apples – Sheetar.com

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 17

By Sheetar 16 October 2014 13 October 2014

I suppose it’s not even One Local Summer anymore – it’s One Local Fall! Some of my favorite foods are available in the fall. Pumpkins and squash, apples and asian pears! The day the meal was made was rainy and chilly which made for perfect baking and cooking conditions. And yes, I actually used recipes! Usually our One Local Summer meals end up on the wing-it spectrum, somewhat simple, and tend to be basic stuff that doesn’t involve a lot of thinking and prep work. Grilled cheese and soup are still pretty basic, but I needed a bread recipe and hunting around for soup ideas gave me the soup recipe.

A few weeks ago, we were in central PA and picked 160 pounds of apples at my grandparents house. We came out with 4.5 gallons of juice that’s being fermented for hard cider, but we threw in the towel with about 10 lbs of apples remaining since it was getting pretty dark and late and we were dead tired from crushing and pressing all the apples. Husband went back out to sea and I was scratching my head, trying to figure out what to do with the remaining apples. I’m not a huge fan of applesauce, but figured it was the easiest way to use them up. I cut them into chunks, steamed them in batches for 5 minutes, then ran them through the press. That press made SUCH quick work of the apples that I was done in about an hour! I added nothing to the sauce – no sugar or cinnamon or spices – and actually like it a lot as just straight up applesauce with nothing else added. Then came along the bread recipe for Applesauce bread. It’s a basic sandwich bread with the only non-local ingredient being yeast (and flour, kinda, since the one flour imports wheat from the midwest but they’re both still milled at the historic grist mill nearby). I used both blue cheese and a nice alpine style cheese to melt between the slices. The soup is made from delicata squash and leeks for the most part with water instead of broth and a little goat’s milk yogurt. Those “apple croutons” on top are slices of apple sprinkled with maple sugar and crisped up in the oven. I didn’t quite follow the recipe and decided it was easier to leave the skins on the squash and just immersion blender them to pulp which was easier than trying to take the skins off the roasted squash. Add a warm cup of hot cinnamon spice tea, and it was a great meal for a dreary day.

Ingredients:
Flour – Mill at Anselma (Whole Wheat Pastry Flour and Bread Flour)
Applesauce – grandparents house (no sugar added)
Cheese – Birchrun Hills (Blue and Equinox)
Delicata Squash – Jack’s Farm and Charlestown Farm
Butter – Spring Creek Farms
Leeks – North Star Orchard
Apples – North Star Orchard (for apple croutons)
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow
Maple Sugar – Miller’s Maple
Non Local – Olive oil, salt, pepper, sage, tea

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 16

By Sheetar 9 October 2014 30 September 2014

Oh yes, it’s crock pot season! The husband is a master of the crock pot and always manages to work up meals that blend perfectly together in that steamy cauldron of good cooking. It’s funny, crock pot meals never tend to look all that appealing, but you can be sure my mouth was watering for the last two hours of cooking because the whole house smelled amazing! Starting with a base of apple cider from our local orchard, husband added a Pork Loin Roast to the pot and topped that with cabbage, apples, onions, a little maple syrup, salt and pepper, and a little dried mustard powder. Such easy prep for such amazing results. By the end of the six hours, the pork had become incredibly tender, the cabbage simmered down, and the apple cider had infused its way into everything. Add to that a little bread (not entirely local, but from a local bakery), a chunk of cheese, and some delicious Hopped Blueberry Mead from a Meadery in New Hampshire, and we had a great fall dinner.

Ingredients:
Pork Loin Roast – Countrytime Farm
Onions – Hoagland Farms
Cabbage – Jack’s Farm
Tomme Mole Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Bread – St. Peter’s Bakery
Cider – North Star Orchard
Apples – Grandparents House (tons of apple trees!)
Mead – Sap House Meadery
Non Local – Vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard powder

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 14

By Sheetar 2 October 2014 30 September 2014

MMmmm Pork. Also, our goal meal, number 14! It doesn’t look like much on the plate, but the whole thing was a delicious summer meal, even if it’s getting to be the end of summer. Corn on the cob cooked on the grill with a Pork Butt Steak and a baked apple sprinkled with maple sugar then given a creme brulee treatment. The wine is our homemade (and all local) PA Maple Reserve – 2 gallons of PA maple syrup and three gallons of local cider. So really, aside from the spices, this one is all Pennsylvania! Husband coated the pork butt steak in a home-blended rub, then grilled it with some smoke chips on the grill along with the corn. The apple baked in the oven with some wine, and then got that sprinkle of maple sugar that he carmelized with the brulee torch. Best way to eat an apple ever? Maybe!

Ingredients:
Pork Butt Steak – Countrytime Farm
Corn – Brogue Hydroponics
Apples – North Star Orchard
Maple Sugar – Miller’s Maple
Wine – Miller’s Maple and Linvilla Orchards
Non Local – Spices, salt, pepper, olive oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 23

By Sheetar 28 October 2012 2 November 2012

It doesn’t look like much, but this has become an annual local summer favorite. It’s an easy crock pot dinner that involves very few ingredients and prep, just lots of simmer time in the crock pot. It’s a pork butt cooked with cabbage, vinegar, beer, and some apples, and comes out SO AMAZING every time. The pork is always so tender and falling apart, and the mixture of the cabbage with the other ingredients just comes out perfectly. It sort of looks like brownish slop, but I assure you, it never lasts as leftovers very long.

Pork and Cabbage:
Pork Butt – Countrytime Farm
Cabbage – Hoagland Farm
Apples – North Star Orchard
Maple Syrup – Miller’s Maple
Non Local – Vinegar, salt, pepper, spices, beer

UPDATE 2 Nov 2012 – adding the recipe since it was asked for!

Pork and Cabbage	Print

Ingredients	1 can/bottle of beer (or 12 oz white wine for gluten free)
1 pork butt (4-6 lb)	Pork rub (enough to cover the pork butt) *
1 head cabbage, shredded	1/4 cup maple syrup (grade b)
2 apples, peeled and chopped	1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

Instructions:
Rub butt down with pork rub blend – coat well; place in Crockpot on high Surround Pork with shredded cabbage and chopped apples; not all cabbage will fit Pour all liquid even over top of ingredients Cook on low for 6-8 hours; add remaining cabbage as space is available; approx once per hour baste butt with liquid in crockpot *Pork Rub used here was made with a blend of paprika, maple sugar (or brown sugar), onion powder, garlic powder, and kosher salt. McCormick’s makes a good pork rub if you don’t feel like making your own.

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 20

By Sheetar 27 September 2012 20 September 2012

I decided to go for something well outside my comfort range this week. I’m not the world’s most daring cook, and tend to stick with easy things that I know. I saw that our local poultry farmer had cornish hens, so I figured hey, wee little chicken, if anything goes wrong, I’m not ruining a whole bird. In fact, she gave me a few ideas and some tips, and it came out great. The wee little bird is stuffed with apples from our local orchard and some onion. The potatoes and acorn squash were cubed and put in tin foil on the grill, as was the hen. Everything came out great and made for a very filling meal. I just love being able to cook everything on the grill and not make a mess of the kitchen!

Cornish Game Hen, Potatoes, and Squash:
Hen – Mt View Organics
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Acorn Squash – Charlestown Farm
Apples – North Star Orchard
Onion – Jack’s Farm
Non local – spices, olive oil, pepper, salt

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 21

By Sheetar 6 October 2010 6 October 2010

The husband has returned home and planted himself in the kitchen. I can’t say I mind, when the result is an amazing crock pot meal. He took a Bison chuck roast out of the freezer and threw in all manner of vegetables and fruit that I had from the farmer’s markets and came up with something AMAZING. The bison was SO tender after cooking for five hours and the way the flavors blended together was really a work of art. I think I’m still in a food coma over this one! It was all served over some home made noodles using Whole Wheat Pastry flour and Buckwheat flour from the Mill at Anselma.

Crock Pot Bison Roast:
Bison Chuck Roast – Backyard Bison
Onion – North Star Orchard
Purple Potatoes – Unknown Vendor at Anselma
Apples – North Star Orchard
Noodles – Egg from Mt View Organics, Flour from the Mill at Anselma, Buckwheat flour from the Mill at Anselma
Peppers – My Garden
Wine – Paradocx
Beer – Homebrew Imperial Blonde
Sage – My Garden
Cilantro – My Garden
Basil – My Garden
Non-Local – Spices

recipes

Torta di Mele

By Sheetar 19 September 2009 7 February 2012

Last week, Abbie and I went to the Hopewell Furnace and found that they had a small apple orchard open for apple picking. We picked about 5lbs of apples which have been sitting on my kitchen table, waiting for inspiration. Today, inspiration struck. During my last year of college, I spent a semester abroad, in Italy, and lived with a wonderful host family. Every morning for breakfast, there would be hot espresso, warm milk, and this delicious Torta di Mele or Apple Cake. I quickly fell in love with the cake and requested that my host mother walk me through making the cake so that I could write down the recipe and bring it home with me. Her recipe uses olive oil (I’d suggest a ‘Lite’ olive oil instead of the more flavorful Extra Virgin variety) in place of butter and while we use baking powder, she used, “lievito per dolci.” There doesn’t seem to be a difference between the two and I’m not sure if the chemical composition is the same, but it rises and tastes exactly as I remember. For apples, feel free to use whichever type you like, though a tart, firm apple such as the Gala or Granny Smith seems to work best.

Torta di Mele (Apple Cake)	Print

Ingredients:
2 Eggs	300 g (2.25 cup) All-Purpose Flour
200 g (1 cup) Sugar	1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Olive Oil	4 Apples, peeled and sliced thinly
1 cup Milk	1 tbsp Confectioners Sugar (optional)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F.Break eggs into a mixing bowl and add sugar. Add oil and milk and slowly add flour. Mix together until smooth, and be careful not to over-mix. Add baking powder and mix in well. Pour mixture into an 8×10 baking pan and layer apples on top or press under batter. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle confectioner’s sugar on top while still warm. Serves up to 16.