Tag Archives: West HoCo

From Farm to Freezer – Larriland

Posted on April 6, 2013 by AnnieRie

I don’t remember when I first heard about Larriland Farms, in Lisbon. They have been there for 50 years, ever since they sold their Guilford farm which became part of Columbia. They started the pick your own farm ten years later in 1973. We rarely got out there, until we moved here to west Howard County.

Now, they are just up the road.

I was there for opening day of strawberry season in 2012. School was out that day and lots of families with their children were having fun picking strawberries.

This was the year we picked strawberries and blackberries, and visited a few times to pick up goodies in their farm store. You don’t have to do all the work, you can just stop in and buy already picked delicacies. I picked almost 10 pounds of strawberries. You get the price break at twenty pounds.

If you don’t have a garden and want to freeze veggies or fruits, this is the place to go. The Moore family runs the farm. It is so organized, and the fruit is amazing quality. Plus, they encourage noshing while you pick. This is close to ten pounds of strawberries.

What did I do with them? Besides the fresh salad that day for lunch?

Whole strawberries, strawberry puree frozen. I put the puree in wine, or club soda, or sangria. The jars I use to make berry vinaigrette. The frozen whole berries I drop in smoothies or juices. Same with the blackberries. This year, though, with my smaller garden I am looking to pick veggies. Can’t think of a better place to spend a few hours. I have begun monitoring their website to see when the 2013 season will start.

Follow their site, or sign up for email newsletters. Anyway you look at it, these lovely fruits could be in your freezer.

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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.

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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!

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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.

Colcannon on CSA Day

Posted on April 3, 2013 by AnnieRie

It’s week five of our Breezy Willow CSA. Mostly spring veggies with a little fruit and citrus. I did need to use up older stuff so colcannon came to mind.

I’ll add my recipe at the end of the post, but let’s start with what we got today.

Six juice oranges
Four Fuji apples
One pound sugar snap peas
Half pound white mushrooms
Two pounds onions
Three pound sweet potatoes
Half pound salad mix
One pound spinach
One dozen eggs
Sesame Seed Bread

This value added CSA brings us local veggies and fruit, along with not quite local but still not across the southern hemisphere when it comes to sourcing the items. I can handle that. It is all so fresh. It lasts all week and then some.

After picking up our veggies and checking out the alpacas, we headed off to Marriottsville. My husband does think the alpacas are amazing.

They are cute, aren’t they? So, we went off to the new Harris Teeter, that opened last night. The one in the west edge of Turf Valley. I used to go to Maple Lawn after picking up my summer CSA in Columbia, so this is a welcome addition to west county.

I wanted some seafood to pair with our latest veggies. And, to use up those older ones. The sockeye salmon on the plate above was picked up today. I also had considered getting some spring rolls but the sushi counter isn’t open yet. They were making balloon animals for the little ones, and doing a brisk business in VIC card sign ups. Even at 3 pm, it was crowded. Lots of checkouts open, though. No wait. I picked up seafood, olives, a red onion and fennel bulb to use with those gorgeous oranges for a salad.

They are 7 miles from us. Giant is 5.5 the other way. Looks like this Harris Teeter will be my local store for staples, seafood and those items I need to round out real food recipes with my CSA foods. Convenient, too. Double that trip. Conservancy and HT. Or, landfill and HT. Or, Woodstock snowball stand and HT. I can see the possibilities.

As for the colcannon recipe. I had two ounces of spinach left from last week. Six Brussels sprouts. Two parsnips. I also had six tiny new potatoes bought at England Acres. Potatoes and parsnips parboiled until tender.

Pan started with butter, olive oil and onion. Shredded sprouts and spinach added. Garlic, three cloves grated over them. A pinch of salt. Let it all cook down. Add the potatoes and parsnips. Mash them and add another pinch of salt and of pepper. And a splash of milk.

With dinner, we opened a bottle of Rappahannock Meritage. Old red wine goes well with salmon. It does have that characteristic cab franc nose from VA, but still a lovely bottle.

Mostly local for the veggies. Local wine. Great CSA. A good Wednesday night.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, West HoCo, Wine and tagged CSA, Food, foodie, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Venison Chili with Virginia Wine

Posted on March 24, 2013 by AnnieRie

Wine with chili. Only a real win if the chili is subtle, smoky, with cinnamon undertones. Not the “In Your Face” heat. Sunday is the day the Eat Local All Winter group posts what we made using locally sourced items. After a wonderful day hiking and discovering new things at the Conservancy with Tom Wessels, it was nice to come home to a warming meal, chili.

Did you know we have young American chestnut trees surviving the blight, although they are fighting it, on the property in Woodstock? We found many interesting items today, and have the opportunity to learn more from the books about reading the forested landscape.

I will save more details about what we learned for a future post, and get back to the other topic, What was dinner? The vast majority of the chili came from our freezer. It included a large container of heirloom tomatoes from my garden, onions and peppers from the CSA, and a beef stew stock made last fall. All dumped in the crock pot with a pound of the ground venison. Additional tomato paste, black beans and tomato/lime/cilantro mix (courtesy of Rotel) came from the pantry and weren’t local. Also, a couple of onions from last week’s CSA delivery, chopped up. The spices were cinnamon, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. A splash of Pennsylvania maple syrup, and a chopped up jalapeno out of the freezer, another CSA contribution. Slow cooked for ten hours in the crock pot. It looked like this when done.

Served on the side were Trickling Springs butter and that old fashioned white bread from Great Harvest.

Since it didn’t overwhelm with heat, and had lovely flavor, I decided to open a VA wine. An old one. Predominantly petit verdot. A grape used sparingly in France in Bordeaux, but one which does well in the long growing season in VA.

Yes, the year is 2001, a very good year for VA wines. This blend is vastly different than the other three blends Linden produced in 2001. With all of them in the cellar, we get to sample the differences. This wine has softened over the years, but is still lovely. Supposed to be past its prime, but we don’t think so. Cherry and tobacco in the taste. Very easy to drink. Not brown around the edges either. We do need to drink the rest of these though, as they won’t hold many more years.

Later tonight, a bit of maple flavored yogurt from Pequea Valley Farm in PA, mixed with some blueberries from Butler Orchards, out of the freezer. Lots of berries left, and the yogurt is one I have talked about many times, available at Breezy Willow or at England Acres.

I have to admit again, eating locally in the winter is not difficult around here.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Nature, Real Food, Volunteering, West HoCo, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, Howard County, howard county conservancy, Linden Vineyards, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Finishing the Spring Clean Up …

Posted on March 17, 2013 by AnnieRie

… before the snow comes tomorrow. Or the slush, or whatever it is.

Twenty five cubic yards of mulch. A whole truck load. But, the place looks great again.

From a stormwater management standpoint we added river rock to prevent erosion on the side of the shed.

And we buried the downspouts to direct the water towards my evergreens and the pin oak.

They even cleaned out my garden for me. In the next two weeks we will be tilling the soil and I can start transplanting greens.

The greens will be split between the garden and the planters. I was out there looking today. The chives are coming back. The mint is peeking through and the garlic is fine.

The flowers have started blooming. I believe these are hellebores. We have two plants, different colors that bloom early in the spring.

The daffodils aren’t far behind. Spring is definitely getting here. Just have to make it through these last few cold slushy days.

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Posted in Gardening, Nature, Weather, West HoCo and tagged gardening, nature, spring flowers, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Spring Clean Up

Posted on March 16, 2013 by AnnieRie

Last year was the first year we didn’t do it all ourselves. Mainly because of my surgery. This year, though, no excuses. It is wonderful to have the yard cleaned up, edged and mulched without killing ourselves in the process. Again, we chose a local family owned West County business, Rhine, to come out for two days and ready the property for spring.

Yes, they filled the truck with old mulch, top soil and clipped materials before they finished today. Included this year was the burying of our downspouts that would direct water to areas we wanted to irrigate. Like the area around some young evergreens and a pin oak.

The trenching was done today. Tomorrow they bury all the pipe and clean it up. They also extended all our drip lines on our trees, created a new transition area, created a drainage area by the shed, and lots more, including pruning of huge shrubs.

What you can see here is my new transition from the deck and new edging. You can also see, if you look carefully, that they were very careful in not disturbing the dozen garlic plants I put in last October. They, along with the dozen in the pots on the stairs, will provide me with ample garlic scapes for pesto, as well as two dozen heads of garlic to cure.

Tomorrow, they will mulch, finish the drainage out front and around the shed, and clean out my garden. Two days to do what used to take us weeks, including trips to buy mulch, haul it and drag it all over the yard.

When you are in your sixties, it is good to have people half your age doing heavy lifting, at least my back thanks me for not stressing it.

The finished pics and results will go up tomorrow night. Now, for a related subject, the indoor seed starting has produced some great greens so far, and I just planted Thelma Sanders squash seeds, dried and saved after I received this heirloom winter squash from last year’s CSA.

The squash seeds were planted in the seed starting boxes. The greens have been in a few weeks. Waiting to take them outside soon. Here is the squash from last year’s haul. It is a cooking squash, somewhat reminiscent of a pumpkin. Great for my hummus recipe, and for “pumpkin” pie. Saving heirloom seeds is a first for me. I dried and stored these seeds. Hopefully, this is a successful way to carry my garden to a new level.

Besides these heirlooms, the garlic in the pots and the yard all are heirlooms from my CSA last year. I saved four heads of red and of white garlic to plant for my second foray into garlic growing. Last year I was too late planting and only harvested spring garlic, not mature heads of garlic.

Here’s to lots of homemade pestos and hummus, and of course, my tomatoes and cucumbers, plans for the summer garden. Don’t you just love springtime?

hocoblogs@@@

Early Bird Spring CSA Week Two

Posted on March 13, 2013 by AnnieRie

While all the guys were raising a tower, I headed out to Breezy Willow to get our second CSA delivery. Cold day, after starting out warm. No real lines this week. People are settling into the rhythm.

What did we get?

Five oranges
Five tangerines
Four red delicious apples
Four Jonah Gold apples
Brussels sprouts
White potatoes
Lots of onions
Acorn squash
Turnips

The dozen eggs, and this week I picked a Toasted Sesame Seed whole wheat sandwich bread from Great Harvest.

Great looking stuff. Already into the oranges and an apple.

We did pretty well last week using up most of what we got. I still have the kale from last week, and most of the carrots. This week we are home quite a bit and the only thing I haven’t figured out how to cook, i.e., what recipe to use, are the turnips.

As for extras I bought this week, I had to have some of the lemon yogurt from Pequea Valley Farms. Plus, love these egg noodles with chicken and in my soups. A closeup of the bread with the yogurt and noodles. This bread will be perfect for toast and for egg salad sandwiches. I saved last week’s eggs so they could age a bit for hard boiled eggs.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, West HoCo and tagged CSA, Food, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The Hexbeam is Up

Posted on March 13, 2013 by AnnieRie

Long live the hexbeam.

The first tower, although it is the crank up one, not the 90 foot permanent one going in the meadow, is up and running. Lots of work for about three hours as one of the tubes ended up being misaligned and the tower leaned. Kind of like the leaning tower of Pisa. Back down and a replacement section later, it was up and operating at 48′ above the ground.

It was so worth it for him, when he worked a country and got a report of “you are 59 plus 10”. In other words, a booming signal. Amazing what directionality and a good location can do. The wires will be coming down for all but a few frequency bands. This beam handles 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 meters. All we need is the monster wire all the way down the property line out front for the 80 meter band, and the 30 and 40 meter wires in the back yard. Soon, a second crank up will handle those two. This summer the rest hopefully will get done.

It was a windy cold day. It even had snow flurries while we were out there. Wind gusts made putting the beam on the top of the rotor pretty exciting. Then a matter of cranking and adjusting guy wires.

The Glenwood DX chapter did a great job. My husband owes them lunch at the next meeting at the Lisbon Town Grill. Living out here in west county are lots of “hams”. Amateur radio operators who came out here for the space and the lack of covenants. All the guys out here today have towers and live less than five miles from us. They help each other with tower projects.

And now you know the answer to the question, How many hams does it take to put up a rocket launcher? Five. Thanks, guys. My OM is happily working rare DXpeditions as I type. Spratly Islands anyone?

One more picture. The difference between the altitude of the wire antennae and the new tower.

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Posted in Hobbies, Retirement, West HoCo and tagged amateur radio, hobbies, Howard County, retirement, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Early Bird CSA Week One

Posted on March 7, 2013 by AnnieRie

Our first trip out to Breezy Willow for the spring CSA pick up. Definitely different than our other two forays into CSAs. Last year the winter one delivered to your house and you picked what you wanted online. We took a break from winter CSA this year.

Our summer one is the box type. What’s in the box is what you get. This is the first one where you go inside and pick your veggies and count out or weigh them. It also includes value added items like Florida citrus, bread and eggs. A nice haul. Mostly organic, except for the fruit from Florida, I think. I did forget to ask about the farm practices for the grapefruit and oranges.

Here is what we got.

Four ruby red grapefruit, five oranges, four york apples and four red delicious apples, eight carrots, three pounds of sweet potatoes, one pound of beets, 1/2 pound button mushrooms, one pound of Tuscan kale. We chose a cinnamon raisin bread, and we got our first dozen eggs.

Those breads are very large. This could become interesting, depending on what is there. I may be freezing bread to use later in the summer. I do know French toast will be on the menu because the bread tastes wonderful. Give it a few days as older bread makes good French toast. I am making a dish using the kale, a new one for me (the dish, not the kale). I need to find a few more ingredients before I decide if I make it.

I may try grapefruit granita, since there may be a number of weeks with grapefruit, and we aren’t huge citrus for breakfast people.

The other thing I picked up today was a bag of Michele’s granola. I heard about it, but never tried it. We had it for dessert tonight with some of the blueberry yogurt left from my last visit to England Acres. I see Breezy Willow also carries it. This yogurt is really rich. The granola is great.

This CSA costs $38.50 a week. The free range eggs would be $4.50 to buy. Great Harvest breads $5 or $6 each. Grapefruit, $1.75 each in the store the other day. Oranges $1 each. $21.50 before counting the veggies and apples. Getting these really fresh organic veggies, fruit, eggs and bread is a bargain.

A good base for a week’s cooking. Lots of people there today when they opened. I need to time it so we aren’t there in the first rush. It did get to be a little crazy trying to maneuver the driveway with over a dozen cars coming and going. Nice to see that they are successful. Convenient, too. A good beginning.

hocofood@@@

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