Tag Archives: Locavore

The Bird …

Posted on September 7, 2014 by AnnieRie

… the whole bird, and nothing but the bird.

This week’s Freedom Ranger chicken delivered with my CSA pick up. We have been getting whole birds about every three weeks. It is an add on, and a very welcome one, to our vegetable deliveries from Lancaster Farm Fresh.

My freezer now contains only free range chicken, from either LFFC, or Friends and Farms, or England Acres. They may cost more than grocery store chicken, but to me, they taste so much better. I just have learned to eat less at a meal, and the increased cost is leveled out.

Besides our chicken, this past week we got the makings for some soup, now that the weather might actually cool down.

I could do a chicken corn chowder using the corn and the cauliflower. I could do traditional soup, with those carrots and onions. I could roast the chicken like I did here.

The red peppers, along with the two from Friends and Farms, were charred over the grill this morning. Put together with some garlic, eggplant, lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, they became my favorite dip for veggies or pita.

Tomatoes, being served tonight with mozzarella and basil.

Our fruit share this week was also a nice surprise.

Bartlett pears, Jonamac apples, and nectarines. It really is getting late in the season, and we are loving the change in fruit and vegetables.

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Posted in CSA, Food, LFFC, Locavore, Weather and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, grilling, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Not Your Mama’s Veggies

Posted on September 5, 2014 by AnnieRie

Cardoons. Edamame. Trombone squash. Those strange things in my garden, and in a friend’s.

Let’s start with the squash. I have to grow these next year. A friend at the Conservancy grows them. They are away for two weeks. Their instructions to us were harvest the tomatoes for the food bank, and take any squash that get longer than a foot.

I decided today to go see what grew since our Tuesday food bank day. Two new squash just went nuts over the three day period. I will be cooking them tomorrow for a pasta primavera.

As for my garden.

I harvested a half dozen cardoons. A member of the artichoke family. They are peeled. Prepped. Ready to make tomorrow night as part of my primavera.

Finally.

Only one of my edamame plants survived. I took them off the vine. Cooked them in salted water. Added them to tonight’s dinner.

Grilled Haloumi with the edamame. Grilled the tri tip from Friends and Farms. Also grilled the last of the bok choy and some fennel. Served over spring mix.

With an awesome local wine.

Hey, maybe the food around here is a bit weird, but it tastes great. And, there are some wonderful local wines out there.

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Posted in Food, Friends and Farms, Locavore, Real Food, Wine and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, Locavore, MD Wine, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Small Packages

Posted on September 4, 2014 by AnnieRie

As in good things come in small packages. If you were an individual, or a working couple who traveled or ate out more than twice a week, a CSA wasn’t always a good fit.

For us, having the option to pick a half share, or an individual basket at two local food sources here in Howard County, has been really enlightening. It gives us more freedom, while giving us affordable fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, bread and herbs.

We, being retired, do like having both options. An individual basket from Friends and Farms, and a half share CSA from the Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative.

Here’s what we got and what we are doing with this week’s Friends and Farms share.

This is the vegetable and bread portion. Two lovely large red peppers. Five peaches. Two ears of corn. Green beans. Garlic. An onion. Two heirloom tomatoes. A loaf of honey whole wheat bread.

The green beans and corn were steamed for dinner tonight.

As for the protein.

Yellowfin tuna. I did order an extra piece as the individual share only gives you one portion. A small tri tip steak. Scamorza cheese, a take on mozzarella.

The tuna was slow cooked tonight with one of the tomatoes, and one of my heirloom pineapple tomatoes. Covered with lemon zest, olive oil, white wine vinegar and herbs.

Definitely a good start to using the basket. Tomorrow night. Grilled tri tip, with leftover mushrooms from last week. Caprese salad using the other tomato and some of the scamorza.

The peppers, along with some eggplant from my other source, will become a dip this weekend.

I like the way my two sources complement one another. Easy, seasonal fresh food.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Friends and Farms, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

Peaches and Peppers

Posted on September 1, 2014 by AnnieRie

And other things being done in the kitchen.

I’ve literally been overwhelmed with peaches this year.

There’s a few reasons for it. Besides getting peaches most weeks in the CSA, I was managing the site for a month while the site host was on vacation. Add to that, it was August. Lots of members didn’t show up. I ended up with the host’s peaches a few weeks, and a few leftover fruit shares. One week, we had six watermelons left. Food bank got most of it, but the peaches. Became a gateway to preservation.

I made peach syrup. I vacuum sealed a few bags. I have just enough left to make jelly, using the peaches and the jalapenos from my garden. We ate copious amounts of juicy fresh peaches for lunch. And breakfast.

As for the peppers.

The last week I hosted, I had my sweet pepper item, plus some from the swap box, and a share I picked up for a vacationing member. Yesterday, I blanched, sliced and froze four bags of peppers. This winter there will be lovely bright peppers on chicken, or fish, or pasta.

The beauty of having a CSA share is that ability to preserve and freeze the extras. In the dead of winter, those ingredients will liven my dinners. Grab a bag of peppers. Some tomato sauce. Some caramelized onions, maybe. Some pesto. Mix and match.

Those bright red Amish paste tomatoes in the picture above became tomato sauce. A quart of it. The slicing tomatoes met the same fate. Two pint jars. The freezer is almost full. Winter won’t be dull and dreary around here.

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

Lima Beans!

Posted on August 28, 2014 by AnnieRie

Fresh. In shell. Something I have never encountered before today.

They were in the swap box today for our CSA pick up. I had to get them and gave up radicchio to do so.

Already shelled and part of a simple dinner tonight. That also included this salad.

Heirloom tomatoes and some African blue basil from my garden. That absolutely awesome mozzarella from last week’s CSA cheese share. Secolari’s white balsamic vinegar and Sevillano olive oil.

There were also potatoes and Merguez sausage for dinner.

But, let’s get back to the CSA basket.

Spaghetti squash
Amish paste tomatoes
Slicing tomatoes
Baby sweet peppers
Baby bok choy
Green Beans
Cubanelles

As for fruit.

Apples. Plums. More peaches (like we need more peaches).

Things I am thinking of making. More tomato sauce, obviously. Pickled peppers. Spaghetti squash with butter and Parm.

As for the chicken share, not pictured, there were two boneless breasts of chicken, and a package of whole chicken legs. Chicken salad will be made this weekend.

Lancaster Farm Fresh comes through again with a mix of very interesting favorites and a few surprises.

Tomorrow: What I did with the Friends and Farms Individual basket.

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Posted in Food, LFFC, Real Food and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Some Tips and Tricks for Food Preserving

Posted on August 23, 2014 by AnnieRie

A few random items from my food preservation program today. Things we discussed and things I forgot to mention. It was a very enjoyable morning for me, and I think all the attendees had a good time. I sent them home with herbs to dry, and a couple of them got “prizes”, like a cookbook.

Think Small

We talked about the use of ice cube trays to freeze fruit, pesto, butters and herbs. I use different sized trays for strawberry puree, mint in ice, chive butter, sage butter, basil oil, bacon fat (yes, bacon fat), blackberry or blueberry simple syrups.

I mentioned that I use those trays pictured above to make herb butters. Two sticks of butter, melted. Herbs cut in advance and placed in trays. Pour cooled butter over the herbs. Each segment of a tray holds one tablespoon of butter. Nice proportions to use for pastas, potatoes, eggs, gnocchi and more.

Freeze ingredients, as well as finished products. I freeze one cup packages of shredded zucchini to use for breads or fritters. I freeze carrots and celery leaves to use in soups and stocks. I freeze caramelized onions, just because they are awesome in so many recipes. Oven roasted cherry tomatoes. Oven dried plum tomatoes.

This way I can pull out a bunch of bags, pop them in the crock pot and make soup or sauce.

I freeze veggie scraps to make veggie broth. Carrot tops. Lettuce root ends. Celery root end. Onion skins. Green bean ends. Stems from parsley. Carrot greens. Possibilities are endless.

Keep those shrimp shells. Crab shells. Fish ends. Make fish stock from them.

Buy bulk turkey legs from Maple Lawn. Use them for soups. After making the crock pot soup, boil the living daylights out of the bones to get a small amount of very rich stock to use as a base for couscous or other grains or rice.

There’s nothing like the taste of these locally raised birds. So much flavor. I also use local chickens for stock, and buy smoked ham hocks to keep around for when I make bean soups.

I need to find some of my other recipes to add. But this is certainly a good start to using up the summer’s bounty and keeping it available to make winter just a little warmer.

Like cauliflower leek soup.

What in your freezer might inspire you this fall?

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Posted in Food, Real Food and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, Food, foodie, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Picture Perfect

Posted on August 22, 2014 by AnnieRie

That was dinner tonight.

A trio of food. One from my garden. One from my CSA. And one from Friends and Farms.

My pineapple tomatoes are finally kicking in there and producing. The heirloom carrots from last week’s CSA were oven roasted. The arctic char from this week’s Friends and Farms basket was quick baked at 400 degrees with some honey mustard and lemon pepper on top.

Here’s the rest of the Friends and Farms basket. I need to get creative with some of the items.

Cilantro. Lettuce. Eggplant. Blueberries. Nectarines. An onion. Elephant garlic. Poblanos. Jalapenos. Red Beans.

As for protein.

One dozen eggs. Ground beef. That lovely Arctic char.

And, a loaf of bread. Not pictured.

Thoughts for dinner. Tacos. This basket screams TACOS.

Well, after tomorrow’s Food Preserving program, there will be lots of goodies to eat, or freeze. And, I am seriously considering a major pickled pepper frenzy. Plus, a couple of hot pepper jellies.

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Posted in Food, Friends and Farms, Gardening and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, howard county conservancy, Locavore, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Watermelon Season

Posted on August 21, 2014 by AnnieRie

I think it’s time to try watermelon gazpacho. This week, again, but bigger, we got a watermelon in our fruit share.

I could take upstairs and get on a scale with and without it to see what it weighs, but it’s quite the behemoth. And, it wasn’t one of the large ones on the pallet.

There are 28 watermelons in the box. This week there was very little maneuvering room in the pick up site. You see up there we also got peaches, again. The weird weather last winter seems to have affected the stone fruit trees, as by this time, we are sometimes seeing other fruit. Getting a little tired of peaches.

As for this week’s veggies.

Cylindra beets, and peppers, and red potatoes, and eggplant. Oh yeah, and …

… tomatoes. Two kinds. At least the half shares didn’t get zucchini. Today people were putting tomatoes back into the swap box early when I was there.

Today was a cheese delivery day, too.

Cheddar aged six years. A very interesting mozzarella, which I will review in depth when I try it. And a “Lanchego”, a Lancaster County Manchego style cheese.

I am really enjoying the variety of these cheeses. Last month’s Millich Kivvel was awesome.

No pics of the chicken. Breasts and wings this week.

Good delivery this week from Lancaster Farm Fresh.

Next post will be about my other food source but I think it’s time to relax and have a glass of wine.

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Posted in CSA, Food, LFFC and tagged CSA, Food, Locavore, real food, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

Home Grown and Home Made

Posted on August 19, 2014 by AnnieRie

With the upcoming Putting Food Away program on the 23rd at the Conservancy Mt Pleasant site, where I am showcasing some of my recipes, my techniques, my lessons learned, and even giving a few things away (I promise, no zucchini), I have been a cooking, cleaning, freezing, drying and pickling fool.

Did you know you could pickle chard stems? They are pretty interesting. Would make great swizzle sticks for Bloody Marys. I also just pickled zucchini chips. Who needs to spend the $8 or $9 a pound for that Mediterranean bar at the store when you can put out a good antipasto platter right from your fridge.

My other big accomplishment today, besides the zucchini fritters to freeze, was using my first eggplants I ever grew, and two of my red peppers and some of my garlic to make my own flatbread spread.

They may not be the cutest eggplants out there, but I grew them. I took the eggplants and the peppers and roasted them. Mixed them with some vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and three cloves of roasted garlic. To be served on flatbread for dinner tomorrow. No pictures, as they kind of remind you of baby food, but really taste wonderful.

I also roasted three large CSA eggplants today. Scraped them out. Added two cans of chickpeas. Four cloves of garlic. Lemon juice. Olive oil. Garam masala. Salt. Pepper. Amazing hummus. And, yes, you can freeze hummus. Not that this batch will last that long. It will be going to a picnic with us this weekend.

Come check out these and other recipes at my program. And, next week, there will be recipes and pictures up on my Food Preservation page. Can’t put everything there in advance, or no one will come see my program.

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Locavore, Volunteering and tagged cooking, Food, gardening, hobbies, howard county conservancy, Locavore, real food, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

On A Perfect Day

Posted on August 15, 2014 by AnnieRie

What is it with the weather around here? Every day just warm enough, with no humidity. It makes it hard to get anything accomplished. But, it does make it easier to work in the kitchen.

Usually in the summer, my food processing days are spent fighting the heat and humidity. Not today.

I even made soup. Potato leek soup in the crockpot. This picture is before the blending. I used about a dozen small leeks from my garden. A half dozen potatoes. Three small shallots. A pint of homemade chicken stock. Salt and white pepper. After about six hours in the pot, I pureed it all in the blender. It’s in a jar in the refrigerator, cooling down. I may freeze it, or I may have it for dinner next week.

I also made tomato sauce again. Since the onslaught of tomatoes never ends.

I used the roma tomatoes from the CSA. Take my advice. DON’T do it this way. I sweated the tomatoes in the same pan as I made the sauce. Splitting them open and letting them get warm enough for me to slip off the skins. This is a chunky vegetable rich sauce. I like these for short pastas. I had green pepper, shallots, leeks, garlic, carrots, zucchini and eggplant in this sauce. Yes, an eggplant, from here.

I roasted everything on this pan this morning. Then smashed up the eggplant and added it to my sauce. As a thickener. You know, you can use all sorts of things in sauces. No one will be the wiser. I ended up with two full pint jars for the freezer, and about 12 ounces in the fridge to be used for a pasta for dinner tomorrow night.

The tomatoes and peppers on that tray? Went into a pint jar and are in the freezer as well. They will make one awesome sauce sometime in the dead of winter.

Last but not least.

It’s sauerkraut time. I pulled out the crock and am making kraut. Cabbage and salt. That’s all it takes. And a cool dark corner.

Since I can’t find my cork top for the small crock, I ended up covering this with a clean dish towel. I put the saucer on top the cabbage. Weight it down with a jar. I moved it off to the far side of the kitchen where it stays out of the sunlight. I will have sauerkraut next week. But, let it ferment longer for better flavor.

I certainly did quite a bit today. How was your Friday?

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