Tag Archives: real food

Berry, Berry Good

Posted on June 12, 2014 by AnnieRie

Both my food sources delivered strawberries today. There will be some creative cooking going on.

Today Lancaster Farm Fresh began the fruit shares for those of us who opted for this add on. We got a jar of their incredibly rich “just apples” applesauce. Too bad we didn’t sign up for a meat share. They got boneless pork chops.

As for our chicken share:

Breasts, thighs and legs. 4.5 pounds of chicken. I have been so impressed with what we get, as always.

We get an email in the morning telling us what was selected. We do get advanced notice on Tuesdays, of the expected crop picking. But, it does change slightly.

There were nine items in the half share today. I did swap the cilantro, as I grow it, for that lovely fennel. There will be fennel, orange and red onion salad soon. I am impressed with the size of the leaf lettuce, and the romaine.

The bonus. Those radish greens, which are edible and quite tasty, albeit a bit peppery.

The CSA pickup was this afternoon. This morning I also got our Friends and Farms basket.

OK, I was brave and took the mussels, even though I don’t eat them. My husband was thrilled with them. They are gone already. Tonight’s dinner. White wine. Mussels. Butter. Shallots. Garlic scapes. A teaspoon of flour. Classic mussel dish. Served with the baguette from The Breadery.

The rest of this week’s protein and dairy. Short ribs and Ewe crème cheese. We also got baby bok choy, zucchini, baby bellas, broccoli, asparagus, spring mix, and those strawberries.

There will be stir fry on the menu this week. And, lots of salads.

Tomorrow night, slow cooked short ribs over greens.

For the Saturday night movie at the Wine Bin. Mushroom pate. The rest of the baguette. Chicken salad. Strawberry salsa.

Having fun with the fresh foods.

#hocofood

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Posted in Community, CSA, Food, Friends and Farms, LFFC, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food and tagged community, cooking, crock pot cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Springtime Recipe Inspiration

Posted on June 7, 2014 by AnnieRie

I haven’t done a recipe round up in a while. With the explosion of late spring vegetables, I think I should gather together all my links to the dishes, desserts, salads, suggestions, etc. that I continue to mention in my CSA posts.

Like my garlic scape pesto. Here in the middle of the very fleeting garlic scape season. The simplest version combines a cup of scapes (cut in small pieces), a half cup freshly processed Parmesan, a half cup toasted pine nuts, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Put fresh Parmesan cut in chunks into food processor. Pulverize. Add scapes, mix. Add pine nuts, salt and pepper to taste, and drizzle oil in until you get the creaminess you want.

As for other things to do with scapes, grill them. Lightly oil them. Put on a really hot grill and keep turning them so they don’t burn. Season with salt and pepper before serving. They melt in your mouth.

Asparagus. Like the wild ones growing in my yard. They will turn green when you move the mulch. I like a simple dry grill method. Put in a basket. Dry grill for a few minutes. Just before taking them off the grill, brush olive oil on them and light salt and pepper them. Once on the table, shave Parmesan on them.

I also blanch them, then cut in small pieces. Make a simple egg/milk/herb/S&P mix and put into large non stick oven proof pan, lightly oiled. Once it begins to set up, dump the blanched asparagus on top, pick any grated cheese and put it on top and finish in the oven on 350 degrees.

I also put those blanched pieces mixed with any pasta, and a healthy spoonful of any pesto on top. Finish again with cheese.

Am I in a Parmesan rut or what?

Let’s move to strawberries and rhubarb.

Already wrote about that barbecue sauce.

I’ve made sweet desserts like crisps and crumbles, but can’t find all the recipes for them. The Food Network one was used at least once.

Kale. Chard. Greens. Nothing really fancy but lots of inspiration out there.

Kale chips are fun. Mess around with your favorite spices.

Also, that night I made one of my famous frittatas. Anything with that egg mixture, can be one light fresh seasonal awesome feast.

I suppose what I am saying here is this. Whatever is the freshest stuff you can find. Bring it home. Lightly treat it. Lots of olive oil, a little salt and pepper. My addiction to parmigiano reggiano.

Whatever.

It’s not yet corn, squash, zucchini or pepper season. Be patient and enjoy what has just been picked.

#hocofood

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Posted in CSA, Food, Foraging, Gardening, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, grilling, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Fresh Food Overload

Posted on June 5, 2014 by AnnieRie

As in too many sources of what came into the house today.

Friends and Farms. Lancaster Farm Fresh. Foraged asparagus. Harvested spring garlic and garlic scapes.

Is it any wonder I get overwhelmed. At least I didn’t pick veggies at Larriland today.

Scapes and spring garlic. Let’s start with the back yard. I have 18 plants out there. Two, I found to be waterlogged and a loss. Four I harvested today. They were too small to become heads of garlic. Hence, spring garlic. With a couple of scapes in the mix.

Asparagus. A couple more spears of my wild asparagus. There are two more ready to be harvested in a day or two. Not bad, but this year much less than previous years.

Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative CSA. This is week three of the spring/summer CSA. I have a half share. Today eight items plus my weekly chicken share.

We got:

Salanova lettuce
Kale
Garlic Scapes
Frisee
Strawberries
Scallions
Red leaf lettuce
Yellow chard

A whole chicken this week. A Freedom Ranger heritage chicken.

The chard already made it into tonight’s frittata.

As for Friends and Farms.

This week was my eggs and yogurt week in the rotation. Proteins included chicken breast and a pork chop (destined to become an Asian element of a stir fry).

Green cabbage and carrots. There will be cole slaw.

That’s because we had a pork butt a few weeks back that is happily becoming pulled pork compliments of 100 days.

The rest of the basket included Asian greens, broccoli, scallions, hydroponic tomatoes, strawberries, and sweet potatoes.

I like getting small amounts of varied vegetables.

This method of shopping has been interesting, and a challenge to boot. Some days the large amount of greens is intimidating but it’s good for us.

#hocofood

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Foraging, Friends and Farms, Gardening, LFFC, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, CSA, farms, Food, foodie, gardening, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Strawberry Fields

Posted on June 3, 2014 by AnnieRie

I can’t resist Larriland for strawberries.

This year the fields are south of the main farm. The price went up. $2.75 and $2.25, up 16 cents from last year. We only picked 14 pounds this year. Well. at least so far this year. I might go out again later this month.

Here’s to the first strawberry margarita of the season. One part Triple Sec. Two parts tequila. Six parts strawberry syrup, made using pure cane sugar to taste, and a couple of limes squeezed in. A handful of crushed ice. Blend. Enjoy with the salsa from the Ellicott City Market.

The rest of that juice.

Poured in ice cube trays. Resting in the freezer as we speak. These cubes go into many things. Once they have frozen, I put them in a container in the freezer. Pop one in a glass of iced tea, or lemonade. Or make a sangria. Or, melt one to make a strawberry balsamic vinaigrette. I am just finishing up last year’s stash.

The best berries.

Washed, stemmed, dusted with sugar. Frozen until solid. Packed away to come out in cold months. Defrost and make your own strawberry yogurt.

And, it figures. Saturday we saw we are getting strawberries from Friends and Farms. Today, our Lancaster Farm Fresh newsletter predicts strawberries, too.

There can never be too many strawberries.

#hocofood

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Friends and Farms, Howard County, LFFC, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food and tagged CSA, farms, Food, foodie, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Fish On …

Posted on June 2, 2014 by AnnieRie

… the grill.

There is something about halibut. One of my favorite fish to grill. And we can’t go to Annapolis to visit family without stopping at Annapolis Seafood for something. It was a stop for shrimp but the halibut was calling my name.

The shrimp, also bought, was used today in a shrimp curry with Thai Spices Matsaman curry, fragrant with cumin and cardamom.

The halibut, grilled last night with some Friends and Farms vegetables.

Asparagus and red potatoes.

All seasoned with one of my pesto concoctions, defrosted from the freezer. This one was a mixed greens pesto, made last summer. Since it is almost garlic scape season, I need to finish off the last of the pesto containers from the basement freezer.

To complete that local flavor.

Maryland chardonnay, from Big Cork.

Here’s to many more locally inspired and small business supplied dinners. It’s grilling season, big time.

#hocofood

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Posted in Farmer's Markets, Farms, Food, Friends and Farms, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Weather, Wine and tagged cooking, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, grilling, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, MD Wine, real food, weather, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Hanging Out at the Swap Box

Posted on May 30, 2014 by AnnieRie

Or, how I’m spending my Thursday afternoons.

The swap box is where you exchange an unwanted item from your produce delivery in Community Supported Agriculture. I expected that there would be weeks where Lancaster Farm Fresh (in my half share) and Friends and Farms (in my individual basket) would overlap.

I pick up my Friends and Farms basket first. We know in advance what we are getting.

This week, the vegetables included spinach, red onion, red potatoes, cucumbers, asparagus, lettuce, rhubarb and collard greens.

Heading over to Columbia to get my LFFC box, I knew I was at least going to have some similar items. Our advance email told us the half share would be getting this.

Half shares get four to seven items. This week there were five. Kale, green leaf lettuce, chives, red scallions and collard greens. I swapped the chives. That would be an obvious swap for me since this is what I have in the community garden.

I think I could supply the 44 members of the Columbia pickup with their needs for chives, and then some. I usually swap herbs because I grow them.

I really wanted to find some lovely little Hakurei turnips. The full shares got them. But, no joy. I settled for another green leaf lettuce.

Besides the veggie share, I started my monthly cheese share this week. Every four weeks. Three varieties.

The chevre. Raw milk cheddar. Sheep’s milk soft cheese.

After seeing the incredible cheeses last year in other people’s boxes, I sprung for cheese this year. I don’t regret it at all.

I also get three pounds of free range chicken every week. This week: one pound of boneless skinless chicken breast, and two pounds of chicken wings. I wrote about the wings yesterday.

Changing topics here, and returning to Friends and Farms. The protein this week. Cod and hanger steak.

Just enough cod to make fish and chips one night. And, hanger steak. Hard to find as there is only one per cow. I never knew that before I started getting more unusual cuts of meat from Friends and Farms.

Bread and eggs this week in my individual rotation. And, as usual a few add ons.

Butter, and plain yogurt. The butter, to make chive butter to freeze in cubes to use next winter. The yogurt. To make tzatziki with one of those cucumbers, and some dill from my garden.

All in all, a good start to the summer season, for eating regionally and seasonally. And it is still cool enough to do something with those collard greens. I seem to have an excess of them this week. There could be worse things in life. An excess of collard greens just means bring out the bacon.

#hocofood

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Friends and Farms, Gardening, LFFC, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, gardening, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Strawberry Season

Posted on May 24, 2014 by AnnieRie

Officially opened today at Gorman Farms. You do have to check to see when they are open. They had some hail damage.

As for us, we got strawberries Thursday from Miller Farms in our Friends and Farms basket. They are also open for those who live south of us.

These berries made it into three different meals already.

Strawberries with greens. Such a simple great salad. I used arugula, romaine and the pea shoots from our baskets. A very easy yogurt dressing. Scallions from my garden.

The second use.

Berry yogurt. Besides some of the strawberries, I used a few defrosted blueberries. The plain yogurt from Pequea Valley. A little agave for sweetness. That small care package in the fridge went with my husband for his 12 hour shift in an amateur radio contest. A few hardboiled eggs, and some penne pasta I made the other day.

The last of the strawberries from Thursday? I ate them. What can I say. I love fresh berries.

Besides Gorman, there are other pick your own farms around here. Depending on where you live, you can find one not far away.

Like Larriland, or Baughers in Westminster, or Butlers Orchards in Germantown. They are all saying early June opening.

Berries are a fruit that we enjoy picking. Our freezer was stocked with berry syrup cubes, and frozen berries.

We will as usual go out to Larriland and pick at least 20 pounds. You can’t beat the price.

#hocofood

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Posted in Day Trips, Farms, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore and tagged farms, Food, foodie, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Mangia Italiano!

Posted on May 22, 2014 by AnnieRie

Italian feast. That’s what we can make with this week’s Friends and Farms basket.

Within this basket is a serious baseline for “gravy” or as known here in the States, tomato sauce.

Tomatoes. An onion. Garlic. Carrots. Basil. Sweet Italian sausage. Mushrooms. Really, you can have one very interesting experimental session making your own version of an Italian staple.

But, you know you can add that Swiss chard.

As for other meals, this is my egg and bacon week.

Eggs and bacon. There is probably not much else that just jumps up and makes us happy.

Well, maybe strawberries.

We all got a quart of strawberries. This should do well with finishing off that yogurt I bought last week.

And, the chicken.

This weekend. One spatchcocked grilled chicken coming up.

I forgot! Those pea shoots. You know, I definitely love pea shoots. But, they have to be eaten soon.

Great Memorial Day basket! Time to get grilling!

#hocofood

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Lunch From the Garden …

Posted on May 20, 2014 by AnnieRie

… and a few regional farms.

In the process of making lunch, the picture above shows some of the kale and chard from this morning’s thinning of the garden. Dressed with a simple yogurt dressing. Shake yogurt and lemon infused olive oil with some garlic powder, salt and pepper.

An apple from last week’s Friends and Farms basket, served with some of that provolone that we got, too.

Homemade peach yogurt.

To share, we used one cup of plain yogurt. One defrosted peach, from my stash in the freezer (courtesy of Larriland picking last August). A 1/2 tsp squirt of agave. That’s all. I control the sweetness when I start with plain yogurt.

This yogurt is available at Friends and Farms. At Breezy Willow Farm store. And at England Acres in Mt. Airy. Best yogurt we have ever found. No web site, as they are an Amish farm.

As for the rest of this bag of peaches. Destined to become peach pops. Simple to make. Blend the peaches with yogurt. To fill my popsicle molds I need about 32 ounces in the blender. If I get a little too much, the rest goes in a small plastic jar and becomes frozen yogurt. I am using whatever I have to give it the amount of sweetness I want. Currently I have agave, but I also use honey or maple syrup.

On a related note, I harvested a few more white onions today.

Including one very large one, that was too crowded in the middle of the rows.

And found the beginning of an onion scape on the largest one. Now, I need to head back up there and pinch off scapes to let the onions put more energy into the onions and not the shoots.

Back on the home front, though, my garlic out in the back yard hasn’t begun to produce scapes yet. They are getting really large finally, so I hope to get at least one dozen large heads of garlic in a few months.

So far, a good start to the harvest of spring vegetables. Now, if only the strawberry picking season would begin. Gorman Farm projects that they will open Saturday the 24th of May. Larriland is still posting “late” May. We are almost out of the last of the frozen berries, and can’t wait to get out in the fields and bring in this year’s berries. The freezer is getting empty now.

#hocofood

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Posted in Farms, Friends and Farms, Gardening, Hobbies, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Weather and tagged cooking, farms, Food, foodie, gardening, hobbies, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

The First Harvests

Posted on May 16, 2014 by AnnieRie

It’s always exciting when we switch from planting to harvesting. This year I am keeping a record of what we get, from the multiple sites where I have vegetables and herbs growing.

My favorite microsite is my foraged asparagus.

At the top of our driveway, where the asparagus is growing wild. Today, I got one new spear, added to the six already picked. Last year I think I counted 42 spears. Let’s see what this year produces. And, yes, that is crape myrtle, with the asparagus firmly entrenched under it.

Up at the community garden, it was time to thin the greens.

By the way, three inches of rain will penetrate the heavy row cover. The weeds are coming in, so I weeded and thinned today.

I have mostly kale and chard up there, but did add some recently sprouted arugula. Today’s take. Two ounces. They will grace an omelet this weekend.

Notice the chive flowers. I inherited massive amounts of chives, and a few varieties of sage in our plot. I took the best flowers to use in that omelet, and admired the bicolor sage that recovered after the winter.

This sage is tiny but my common sage bush is doing well also. I love sage when I make pork dishes, and in tomato sauce with sausage.

Today I was also fighting the pests. On the cucumbers and the eggplant. Potato beetles on the eggplant and cucumber beetles chewing off my young cucumber shoots. Garden Safe to the rescue, we hope. I am on a 7 day schedule with this OMRI approved insecticide. These pests already killed off four cucumber plants, and made a mess of the leaves of the rest.

If you look behind the plant stick, you will see one of the potato beetles. Soon to meet his maker, like his brethren I squashed that were noshing my pink eggplant leaves. I think I do need to cover the eggplants. And, those are weeds you see. I am trying to keep up with them, but this blasted rain just makes everything grow so fast.

I came home with this.

Some greens. A few blossoms. The one two foot long asparagus from the driveway.

Tomorrow, I may head out to the garden in the yard and harvest spring garlic. At least three of the eighteen plants in the back yard aren’t that big, and they won’t mature enough before the heat of summer. They will flavor a few meals this week.

Not bad for mid May. I can’t wait for tomato season, but this is a good beginning.

#hocofood

Trying to garden organically is tough, but I will prevail (I hope).

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Posted in Food, Foraging, Gardening, Hobbies, Nature, Weather and tagged Food, foodie, gardening, nature, real food, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

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Tag Archives: real food

Berry, Berry Good

Springtime Recipe Inspiration

Fresh Food Overload

Strawberry Fields

Fish On …

Hanging Out at the Swap Box

Strawberry Season

Mangia Italiano!

Lunch From the Garden …

The First Harvests

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