Tag Archives: real food

England Acres

Posted on April 5, 2013 by AnnieRie

One of my favorite farms to visit. I am going to profile local farms, why I shop at them and what they offer. I first found England Acres during a visit to South Mountain Creamery and Wegmans in Frederick. Driving home the back way I ended up going through New Market on Rt. 144 and found a sign.

I never got back to check it out until June 2012. It was love at first sight. The house is one of those very old farm places that kept expanding as the family grew, and the market was just next to it. I fell in love with the house.

Judy runs an amazing business. Partners with lots of local farms and artisans. If you want really good farm raised meat, or free range eggs, this is the place to go. How about duck eggs? They just starting selling those for a local farm. They have all sorts of sources. Cheese, yogurt, spelt flour, homemade baked goods. You name it. She works to bring it in and make it available. I love the fact that they are open year round, and that they really do support small local farms.

In February, Super Bowl weekend, I found.

Popcorn and cookies.

Salad mix and mushrooms.

The meat is amazing. Chicken soup from their chickens. Awesome.

Eggs, I can’t begin to describe. Between Breezy Willow and England Acres, the eggs from free range chickens have spoiled me, and I won’t ever have to buy grocery store eggs again.

The size of these eggs. If you love sunny side up eggs, this is the only way to go. How about a double yolk egg?

We just ordered a side of lamb from them, to be picked up in two weeks. I have to admit, their meat is by far some of the tastiest we have found. A half a lamb. 20 or so pounds, at a price that makes it so worth it. You get to customize your cuts, specify how you want it, boneless or not, and you have a ready source of food not tainted with hormones or antibiotics.

Tomorrow they are having a crafts swap at the farm. I will probably pop out there to leave my stained glass equipment and supplies for swap or barter. If I can find them tonight.

The farm does lots of fun things. Feed the chickens. Picnic on the property. Come to a corn freezing party in late summer. Local farms are the life of our area. Check them out.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Farms, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, West HoCo and tagged community, cooking, farmer's markets, farms, Food, local businesses, Locavore, real food, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The Demise of the Dark Days Challenge

Posted on April 4, 2013 by AnnieRie

And, the rise of local choices year round!

It was a great idea six years ago. To start a challenge for the dark days of winter. To try to find local ingredients to cook one meal a week for four months. Not Dabbling in Normal hosted it last year, and it is where I began my journey to look for locally sourced foods. It is what inspired me to start my local resources page, and to change what I ate, where I bought it, and how I prepared meals. It was not that difficult, thanks to all the resources here.

It seems to have outlived its usefulness, and it no longer was a challenge to cook a local meal in February. It became very easy in this area. High tunnels, greenhouses, hydroponic growing. Year round markets, indoors and outdoors. Farm stands open all winter. CSAs that deliver in the winter. Residents of Howard County are indeed lucky to live surrounded by farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs that keep us in local ingredients.

The challenge is gone, except for the few of us who still keep in touch, and blog every Sunday about our latest local meal. With me, most meals contain at least one locally sourced item. Breezy Willow CSA and Sandy Spring CSA provide me with fresh veggies and fruit for 44 weeks of the year. My freezer does duty to preserve some items so they are available in winter. The farm store at England Acres, the indoor market in Olney, and I don’t have to travel far to get what I need. For only ten weeks a year I don’t have local veggies provided to me from a CSA (yes, I can count, 44+10 equals 54 but my CSAs overlap). Look at these lovely winter selections, begging to make a chicken soup.

February Zahradka half share CSA

I think it is amazing that every year we expand the times for the Howard County markets, and add more farms. There are now five days of markets here in the county, from May until Thanksgiving.

We have at least eight CSAs dropping off boxes at pickup points, or being picked up at farms like Love Dove, Gorman, Breezy Willow, Shaw Farm and Roundabout Hills. Sandy Spring drops off in Columbia. Zahradka has at least two pick up points in the summer, and delivers to your door in the winter. One Straw Farm has been here a long time, too. People pick up at MOM’s or a private residence.

Add to that, South Mountain Creamery delivering milk, meat, eggs, other local products every week year round, to your door. And, now Friends and Farms is actively adding to the choices to find year round.

When I started all this writing, I didn’t know it would take me on a path to a new way of shopping, cooking and caring about the small local businesses here. Glad I took the challenge, and so glad I found all these wonderful people to sell me my food.

Ah yes, bison and polenta. Gunpowder Bison short ribs, Burnt Mills roasted corn meal made into polenta, one of those carrots from the above CSA delivery picture glazed with local honey, and the ribs topped with McCutcheons tomato preserves. Think eating locally is hard? Not here in HoCo, it isn’t!

hocofood@@@

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

Road Trip!

Posted on March 28, 2013 by AnnieRie

Day trips on weekdays out of season are one of the pleasures of retirement. Today we had plans to check out a fairly local “hams” set up to see options for my husband’s towers and shack. But, to appease me, we added a lunch stop and a winery visit, a new one for me to add to my Sixty@sixty list. First, lunch. At a local deli, Big Al’s Market, in St. Michael’s.

Sometimes it’s nice to be bad and eat sinfully delicious pit beef smoked that day. Right out on the sidewalk. You also know it’s good food when the sheriff’s car and a police car are there for their pick up of lunch. Fresh seafood, caught off Tilghman Island and brought in daily, sold for take home, or eat there. Beef, pork, brisket, turkey, all smoked. Oyster sandwiches. Shrimp salad. All sorts of crab accessories for sale, too.

The outside, with picnic tables. There are four tables inside too. They also said they had smoked salmon for sale. We should have brought a cooler and I would have been taking home local seafood from the market in the rear. Summertime, they do crabs daily too.

From there we wandered up Talbot St. to St. Michael’s Winery, in business since 2005, and now growing many vinifera and hybrid grapes on the Eastern shore. Nice crisp white wines. We bought a couple (OK, three) bottles. Nice selection. Cozy little tasting room. Must be crazy during high season on the shore.

I can do without the cute names, but the oaked chardonnay was a pleasant surprise. I first heard of this winery when one of my employees gave me a bottle of their chocolate zinfandel, a sweet red dessert wine good to pour over dessert cakes or ice cream. They told us they buy the zin grapes from Rhode Island.

Last stop, the ham shack up the road. My husband was suitably impressed with the towers and the shed converted to a shack.

Surrounded by pine trees and right off the creek, great location for amateur radio. All in all, a nice eight hour road trip. A couple of hours down and back and four hours to wander around and make the visit. St. Michael’s is a lovely destination convenient to us, and on the way to the ocean resorts. I see more road trips this spring and summer, and for me, those road trips will almost always include looking for local mom and pop restaurants, or markets.

What could be better if you wanted Maryland seafood and Maryland wine? If you want to try St. Michael’s wine, they regularly attend Columbia’s Wine in the Woods, coming up in May.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Day Trips, Food, Locavore, Real Food, Restaurants, Retirement, Sixty@Sixty, Wine and tagged amateur radio, day trips, Food, foodie, Locavore, real food, retirement, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Salad Bars

Posted on March 23, 2013 by AnnieRie

I remember when salad bars first became popular. For example, the amazing selection at the restaurant in the Columbia Mall Woodies. For whatever reason, I stopped going to places with salad bars. Probably because of getting Norwalk at a salad bar and buffet in Canada, ten years ago.

It doesn’t mean I stopped enjoying that mix and match of salads, but these days I can do it at home. Thanks to having a CSA, a freezer and the time to make the salads.

Today’s lunch was brought to us mainly due to the lovely greens from Breezy Willow CSA this week. Spinach and mixed greens, sitting in the fridge in their salad spinners. Mushrooms from the CSA too. And, a dozen hard boiled eggs this morning. Some for lunch today, some destined for egg salad, and a couple to grab and go before tomorrow’s hike at the Conservancy.

I hardboiled the first week’s dozen, now eighteen days old, and finally getting a little void that makes them easier to peel. We only have a dozen left now, and next week no eggs in the CSA delivery. We get them three weeks out of four.

The salads were simple. One made with a handful of greens, some Larriland blackberries defrosted from the freezer, goat cheese feta picked up at England Acres, a few Marcona almonds and a pomegranate vinaigrette. The other, spinach, eggs, mushrooms and a creamy Caesar dressing.

Lunch was finished with a tiny treat of yogurt, berries and granola. A favorite way to use frozen berries from last year’s picking. Mix with a little lemon yogurt. Berries from my freezer, granola and yogurt picked up at Breezy Willow on CSA day.

A mostly locally sourced lunch. Variety and taste. Reminiscent of salad bars, without the treated/sprayed veggies, and without all those nasty germs.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Restaurants, Winter Eat Local and tagged CSA, Food, foodie, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Early Bird CSA Week Three

Posted on March 20, 2013 by AnnieRie

Spring is here, officially, by calendar. But, it was a bit breezy up at Breezy Willow today for CSA pick up. Warmer than the first week. We were there fairly early, and needed to stop over at Rhine, across the road from the farm. I should remember not to buy ice cream if I have other errands but couldn’t resist the salted caramel.

As for our items this week, here is what we got. Lovely looking, isn’t it?

1 pound spinach
1/2 pound mushrooms
3 Valencia oranges
3 grapefruit
1/2 pound bean sprouts
1/2 pound spring mix
2 humongous carrots
1 Napa cabbage

Plus, the dozen eggs and this week we picked Old Fashioned White Loaf, from Great Harvest.

Looks to me like this week there will be spinach salad with oranges and mushrooms, maybe spinach salad with hard boiled eggs, some sort of stir fry to use some bean sprouts and Napa cabbage, maybe a slaw with the last two apples in the fridge and the Napa cabbage and carrot. Who knows? Lots of inspiration in this basket.

I finally did get the second salad spinner at Costco a while back. Comes in handy when you have two different greens to wash. It also keeps them fresher for longer.

As for using up most of last week’s veggies, tonight for dinner I baked some kielbasa from Orchard Breeze farm, picked up at Olney a while back. This is real PA style kielbo, garlicky and spicy. Served with my turnip, Brussels sprouts, white potato concoction I roasted yesterday. Not pretty, but very tasty.

After smashing the veggies, I added a little milk, two pats of butter, some nutmeg, paprika and heated it up in the oven. Not quite colcannon, but a good green and white mix. Roasted turnips have the best flavor.

hocofood@@@

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

No Room in the Fridge

Posted on March 19, 2013 by AnnieRie

Seemed to be that way today, so I had to get cooking and empty those produce containers and bins to get ready for tomorrow’s CSA pick up. We are doing fine with the fruit, the bread, almost OK with the eggs, but have too many veggies in there at the moment.

Time to cook it down to a manageable level. Soup and stews and stocks are my biggest veggie consuming recipes, so today I am working in that realm. First off, I decided to make Tuscan bean soup, and include the lacinato kale left from two weeks ago.

Start out with bacon. Boarman’s thick cut bacon. I buy it by the pound and freeze it. Take it out. Cut off the end, or two whacks. Put it in the pot with scallions and olive oil. Let it get all nice and curled up before adding some liquid. Today I am using an organic mushroom broth for the soup base. Here is what it looks like before adding the rest of the box of broth, and then adding the kale and beans.

I used two cans of beans, Great Northern and Butter beans. All the kale from the CSA. With the quart of mushroom broth, some seasonings like garlic powder, salt and cayenne flakes, that is all I put in the pot to make this soup.

The kale is still lovely, crispy, fresh and green even after two weeks. Really fresh veggies from the Breezy Willow CSA will last two weeks if you store them in a crisper, or a salad spinner. After cooking, I divided the soup into two containers. It is really thick so when I heat it up I will be adding a splash of chicken broth to thin it out.

As for the rest of the fridge, I did roast some other veggies to use in two recipes. The acorn squash, a sweet potato and two carrots to make hummus tomorrow. Plus, two turnips, two white potatoes and a handful of Brussels sprouts to use to make colcannon tomorrow night for dinner. The before and after pics will be used in tomorrow night’s post.

I got quite a bit out of the fridge today, leaving only a few turnips, carrots and potatoes around. Tomorrow the new veggies will go well with these for some interesting recipes. I will have to hard boil some eggs this week for egg salad, but the week before Easter we don’t get eggs, so I should come out OK in the egg department.

Still loving these early spring and leftover winter veggies from the CSA.

hocofood@@@

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Local Food Challenge Theme Week

Posted on March 18, 2013 by AnnieRie

I seemed to miss the memo, or left the email get too far down the list of saved. We were supposed to cook vegan in our weekly Cook Locally challenge, the one that my small group of online locavore friends agreed to take.

I cooked lots of vegan the past two weeks. We eat less meat than we used to eat, but most of the recipes weren’t completely local.

In the spirit of the challenge, here are the things I made that qualify as vegan, even though I used all sorts of ingredients in them.

Posole
Pumpkin hummus
Fennel and orange salad
Guacamole — no pictures, just a simple mix of avocado, jalapeno, onion, lime, salt and pepper

The posole, was the largest recipe. We ate that soup for at least four meals finishing up today at lunch with the last of it. I really like using the chayote.

My husband’s comment today again was how this soup had that tanginess of sauerkraut.

As for that pumpkin hummus, it has been to the potluck luncheon and has shown up at lunches this weekend. We got an acorn squash last week from the CSA, and I still have sweet potatoes, as well as a quarter jar of tahini. Maybe more hummus will be made and consumed.

We eat mostly food made from scratch these days. Lots of vegetarian, and even quite a few vegan choices. Making us feel better, and using up those lovely fresh veggies from Breezy Willow. At least a fair amount of them.

As for how well we are doing, the fruit is almost gone. Half the onions. Still have the squash, the eggs, the Brussels sprouts and the turnips. And, half the potatoes. Can’t wait to see what we get this week. The advance email just came in, and there are some really good additions that will lend themselves to some stir fries. Plus, no repeats of what we have left so meal planning can combine items from both weeks.

Wednesday will give us new inspiration for our challenge. Now, at the moment, we are officially drowning in eggs, so vegan doesn’t seem to be on the menu much in the next few weeks. I am saving some eggs to get old enough to do Easter eggs.

Oh, and I still have quite a bit of venison left to use, so giving up meat entirely isn’t something we will be doing. I just have converted to using this as my mantra.

Everything in Moderation.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, SSFC, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

“Go To” Recipes

Posted on March 14, 2013 by AnnieRie

I think we all have them. Recipes we make over and over again. Food we take to family events, pot lucks, picnics, you name it. We find our comfortable items and go with them.

I have a few of them these days. They are mostly simple, but the flavors and the freshness of the ingredients are what makes them special.

Like the pumpkin hummus and the ajvar. Two recipes I have used for months now.

I called these noshing food. Learned to make them from browsing the local blogs. I just throw them together and off I go. The pumpkin hummus keeps evolving. I find all sorts of recipes to use as I make up my own concoction.

They have not replaced my favorite spring and summer time staple. Pesto. I have made pesto using the traditional basil, plus garlic scape, and a real stretch, carrot tops, radish greens, mint, basil, parsley, pistachios, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic. Olive oil drizzled in.

Pesto on crostini is a perfect take to picnics choice.

Other favorites include mozzarella with basil and olive oil. Sliced potatoes with goat cheese. Ina Garten’s herb roasted onions. I don’t know how many family picnics where I have had requests to bring the onions.

But for me, the watermelon, feta and mint salad is the number one requested recipe of mine. Simple, flavorful, almost deceptive when you look at it. Reminds you of tomato, mozzarella and basil if you chop it right.

What are your “go to” recipes? What can you do from scratch without a cookbook? Something you have cooked for years. Seared into your brain, a signature dish.

hocofood@@@

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Dinner Out … In

Posted on March 12, 2013 by AnnieRie

And, no, I am not talking about In N Out Burger. Perish the thought. I am talking about replacing an evening out with a killer dinner at home. Better food. Less money.

We did that today.

Courtesy of Wegmans, my freezer, the Breezy Willow CSA, and my favorite Virginia winery, Linden.

It all started with a coupon for $5 from Wegmans, and a trip to Safelite because my windshield finally turned a ding into an eighteen inch long crack. A new windshield this morning and a visit to Wegmans looking for coffee.

Wegmans sells an 80 pack of this French roast for $35. Cheaper than Costco for an 80 pack. Add a $5 coupon to it, and it is a real deal for coffee snobs. A big, rich, bold coffee in environmentally friendly packaging. What’s not to love?

We had other coupons too. Yogurt, deli, sushi and cheese. I could do serious damage.

Today is Tuesday. Half price wine night at Bistro Blanc, right down the road. We considered dinner out. Until I saw the U-10 scallops in the seafood section at Wegmans. This is why I still love the place.

Buying a dinner out with scallops this huge would set you back a large amount of cash in a restaurant. Pan searing them in butter at home. A fraction of the cost. Trust me. Scallops are easy. So are fingerlings. I put the fingerlings in a pot with water for 15 minutes while looking for everything else. Finished them in that browned butter in the searing pan.

Made a salad with microgreens and the beets from the CSA. I roast the beets and use them in salads. I finished the potatoes with the last of that container of garlic scape pesto from my freezer.

Opened a bottle of chardonnay. Without the chardonnay, this dinner cost me $30 in ingredients. The scallops, $18. You could pay way more than $15 a person for much less at any chain restaurant for an entree.

Really easy here. Two pots, one for potatoes and one for scallops. Greens on the plate. Goat cheese from Cherry Glen. Kumatoes, I wanted to try. Not bad, a little mushy but a good taste. I did homemade dressing. You could buy yours.

Dinner in a half hour. Way better than Applebees, or any of those other chains. No beepers. No really overpriced beers and wines, the real cash cows at restaurants. What is stopping you from cooking great stuff at home?

Really. Don’t “Get out there”. Get in your kitchen.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Food, Real Food, Restaurants, Wine and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, Linden Vineyards, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Improv

Posted on March 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

You know what they say about the best laid plans. Sometimes you find less than perfect execution after all your planning. Today is one of those days. Thankfully after all these years of reading recipes and learning to trust my taste (plus a little help from the internet) I recovered from what could have been a cooking failure.

I signed up to take pumpkin hummus to the volunteer pot luck luncheon at the Howard County Conservancy this week. Something new I learned to make using CSA veggies. I had a butternut squash from the market two weeks ago sitting on the counter, some garlic still in the coldest area where I store root veggies, half a jar of tahini and I had just stocked up on chickpeas, as I use them in couscous salad and lots of other recipes. The squash was from the Olney market.

Should have been easy. But no, the squash was pretty hollow down the middle. Skin still looked good. It was firm, not mushy, but was obviously dried out, or somewhat hollow down the center, at least the top half of it was. It smelled OK, so I did a little triage and salvaged the parts that weren’t drying out. It only gave me half what I needed.

Enter the internet and the CSA to the rescue. I got sweet potatoes last week from my Breezy Willow CSA.

I found a recipe that called for half “pumpkin pie filling” aka butternut squash for those of us who know that fact, and half sweet potato. Thank you, small bites blog. I did not use cumin and paprika, but used garam masala in their place.

My next problem came from my garlic. Yep, the last two heads of garlic in the storage area had gone moldy. I am now officially out of all that lovely organic garlic from Love Dove and the CSA. Thankfully, I had granulated garlic powder picked up at Costco. I had to do this by taste instead of measuring and I do like garlicky hummus.

The hummus came out really creamy, tasty and it is aging in the fridge now, ready to take Thursday to the luncheon. I am hoping to get an interesting bread this week from the CSA to use for dunking the hummus. Another improv, why go get pita for dipping when you can make your own toasty dippers from thinly sliced breads, toasted.

hocofood@@@

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