Tag Archives: cooking

Eating Locally: Foraging in the Freezer

Posted on January 27, 2013 by AnnieRie

It is Sunday night. Time to post about our winter challenge. Cook a meal using mostly local foods, in the middle of winter. My cyber community linked on my food challenge page is doing OK. Not as much posting as we used to do, but people are still into sourcing their food from near their homes.

I went shopping in my freezer this weekend.

Oven dried tomatoes from my CSA this summer. Beef broth made earlier this month. Lovely beef short ribs from a trip to Breezy Willow a week ago. Add to it some celery from Olney market, carrots (not pictured) from Zahradka, an onion from England Acres and a can of organic black beans. Put it all in a baking dish. Add seasoning and olive oil.

Put it all in the oven on the slow cook setting for five hours. Somewhere near the end, put a loaf of Stone House Rustic Italian bread, out of the freezer, into the other oven to defrost and crisp up.

Serve it all with local wine and local butter. It looks wonderful, doesn’t it?

Mission accomplished. Another almost totally local meal in the dead of winter. The beans weren’t local. Neither were the seasonings. Other than that, it is a tribute to what you can do around here with farm stands, markets and the contents of your freezer.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Farmer's Markets, Food, Foraging, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Wheat Berries

Posted on January 25, 2013 by AnnieRie

In my 60@60 challenge, one of my categories was new proteins. I decided to buy some wheat berries at Wegmans. In the bulk food aisle. They are high in protein and fiber. And, they are chewy.

After buying them, we had wheat berry “risotto” at Bistro Blanc at the cellar dinner. Marc, the chef at Bistro Blanc, told us be sure to toast the wheat berries first.

I searched around on the internet to find a recipe. Then, never really followed it. I pretty much winged it based on my interpretation of risotto. I did remember to toast them, after they had been soaked overnight.

Into the oven they went, and since there was more than a cup, the rest went into the refrigerator, destined to become a salad later this weekend.

For the risotto, I started with scallions and mushrooms in olive oil. Added the wheat berries to the pan. After they got all happy with the olive oil and veggies, added a cup of white wine. There were also six cups of low sodium chicken broth on the stove to use in this recipe.

It took 45 minutes of adding broth and stirring occasionally to get to the final product. At the end, I grated a little pecorino into it. All finished it looked like this, with salmon and roasted veggies. Brussels sprouts and romanesco bought from Zahradka at the farmers event last Sunday.

Did I mention they are chewy? Not what you expect from risotto, but really tasty. A meal this hearty required a big white wine, or a light red. We chose to go with a big white. Linden 2009 Hardscrabble Vineyard Chardonnay. A huge white wine. Almost as “chewy” as the wheat berry risotto.

Cross another item off my list for becoming sixty years old. This meal was a definite winner. Oh, by the way, the Linden can last a decade. It is that big of a white wine.

hocofood@@@

Three Meals, Locally Driven

Posted on January 22, 2013 by AnnieRie

Last year I thought that locally sourcing my food would be difficult. Little did I know that there were numerous sources year round in the Howard County area. Now, it is a cinch to eat locally, and reduce my dependence on long distance processed foods.

Monday was one of my now typical days here. Since I have a freezer and refrigerator full of local foods, meals contain a majority of items from “right up the road”.

Breakfast Monday. Local eggs from Breezy Willow Farm.

We seem to have rediscovered eggs after years of avoidance due to those scary cholesterol “studies”. Now, free range eggs are a joy one or two times a week.

As for lunch, we heated up the last of the pork BBQ from our visit to Breezy Willow Saturday.

Dinner, venison. Right across the highway, locally harvested venison. This is a rump roast.

We put it in the crock pot with root veggies, onions and some organic mushroom soup. Added some Mother Earth mushrooms just before it was finished.

The Canela bakery rosemary bread will be sopping up the gravy created by the veggies, and some of my stock from the freezer. What does it look like when it is done?

You can see the mushrooms, and the turnips. The sweet potatoes are melting into the gravy. The roast is peppery, tender and not gamey at all. I don’t get the gamey aversion. Dark meat has more flavor, due to muscle. Venison is lean, with lots of muscle, therefore it is “gamey”. It still was lovely.

Yes, the gravy looks a little orange because the sweet potatoes melted into it. I need to put them in much later than I did. To finish the localness of this meal, the wine is local as well.

Malbec and venison are supposed to be a good match. And, they are. We decanted this 2005 Breaux Cellar Selection wine, to let it breathe. Really a delicious wine. A lighter version of Malbec as these were young vines.

All day. Local food. Local wine. How I have changed in what I cook.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, Food, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Pumpkin Hummus Take Two

Posted on January 18, 2013 by AnnieRie

It looks like an explosion from my spice rack.

That’s almost everything other than the chickpeas, sriracha and the roasted squash. Two cans of chickpeas. Three roasted squash.

I roasted the squash yesterday. Scooped it out, other than the stuffed ones that will be part of dinner Sunday. Easy to reheat before the Ravens game. To make the hummus, I decided to just do it all by taste.

Put two cans of chickpeas in the processor. Add roasted garlic, I used six cloves. Salt, pepper, all the other spices, a heaping tablespoon of tahini, a teaspoon of sriracha, a drizzle of sesame oil, lemon juice. Mix it all up. Taste. Add the squash. There were three cups of squash. Adjust as you go.

I really enjoy messing around with the last of the CSA squash. This recipe made the equivalent of three containers of store bought hummus. This is garlicky, spicy, sweet and hot all at the same time. A perfect appetizer for a Championship football game. Got to go get some pita chips.

hocofood@@@

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

Make Mine Mofongo

Posted on January 13, 2013 by AnnieRie

Yes, I finally got around to making the plantains. Another item crossed off my Sixty@Sixty challenge. Lots of local goodies in the dinner. But, not those plantains.

The plantains were not green. Like the recipes call for. They were getting ripe. That just meant they were quicker to cook in the salted water. I have to admit I really liked this dish. It does need more garlic though. I think I underdid the garlic.

I also chose a recipe that called for putting the patties in a saute pan, and not for deep frying patties or balls. This one.

Sort of. I just did the second half of it. Not the chicken.

Aren’t they great looking? There is local food in them too. The garlic. The bacon.

Served with a side salad, mostly local, and a local wine. I combined local dining with non-native ingredients. Making those foodie and locavore worlds collide.

Tomatoes, arugula, wine and cauliflower all from local sources. I have been incorporating local items into many of our meals. Even when I go out there to try something new. I liked this version of mofongo. Less fat than deep fried. My husband said they needed more garlic. I agree.

By the way, the broth used in this recipe was made with those beef bones from England Acres. Awesome broth. Made yesterday.

Beef bones, salt and water. Cooked down until rich. Refrigerated. When taken out, discard that fat layer and leave the clear broth. I used just a small amount of it. The rest will go into a gravy for gnocchi later this week.

I really have changed what I cook and how. It’s a great hobby in retirement. Learning to cook outside your native comfort zone.

hocofood@@@

Winter Eat Local Challenge Breakfast

Posted on January 13, 2013 by AnnieRie

The easy meal for my Eat Local all Winter challenge. The challenge is to eat at least one meal a week from locally sourced items. Most of this last week, I have had local items in almost every meal, but Sunday breakfast is the easiest to make.

Particularly, eggs, bacon and toast.

I never get tired of these lovely eggs. Rich orange yolks. My eggs come from three local farms, depending on where I go to pick up other items. These are Breezy Willow eggs. I also now have England Acres eggs in the fridge, and some weeks when I get to TLV, I will buy eggs from them. All are from free range hens.

The England Acre hens, in their portable fenced in area, that is moved around to allow them to find good things to eat. It doesn’t seem to deter a few hens, including this one who “flew the coop” and was wandering around towards the parking lot. Out at England Acres, Judy has small bags of feed that she keeps for children to buy and go out to feed the chickens. An easy way to teach the little ones about the chickens. They are funny. They all run in the direction of any children who come to the farm, even abandoning the area where their feed is located.

I learned a technique for doing eggs. I use just a touch of unsalted butter in the pan, and a splash of extra light olive oil after the butter starts browning. Put in the eggs. Let them cook until white is set, then gently spoon the hot oil over the yolks to set them. Nice sunny side up eggs, perfectly finished. The bacon in the pan added just a bit of fat. I only used a few small pieces of already cooked bacon. The bacon came from TLV, and I cooked up a package to use in a number of meals. It will be used in the mofongo I am making tonight, to use those plantains I bought.

After I defrost the bacon, I cut it in quarters and fry the entire package. I save the grease in a jar in the fridge to use if I am going to make venison, as venison is so lean. This time I didn’t save it, because I have some from a few weeks back when I made chili. Amazing how much fat there is in bacon, isn’t it? This bacon is destined mostly for the mofongo, and for some homemade bacon dressing I will be making for spinach salad topping, and for potato salad to use up the last of my CSA potatoes. One bout of cooking. Four different uses for it. Multitasking again.

As for the toast today, it was Spring Mill Bread. This has become my husband’s second favorite toast bread. After Atwater’s. Too bad Atwaters isn’t in the Olney winter market. Canela is. We have so many great bread makers in the area now. Easy to get a locally produced loaf of fresh bread. Let’s see. Atwater’s, The Breadery, Bonaparte, Great Harvest, Spring Mill, Canela, Stone House. At the markets and some local stores, look for freshly baked whole grain bread,

Seven Grain Crunch. The reason I love this bread is the lack of preservatives, dairy and oils. Yes, I am sometimes bad and put Trickling Springs butter on it, but I love it with just a touch of local jam, or some of my crushed berries from the freezer. Toast to mop up all that lovely yolk left on the plate from the eggs.

Sunday breakfast is a very easy way to make local foods part of your weekly dining.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Christening the Food Saver

Posted on January 12, 2013 by AnnieRie

I mentioned a few weeks ago that my brother gave me his Food Saver vacuum seal machine. He no longer used it, and it was taking up space. I wanted one, but thought the price was pretty daunting. Today I christened it. On something simple. Like cranberries.

Fresh cranberries bought at Catoctin Mountain Orchard yesterday. Boiled and drained. They will become part of a salsa later this year. I just wanted to test the sealing properties on a “moist” item. And, learn how to cut and seal bags. The finished bag.

It did a great job of sealing them. I could really get to liking this thing. I am thinking of soups and stews, sealed, put away in the freezer, and then just boiled until warm. It is straightforward to use.

Sealing area. Vacuum area. Easy instructions. Easy to use. I really do like it. Glad my brother thought of giving it to me. Here’s to fun at Larriland this spring and summer. I may never use canning jars if I can vacuum seal the tomato sauce.

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Encore!

Posted on January 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

It sounds way better than leftovers. But, lasagna is one of those things that just gets better the second time you bake it. Crispier. Richer.

I made this a mostly local dinner tonight. For my Winter Eat Local Challenge. I had major locally produced elements throughout the dinner.

Like the bread. Semolina from the indoor winter Olney market, now out the Sandy Spring Museum on Sunday mornings. Canela Bread. The wine. A 2001 Breaux Nebbiolo, from Virginia. The salad greens from Our House, again the Olney market. The feta on the salad. Bought at England Acres from Apple Tree Goat Dairy. One of the farms from Lancaster Farm Fresh. England Acres is buying items from the cooperative that supplies my summer and fall CSA.

The lasagna wasn’t local. That is true. Except for the eggs in it. And, the mozzarella. I am now using local items in almost every meal, although I rarely have been making what we would call the 100% meals we did when I did last year’s Dark Days Challenge. I have evolved my shopping and my cooking to include local items during breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every meal has some farmer supplied items in it.

Big change from how I shopped, cooked and ate just a few years ago. As for dinner tonight. The wine was fully mature. Nebbiolo isn’t common in this area. Breaux is one of the few wineries that grows this grape in our area. But, now that Dave Collins left Breaux and is soon to open his own winery in Maryland, we hear that he is planting Nebbiolo in Washington County.

His 2001 Breaux offering is elegant, reminiscent of the Barbarescos we have had. Not anywhere near the weight of a Barolo (nor anywhere near the price of one), this is a lovely wine. We had two bottles from many of his vintages. 2000, 2001 and 2002. Drinking well now, but could still stand some more time.

I look forward to this new winery opening. It will be a welcome addition for the locapours around here. As for the dinner tonight, the pairing of lasagna with Nebbiolo is a very good match.

The rest of the lasagna is now residing in the freezer, to be brought out in a few weeks when I get an urge for Italian food, and can open a Breaux or a Barboursville Italian style wine from “just down the road a piece”.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Farmer's Markets, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, hoco loco, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Classic Lasagna

Posted on January 9, 2013 by AnnieRie

It’s what’s for dinner.

I christened my new lasagna pan today. Made it a combination of local and organic foods. Sort of followed what my mom would have made. The basic cheese layer: mozzarella, parmesan and ricotta, mixed with two local eggs. The cheeses were from Wegmans.

The meat: half Boarmans’ sausage and half England Acres ground beef.

The lasagna sheets from Wegmans were fresh, thin and melted in your mouth. The tomato sauce was their organic Grandpas recipe. I didn’t measure. I didn’t follow any recipe, just winged it. Sometimes that getting back to basic cooking is so satisfying.

This dish will make six dinners. Four will go in the freezer, and after tonight, one this weekend. Made any real food from scratch lately?

hocofood@@@

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Sixty @ Sixty Using the Yacon

Posted on January 4, 2013 by AnnieRie

My personal challenge in turning sixty. Use six new exotic veggies. Tonight it was the yacon. Remember the yacon? The weird veggie in my CSA just before Christmas.

Yacon is a relative of the sunflower and the Jerusalem artichoke, only slightly sweeter. Grown mostly in the Andes, this veggie made its way to our home in our organic CSA box, from the Amish in Lancaster. I found a recipe that used it raw in a salad with other fruits and veggies. I decided to try it out this way.

Shaved with the mandoline. Paired with apple, carrot and greens. Finished with pomegranate seeds, pistachios and pepitas. Sprinkled with goat cheese feta.

The salad, and a roasted chicken, were dinner tonight. Served with a Glen Manor wine. The chicken from a local farm. The wine, one of my favorite Sauvignon blancs out there. It tastes like a New Zealand wine.

But the star of the dinner, I have to admit, was the Stone House multigrain bread. Taken out of the freezer and baked for 15 minutes. Crisp crunchy crust. Tons of flavor. It was the highlight of dinner. Thank you TLV farms, for having them at the tree cutting days at the local farm. I stocked up in the freezer with their breads.

Back to mostly local cooking, and good for us veggies. The holidays are over, but good food is still out there. Oh, and the other highlight of the dinner. My birthday roses are still hanging in there. Way to go, Raimondis.