Tag Archives: real food

My Take on Cassoulet

A favorite one pot meal. Cassoulet. With all sorts of options and the ability to use what you have hanging around in your fridge.

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Served with an excellent local Big Cork Chardonnay. The last one, so it must be time to head up to Frederick for a few more bottles.

This dish came together because I had leftover chicken breast and garlic sausage. About 6 ounces of chicken breast and the same amount of a fresh kielbasa. They were both main elements of last weekend’s meals.

Start with the base.

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Olive oil heated in the pan. Added one sliced yellow onion and a handful of scallions sliced. Half of a green pepper. Three roma tomatoes, sliced. Half dozen cremini mushrooms. Other than the scallions, the rest of this dish was in last week’s delivery from Friends and Farms.

When the vegetables are soft and the onions translucent, add the sausage and chicken. Deglaze it all with a splash of white wine and some stock. Empty a drained can, or two if you like beans, of either cannellini or Great Northern beans. Some fresh basil, slivered. A couple of cloves of roasted garlic, smashed, or a teaspoon of garlic powder. A teaspoon of herbs de Provence. A little salt and white pepper. A teaspoon of tomato paste.

Put everything in a low setting in the oven. I use the slow cook setting, which is 250 degrees. For about an hour for all the flavors to meld.

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This picture is the before the oven photo. The plate up top is the “brown” version. It may not be the prettiest dish out there, but it definitely tastes wonderful.

You don’t need duck to make cassoulet. It works just fine with chicken. Not a bad mostly locally sourced meal.

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Really. Great. Pasta.

I have written before about finding Pappardelle’s pasta at Secolari, in Columbia Mall, and at Casual Gourmet, in Glenwood.

This pasta is such a delight to make and eat. The flavors just jump out at you. And, today, the aroma of cooking lemon ginger fettuccini. Amazing.

An interesting pairing tonight. I found a unique pasta sauce at Costco. A Tuscany pumpkin sauce. From Cucina Antica.

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This combination was light, but creamy. I added the leftovers from last night’s dinner. Country style ribs with Korean BBQ sauce.

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These ribs came from my Friends and Farms basket a few weeks back. Slow cooked in the oven, under foil with salt and pepper and in a bath of white wine. Finished with a glaze of Korean dipping sauce mixed with honey mustard.

Today the half we didn’t eat Saturday was shredded and added to the pumpkin sauce. A dash of cumin. A handful of scallions. Some garlic powder to taste.

Boil the pasta. Simmer the sauce. Eat a wonderful simple meal after my husband finished his radio contesting marathon.

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Then sit around and watch the Olympics while sipping a spritzer. A little white wine, some Limonata, and a few frozen cubes of strawberries, from our strawberry picking trip to Larriland last May. Love using those “ice cubes” in drinks.

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And, I did forget to take a picture of the pasta dish. What can I say?

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Holding It Close

As in closely sourced items for a stellar Valentine’s Day dinner.

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When you look at this dinner plate, you can’t tell initially that it reflects a commitment to local, seasonal and small business sourced items for a meal.

Filet Mignon. Green bean casserole. Baked potato.

What is local about all this?

The Filets. England Acres.

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Pan seared and coated with a mushroom gravy.

Potatoes. From our Friends and Farms basket. Baked. Then sprinkled with truffle salt, and doused in white balsamic. A couple of specialty items from Secolari.

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A simple green bean casserole.

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Mixed together and baked.

Really. Why go to restaurants when at a fraction of the cost you can make a simple meal with better items.

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The Peanut-iest

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Sometimes it’s those little local items that bring fun into cooking. Like those Virginia raw peanuts we got in this week’s basket from Friends and Farms.

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Raw peanuts. This isn’t the first time I have used raw peanuts in cooking. A few years ago I got peanuts out at the Common Market in Frederick and made peanut brittle.

This time, I decided to use the peanuts to make spiced nuts. I roasted them. Spread them out on a pan and added molasses, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and Old Bay.

I didn’t take pictures this time. But, they taste great, even if they are a little messy looking.

Great snack while watching the Olympics.

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Just A Small Basket

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That’s all it is supposed to be. But, it is filled with large flavor. And some really fun surprises.

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There are the usual winter veggies and fruit. Like potatoes, apples, Swiss chard. There is an interesting cheese, a Weissa Kase, from an Amish farm.

Breadery Bread. This week we chose Montana white.

This wasn’t an egg week, but I just modified my basket to make eggs an item instead of milk. The biweekly eggs will become that luscious rich yogurt. I love the flexibility to customize what we get.

Protein this week. A sirloin steak and a couple of beautiful tuna filets.

I already made them for dinner tonight, along with some of the green beans from a few weeks back.

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It was pretty simple. Pan fry the steaks with some sesame seeds and salt and pepper, in olive oil. Steam the green beans. Add a few sauces.

My favorites this week, though, are the edamame. And, the peanuts.

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The Virginia raw peanuts. Ready to be roasted. I am torn between making peanut butter, saving them for making granola, and being really bad and making “Peanut-tella” aka a Smitten Kitchen recipe. Using cocoa and powdered sugar. The only other thing I need to make this is peanut oil, which I can easily find.

Who knows what I will do with the peanuts?

We also got egg noodles, and some frozen corn. Not a bad haul for the middle of winter.

Meal planning is dynamic and fun, thanks to Friends and Farms.

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Easy Pea-sy

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Pea Shoot Pesto.

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I wanted something interesting to do with the pea shoots we received from our weekly pickup at Friends and Farms.

After a bit of searching around the internet, and knowing that I am a sucker for pestos, I found numerous recipes for a pesto made using pea shoots.

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I messed around with them, as usual. And, reverted to my standard formula for pesto. I harvested almost all of the pea shoots. Got around three cups of them.

Toasted a mix of almonds, pecans and walnuts.

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About three ounces of them.

Set up the food processor with about three ounces of Parmesan, two cloves of garlic, salt and pepper.

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After I blended the Parmesan, I added the nuts and the pea shoots.

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As this was blending, I poured in the olive oil. Getting it to the consistency I wanted and tasting while adding a little additional salt and pepper.

The final product. About a cup and a half of pesto. A few dollops of it tonight on the last of the cod we received last week.

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The rest of it will get mixed with some pastas. Like those I bought at Secolari this week.

It really tastes like peas. You can make all sorts of pestos. Just be creative and experiment.

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A Super(bowl) Basket

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This week’s Friends and Farms small basket.

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A nicely sized assortment of protein, dairy, produce and fruit. But, my favorite part of it was the inclusion of “big game day” items.

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Like the chicken wings, and the ground beef (to make sliders perhaps?).

This week, besides those, we had a pound of Salvadoran style chorizo and eggs, as our breakfast items. I already made the chorizo in tonight’s dinner.

I choose yogurt instead of milk. This week we got peach flavored. And, frozen strawberries. I am thinking about making strawberry peach pops to have for dessert while watching the game Sunday.

We were supposed to get romaine this week, but had a substitution. A large head of Bibb lettuce.

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It is happily resting in water in the fridge. Some of it, along with a few of the pea shoots, and the grape tomatoes became tonight’s salad.

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The dressing on that salad was made with some maple yogurt dressing using that yogurt from last week’s delivery.

My super bowl menu. Buffalo style wings. Sweet potato fries. Sourdough crostini with various toppings. Strawberry peach pops.

Dinner tonight. Besides that salad above.

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Chorizo. Baked on top of kale, apple, and crouton “stuffing”. Served with a sweet potato. Most of which came in this week’s and last week’s baskets.

Who needs grocery stores?

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Jam Jar Dressings

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I have posted before about making my own salad dressings, using a small jam jar to mix them up.

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This time I am experimenting with the Pequea Valley yogurts we get in our Friends and Farms basket. Last week I chose maple (partially to use with the granola I have been making). Maple yogurt makes a very flavorful dressing with mustard.

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These are the primary ingredients. Equal parts yogurt and mustard. I used 1/4 cup each. You can double or triple this recipe depending on the number of people you are serving. I got about five ounces of dressing using this recipe. Enough for at least four salads.

The original recipes I found in numerous places on the internet. They used plain yogurt with maple syrup added. I used this delicately flavored maple yogurt, with one tablespoon of pure maple syrup added.

Two tablespoons of olive oil. One Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste.

Tonight I served it over romaine, with chopped carrots, celery, scallions, radishes and shaved Parmesan.

The other half will be served with some garlic sausage tomorrow night for dinner. My husband liked the thick rich taste of it, and said it would make a great dipping sauce for sausage.

Making homemade dressing is simple. Plop it all in the jar, cover it, and shake. No preservatives. No extra sugar. You can adjust the amount of maple syrup, and use plain Greek yogurt for a thick dressing.

PS, it is also way less expensive than buying those jars of dressing in the stores.

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Meal Planning

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Something I vow to do. But, it doesn’t always get done.

This week, though, we have quite a full calendar. Lots of people coming, for work estimates, including those to clean up from the burst pipe.

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My better half has two amateur radio dinners, so I need food for my dinners at home.

A fellow blogger, part of my group that did an Eat Local challenge, had a post today that reminded me about the importance of planning ahead and using items in their prime.

Slow cooker recipes are always my favorite. Like my venison chili.

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Using my freezer items. The last of the ground venison. My roasted peppers aka the chili starter. Larriland tomatoes, that were blanched and frozen whole.

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Half the turtle beans from the Friends and Farms basket. They were soaked overnight. Drained, rinsed and cooked until almost done (making sure to boil them for ten minutes before simmering for two hours). Also adding that tablespoon of baking soda, recommended for those of us with hard water.

The other half of the beans were simmered on the stove, with half the basmati rice I made the other day in my Christmas present. My rice cooker. The half of the beef sausage not used in the frittata.

I now have three more meals from the chili I made. A meal from the black beans and rice with sausage. And, leftover lasagna. Most of those leftovers were flash frozen in order to keep them fresh. I bring them out early in the morning into the fridge. Put them in the oven on the slow cook setting, while we handle all our daily things.

Dinner is ready and waiting without time spent on our busy weekdays.

I have to say, my favorite items around here are: the crock pot, the rice cooker, and the chest freezer. It makes it easier to cook in advance, when I have spare time. During those hectic days, I have the equivalent of “TV dinners” in the freezer, that are simple to pop in the oven.

The other thing I did Saturday was cook all the potatoes, and half the eggs, for salads.

I wasn’t always this organized when I first joined a CSA in 2010. We gave away quite a few items, and some rotted before use. It has taken three years to get to this state. Where I can efficiently use CSA items and make use of those frozen goodies.

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This week, though, I need to find something more interesting to do with those lovely portobellos still in the fridge. They are really nice looking, and I am thinking about stuffing them. Or maybe a mushroom lasagna. I still have some Secolari noodles in the pantry.

Even when I plan, I get that urge to be creative. Great ingredients from our local sources make that easy, too.

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Dinner With A View

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Sunsets out here are often spectacular, and I sometimes think I should time dinner to take advantage of them.

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That was the view from our dining room, but I was still cooking dinner, instead of sitting there enjoying the view.

It is brutally cold. Soup weather. I did make chicken soup today with the remnants of a CSA chicken.

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After roasting the chicken last night, and eating the legs and thighs, we cooked down the wings and saved the breast meat to make soup. I made a very rich stock from the bones, innards and skin and put some of it back in a pot today with carrots, celery, onions and half the soup fixings from our trip to Manheim market last month.

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A little salt and pepper, some parsley. Lots of low, slow cooking and we had one awesome chicken soup. Served with some local bread picked up at Roots today.

I put away two pint jars and another cup container of stock for the freezer. I used one of the Freedom Rangers. A small heritage chicken we get in the CSA. We have enough soup left for another lunch.

Two dinners, one lunch and chicken stock for three meals. Not a bad “Return on Investment” for the chicken.

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