Tag Archives: Food

Eating Locally: The Wrap Up for Summer

Posted on November 1, 2012 by AnnieRie

The Summer SOLE Food Challenge, SSFC, is over. I made it through remembering to post almost every week. Eating locally is so easy around here when the markets are still hopping.

Today is the East Columbia Market. Miller Library finished yesterday. The Glenwood and Oakland Mills markets will continue until the weekend before Thanksgiving, and East Columbia ends on the 15th of November. Stocking up on meats from the markets will allow me to continue to put something made in Howard County on my table throughout the winter.

We haven’t heard yet what would be included in the delivery and whether our CSA delivery will take place today. After I finish with the first graders at the Conservancy, I am either picking up a fall delivery, or heading to East Columbia to get a few things. I let the refrigerator get pretty empty before the storm.

I did remember to take some tomatoes and pesto out of the freezer yesterday so tonight there will be pizza with TLV bacon, tomatoes and pesto from my garden, and Bowling Green mozzarella. Mostly local, except for the crust.

The pesto and oven roasted tomatoes are defrosting today. The bacon is out, and I will fry up the entire package, crumble it and use it in salads, omelets and soups. I need eggs, as I hit zero yesterday. Sounds like a trip to TLV Saturday is in store.

You can eat healthy, organic, IPM, non GMO foods around here fairly easily. The ten of us from our challenge have all signed on to continue looking for sources and posting about what we do in the winter. Details are being worked out by us now. I will modify my Food Challenges page to reflect it.

I made a really good crock pot potato leek soup last night, letting the soup cook while we cleaned up the house, and put things back where they belonged. No pictures, because besides being exhausted, two of the potatoes were purple so the soup looked a little weird.

Yes, you can mix all sorts of potatoes into that soup. One of them was even a white sweet potato. I put half the soup in the blender just before serving so we had chunky creamy soup. Four leeks, all the potatoes, an onion, a little celery from the fridge, my homemade veggie broth as a starter, and towards the end I added a cup of almond milk to make it creamy but keep it lactose free. Everything was cut into cubes or small pieces and dumped in the crock pot with a little salt, pepper, and herbs de Provence.

OFf to chase first graders around for a few hours. We are teaching rocks, fossils and extinct animals. Should be a fun morning. Here’s hoping the sun comes out.

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Almost Forgot It Was Halloween

Posted on October 31, 2012 by AnnieRie

With all that was happening I completely forgot about Halloween. Not that we get any trick or treaters. In all the time we have been here, we can count on one hand the number of children who showed up at our door.

Way out here, driving miles to hit a handful of houses isn’t appealing, and there is no way you can walk from house to house. We buy a bag of candy but end up taking it to work or the conservancy, usually full.

Since we had pumpkin hummus left, we celebrated with an appetizer of really decent falafel chips bought at Roots last week, and the last of the hummus.

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Hoping we get a CSA delivery tomorrow, as that means our farmers did OK after the storm. It is the first week of our fall CSA.

Happy Halloween!

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Making A Difference

Posted on October 31, 2012 by AnnieRie

LisaB, Mrs.S had a great post about how lucky most of us were, when it came to the end of the wind and rain. In her update she mentioned The Volunteer Center and what they recommend in terms of helping out in the aftermath of the storm. I am monitoring that site to see when they get requests for help, and will post any opportunities I find.

I agree we were extremely lucky. A little bit farther south if the storm had turned up the Chesapeake Bay instead of going at New Jersey, and we could have had more damage across the area and the state. Right now, as I write this, 50000 people in the BGE coverage area still have no power 48 hours after the beginning when the earliest bands of bad weather started hitting Maryland. Anything we can do to assist our neighbors in the county and state will be helpful.

I agree that any financial help we can give the organizations that regularly assist others is the best way to help. But even little things mean quite a bit, and helping the other organizations in the area as well as the disaster relief organizations is just a way to give back if you were one of the lucky ones.

I will take some of my items to the Food Bank. They always need assistance, County residents who could use the help whether or not the storm affected them. I spent some time this morning looking through the pantry for items I bought and didn’t use, and to gather up those tuna cans and other staples that I can easily spare, and replace later, like pasta and sauces.

a bag for the food bank

I will also finally get the bag together for the local clothing collection bins, like the St. Vincent de Paul bin down at Kendalls Hardware. The contributions to them go to local residents in Maryland. I really do need to let go and donate all those extra work clothes I no longer need. I mean, one or two blazers, a few skirts, that’s all I need. Not the huge work wardrobe I still have sitting in a spare closet. Gloves, hats and shoes, too. I had way too much stuff left after retiring. Time to have it help another, who would like to have nice work clothes, or dress clothes.

Besides all that, I will make a point to help the disaster organizations with a donation. If you, like us, were relatively unaffected by this disaster that hit the east coast, consider helping out in whatever way you can, even if it is something as simple as helping an elderly neighbor clean up debris, or giving blood, or writing a small check.

Making a difference. Here at home.

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Surviving Sandy

Posted on October 30, 2012 by AnnieRie

Lessons Learned for the next crazy weather we have in this area.

Only buy a UPS if it has a mute capability. The UPS devices we have, on the TVs and the computers and the phone and the chargers, all six of them, are not all the same. We have three different models. One model muted. Two won’t. We got to listen to chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp for about 9-10 hours until they finally died. They were the ones that lasted the longest though. They were APC XS 1000’s. We had the iPhone on one of them until 11 am today when it finally died. The internet and modem one died about 9 hours in, but since Comcast stopped working five hours before our power went out and just came back thirty minutes ago, so much for having internet on the iPad.

Modify the bleeping cellar area where the sump pump is installed so a battery backup unit will fit in it. We procrastinated after the derecho and didn’t do this modification and spent most of the night with two hour sleep intervals interspersed with bailing sessions. Five gallon buckets every two hours, more after the wind shifted and rain ran down the south wall of the house into the cellar drain at the bottom of our basement stairs.

Always go to Giant and buy ice as soon as you can after the storm ends. It will guarantee that the power comes back in a few hours. We lost power last night at 11 pm and got it back today at 3 pm. Six hours after going to Giant and getting four bags of ice. Now, I need to find a permanent place for it, or let it melt in the coolers.

The seven cubic foot freezer did well. It was full, and when the power came back and I went down to check the temperature inside, it had only risen from -2 to +10 degrees. We had packed it with everything we could including plastic containers of water frozen solid. It worked well.

The fridge and freezer did OK. Not stellar, but OK. Fridge got up to 46, but the only things in it were fruit, veggies, a couple of bottles of wine and iced tea. Oh, and weird condiments like tabasco and some flavored vinegars. All the perishables were in the two coolers with bags of ice on top and they stayed below 40 degrees.

The freezer in the kitchen unit got up to 26 degrees, from the setting of minus 6. Still haven’t opened it, and the meats are buried below four bags of ice. Before the power went out, I did lower the temp settings on the fridge and freezer by four degrees more than the normal settings, so that helped.

I left one small feeder out for the birds, which got quite a few visits before, during and immediately after the storm. I went out this morning and brought back the big feeder, and it got mobbed almost before I could get inside. We even had a rare visit to the vertical of a hairy woodpecker, bigger and with the long beak, but looking just like our regular downy woodpecker visitor. When I grabbed the camera to photograph the hairy woodpecker he flew far up into the cherry tree.

the feeder I left up, with our resident downy

The weather radio and the iPhone were invaluable once we lost power. I am so thankful we only lost power for sixteen hours this time. The derecho 24 hour power outage was our worst experience here. This was the second longest. For us, we still have to decide if a generator is needed as long as we don’t get multi-day outages.

NOAA weather radio and iPhone, our links to the world for 16 hours

We used none of the bottled water as we had filled pitchers of water and put them in our small beverage fridge with containers of ice. We went through them. Never used any of the water in the tubs, as we were sleeping downstairs where it was quieter and we weren’t far from the sump pump. The well pump actually held pressure for about six hours and made it through quite a few cycles before finally cutting out. Now, we get to clean up and dump buckets that were sitting in the powder room.

enough water when you have time to prepare

Now, it’s back to cleaning up, and eating all this weird stuff I made in case our power stayed out. I have lots of egg salad and potato salad and tuna to make salad. Fruit, yogurt, and granola. I do think we are extremely lucky and am grateful for the dedication and professional attitudes at both Comcast and at BGE. I never expected to get a live person on the line at 1115 pm from BGE, but we did. She asked if we knew if any of our neighbors were out, and explained why they couldn’t do estimates due to the uncertainty of when they could begin. Plus, the Howard County government twitter updates kept us informed all night.

Just glad we did OK and that we live in such an amazing place, even with this strange weather. Now, we get to go out and clean up leaves and pine needles and tree branches for a few days, or maybe a week. At least I get exercise. Here’s to living in Howard County and enjoying fall even when it is chaotic.

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Odds and Ends from West County

Posted on October 29, 2012 by AnnieRie

Just some random thoughts as we head into the storm. Not many cars on our roads. Usually there is some traffic in the afternoon.

The mailman came early today. Out here with unprotected mailboxes, it is important to go out and get the mail before it blows out of the box. During the snowstorms a few years back, the boxes blew open and we had mail scattered all over our neighbor’s fields.

We got a few emails today about CSA’s. Sandy Spring canceled Tuesday deliveries and have no idea if the Thursday or Saturday will happen. The farmers all will be affected by this rain, in many low lying fields. They can’t pick in this weather either. We hope they come through with minimal damage as we know how hard they work. There are 80 farmers in the cooperative, but all of them in the same area of PA.

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We also received an email from Breezy Willow, as we have signed up for their early bird CSA starting in late winter. This week is canceled for them in their summer/fall CSA. Keep our local farmers in your thoughts as this weather affects them just as they are finishing up their harvests and heading for winter.

We had two quick power glitches so far. Taking our oven off line while I am slow cooking dinner in it. Crossing our fingers here, that my pork and roasted veggies get done. Right now, we still have power. Winds are whipping trees left and right. Thankfully, we had a local business, Oasis (Ten Oaks Nursery), aggressively cut back our property line trash trees after they were damaged during the derecho.

We did put ice in two coolers and moved the fridge items there. The meat in the freezer is covered by six bags of ice, and I am freezing plastic containers with water to move over to the coolers if I need to replenish. Dumped all the ice maker ice in the fridge cooler since I learned after the derecho how much mess we get with melting ice. Ice maker in the top fridge is a pain sometimes.

On an interesting note, my Menu magazine from Wegmans arrived in the mail. With Christmas cookies on the cover. And, a recipe for honey glazed roasted root veggies. That is what I did with all the turnips, beets, a rutabaga and a sweet potato from the CSA.

I will try and keep posting what is going on out here as long as we have power, or I may do short posts from the iPad. See how well the UPS up here keeps my iPad charged if we lose power.

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Finishing the Eat Local Challenge

Posted on October 27, 2012 by AnnieRie

Monday is the last reporting day for our Summer Challenge, to eat at least one meal a week using locally sourced ingredients. Who knows how crazy it will be around here by Monday, but at least I know there will be a number of local meals consumed by us. Many of them involving local eggs.

farm fresh eggs

I made eggs for breakfast today and used up the last of the Canela wheat bread for toast. I will be hardboiling a dozen eggs and putting them aside to make egg salad in case we lose power. We set up a small cooler for lunch foods, placing all the condiments and salad makings in it, the way we ate breakfast and lunch after the derecho in June.

I always have my tuna, cannellini bean and onion salad ingredients on hand, but they aren’t local. Well, the onions are, but not the rest.

Tuscan tuna and bean salad

Hmmm, Tuscan tuna and bean salad, served with local breads and a few of my dill pickles from the jars. Mostly local. I have a loaf of potato onion bread in the freezer from Stone House. I can warm it in the oven tonight to defrost it and save a few hunks to have with a simple salad. Egg salad, or tuna salad. I have celery from the CSA. The only non local items as usual will be condiments like mayo or olive oil.

I am cleaning out the most perishable (and the more pricey) items in the meat/fish freezer, so I will be baking a large whack of wild Alaskan salmon tonight. Since I have been so diligent here in getting ready for this storm, the odds keep getting higher that it will pass us by.

It is only when I have no ice, no water, no batteries and ignore the frantic admonishments on the TV, that we end up with no power. Still, we are crossing our fingers. At least the temperatures aren’t bad. No real high temps, and no subfreezing temps in the future that would make us miserable without A/C or heat.

The SSFC Eat Local Challenge is ending, but the ten of us are talking about how we will address winter eating, using locally sourced items. Sometime in the future, our google reader will have the details, and we will continue finding ways to eat local foods year round.

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The View from 20,000 …

Posted on October 26, 2012 by AnnieRie

… views, that is, not feet. 20,000 views. Yesterday morning the geek in me saw my dashboard on wordpress read 19,999 total views. I was going to write a post next Friday when my blog is one year old, but who knows, with Sandy heading in our direction, and the talking heads on TV telling us power outages possible past November 5th, I may or may not have power next Friday.

20,000 views in less than a year. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but it does tell me that there are definitely people reading what I write. I am also happy to say I still have new things I want to write, and have been pretty good at posting almost every day.

I was a mathematician (my degree major) for many of my early career years, and numbers fascinate me. Statistics of course can always be interpreted the way we want. Still, it is nice to see my numbers increase as my blog “ages”.

Thanks mostly to hocoblogs and to howchow, in the beginning, who linked up my blog when it was just one month old. HOCOBLOGS is where I went to find local readers.

And, there was the Dark Days Challenge, where I found fellow locavores.

local ingredients for dinner

Setting up a local resources page was a good move, too. I found many people came there to search for grains, products, and farms in the area.

local foods

I have to admit though, being interested enough to check out my most read posts, that I did not expect which ones continued to gather views. If you are new to blogging in Howard County, and want people to find you on google or other search engines, I can tell you two phrases that guarantee traffic around here.

brighton dam azalea gardens

and

tractor supply baby chicks

The most read posts on my blog. I still get hits every week on the tractor supply post. And, I had hundreds of searches registered for azalea blossoms being at peak, or still blooming. Weeks went by and they still were being viewed. I know that I will be monitoring those blossoms again next spring. They are only five miles down the road and we go there often.

Besides those, the series on amateur radio in Howard County got a huge number of views thanks to being placed on a feed for amateurs around the country and the world to see. W3AO gets lots of hits still, when clubs and operators look to see the Field Day records for one of the biggest radio operations in the country. Right here in Howard County.

Here’s hoping this hurricane fizzles out, far from land, or just glances us. Now, off to fill up a spare propane tank and get a few more gallons of spring water. I know if we are totally prepared for “Frankenstorm” as they are calling it, then it will definitely become a non event. It is only when we don’t get ready, that we get slammed.

Stay safe and dry, all our friends near and far.

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The End of the Summer … CSA

Posted on October 25, 2012 by AnnieRie

Week 25. The last week of the summer CSA from Sandy Spring. It ended with some really good stuff, although I am not sure what I will do with the rutabaga.

what Lancaster Farm Fresh gave us the last week

The list:

Bunch Celery (we got two bunches)
1 Pint Mixed Cherry Tomatoes (I swapped Chinese cabbage for a second pint)
1 Bunch French Breakfast Radishes
1 Bunch Baby Scarlet Turnips (OK, if these are babies, I want to see the big ones)
1 Bunch Green Mizuna
1 Head Broccoli
2 Leeks
2 Rutabaga
1 White Kohlrabi (humongous)

OK, this kohrabi is huge. It was interesting as the swap box was full of kohlrabi and mizuna. I must be weird. I love both.

kohlrabi and heirloom cherry tomatoes

As for the tomatoes, what can I say? My husband was eating them out of the box, until I made him take them over and wash them. Since they are organic, I don’t worry about pesticides, but they do need cleaning. There is nothing like a treat of tomatoes in October. These were probably green house grown. They still have oodles of flavor. They showed up in dinner tonight, along with a few of those lovely breakfast radishes.

As for the turnips, as I said above, if these are babies, wow. I found a recipe for winter root veggies with polenta. I will be breaking out the roasted corn meal this weekend. Stand by for pictures and recipes.

As the wrap up, I also am preparing a summary of what we got this summer. Here’s to many more happy years in CSA, and to the eight weeks of fall CSA still to come. Off to In Her Chucks to link up my CSA post.

The Peaceful Mom

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Howard County Farmers Markets

Posted on October 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

Good News! Three of the five markets will be extending their season until the week before Thanksgiving. That’s right. East Columbia Library on Thursday, Glenwood on Saturday and Oakland Mills on Sunday.

The hospital market ends this Friday, and Miller Library next Wednesday. Make sure you stop by and buy from Love Dove at their last two markets.

When we were at TLV two weeks ago, they told us the weekend markets were extended. Add to it the Thursday one, and I don’t have to go to Catonsville to get meat from the local farmers. I can get it from TLV. Plus eggs from Breezy Willow. And, cheese from Bowling Green. And fruit from Lewis Orchards. With my CSA and these markets, we can continue to eat fresh food grown or raised locally.

Obviously, this news makes this locavore very happy. Make sure you head out and visit the markets to get really fresh lovely veggies for your holiday meals.

Oh, and by the way, make sure you order your Maple Lawn farm turkey soon. We order ours to be picked up at Boarmans. They start taking orders on November 1st.

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The First Fall Clean Up Day

Posted on October 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

At least the first major clean up. We have been puttering around doing little odd jobs, but today it begins in earnest. I have been researching the long term effects of using pine needles to mulch areas of the plant beds in the back of the house. Today I wanted to gather pine needles to create a winter bed over the rhododendrons and the azaleas. This analysis that I found a while back is what prompted me to look into pine needle mulching in certain areas. We certainly have enough pine needles.

carpet of pine needles

The leaves are just starting to come down. Add to that, the grass under the shrubs and around the raspberry bushes needs its final cutting of the year. We use a clear bag method to collect green material, brown material, and pine needles. Then, using the county rake and take program to be matched to a neighbor we divide the bags to use in our compost piles. Getting that right mix of browns and greens. This is our second year doing rake and take. We get enough from our trees to keep many compost piles going. If you want a way to see your leaves put to good use, consider contacting rake and take.

As for the rest of my clean up I went into my neglected garden to start pulling out the tomato cages, and to bag the tomato plants to take deep into the woods to leave them. They do not get into the compost bins, as they can spread disease from year to year. For example, from late blight. I hadn’t been out there for two weeks, and surprise, there were dozens of green tomatoes all over the garden.

I think I will put these away in a paper bag and let them get close to ripening, then make one last batch of green tomato pasta with pesto.

Tonight dinner will be fairly simple. Although we had to resort to plan B. I had intended to pop a chicken in the crockpot to cook while we were working outside. They don’t make them like they used to. The crockpot gave up the ghost. Would not let me program the temperature and turn on.

As soon as you let up on the button, the lights went out. And, you could not advance it to the longer low cooking times. Thankfully, I never gave up my original crockpot from my first apartment thirty some years ago. You know, one of these antiques.

So, I loaded it up with half a chicken in tomato garlic sauce, over collard greens and onions. Let it go, and soon dinner will be ready. This chicken is falling off the bone, and I started it at 10 am, directly from the freezer. The best way to cook chicken.

Now I need to find a good programmable replacement crockpot as ours gets lots of work making soups, stews and chili. This old one is too small to do brisket, or turkey, which we like to make also. I also like the programmable options not found on my original. I am glad I kept it around though, to save the day today. Off to dinner and to watch Monday night football.

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