Tag Archives: Locavore

Feeding My Farmer’s Market Addiction in Silver Spring

Posted on March 31, 2012 by AnnieRie

It’s been two months since I set foot in a farmer’s market. I think I was having withdrawal symptoms, so I ~~coerced~~ persuaded my better half to drive me down to Silver Spring this morning. I can drive now, but can’t carry. I suppose that if I went by myself I might buy less, but there’s no fun in that.

I decided to issue myself a personal challenge. That is, not to set foot in Giant, Safeway, Food Lion or Weis for the next six months unless I absolutely have to. There are just a few things not available elsewhere that I buy in the grocery store.

My goal is to use CSA, farmers’ markets, Boarman’s, local veggie stands, small businesses, family owned businesses (have to say this to sneak in Wegman’s), pick your own farms, and everything else I can think of that will provide me mostly real food instead of processed.

I will keep track of what I do and use the blog to discuss how well I am doing in really changing my diet to eliminate more and more of the processed foods. Today was the beginning of stocking up on fresh foods, and clearing out the pantry and fridge of the processed stuff.

We arrived around 11 am and the first thing you see is the Atwater’s truck.

I had to pick up a loaf of kalamata olive bread to serve with the last chicken noodle soup out of the freezer tonight. We had demolished the two loaves we bought last week in Catonsville, partially by taking some to friends for dinner last night.

We got apples, spring onions and chard from Spring Valley. It is so good to see spring onions. I love them with microgreens, like the ones in yesterday’s CSA delivery. Down to Firefly Farms for cheese, and Mock’s Greenhouses for the wonderful cherry tomatoes, hydroponically grown basil and arugula.

I am going to make my own flatbread dough with the Union Mills flour I picked up at Breezy Willow a while ago, and put arugula, bleu cheese and Boarman’s sausage on it one night next week. The hydroponic greens and the high tunnel cherry tomatoes from Mock’s are a hint of what is to come in summer. The basil is intensely scented, making me want to create a caprese salad if only I had some fresh mozzarella. The tomatoes burst with flavor and you wouldn’t know they were “hothouse” tomatoes unless someone told you.

I was talking to them and yes, they will be a supplier to Wegmans in Columbia just like they are in Frederick. Woo Hoo! Their bibb lettuce is incredibly sweet and delicious but today I already had containers full of greens and spinach at home from the CSA. This week we will be feasting on fresh salads.

Stopped at Garden Path Farms to pick up short ribs to use in the crockpot tomorrow with the chard bought at Spring Valley and the CSA mustard greens.

Soaking cranberry beans from MOM’s overnight tonight, so dinner will be greens, beans and ribs in the slow cooker. I will use the last pint of my turkey stock from the freezer to make this. Another real food dinner made from scratch.

After picking up these goodies, we hit Lebanese Taverna for a kafta sandwich. There are so many interesting restaurants on Ellsworth just behind City Place. Want Pho? Peri Peri? Thai? Lebanese? Potbelly Sandwiches? The list is endless. 100+ restaurants in the surrounding area. Free parking in the Wayne Avenue garage. A Whole Foods across from the parking garage as well in case you aren’t already shopped out.

Take a cooler in your trunk. Hit the market. Next week they go back to spring hours. From 9 am to 1 pm. Have breakfast, brunch or lunch and get in shape for our markets to open in six weeks. Can’t beat fresh veggies, meats, cheeses, eggs and fruit from area farmers.

And follow me on my GGSAC* journey. The *Great Grocery Store Avoidance Challenge*.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, GGSAC, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Restaurants and tagged cooking, crockpot soups, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, GGSAC, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, wegman's. Bookmark the permalink.

So What is National Local Mom and Pop Business Day?

Posted on March 29, 2012 by AnnieRie

Is it just another Hallmark holiday, or what?

I had a draft post I was working on for weeks, that had this time stamp on the draft that sent it to March 18th, when I hit publish. Still need to figure out some of the quirks of WordPress, but I was working on telling the story of using small businesses for most of what we buy. Services and supplies, from people in the county, not from national and international chains.

It is here. Those who subscribe did get it. To update it even more and include food in the mix, I am posting tonight about the local sources of dinner from small, family owned businesses.

We did do one thing today using a mom and pop business. That is, if Cavallero and Company count. My husband has been getting his hair cut by Vince’s shop, from the days they were Rex’s Place. First, Arnold. Now, Wayne. No one else is trusted to cut his hair. Since the late 1970s, I think is when he started with them.

As for the rest of today, I celebrated with a grazing meal tonight. Almost everything on the table was small business.

The salad. Beets, onions and orange from CSA — the oranges come up from a small farm in Florida. Fennel from Roots. Lemon olive oil from St. Helena Olive Oil, CA. USA olive oil, not imported. Woman owned business, that I support wholeheartedly year round.

The cube steak came from Wagner’s in Mt. Airy. The flour from Union Mills. The cole slaw I made using cabbage and carrots from the CSA. The accompaniments were from Cava in Rockville MD. Harissa and tzatziki. Bread from Atwater’s. Butter from Trickling Springs. Wine from Elk Run. No big businesses here. It can be done with just a little effort.

For me, I want to support these businesses all year. Not just for one day. By the way, the wine was awesome. Thanks to Fred and Carol Wilson, who started their winery in the 1980s. This wine, a cabernet, is from 2002. It is ten years old and still full of fruit. Not brown or fading. Just luscious. MD can make really good wines. Supporting people like the Wilsons is something I believe in. They started the very first all vinifera vineyard in MD. Hats off to them for making this lovely wine.

hocoblogs@@@

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Scrapple: The Last Frontier

Posted on March 29, 2012 by AnnieRie

OK, I am truly becoming my dad. I have gone over to the dark side and made my own scrapple. But, it isn’t my fault. It is Mark Bittman’s fault. Darn that “How to Cook Everything” App on my iPad.

You see, I needed to make breakfast for the last week of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. I had one pound left of Woodcamp Farms sausage in the freezer.

I was actually looking to make sausage patties with some interesting seasonings, and maybe do pancakes with the rest of the local buckwheat. But, opening the app and typing in sausage, it came up with lots of boring recipes, and SCRAPPLE!

OK, not everyone loves scrapple, but being almost 100% German background, and growing up with the scent of scrapple a normal Sunday morning wake up call, as my dad fried it up crispy and served it smothered in ketchup, how could I resist making my own.

We used to buy our scrapple at Lexington Market. My dad worked downtown as a policeman, so Saturday he brought home scrapple. Made from whatever was left of the pork. Still, nothing in the grocery stores approaches that scrapple.

I was hooked. I needed to try this. I even made it local. And, you could make it even more local than I did. I had cornmeal on hand. Not from up the road, but from PA. You can get cornmeal from Union Mills in Carroll County. But this is all I had.

This is the cornmeal I used in this killer polenta a few weeks ago. The Bittman recipe calls for grits or cornmeal. We don’t have local grits, so cornmeal it was. It also calls for making a double recipe of the grits. Don’t do it. Too much cornmeal and not enough sausage. Next time I make this I will use about 2/3 to 3/4 of the amount called for in the grits recipe.

You can see when I cut it this morning to fry, there is way too much filler for the pound of sausage. If you are trying to eat less meat, it works but it is off a little on proportions. You can also see the little bits of fresh sage from my herb garden.

Cook it all up with a couple of local eggs, and serve. The recipe is after the pictures below.

It looks pretty good, and it was tasty. My husband thinks it needs a little more kick, but this was an eat local challenge and Tabasco isn’t local. It also fell apart as I was plating it.

Local Sources: Trickling Springs for the butter to fry it. Zahradka Farms CSA eggs. Woodcamp Farm pork sausage. Burnt Cabins Roasted Cornmeal. Sage from my garden.

To make it even more local and mostly from Howard County, use: Bowling Green Farms butter, Breezy Willow eggs, TLV Tree Farm sausage, and Union Mills cornmeal, available at Breezy Willow. This way it would be almost 100% Howard County sourced, with the exception the cornmeal from Carroll County.

The recipe, courtesy of How to Cook Everything –

Make the cornmeal polenta, or use grits. The recipe calls for 5 cups or water, boiling. Whisk in two cups of grits or polenta. I believe you should make this with 3/4 of what they call for. Cook, covered, and occasionally stirring, until smooth. Add water if necessary to keep it from thickening too much. You will know if it is too thick. You can’t stir it. Add salt and pepper and butter to taste while making. Be careful tasting. It is molten.

In the meantime, cook the sausage until done. You need at least two cups of cooked sausage. One pound will just get you there. I would go heavier on the sausage the next time I do this.

Mix the sausage into the polenta and add at least a tablespoon of fresh sage. I used close to two tablespoons, because there was so much polenta made. Maybe grits would cook down more but the polenta was really thick and there was quite a bit of it.

Pour into a buttered loaf pan and refrigerate overnight. Cut in slices and fry in whatever you want. I used butter to keep it local. Serve with eggs, any way. I like sunny side up when I have fresh eggs from the CSA.

My husband had a piece of Atwater’s bread, toasted, with his. I didn’t think it needed the toast, as the scrapple is hearty.

So, Dark Days are done. I made it all the way to the end. Now, it will be easier to cook with local foods as we get into growing season.

Try making scrapple this summer. Everything is right up the road, at our markets in Howard County.

hocofood@@@

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

The Final Week of the Eat Local Challenge

Posted on March 28, 2012 by AnnieRie

In November I signed on to prepare at least one meal a week for sixteen weeks using locally sourced items. Locally being defined as within 150 miles of your home. The Dark Days Challenge is the Title. Over 100 people signed up. About 30-40 of us made it through the challenge.

Highlights to me of my meals included learning to make sweet potato gnocchi, making roasted cornmeal polenta, and using turnips far more than I ever did in the past.

These ingredients produced this soup. Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, apples and turnips. Thick, rich and satisfying.

The South Region, which included participants from MD, VA, NC, SC and TX, was one of the most active regions. Not surprising because it is fairly easy to source local items year round here. The northern participants struggled more.

This last week had a theme for us. Make breakfast. So far, I did eggs one day, but I intend to finish the challenge before Sunday with pancakes and sausage patties. Not going to go out without putting forth some real effort. Eggs are too easy.

In Howard County, we are lucky to have a year round CSA deliver. We also have access to meats and dairy from local farmers. We can also get produce from Amish markets in the area, and three year round farmer’s markets in Tacoma Park, Silver Spring and Dupont Circle. A Saturday morning visit to Silver Spring yielded enough fresh goodness, plus my Friday CSA delivery, to make Giant or Safeway superfluous in my life. Like the week shown below.

Friday Delivery CSA – beets, onion, sweet potatoes, celery, microgreens, broccoli, and Angus ground beef.

Saturday morning at the market – including chorizo, bread, mustard, high tunnel grown tomatoes, bibb lettuce, and not pictured, fresh basil.

Those of us who garden had put aside some frozen or canned items to use. I ran out of almost everything in my freezer, with one pint of turkey stock left. I used my last pickles in egg salad a few weeks ago. I still have half a jar of concord grape jelly from my neighbor, and enough frozen veggie items to make one more batch of veggie stock.

It made me think about what to do in the future. I intend to use Larriland Farms and Butler’s Orchards quite a bit this year to augment my garden and freeze/can items to use. I will also make good use of the summer CSA and farmer’s markets to get items to put away.

Why, you ask? Because, for me, eating fresh foods keeps my allergies at bay. It also limits my exposure to GMO vegetables, and to meats full of antibiotics and hormones. I feel better when I do this. Besides, serving fresh food to my friends and husband, prepared by me with love, is one of the things I enjoy best about being retired. Yum, TLV Farm kielbasa with CSA veggies, Canela bread from Boarman’s, and Black Ankle Syrah. Goodness, from Howard County and the surrounding area. Doesn’t get much better.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Dark Days, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Locavore, Real Food, Wine and tagged commentary, CSA, Dark Days Challenge, farmer's markets, Food, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, retirement, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Bread: The Staff of Life

Posted on March 27, 2012 by AnnieRie

I remember when bread started getting a bad rap. All those Atkins followers telling us not to eat it.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I am a bread addict. Give me a good chewy bread, and good cheese, and I am happy. I love all sorts of breads. With butter. With fresh tomatoes. Rubbed with garlic. Grilled. Fried. You name it. I am there.

Around here in Howard County, we are lucky to have quite a few artisan bread makers within a 15 mile radius of most of the population. The Breadery, Bonaparte, Great Harvest, and Atwater’s all very near. Canela, even though from Gaithersburg, is available in stores like Roots, MOM’s and Boarman’s. Breezy Willow has Great Harvest making bread for them. Everywhere you turn, good, fresh bread.

Why buy that spongy, sickly looking stuff in grocery stores? Sink your teeth into something with substance and taste. I mean, does Wonder Bread even have a taste? How about a really dense chewy spelt bread, made with PA spelt, fully organic.

I am partial to Atwater’s because of their commitment to buy locally. Their wheat isn’t shipped from Montana, or somewhere else far from here. They have a sources page that will tell you who their suppliers are. And, the bakery itself in Catonsville is a great place for lunch. Right up the street from the Catonsville Farmer’s Market, where they also participate. Besides, we hit Catonsville quite a bit to get to relatives’ houses.

Spelt walnut bread from Atwater’s. South Mountain Creamery eggs and butter. A true locavore’s breakfast.

Sunday we went to get our Atwater’s fix, bringing home two loaves of bread, one country white and one rosemary Italian, and a ginger molasses teacake.

Markets start in a few weeks. Can’t wait to get some fresh baked goodness every week.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Community, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore and tagged community, Food, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore. Bookmark the permalink.

In Search of Salsify

Posted on March 25, 2012 by AnnieRie

Back in December, in our fall CSA from Sandy Spring, we got salsify in the box. A fuzzy strange looking vegetable.

I had no idea what to do with it, but went on line and started reading. It turns out that it is in the sunflower family, and the vegetable we see is the root of the purple salsify plant. It isn’t very common around here, but has been cultivated in other parts of the world to a greater extent.

It tastes like oysters, believe it or not. I went and found a huge collection of recipes on this site, vintage recipes. For one of my eat local challenge meals, I made the simple fritters recipe from the Boston cooking school cookbook of 1896. Cooking all of what I had from the CSA, and wishing afterwards that I could have had more of it.

I started searching for it. Found some really hard, gnarly ones at Harris Teeter in Maple Lawn. They were OK but not as flavorful as the fresh ones. It is going to be a quest at the farmer’s markets to ask if anyone does plant them. Since they are the root of a sunflower, I am guessing it will be pretty late in the season for me to see local ones, if at all. I may just have to identify a source and buy it in the fall or winter when it is ready to harvest.

If not there, I will also be checking out whether the new Wegman’s will have them. They did not at the Wegman’s in Frederick, although they have another root veggie I like, sunchokes. That is a topic I will write about sometime in the future. I find it a fascinating byproduct of the CSA, veggies you would not pick up on your own and make.

Anyone ever found salsify around here?

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Dark Days, Farmer's Markets, Food, Locavore, Real Food and tagged CSA, Dark Days Challenge, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, Locavore, real food, wegman's. Bookmark the permalink.

A Day Trip to Breaux

Posted on March 24, 2012 by AnnieRie

About an hour from here is an amazingly beautiful vineyard, developed by Paul Breaux as one of the area’s destination wineries. They purchased 400 acres of land to the east of the Appalachian Trail near the border of VA and WV. They are six miles south of Harper’s Ferry WV. When you cross the bridge from MD to VA on US 340, turn left at the gas station and drive the six miles.

On the site, they planted 100+ acres of mostly vinifera. This was one of the few large scale, well bankrolled wineries in VA in the 1990’s. First class all the way. Paul Breaux had done well in real estate. You may know of his company, Sun Realty. If you rented a place in the Outer Banks, it may have been one of his. In an interesting “six degrees of separation” moment, it was Sun Realty that rented us a house on the Outer Banks for our honeymoon in August 1980, when they were a fledgling company.

In the year 2000, we first went to visit the vineyards with friends, after a morning hike in Harper’s Ferry. The building is impressive. Way bigger than almost any winery I had ever seen in the mid-Atlantic. Now, after a trip to Napa and Sonoma, I can put it into a different perspective. Barboursville in VA also has impressive grounds, but we never saw the other big VA wineries until years later. So, for us, this place was awesome. They had invested in much better equipment than any Maryland winery we had visited in the 1980s or early 90’s. This place even has a misting machine in the barrel storage chambers, to keep the barrels from drying out by regulating the humidity. And, they are still growing.

Coming up to the building yesterday, we saw massive construction going on. A new building that promises to add more capacity for storage of production, as well as surprises, since they are not revealing yet what all will be housed there.

We are charter cellar club members. Breaux and Linden are the VA wineries we support as case club members. Black Ankle and Boordy are the cellar clubs in MD that we also support. As a hobby, wine collecting is not inexpensive, but it beats car collecting, or having a boat, or playing golf. All those other things are money sumps, just like our winery visits are. We have become very selective about where we go and what we purchase now that we are retired. We continue our Breaux membership because we believe they provide a great value for the money. The wines for the club are not available to the general public.

Yesterday we went to pick up six bottles. We get two bottles every two months, or a case a year. It is one of the more affordable clubs, as others were requiring two bottles a month. We were last there in October. The hostess opened a bottle of one of the cellar club wines for us to taste to decide if we wanted to purchase more. We ended up getting a couple of bottles of the Cabernet Franc Reserve, and a couple of bottles of the Viognier, which has won numerous awards. Viognier is a wine that Virginia does a very good job of producing, and Breaux makes a stellar bottling.

We bought a baguette and some salami, and took our picnic lunch of local Howard County cheese, and my brownies out on the patio to enjoy the view.

Served with a bottle of Lot 10-08, a cellar selection. We enjoyed a glass and corked up the bottle to bring home for later.

As a committed locavore, I want to support local wineries as well as the local farmers. Even extending my tendencies to buy local to buying pottery, and plants, and services. Supporting local businesses puts some of our money directly into our local economy, and I feel good about that. Not to mention, day trips to wineries are a benefit of living in a very good viticultural climate.

Cheers!

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Posted in Day Trips, Hobbies, Locavore, People, Retirement, Wine and tagged day trips, hobbies, Locavore, retirement, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Winter CSA Week Thirteen, and Dinner from the Box

Posted on March 23, 2012 by AnnieRie

Over nine pounds of veggies. Six items. $18/week which includes home delivery. This week was one of the heaviest hauls of veggies in the CSA for the winter. Zahradka Farm is a vendor at the Glenwood Farmer’s Market so everyone can partake of their fresh veggies for at least six months a year. Joining their CSA allowed us to experience home delivery for the rest of the year.

The six items are a half share. A full share would have been ten. We choose from an on line ordering form. Over the weekend they put up a list with what is ready to pick. This is what I ordered and received, with weight in ounces after item received:

collard greens (12 oz)
carrots (34 oz)
onions (24 oz)
beets (26 oz)
radishes (14 oz)
new potatoes (40 oz)

We also received skirt steak from JW Treuth butchers, as our weekly meat selection, and this is the week for my biweekly dozen eggs, all colors and sizes.

Some of the eggs are a deep brown, although the pictures don’t do them justice.

I already put one of the carrots in the leftover cabbage from St. Paddy’s Day, with last week’s white potatoes. Topped it with a fresh kielbasa from TLV Tree Farm. They are just down the road from us. We go out to the farm on Saturdays when they are open from 10-2. Last week we picked up this fresh kielbasa. Just like the kielbasa made in my husband’s home town in PA.

I opened a bottle of wine from one of the closest wineries to Howard County, Black Ankle. Interesting that this 2006 Syrah had a musty nose, which disappeared after a while, but I wonder how the other couple of bottles in the cellar are doing. Tasted great, though. I wanted a bigger but not huge wine to stand up to the kielbo and the mustard.

This dinner came from less than 25 miles away, if you discount the ramp mustard, which is from Spring Valley Farm and Orchard, in Augusta WV. I did buy it at Dupont Circle Market, which is 25 miles south of us.

A really tasty dinner, right from our proverbial back yard.

hocofood@@@

Keeping It Mostly Local – Pizza

Posted on March 23, 2012 by AnnieRie

Last night we felt like having pizza. But, I refuse to be influenced by TV commercials enticing me to just pick up a frozen pie or calling for delivery pizza. Making it myself is really not that difficult, as long as I buy dough, or find a flatbread that works in the oven or on the grill.

I picked this one up from Roots the other day.

It is a thick crusty base that will hold up to lots of oil and sauce and cheese without getting soggy. Making my own toppings is what I like about pizza. Dig around in the fridge and see what looks good.

I made a sauce using local Maitake mushrooms bought at MOM’s, Hummingbird Farms cherry tomatoes bought at Roots, garlic and onion from my CSA, a bit of sauce from Quaker Valley in PA, bought at the Silver Spring Farmer’s Market, and some organic tomato paste, bought at the Common Market a while back. Sweated the onions and mushrooms. Added the rest and left it on low to simmer while I got the cheeses on the crust.

Used up some Firefly Farms chevre, and some tomato basil spread from Bowling Green Farms. Put the sauce on top of the cheeses. Ready for the oven.

Baked at 400 degrees for 20 minutes to make it crispy.

Served with a 2002 Linden Cabernet Franc, the last of this year and varietal in the cellar. As usual, the wine did not disappoint, nor did the pizza. The wine did not exhibit that bell pepper taste the francs from VA usually do. It was well balanced and still had quite a bit of fruit for a ten year old VA wine. If I recall, this was an OK year after a really good one in 2001. This wine proved that even in a less than optimum year, Linden made wines with longevity.

What made this dinner even more fun were the brownies. Made with a mix and black beans and water. That’s all. No eggs, or oil. I did jazz them up a bit with peanut butter and peanuts, but you can make them just with the mix and beans. Look it up on line. Simple brownies, dark, dense and chewy. Great to finish the wine with them while watching the basketball games.

This was a mostly locally sourced meal, and yet simple to do. In just a few weeks the farmer’s markets will open across Howard County, and it will be really easy to pick up cheeses and mushrooms to make your own pizza. We will have to wait a while though to get good tomatoes, but until then, Roots has Hummingbird Farms hydroponically grown tomatoes, including the heirlooms.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Locavore, Real Food, Wine and tagged CSA, farmer's markets, Food, Howard County, Linden Vineyards, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Getting My Goat …

Posted on March 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

… or finding ways to live with lactose intolerance. I already carry around little chewable tablets to deal with foods in restaurants and friend’s homes. As well as dealing with my love of cheese in the first place.