Tag Archives: Howard County

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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Posted in Farmer's Markets, Farms, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, West HoCo and tagged farmer's markets, farms, Food, foodie, Howard County, 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.

Colcannon on CSA Day

Posted on April 3, 2013 by AnnieRie

It’s week five of our Breezy Willow CSA. Mostly spring veggies with a little fruit and citrus. I did need to use up older stuff so colcannon came to mind.

I’ll add my recipe at the end of the post, but let’s start with what we got today.

Six juice oranges
Four Fuji apples
One pound sugar snap peas
Half pound white mushrooms
Two pounds onions
Three pound sweet potatoes
Half pound salad mix
One pound spinach
One dozen eggs
Sesame Seed Bread

This value added CSA brings us local veggies and fruit, along with not quite local but still not across the southern hemisphere when it comes to sourcing the items. I can handle that. It is all so fresh. It lasts all week and then some.

After picking up our veggies and checking out the alpacas, we headed off to Marriottsville. My husband does think the alpacas are amazing.

They are cute, aren’t they? So, we went off to the new Harris Teeter, that opened last night. The one in the west edge of Turf Valley. I used to go to Maple Lawn after picking up my summer CSA in Columbia, so this is a welcome addition to west county.

I wanted some seafood to pair with our latest veggies. And, to use up those older ones. The sockeye salmon on the plate above was picked up today. I also had considered getting some spring rolls but the sushi counter isn’t open yet. They were making balloon animals for the little ones, and doing a brisk business in VIC card sign ups. Even at 3 pm, it was crowded. Lots of checkouts open, though. No wait. I picked up seafood, olives, a red onion and fennel bulb to use with those gorgeous oranges for a salad.

They are 7 miles from us. Giant is 5.5 the other way. Looks like this Harris Teeter will be my local store for staples, seafood and those items I need to round out real food recipes with my CSA foods. Convenient, too. Double that trip. Conservancy and HT. Or, landfill and HT. Or, Woodstock snowball stand and HT. I can see the possibilities.

As for the colcannon recipe. I had two ounces of spinach left from last week. Six Brussels sprouts. Two parsnips. I also had six tiny new potatoes bought at England Acres. Potatoes and parsnips parboiled until tender.

Pan started with butter, olive oil and onion. Shredded sprouts and spinach added. Garlic, three cloves grated over them. A pinch of salt. Let it all cook down. Add the potatoes and parsnips. Mash them and add another pinch of salt and of pepper. And a splash of milk.

With dinner, we opened a bottle of Rappahannock Meritage. Old red wine goes well with salmon. It does have that characteristic cab franc nose from VA, but still a lovely bottle.

Mostly local for the veggies. Local wine. Great CSA. A good Wednesday night.

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Posted in CSA, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, West HoCo, Wine and tagged CSA, Food, foodie, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo, wine. 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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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Volunteering and tagged farmer's markets, Food, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Water, Water, Everywhere!

Posted on March 25, 2013 by AnnieRie

Only this morning it was snow. RIMPO Dayton weather shows us having 0.43 inches of precipitation already today, but currently that is four inches of snow.

I finally did go out and put peanuts and mixed seeds under the table to keep the birds happy. By sometime tomorrow, it will probably all be melted again. At least the garlic and the herbs don’t need watering, and the rest of my greens are still indoors. Today over at hocoblogs I saw that JessieX had a post about all the salt dumped on the roads and the impact on our waterways as it heads down into our streams and rivers. We do use way too much salt around here but precip plus freezing temps at night mean black ice. Can’t seem to win.

This Wednesday night there will be another information session in Hickory Ridge, sponsored by four organizations in the county, to discuss stormwater management.

March27Flyer-final

This would be a good place to learn more about how to minimize the impact on the Bay and our local rivers, from all this runoff, at least it is beautiful out there for today.

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Posted in Community, Howard County, Nature, Weather and tagged community, Howard County, nature, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

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.

We Interrupt Spring …

Posted on March 21, 2013 by AnnieRie

… for a last blast from winter. There were snow flurries last night. Temps in the 30s and low wind chill. Will it go away soon? Last year on the 22nd of March I took these pictures.

Yes, the tulips were up. This year they are barely above ground, even though they peeked out of the ground in late January. Totally different weather this winter. Never really snowy or extended cold, but never having those really warm days we had last year.

How about snowballs?

The Woodstock snowball stand was open last March. I drove by today on my way home from the Conservancy and no sign of snowballs yet. Looking at their facebook page and following on twitter. Waiting for the weather to make us ready for a stop there after a day as a volunteer.

My weeping cherry, a year ago.

There aren’t even blooms on it right now.

At least I can plan by drooling over the Sharp Farm plant list, readying my wish list for the April 19 opening of the greenhouses. I bought most of my tomatoes there last year, and many other plants.

And, we get to go hiking this weekend to learn how to do forest forensics. If you are looking for a truly enriching experience, sign up for one of the hikes, or the lecture tomorrow night at the Conservancy. Tom Wessels is simply amazing.

Waiting not so patiently for spring. What happened to global warming? Tired of cold blustery days and ready to transplant greens.

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Posted in Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Weather, West HoCo and tagged Food, gardening, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, spring flowers, tomatoes, weather. 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.

Local Food Challenge Theme Week

Posted on March 18, 2013 by AnnieRie

I seemed to miss the memo, or left the email get too far down the list of saved. We were supposed to cook vegan in our weekly Cook Locally challenge, the one that my small group of online locavore friends agreed to take.

I cooked lots of vegan the past two weeks. We eat less meat than we used to eat, but most of the recipes weren’t completely local.

In the spirit of the challenge, here are the things I made that qualify as vegan, even though I used all sorts of ingredients in them.

Posole
Pumpkin hummus
Fennel and orange salad
Guacamole — no pictures, just a simple mix of avocado, jalapeno, onion, lime, salt and pepper

The posole, was the largest recipe. We ate that soup for at least four meals finishing up today at lunch with the last of it. I really like using the chayote.

My husband’s comment today again was how this soup had that tanginess of sauerkraut.

As for that pumpkin hummus, it has been to the potluck luncheon and has shown up at lunches this weekend. We got an acorn squash last week from the CSA, and I still have sweet potatoes, as well as a quarter jar of tahini. Maybe more hummus will be made and consumed.

We eat mostly food made from scratch these days. Lots of vegetarian, and even quite a few vegan choices. Making us feel better, and using up those lovely fresh veggies from Breezy Willow. At least a fair amount of them.

As for how well we are doing, the fruit is almost gone. Half the onions. Still have the squash, the eggs, the Brussels sprouts and the turnips. And, half the potatoes. Can’t wait to see what we get this week. The advance email just came in, and there are some really good additions that will lend themselves to some stir fries. Plus, no repeats of what we have left so meal planning can combine items from both weeks.

Wednesday will give us new inspiration for our challenge. Now, at the moment, we are officially drowning in eggs, so vegan doesn’t seem to be on the menu much in the next few weeks. I am saving some eggs to get old enough to do Easter eggs.

Oh, and I still have quite a bit of venison left to use, so giving up meat entirely isn’t something we will be doing. I just have converted to using this as my mantra.

Everything in Moderation.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, SSFC, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Spring Clean Up

Posted on March 16, 2013 by AnnieRie

Last year was the first year we didn’t do it all ourselves. Mainly because of my surgery. This year, though, no excuses. It is wonderful to have the yard cleaned up, edged and mulched without killing ourselves in the process. Again, we chose a local family owned West County business, Rhine, to come out for two days and ready the property for spring.

Yes, they filled the truck with old mulch, top soil and clipped materials before they finished today. Included this year was the burying of our downspouts that would direct water to areas we wanted to irrigate. Like the area around some young evergreens and a pin oak.

The trenching was done today. Tomorrow they bury all the pipe and clean it up. They also extended all our drip lines on our trees, created a new transition area, created a drainage area by the shed, and lots more, including pruning of huge shrubs.

What you can see here is my new transition from the deck and new edging. You can also see, if you look carefully, that they were very careful in not disturbing the dozen garlic plants I put in last October. They, along with the dozen in the pots on the stairs, will provide me with ample garlic scapes for pesto, as well as two dozen heads of garlic to cure.

Tomorrow, they will mulch, finish the drainage out front and around the shed, and clean out my garden. Two days to do what used to take us weeks, including trips to buy mulch, haul it and drag it all over the yard.

When you are in your sixties, it is good to have people half your age doing heavy lifting, at least my back thanks me for not stressing it.

The finished pics and results will go up tomorrow night. Now, for a related subject, the indoor seed starting has produced some great greens so far, and I just planted Thelma Sanders squash seeds, dried and saved after I received this heirloom winter squash from last year’s CSA.

The squash seeds were planted in the seed starting boxes. The greens have been in a few weeks. Waiting to take them outside soon. Here is the squash from last year’s haul. It is a cooking squash, somewhat reminiscent of a pumpkin. Great for my hummus recipe, and for “pumpkin” pie. Saving heirloom seeds is a first for me. I dried and stored these seeds. Hopefully, this is a successful way to carry my garden to a new level.

Besides these heirlooms, the garlic in the pots and the yard all are heirlooms from my CSA last year. I saved four heads of red and of white garlic to plant for my second foray into garlic growing. Last year I was too late planting and only harvested spring garlic, not mature heads of garlic.

Here’s to lots of homemade pestos and hummus, and of course, my tomatoes and cucumbers, plans for the summer garden. Don’t you just love springtime?

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Posted in Commentary, Community, CSA, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, West HoCo and tagged commentary, cooking, CSA, Food, gardening, Howard County, local businesses, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

AnnieRie Unplugged

Tag Archives: Howard County

From Farm to Freezer – Larriland

The Demise of the Dark Days Challenge

Colcannon on CSA Day

Busy, Busy!

Water, Water, Everywhere!

Venison Chili with Virginia Wine

We Interrupt Spring …

Early Bird CSA Week Three

Local Food Challenge Theme Week

Spring Clean Up

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