Tag Archives: local businesses

How Did That Chicken Turn Out?

Posted on February 25, 2013 by AnnieRie

For my Winter Eat Local Challenge. The other day I posted about the pastured animal calendar and the dry rub chicken recipe in it.

I had a picture of the TLV Farm chicken marinating but didn’t put up the finished product. It came out looking like this.

The chicken went into a 300 degree oven, for about an hour. I put veggies bought at England Acres under the chicken. A large onion, two large carrots and some purple potatoes. Most of the veggies came from Lancaster Farm Fresh Coop, wholesaled to England Acres.

The other star of this dinner was the salad. Greens from East Rivendell. The golden beets were from Roots Market. Goat milk feta and red onion from England Acres. The dressing. Homemade black cherry yogurt dressing. Pequea Valley Farms yogurt. This yogurt is by far the best we have ever tasted. I buy it at England Acres by the quart. It never lasts very long, but I did make dressing from it.

We split up this salad to have after the chicken and veggies. Drizzled the dressing over it. Still have a little left for later this week. Awesome dressing.

As for dinner with the local wine. A 2011 Linden Avenius Sauvignon Blanc. This sauvignon blanc is more of the fume blanc style than the style of New Zealand, which is citrusy and acidic. Lovely pairing.

Saturday night’s dinner turned out very well. Mostly local, with some spice, herb and oil exceptions as usual. That yogurt is just beckoning me. I have an unopened container of blueberry up in the fridge. I think I will make it dessert tonight, with a few of those candied walnuts from the Olney market.

If you can find the yogurt, you have to try it. I promise. You will never want grocery store yogurt again.

hocofood@@@

2 Comments

Posted in Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, Linden Vineyards, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

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.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Gardening, Local Businesses, Locavore and tagged CSA, farmer's markets, Food, gardening, local businesses, Locavore. Bookmark the permalink.

Cocktail Hour

Posted on February 24, 2013 by AnnieRie

That civilized winding down hour or so that used to precede dinner in homes before we all became so rushed and didn’t have time or take time to relax. It is one of our simple pleasures a few times a week. We just stop and enjoy the sunset, or watch the news while dinner happily finishes in the oven.

Tonight we celebrated the opening successes of the Orioles, using my old glasses from the McDonald’s set. They bring back memories. A couple of fairly weak gin and tonics, more for the refreshing aspect than anything else. A little nibble. We hit the Olney Farmer’s and Artisan’s market today and picked them up. Just a handful for us while dinner is still baking.

Tuesday night I will be joining my fellow bloggers in Columbia for a cocktail hour. Only we call them blogtail parties. A couple of our local bloggers are hosting it. It is at Union Jack’s, right next to Columbia Mall. From 5:30 pm. The link takes you to the sign up page. Only a few places left. It looks to be a full house.

I enjoy meeting the bloggers from around here. Those of us who regularly blog and post them on hocoblogs. I might have to borrow my husband’s phone and bring it with me to join in the tweeting and checking in on foursquare. Now, if they can make my favorite cocktail, that Meyer lemon basil fizz, I will really be impressed.

Our blogtail hour, or two. A chance to get out and relax with our cyberfriends. We can put faces and names to those people behind the keyboards. A really fun event.

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Howard County, Local Businesses, Restaurants and tagged community, farmer's markets, hoco loco, hocoblogging, Howard County, local businesses. Bookmark the permalink.

Paper Calendars

Posted on February 23, 2013 by AnnieRie

I am surprised that there are still lots of paper calendars out there. Many of us have changed to using our tablets or smart phones to record upcoming events. But, my husband still likes that calendar hanging on the side of the refrigerator. I picked up a very interesting free calendar out at England Acres last month. This is a new one for me.

I am learning all sorts of facts about locally pasture raised meats from this one. Like the February fact.

Each month also includes recipes, so today using one of my TLV chickens, I am making this recipe. Should be a good dinner as the rub smells wonderful, and the white BBQ sauce tastes really nice. It has been in the fridge since last night.

I am using half a chicken so I cut the amounts in half. The chicken looks like this as it is marinating.

Here is the recipe for the BBQ sauce. This is really good sauce. Strange combination but it works.

I know I cut off the end of the page in the pic. Just brush it on during the last ten minutes of cooking. I also cut this recipe in half since I have half a chicken. Use a little more Old Bay if you want a spicier sauce.

Tomorrow I will be posting my weekly Eat Local meal, and this will probably be it. There are other really good recipes on this calendar, that may show up on my table soon.

hocofood@@@

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

Garlic. Scape. Pesto.

Posted on February 17, 2013 by AnnieRie

Wonderful stuff. Even when it was frozen. It screams springtime. Makes me anticipate the coming of spring in just a few weeks.

I defrosted this pesto to have with dinner tonight. Six cubes of it from one of the freezer containers. Half was for dinner tonight and the other half for some pasta tomorrow. I have one more plastic container full of this pesto, still in the freezer. Come on springtime, so I can make some more.

I made the pesto, poured it into ice cube trays, froze it, then stored it in plastic. But now that I have those vacuum sealers I may do something different next year. I love garlic scapes. Never knew what they were until I got into the CSA, and until I saw them at the Howard County Farmers Markets. Next year I will be buying more, harvesting a few dozen of my own, and getting them from the CSA. All will go into making this lovely pesto.

These are garlic scapes. You cut them off so the garlic puts more energy into the heads of garlic than into the flower. They are more delicate than garlic cloves. Mix a cup of scapes with half a cup of parmesan and half a cup of pine nuts. Add olive oil, salt and pepper to the blender or processor until you get the right consistency. Use as soon as you can, or freeze, or put in a mason jar with a coating of olive oil, in the fridge for a week, no more. If you can keep it that long.

I use it on all sorts of stuff. Flatbread. Pizza. Pasta. Crostini. Veggies. Potatoes. Tonight it went on veggies and potatoes, served with England Acres petit filet mignons.

This was my Sunday night Eat Local Winter Dinner. Local beef. Potatoes from EA as well. Veggies from the freezer. The last from almost 10 months ago, in our winter CSA. I found them in the bottom. They, luckily, were still good. My pesto. The only nonlocal items were the spices, balsamic and the olive oil they were cooked in. Pan seared the steaks, then added oil and balsamic and finished in the oven. Steamed the veggies. Defrosted the pesto. Microwaved the potatoes, then added them to the steak pan to brown up in the oven.

Easy and good. Really easy. How hard is it to steam veggies, nuke a few potatoes, sear a steak and pop it in the oven. Dinner in less than 30 minutes.

hocofood@@@

I Love Lamb

Posted on February 14, 2013 by AnnieRie

Valentine’s Day. What could be more romantic than dinner shaped like a heart?

Not only did the lamb end up in the shape of a heart, there was also a heart in the cheese.

Boarman’s lamb rack. Cherry Glen Monocacy Ash goat cheese. The local contributions to our Valentine’s Day dinner. Most of the rest was organic, but the lamb and the cheese were locally sourced.

The wine. From deep in the cellar where there is a box of wine that we won at the Taste for Life auction a few years back. A local charitable event to raise money for cancer research. It has now moved to Baltimore but for years it was held at the Ten Oaks Ballroom. We bought some lovely wine there at the auction and have been opening one every year for a special occasion. This was the year to open the 1996.

Besides the lamb and the wine, I also served a salad with the goat cheese and my homemade fruit vinaigrette. I made this vinaigrette using St. Helena Olive Oil Co. balsamic and extra virgin olive oil. Plus juice from my strawberries and blackberries. I defrosted some of them this week to use to make dressing.

Keep adding berries to the bowl and smash them up to release the juice. Strain them through a fine sieve and add a three to one ratio of oil to vinegar. I added some dried mint and dried basil plus salt and pepper to the dressing.

Mixed greens. Cranberries. Monocacy Ash cheese. Dress with the vinaigrette. Grate a little sea salt and pepper over it.

Later tonight a little sea salt caramel gelato. A nice homemade Valentine meal.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, SSFC, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, hoco loco, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Lasagna vs Lasagne

Posted on February 12, 2013 by AnnieRie

So, what is it? Do you use the Italian spelling when not using traditional Italian ingredients? I have been working on perfecting my lasagna recipe. Lasagna because my recipe uses ricotta and mozzarella, not traditional Italian bechamel and ragu lasagne.

I made a lasagna today, to use the meat sauce I made on Sunday. It just jumped up and said, I need to be in lasagna. It was right. The sauce was made with local sausage, my tomato sauce from the freezer, some onions, mushrooms and garlic and all slow cooked in the crock pot.

I served a small portion of the sauce over penne on Sunday night. The rest really needed to be used as the star in a recipe. Lasagne immediately came to mind. But, now I know that the Americanization of the dish substituted ricotta, mozzarella and egg for the bechamel sauce. I like our version, so at The Common Market yesterday I picked up ricotta, mozzarella and some durum semolina pasta.

There you go! Lasagna from scratch. Ready to go in the oven.

To make this lasagna, you need:

a pound of sausage, browned with an onion and half a dozen mushrooms
at least a quart of tomato sauce, I made mine with tomatoes I blanched and froze
Italian herbs to taste, with salt and pepper

This is the sauce base.

You then need to make the white part. 15 oz. ricotta, 8 oz. mozzarella, 1 egg, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and 4 oz. milk.

I used 8 sheets of lasagne noodles. Layer sauce, cheese, noodles, sauce, cheese, noodles, sauce, cheese. Sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. It comes out looking like this.

Yes, it did get a little crispy around the edges. Foil would have stopped that, but I like mine crispy. We will get three meals out of this. We served it with a Breaux cellar selection Barbera/Nebbiolo blend, called Six Degrees.

And, a salad of grapefruit, fennel, red onion over baby greens, with olive oil and grapefruit juice as the dressing. Mostly local, all organic. Absolutely lovely for a Tuesday night.

Who cares how you spell it?

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Lovin’ Mondays

Posted on February 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

Back before we retired, Mondays were definitely not our favorite day of the week. Back to work. Back to the commute. The early mornings. No matter the weather. We had to get up early and return to DC or northern VA on the bus or the van.

Today was just another reminder of how we love being retired. Errands. Can be done on Mondays. No weekend rush. No Saturday lines. Need to go to Lowe’s to find extra long heavy duty cable ties. Well, let’s combine that errand with a leisurely private lunch while picking up our cellar club wines at Breaux.

An empty parking lot. The tasting room all to ourselves. Soup from a Thermos. A baguette and some peppered goat cheese. Four bottles of our cellar selections.

We picked up a few extra bottles, one of the Malbec and one newly released Cabernet Franc Reserve. Then, off to Frederick to stop at Lowe’s and, across Buckeystown Pike, my favorite coop, The Common Market. If you live in west county, a combined trip to the Frederick Costco and The Common Market can be done with less time getting there, than going to the east side of Columbia. A few extra miles, but less time in traffic.

The Common Market has better prices than MOM’s, and about the same as Roots, but their bulk food aisle is amazing. Three times the size of Roots. I picked up couscous, mixed nuts, cranberries and some artichoke pasta from the bulk aisle.

Plus, Monocacy Ash from Cherry Glen. A treat for our upcoming Valentine’s Day dinner. I will pair this cheese with whole strawberries from our freezer, which were picked at Larriland last spring.

Another special touch from the olive bar. To serve with the lamb on Thursday. Mixed marinated veggies, gigante beans and chickpeas.

I was supposed to be picking up items to make a local/organic lasagna with my meat sauce I slow cooked yesterday. As usual, too many other tempting goodies there. Then, home tonight to pop chicken pot pies from them into the oven, and watch one of the better sunsets of late. Looks like tomorrow will be warm and clear. Can’t beat this weather.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Day Trips, Food, GGSAC, Local Businesses, Locavore, Retirement, West HoCo, Wine and tagged cooking, day trips, Food, GGSAC, local businesses, Locavore, retirement, West HoCo, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Planning for Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 9, 2013 by AnnieRie

I know many people make reservations and go out to celebrate Valentine’s Day. To me, the crowded restaurants, rushed service and the push to turn over the table make for a less than pleasant experience. We prefer to stay home and have far better food at a fraction of the cost. From celebrations past, some ideas to have an in house dinner with minimal fuss (unless you want to cook, like I do).

My personal favorite. Chocolate and wine.

Last year we shared a Biale Zinfandel and dark chocolate with chili. This was after a fairly simple dinner. Salad with a fruit based vinaigrette. You can pick all of the ingredients up at Roots or Harris Teeter or Wegmans, including a good cheese, and baby beets. Or, whatever you like. Romantic looking, isn’t it? This was local cheese and butter lettuce from Mock’s. We bought the cheese and the lettuce at the Silver Spring farmer’s market, but you can get something just as nice in the stores mentioned above.

Dinner could be simple, or more complicated. I usually pan sear some sort of steak or lamb. This year I will be doing rack of lamb, picked up at Boarman’s, but you could just get a couple of petit filets and get them done fairly quickly. Here is the plate from our anniversary of lamb shops and potatoes. Fast, not that hard, and so good. Seared in a hot pan, then transferred in the pan to the oven to finish.

Or, pick up a few crab cakes at Boarman’s. And, a few stuffing mushrooms. This recipe is easy to do as well.

Take the stems out of the mushrooms. Spread a little Dijon mustard in them. Use two large mushrooms per crab cake. Drizzle with a neutral oil like canola or grapeseed. Sprinkle Old Bay on top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, until brown.

You can serve these with small potatoes like the ones above in the anniversary dinner picture. Boil them in salted water for 15 minutes, or nuke them (I still occasionally nuke potatoes even though they don’t come out as nice as boiling and finishing in a pan or the oven).

We almost always stay home for major events and anniversaries, and indulge in fancier foods and really nice wines. There are lots of places around here to also pick up good already made foods. Really good sushi, maybe. Or, shrimp steamed to your specifications.

We like putting music on, maybe satellite radio or a CD. Light a few candles. Share a split of sparkling wine, or open an old red wine. Break out the good napkins and just do nothing but cook, relax and enjoy an evening with food, wine and music we chose.

Think about getting something to serve at home, even if it is something already prepared. But, you can make it simple. It is really nice to put together that salad, pop the crab cakes in the oven, and then savor that chocolate with a glass of wine.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Wine and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, holidays, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wegman's, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Downtown

Posted on February 8, 2013 by AnnieRie

Our downtown. Glenelg/Dayton. Not EC, or Columbia. The hub of west county, or at least the circle. A typical Friday afternoon. For us, a few quick errands before the weekend. Stamps. Gas. Money. Liquor. A movie. What else do you need? 😉

The circle at Ten Oaks and Triadelphia is always hopping. Day or night. The pictures are from last spring, when the trees had leaves, I know. Between the Ten Oaks Tavern, the TRI pizza place, Bistro Blanc, the Subway, and the Royal Farms, you can always find food and drink.

You also can get money from the ATM, hit the post office, the pharmacy, the cleaners, Redbox, the Old Tyme liquor store and run into at least one person you know somewhere in your stop there.

Today we hit the post office, Royal Farms for gas and money, and the liquor store to look for a liqueur for my Valentine’s Day dinner. Actually, I am looking for pastis. They had absenthe, but no pastis. I am recreating a meal from Provence for Valentine’s Day and hoped I wouldn’t have to drive to Ellicott City to find Pernod or Ricard.

No luck on the pastis, but we did have a fun encounter with another patron. He saw my purple fleece turtleneck and my black fleece jacket, and asked. Are you a Ravens fan? After all, maybe football season is over, but I still like purple Fridays.

I said yes, and he pulled out his phone and showed me his new pictures. The first one. The Vince Lombardi trophy on a table. A few pics later, our new acquaintance holding the trophy. It seems he was one of the bus drivers who picked up the Ravens at the airport on their way back from the Super Bowl. They all got to hold the trophy and get their pictures taken with it.

I knew Eyre drove the Ravens. You see the buses at the facility occasionally, and you got to see them on TV before the parade Tuesday as they shuttled the team from the stadium to City Hall. Can’t miss the logo. Travel on Eyre. The company sits right behind Ten Oaks Tavern. Another local Howard County business that is doing well.

You never know what you will encounter “downtown” in west county.

Have a great weekend. Spend some time at one of the events or markets around the county. Breezy Willow farm store maybe? Conservancy? Ellicott City Sunday Bakery event?

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Tag Archives: local businesses

How Did That Chicken Turn Out?

At the Market in February?

Cocktail Hour

Paper Calendars

Garlic. Scape. Pesto.

I Love Lamb

Lasagna vs Lasagne

Lovin’ Mondays

Planning for Valentine’s Day

Downtown

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