Tag Archives: farmer’s markets

Checking Out Greenfest

Posted on April 13, 2013 by AnnieRie

Another of those spring rituals. Going to the Greenfrest at Howard Community College. Looking for plants, and picking up a few items of interest from the displays. As usual, there was a large enthusiastic crowd there this morning, and lots of greenery for sale.

The fest takes over the quad, the parking area, and two floors inside the Burrell Galleria. Lots for families to do, outside and inside. The Howard Astronomical League was outside with scopes, there were family activities outside, and food for sale.

I only had an hour there today as we had a conflict with a dinner engagement and I needed to get food ready to take to it. Still time to pick up another reusable bag (like I need more shopping bags!). A few brochures, and then out to the Master Gardeners area.

They were doing a brisk business in native plants, but I was looking for heirloom veggies. I will have to wait until Earth Day at the Conservancy to get those. Great to find out from them that our master gardeners have so many places for us to find really good starter plants.

I then headed off to see TLV where I wanted some greens and some short ribs. A request from my husband for me to do short ribs over the collard greens from this week’s CSA. TLV did not disappoint. I came home with short ribs.

They were doing a very good business, already sold out of all the basil plants they brought. Many more herbs available. I will be heading out to the farm in two weeks to get mine. Just in time to plant.

Many of their customers were commenting on how good it was to see them, and how we all can’t wait for the Howard County Farmers Markets to start in just 3 1/2 weeks. Keep checking their website and facebook pages to see the lists of vendors when they get posted.

Notice all those lovely containers of greens. Quite a few of those were sold as I was there talking to them. This is a great way to have fresh microgreens on the table. I use window boxes outside my kitchen, but these tubs would do great on a porch, or a deck, keeping leafy goodness out of the reach of bunnies and deer.

On my way out, I saw that a number of bikes were being loaded onto the trailers for the bike collection.

It was a beautiful breezy spring day, and it looked like another successful event in this, its sixth year. Driving home through Columbia and across Folly Quarter, I couldn’t miss all the flowering trees and shrubs. At home, the cherry tree is in full bloom. I need to pop out tomorrow and see how the azaleas are coming at Brighton Dam. It should be a sunny but cool day, perfect for a ride.

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Farms, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Nature, Weather and tagged community, crock pot cooking, farmer's markets, farms, Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, nature, spring flowers, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Breezy Willow Farm, In West Friendship

Posted on April 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

I know I first encountered Breezy Willow at the Glenwood Farmer’s Market, but I don’t remember when. The market was small when we first moved out here, but as a Saturday market it was easy to attend while we still had day jobs in DC. I buy quite a few veggies from them on Saturday mornings and still do much of my purchases of items I don’t grow in my garden from their stand. Things like the sweet corn, the radishes, the summer squash, peppers, and more. And, of course, their lovely free range eggs.

market closing day 2012

Breezy Willow offers all sorts of items, including eggs, honey, breads, soap, herbs, rare veggies, and fruit. They are a certified organic farm. Here is a very detailed description from their website.

Besides, who can resist the alpacas? And, the sheep, the chickens, the dog, any or all of them will greet you when you pick up your Community Supported Agriculture “basket” in the farm store. Visits weekly to the farm really do create that connection between us and the source of our food.

They also make and sell other goodies, like handmade jewelry, alpaca scarves and socks, felted soap balls, scented soaps, the list goes on. It is truly a labor of love on a family run farm. I love to buy the soaps to give as Christmas gifts.

RJ, Ken, Casey and Jason are all out and about. You may run into them at the markets, on the farm, and CSA pick up points beyond the farm. The farm does offer work for your CSA options, for those who staff the CSA pick up points, or the market. They work for their share, instead of paying for it.

This is an incredibly popular CSA in the county, one that has been adding pick up sites every season, and now has more than 700 members.

For the summer and fall CSA, which runs 24 weeks, starting in June, the vast majority of your items come from surrounding farms and from Breezy Willow. They do bring in goodies like mushrooms from PA and a few farms are outside of the county. To me, that is a good thing.

The success or failure of CSAs depends on happy customers. Some people are leery of taking risk if weather could wipe out part of a harvest, and the only source of their veggies is one farm. By diversification, and use of a cooperative venture among small regional farms, CSAs like Breezy Willow are a very good value for those looking for healthy foods to serve themselves and their families. The diversification mitigates some of the risk, and by paying up front for your future “shares”, you assist the farm in getting cash flow in spring when they need it for planting. It is a good thing for both sides of the transaction.

In the early spring, Breezy Willow added an “early bird CSA” a few years ago. It runs 12 weeks from March through May, and supplements cold storage fruit and vegetables with greenhouse grown, high tunnel grown, and some shipped in items from the South. Items like fresh Florida citrus at the height of the Florida growing season. For those of us weary of winter and ready for spring, this CSA gives us really fresh outstanding veggies and fruit from small farms along the coast. I can’t wait to see if we get some early berries from Carolina or Virginia.

Breezy Willow also works with the other farms in the area to offer their dairy products, and meats out at the farm. I am partial to the yogurt, and if they have Bowling Green Farm feta in the fridge, I grab it. The farm store was open on Saturdays this spring from 10-2, and is open for CSA members on CSA pick up days.

Now that they have added an extension to the farm store building, we were told that the CSA will pick up in the extension and the farm store will take over the entire original section.

If you want a real treat find out what flavors of ice cream are in the cooler. My personal favorites, salted caramel, honey graham and maple bacon. Yes, maple bacon ice cream. The sweetness of maple with the saltiness of tiny pieces of bacon.

If you get the chance, check out the farm on one of their open days. Call ahead if there isn’t a notice on the web site. You can see what they offer by browsing on the site, and if you want to order, they will arrange a convenient pick up time.

You can’t miss them on Old Frederick Road (Rte 99), just west of Rte. 32 and the West Friendship fire station.

Or, stop by when they begin their participation in the Glenwood Saturday market at the library and community center parking lot. Last year, they started selling in early June, once they had a good supply of veggies to bring to market.

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From Farm to Freezer – Larriland

Posted on April 6, 2013 by AnnieRie

I don’t remember when I first heard about Larriland Farms, in Lisbon. They have been there for 50 years, ever since they sold their Guilford farm which became part of Columbia. They started the pick your own farm ten years later in 1973. We rarely got out there, until we moved here to west Howard County.

Now, they are just up the road.

I was there for opening day of strawberry season in 2012. School was out that day and lots of families with their children were having fun picking strawberries.

This was the year we picked strawberries and blackberries, and visited a few times to pick up goodies in their farm store. You don’t have to do all the work, you can just stop in and buy already picked delicacies. I picked almost 10 pounds of strawberries. You get the price break at twenty pounds.

If you don’t have a garden and want to freeze veggies or fruits, this is the place to go. The Moore family runs the farm. It is so organized, and the fruit is amazing quality. Plus, they encourage noshing while you pick. This is close to ten pounds of strawberries.

What did I do with them? Besides the fresh salad that day for lunch?

Whole strawberries, strawberry puree frozen. I put the puree in wine, or club soda, or sangria. The jars I use to make berry vinaigrette. The frozen whole berries I drop in smoothies or juices. Same with the blackberries. This year, though, with my smaller garden I am looking to pick veggies. Can’t think of a better place to spend a few hours. I have begun monitoring their website to see when the 2013 season will start.

Follow their site, or sign up for email newsletters. Anyway you look at it, these lovely fruits could be in your freezer.

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England Acres

Posted on April 5, 2013 by AnnieRie

One of my favorite farms to visit. I am going to profile local farms, why I shop at them and what they offer. I first found England Acres during a visit to South Mountain Creamery and Wegmans in Frederick. Driving home the back way I ended up going through New Market on Rt. 144 and found a sign.

I never got back to check it out until June 2012. It was love at first sight. The house is one of those very old farm places that kept expanding as the family grew, and the market was just next to it. I fell in love with the house.

Judy runs an amazing business. Partners with lots of local farms and artisans. If you want really good farm raised meat, or free range eggs, this is the place to go. How about duck eggs? They just starting selling those for a local farm. They have all sorts of sources. Cheese, yogurt, spelt flour, homemade baked goods. You name it. She works to bring it in and make it available. I love the fact that they are open year round, and that they really do support small local farms.

In February, Super Bowl weekend, I found.

Popcorn and cookies.

Salad mix and mushrooms.

The meat is amazing. Chicken soup from their chickens. Awesome.

Eggs, I can’t begin to describe. Between Breezy Willow and England Acres, the eggs from free range chickens have spoiled me, and I won’t ever have to buy grocery store eggs again.

The size of these eggs. If you love sunny side up eggs, this is the only way to go. How about a double yolk egg?

We just ordered a side of lamb from them, to be picked up in two weeks. I have to admit, their meat is by far some of the tastiest we have found. A half a lamb. 20 or so pounds, at a price that makes it so worth it. You get to customize your cuts, specify how you want it, boneless or not, and you have a ready source of food not tainted with hormones or antibiotics.

Tomorrow they are having a crafts swap at the farm. I will probably pop out there to leave my stained glass equipment and supplies for swap or barter. If I can find them tonight.

The farm does lots of fun things. Feed the chickens. Picnic on the property. Come to a corn freezing party in late summer. Local farms are the life of our area. Check them out.

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Farms, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, West HoCo and tagged community, cooking, farmer's markets, farms, Food, local businesses, Locavore, real food, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The Demise of the Dark Days Challenge

Posted on April 4, 2013 by AnnieRie

And, the rise of local choices year round!

It was a great idea six years ago. To start a challenge for the dark days of winter. To try to find local ingredients to cook one meal a week for four months. Not Dabbling in Normal hosted it last year, and it is where I began my journey to look for locally sourced foods. It is what inspired me to start my local resources page, and to change what I ate, where I bought it, and how I prepared meals. It was not that difficult, thanks to all the resources here.

It seems to have outlived its usefulness, and it no longer was a challenge to cook a local meal in February. It became very easy in this area. High tunnels, greenhouses, hydroponic growing. Year round markets, indoors and outdoors. Farm stands open all winter. CSAs that deliver in the winter. Residents of Howard County are indeed lucky to live surrounded by farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs that keep us in local ingredients.

The challenge is gone, except for the few of us who still keep in touch, and blog every Sunday about our latest local meal. With me, most meals contain at least one locally sourced item. Breezy Willow CSA and Sandy Spring CSA provide me with fresh veggies and fruit for 44 weeks of the year. My freezer does duty to preserve some items so they are available in winter. The farm store at England Acres, the indoor market in Olney, and I don’t have to travel far to get what I need. For only ten weeks a year I don’t have local veggies provided to me from a CSA (yes, I can count, 44+10 equals 54 but my CSAs overlap). Look at these lovely winter selections, begging to make a chicken soup.

February Zahradka half share CSA

I think it is amazing that every year we expand the times for the Howard County markets, and add more farms. There are now five days of markets here in the county, from May until Thanksgiving.

We have at least eight CSAs dropping off boxes at pickup points, or being picked up at farms like Love Dove, Gorman, Breezy Willow, Shaw Farm and Roundabout Hills. Sandy Spring drops off in Columbia. Zahradka has at least two pick up points in the summer, and delivers to your door in the winter. One Straw Farm has been here a long time, too. People pick up at MOM’s or a private residence.

Add to that, South Mountain Creamery delivering milk, meat, eggs, other local products every week year round, to your door. And, now Friends and Farms is actively adding to the choices to find year round.

When I started all this writing, I didn’t know it would take me on a path to a new way of shopping, cooking and caring about the small local businesses here. Glad I took the challenge, and so glad I found all these wonderful people to sell me my food.

Ah yes, bison and polenta. Gunpowder Bison short ribs, Burnt Mills roasted corn meal made into polenta, one of those carrots from the above CSA delivery picture glazed with local honey, and the ribs topped with McCutcheons tomato preserves. Think eating locally is hard? Not here in HoCo, it isn’t!

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Posted in Community, CSA, Dark Days, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, West HoCo, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Busy, Busy!

Posted on April 2, 2013 by AnnieRie

April is the first of three consecutive months where activities crowd the calendar. Can’t believe all the options for things to do, weekends, and weekdays.

This weekend the Baltimore Farmer’s Market opens for the season. Under the overpasses, down by the Jones Falls Expressway. A few of our favorite vendors are regulars there. South Mountain Creamery, Zahradka Farm, Knopps Farm, all farms that we buy from.

Sometime this month we will wander down to have our brunch, enjoy the festivities and wish we had something this awesome in Howard County. We have a month to wait before our markets open.

We have lots of opportunities to enjoy farm fresh goodies. Clark’s advertises that they have meat and eggs available now that they are open for the season. The farm is open Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Greenfest is the 13th this year, the same day as the housing fair. The 20th is Earth Day, with a bird walk and activities at the Howard County Conservancy.

Sharp’s Farm opens for those of us looking for heirloom seedlings, on the 19th. My tomatoes come from Denise, at the farm. And a few from the Howard County master gardeners who sell at Earth Day. Last year I found my favorite red fig heirloom tomatoes there.

The 18th is twenty minute clean up day. Last year I spent time cleaning up down by our road.

That same night is the art auction at the Conservancy. Some really nice items this year. I checked them out while doing training for my volunteer activities. This year’s theme is Connections.

There is also a wonder walk, an event featuring box turtles, on the 13th, at the Conservancy. And, a training session on the 9th to teach the volunteer naturalists about History during the Civil War, on the farm where the Conservancy now stands. We are going to pilot this program with the Howard County schools later this month.

There is so much going on, I need to pick and choose what to do. Don’t you just love spring?

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Venison Chili with Virginia Wine

Posted on March 24, 2013 by AnnieRie

Wine with chili. Only a real win if the chili is subtle, smoky, with cinnamon undertones. Not the “In Your Face” heat. Sunday is the day the Eat Local All Winter group posts what we made using locally sourced items. After a wonderful day hiking and discovering new things at the Conservancy with Tom Wessels, it was nice to come home to a warming meal, chili.

Did you know we have young American chestnut trees surviving the blight, although they are fighting it, on the property in Woodstock? We found many interesting items today, and have the opportunity to learn more from the books about reading the forested landscape.

I will save more details about what we learned for a future post, and get back to the other topic, What was dinner? The vast majority of the chili came from our freezer. It included a large container of heirloom tomatoes from my garden, onions and peppers from the CSA, and a beef stew stock made last fall. All dumped in the crock pot with a pound of the ground venison. Additional tomato paste, black beans and tomato/lime/cilantro mix (courtesy of Rotel) came from the pantry and weren’t local. Also, a couple of onions from last week’s CSA delivery, chopped up. The spices were cinnamon, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. A splash of Pennsylvania maple syrup, and a chopped up jalapeno out of the freezer, another CSA contribution. Slow cooked for ten hours in the crock pot. It looked like this when done.

Served on the side were Trickling Springs butter and that old fashioned white bread from Great Harvest.

Since it didn’t overwhelm with heat, and had lovely flavor, I decided to open a VA wine. An old one. Predominantly petit verdot. A grape used sparingly in France in Bordeaux, but one which does well in the long growing season in VA.

Yes, the year is 2001, a very good year for VA wines. This blend is vastly different than the other three blends Linden produced in 2001. With all of them in the cellar, we get to sample the differences. This wine has softened over the years, but is still lovely. Supposed to be past its prime, but we don’t think so. Cherry and tobacco in the taste. Very easy to drink. Not brown around the edges either. We do need to drink the rest of these though, as they won’t hold many more years.

Later tonight, a bit of maple flavored yogurt from Pequea Valley Farm in PA, mixed with some blueberries from Butler Orchards, out of the freezer. Lots of berries left, and the yogurt is one I have talked about many times, available at Breezy Willow or at England Acres.

I have to admit again, eating locally in the winter is not difficult around here.

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Nature, Real Food, Volunteering, West HoCo, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, Howard County, howard county conservancy, Linden Vineyards, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Early Bird CSA Week Three

Posted on March 20, 2013 by AnnieRie

Spring is here, officially, by calendar. But, it was a bit breezy up at Breezy Willow today for CSA pick up. Warmer than the first week. We were there fairly early, and needed to stop over at Rhine, across the road from the farm. I should remember not to buy ice cream if I have other errands but couldn’t resist the salted caramel.

As for our items this week, here is what we got. Lovely looking, isn’t it?

1 pound spinach
1/2 pound mushrooms
3 Valencia oranges
3 grapefruit
1/2 pound bean sprouts
1/2 pound spring mix
2 humongous carrots
1 Napa cabbage

Plus, the dozen eggs and this week we picked Old Fashioned White Loaf, from Great Harvest.

Looks to me like this week there will be spinach salad with oranges and mushrooms, maybe spinach salad with hard boiled eggs, some sort of stir fry to use some bean sprouts and Napa cabbage, maybe a slaw with the last two apples in the fridge and the Napa cabbage and carrot. Who knows? Lots of inspiration in this basket.

I finally did get the second salad spinner at Costco a while back. Comes in handy when you have two different greens to wash. It also keeps them fresher for longer.

As for using up most of last week’s veggies, tonight for dinner I baked some kielbasa from Orchard Breeze farm, picked up at Olney a while back. This is real PA style kielbo, garlicky and spicy. Served with my turnip, Brussels sprouts, white potato concoction I roasted yesterday. Not pretty, but very tasty.

After smashing the veggies, I added a little milk, two pats of butter, some nutmeg, paprika and heated it up in the oven. Not quite colcannon, but a good green and white mix. Roasted turnips have the best flavor.

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

Improv

Posted on March 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

You know what they say about the best laid plans. Sometimes you find less than perfect execution after all your planning. Today is one of those days. Thankfully after all these years of reading recipes and learning to trust my taste (plus a little help from the internet) I recovered from what could have been a cooking failure.

I signed up to take pumpkin hummus to the volunteer pot luck luncheon at the Howard County Conservancy this week. Something new I learned to make using CSA veggies. I had a butternut squash from the market two weeks ago sitting on the counter, some garlic still in the coldest area where I store root veggies, half a jar of tahini and I had just stocked up on chickpeas, as I use them in couscous salad and lots of other recipes. The squash was from the Olney market.

Should have been easy. But no, the squash was pretty hollow down the middle. Skin still looked good. It was firm, not mushy, but was obviously dried out, or somewhat hollow down the center, at least the top half of it was. It smelled OK, so I did a little triage and salvaged the parts that weren’t drying out. It only gave me half what I needed.

Enter the internet and the CSA to the rescue. I got sweet potatoes last week from my Breezy Willow CSA.

I found a recipe that called for half “pumpkin pie filling” aka butternut squash for those of us who know that fact, and half sweet potato. Thank you, small bites blog. I did not use cumin and paprika, but used garam masala in their place.

My next problem came from my garlic. Yep, the last two heads of garlic in the storage area had gone moldy. I am now officially out of all that lovely organic garlic from Love Dove and the CSA. Thankfully, I had granulated garlic powder picked up at Costco. I had to do this by taste instead of measuring and I do like garlicky hummus.

The hummus came out really creamy, tasty and it is aging in the fridge now, ready to take Thursday to the luncheon. I am hoping to get an interesting bread this week from the CSA to use for dunking the hummus. Another improv, why go get pita for dipping when you can make your own toasty dippers from thinly sliced breads, toasted.

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At the Market in February?

Posted on February 25, 2013 by AnnieRie

Yesterday morning we headed out to Olney to check out the market and see what the vendors have in late February. It is nice to have a market near us. No need to drive to Silver Spring, Tacoma Park or Dupont Circle on the weekends.

This market is a farmers, artists, and artisan/food vendor market. In the winter it is located in and outside of the Sandy Spring Museum on Rte. 108 not far over the Montgomery County line. About ten miles from us.

Sunday was lovely. Lots of vendors were outside taking advantage of the sun.

Homestead Farms of Faulkner MD, and Orchard Breeze of Ortanna PA were two of the farms outside. I picked up greens from Homestead and grilling sausage from Orchard Breeze. I also got a few other items, butternut squash and greenhouse tomatoes out there. Went inside and found apples from Falcon Ridge. This is their last week until spring. I was looking for Our House for their organic micro greens but they only come biweekly.

Here is what I brought home.

The candied walnuts were from a vendor outside, whose name escapes me, and who isn’t on the web site. So were the spiced nuts and wasabi peas. They were the little treat for my cocktail hour last night.

As for the greens, I got some extra arugula to go with the winter mix. Filled up the salad spinner, and we are good for the week.

There is something about just picked greens. Makes me think of spring. I will be starting my indoor greens box, up in the south facing window of our bedroom. It gets the most sun to start the seeds. Last year I had a great early start.

Next week my CSA begins again. Can’t wait until my first visit to pick up at Breezy Willow. I am plowing through the freezer, using up last year’s bounty, and want those fresh veggies back in our diet.

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