I will love having flavorful foods out of the freezer, to make locally sourced meals.

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Happy harvest season!

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It’s Ratatouille Time!

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Sung to the tune of “It’s Howdy Doody Time!”. This week, the 14th one of our Sandy Spring CSA, we got the makings for some serious ratatouille.

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The List:
2 pieces Green Zucchini – Windy Hollow Organics
1 bag Green Beans – Freedom Acres Farm
1 pint Sungold Cherry Tomatoes – Liberty Acres
1 bag Lemon Cucumbers – De Glae Organic Farm
1 bag Red Roma Tomatoes – Healthy Harvest Organics
1 bag Mixed Heirloom Hot Peppers – Outback Farm
1 bag Japanese Eggplants – Maple Lawn Organics
1 bag loose Orange Carrots – Red Fox Organics
1 container Cremini Mushrooms – Mother Earth Organics
1 bag Garlic – Friends Road Organics
1 bag Purple Viking Potatoes – Bellview Organics
2 pieces Delicata Squash – Green Valley Organics

Yes, those are baby bellas in the back. Mother Earth is a member of our cooperative of farms. Nice that some of the best mushrooms come from the same area as our farmers for the CSA. As for those lemon cucumbers, I need to find some interesting recipes for them. We have gotten them in the past. I never got very creative with them.

I found a recipe that uses pesto, cucumbers, and ends up with shaved Parmesan and freshly ground pepper. I think that will work.

As for the ratatouille. Here is last year’s masterpiece, my ratatouille pie made using leftover ratatouille and with a recipe from Diary of a Locavore.

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As for making ratatouille, my list of ingredients.

1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cups small diced onion, I use sweet white
1 teaspoon grated garlic
2 cups medium diced eggplant, skin on
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
1 1/2 cups diced green, red, yellow, orange (whatever you have) bell peppers
1 1/2 cup diced zucchini squash
2 cups peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes, preferably all colors
1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Make it in a cast iron pan if you can. A deep one. Put the veggies in, using the order above. That is, onion and garlic to soften, then the eggplant, then the peppers, then the squash and tomatoes. Add the basil at the very end.

I let it cook low and slow until all the flavors meld.

I will post pictures of this year’s batch, over the weekend when I make it.

As for my cooking of CSA foods, here is today’s goodie. Golumpki. Made with a combination of CSA veggies, my tomatoes, and a cabbage from Catoctin Mountain Orchards market. The sauce base was from my last container in the freezer from last year. Added some Orchard Breeze sausage to it. Not bad, but I wasn’t that happy with the final stuffing. I need to work on this recipe.

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Now, I need to figure out what to do with those heirloom hot peppers, and the delicata squash.

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You Say Frittata …

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… I say crustless quiche. Although technically they are a bit different in composition and preparation.

One of the staples in this house, particularly when there are lots of eggs, is the frittata. An Italian, or Spanish originating one dish meal. Most of the ingredients are the same, just the proportions differ.

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Whenever someone asks me how I deal with the large amount of veggies left from the CSA, this is my go to preparation. The picture above is the finished version that I slid out onto a pan to cut. I make my frittata in an oven proof frying pan, with a non stick surface. Not good to cut on.

Tonight we had a bloggers party. I didn’t want large amounts of fried foods, so around 3 this afternoon we had a late lunch of leftover frittata. Left over from Monday night dinner.

Monday I wanted something easy as I was still processing tomatoes from the garden and the CSA. This meal, definitely in the easy category.

Find some greens. Any greens. I used arugula and chard from my garden. Find some onion and garlic. I used scallions, and some of those perfectly roasted garlic cloves I made last week.

Pour some oil in the pan. Add the onion and garlic. Chopped up first. Once they soften, add the greens. Let them wilt. In the meantime whisk 4-6 eggs in a dish. Depends on how many you are feeding. I used 6 for this recipe. Add a splash of milk. Any kind of grated cheese. I used pecorino romano. Italian herbs. Salt. Pepper. Wing it.

Microwave one yellow or white potato until it is slightly soft. Slice it. Pull out some tomatoes (like maybe some sun dried). I used some of my tomatoes that I had oven roasted, but you can substitute sun dried. Like the ones from a salad bar.

Here is the picture before I added the potato, mozzarella, and meat.

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If you want to add meat, crumble it and add it. I put a pound of pork sausage in the oven earlier Monday. I wanted some of it for this, and saved half of it for stuffed cabbage later this week. A simple way to multitask. Either bacon or pork, in the oven, crumbled after it is done cooking. Use it for multiple meals. Don’t put the heavy stuff, the meat and potatoes, on the frittata until it starts to set. Just before moving to the oven, add some soft mozzarella.

Put it all in a 400 degree oven for about ten minutes. The bottom will have set on the stove and the top in the oven.

We get two meals out of a frittata. Usually a dinner and a lunch. This is such an easy way to use up greens and tomatoes from the CSA, you really need to make it a regular meal at your house.

Now, I just have to decide what to do with the Thumbalina carrots, the only thing not touched from last week’s CSA. We get more stuff tomorrow, and I am surprised. There is nothing left but the carrots and a few potatoes. Oh, there is half a watermelon, too. But, we are plowing through that on a daily basis.

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Trippin’ Again

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Day Tripping, that is.

Including some updated pictures from Turf Valley. We had a lazy day, that started with a trip to the landfill because the recycling truck came three hours earlier than usual. Which meant we missed it.

Before hitting the landfill, I went into Towne Square with the good camera and shot more pictures. And we picked up tuna subs from Subway before hitting the road to Thurmont by way of Frederick. More on that later.

First, Towne Square. There will be the following restaurants and food places.

Facci, which we mentioned before.

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From views of the fenced in areas, it looks like there will be outdoor dining in front and on the side where the fireplace is located.

Mimi’s Kabob is on the far side of Harris Teeter. I didn’t get down there for pictures.

As for fast food, the Subway and YoLaVie, yogurt are on the left in the way in.

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The woman in Subway who waited on my husband while I was wandering around taking pictures, said Red Parrot will be an Asian restaurant, but today no activity found there.

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Not much going on at Xitomate and Grille 620 either. Only Facci and Petite Cellars had lots of trucks and equipment outside.

We left the landfill today to head off to find Big Cork Wines to take to a family reunion in two weeks. I wanted to take a local wine, and only two liquor stores stock Big Cork. Both of them just outside the Wegmans location north of Frederick.

I wanted some Traminette. A relative grape of Gewurztraminer. A good all purpose white that will please a crowd. We found ours at Riverside, just south of the Wegmans complex off Monocacy Boulevard.

We then headed out to Thurmont for a ride. Looking to take pictures. And finding one of the six remaining covered bridges in Maryland. Just north of Catoctin Mountain Orchards, at the intersection of Roddy and Roddy Creek Roads.

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I was looking for honey bee pictures. Working on the theme for next year’s County Fair special category.

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We were also looking for farm country pictures to use on my husband’s design for his amateur radio cards to exchange for confirming a contact with another country. He wants fields and farmland. I took a few north of Catoctin.

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The benefits of retirement. Tuesdays free to wander all over the area.

I have to admit though, it will be nice to have a big choice of restaurants right up the road.

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Waste Not, Want Not

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The philosophy I grew up with. Back when you ate everything you were served, or went hungry. Back when food wasn’t engineered to be “pretty”.

I can’t help but cringe when I see obvious waste of good food. I had to write this post after a number of incidents that reminded me just how spoiled we have become. And how we turn up our collective noses at food that isn’t perfect.

The latest largest example was Larriland on Wednesday. While picking peaches, we looked over a few rows from the Coral Star peaches we were picking, to a row where a large pile of peaches had been “dumped”. Maybe a wheelbarrow overturned. But, for whatever reason, dozens of ripe peaches were sprawled across the ground, bruised and left for garbage (or seconds).

Whenever we go to Larriland, we see evidence of the waste. If something isn’t perfect, it gets tossed on the ground. For whatever reason, people seem to think that only flawless looking food is worth buying.

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It amazes me, what is wasted. Back when we went to the Amish picnic, and the farmer from Bellview offered us “seconds” from the fava bean harvest. Forty plus pounds of unsellable beans. Nothing really wrong with them, just small amounts in the pods, or a surface fungus.

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And, then there is the constant reminder that wormy corn isn’t bad. That the worms come because they are sweet, and they aren’t liberally doused in pesticides to ward off the worms. I would rather break off the ends and have sweet corn with no chemical residue, than worry that a worm was chomping on the end of the corn.

My cucumbers are weird looking. They curl on the ends. These types of cukes wouldn’t sell in a market, or at a grocery store. There, we have to have waxed cucumbers, as if wax was something I really need in my diet.

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This weekend, at the Food Bank gardens, we saw perfectly good tomatoes rejected, because they had flaws. Really? Heirloom tomatoes aren’t desirable if there are flaws on them?

I just don’t get it. People go nuts about GMOs, but they brought it on themselves, by rejecting natural fruit and veggies that have flaws. The next step from hybrid seems to be GMO. Make veggies the insects won’t touch, so that they can be sold blemish free. Higher yields. Less waste.

Me, I will just continue to buy ugly fruit and veggies. Who cares about stink bug holes. Just cut out those parts. Once you garden, you understand, and have no problem eating “ugly” food.

Well, off my soapbox today. My chard in my frittata was ripped up on the ends. My tomatoes had spots that were cut out. My basil, the same thing. Cut off the mutilated edges and process.

It still tasted great.

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The Bug Man Cometh …

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… and he brought his wife. And, they talked about butterflies, pollinators and so much more. At the Howard County Conservancy last Saturday, we were treated to a “twofer”. Dr. Mike Raupp, and his wife Dr. Paula Shrewsbury, spent a few hours talking to the crowd gathered around them in the picnic area.

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Looking at bugs. Talking about bees. Going on a hike through the gardens, looking for pollinators, and identifying butterflies, moths, insects and bees.

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Fun for all ages. Mike has this ability to connect with all ages, from the youngest enthusiasts, to the master gardeners, and master naturalists there to learn even more than they might have known about insects.

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I always learn something new from his talks. And, from his wife’s, too. This time I learned about solitary bees. And, how to attract them to make a home in our yards and pollinate our vegetables and fruit. Like making bee hotels.

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The last part of the program was a hike out into the meadows to see what they could find there, amongst the grasses and the milkweed.

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Getting back into the swing of things, most of us volunteers are preparing to take the refresher training, for the fall field trips at the Conservancy. I see there will be new activities for the school children and we will be learning how to present them.

One of my favorite parts of my volunteer “job”. Learning new things, and then seeing them through the eyes of the children. The training schedule is here, for those who want to join our group of volunteer hike leaders. And then, just like me …

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… you will then know the name of this plant, and the butterfly. Answer: Joe Pye Weed. Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

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Replacing River Hill

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With Turf Valley.

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It’s about a half mile further to get to Turf Valley than it is to drive to Clarksville for shopping. Slowly, but surely, I am replacing Clarksville and Roots, with Turf Valley and Harris Teeter.

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Today, after a fun morning watching Dr. Mike Raupp aka Bug Man give a talk, walk and show neat things to the families at the Howard County Conservancy, I stopped at Harris Teeter for a few items I needed. Like K Cups. And my husband’s favorite cereals.

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More on the Conservancy event in a future post, but today I want to show a few pictures of how the new town center is shaping up.

The Facci is coming along. With its outdoor dining area.

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A few more stores have opened. We are waiting for Petite Cellars to open, to see how it compares to Perfect Pour.

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And, Xitomate, to see how their Mexican fare stacks up to some of our favorite Mexican restaurants.

All in all, I had a fun and productive Saturday morning. I do like the fact that Harris Teeter is really good about getting you to an open checker as quickly as possible. I hope they do well. I know they are more expensive than Weis, but they definitely have better organic pricing than Roots. I will still use Roots for some of those awesome ready made dips, hummus, and hard to find items, but that convenience of finding organic veggies not currently available at our farmer’s markets, makes Harris Teeter a good fit for me.

Besides, as I have said before, we go to the landfill often. Harris Teeter is right south of there. So convenient for us. And, right down the road from the Conservancy. A simple stop on the way home after volunteering. What’s not to like?

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Preservation Hall

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The new name for my kitchen. I spent most of today preserving fruit. Yes, tomatoes count as a fruit. As do the blackberries and the peaches.

First, some oven dried tomatoes.

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I got a pint container in the freezer out of this batch. My orange tomatoes, some Amish paste, and the CSA romas, all slow cooked at 200 degrees for two hours in the oven. They had scallions and shallots, salt, pepper, sugar and oregano on them, then drizzled in olive oil. Sometime this winter, the pasta I make with this mix will be a breath of summer in a pan.

Blackberries. Boiled down with some super fine sugar, balsamic vinegar and a pinch of pepper.

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Then I ran them through a very fine sieve and made two trays. One the simple syrup for dressings, and the other, the blackberry ice cubes for sangria.

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When you cook blackberries low and slow for a long time, the seeds almost disintegrate, so I don’t mind putting them in the freezer and using them. Some people do throw them away, but I like that texture for a few applications.

Now, for those peaches. I did about half of them today. The rest will become peach puree tomorrow. Except for a few we will keep to eat.

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I quickly blanch them in simmering water. Sixty seconds or so. Then, peel them.

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The nicest ones I freeze as half peaches. The rest get sliced. I got six bags full today.

All in all, a very productive day. Besides the preserving, I made red pepper hummus and potato/green bean salad. The salad for my husband to take to a dinner meeting in northern VA tomorrow night. The hummus. Well, that is one of my favorite snacks.

Time to give the kitchen a rest.

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