Tag: <span>beets</span>

Tag: beets

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 11b

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Another catch-up post, and I’m a week behind on posts!  Getting caught up (again) though – it’s crazy how summer can just fly by like this.  Husband is away and I decided to try out a few new things.  I know he’s not a big fan of fennel or farro (really, wheat berries in this case), so I decided to go crazy and combine the two!  I found this recipe (Roasted Fennel  & Farro Salad) and went for it.  The wheat berries came from North Star Orchard and we’ve had them hanging around in the freezer for a while.  They do take a while to cook, but the results are absolutely worth it.  Combined with the fennel and peppers, it made for a dish that was great warm or cold.  The simple cucumber and tomato salad was a recurring theme for the rest of the week too.  Drizzled with a little balsamic vinegar, it made for a great afternoon snack, and there’s just something about fresh tomatoes and cucumbers.  The cucumber is an Armenian cucumber and something I’ve never had before.  It has a soft fuzz on the outside that I scrubbed off with a vegetable scrubber brush, and I found it a little more crisp and less acidic than a regular cucumber.

Also on the plate are peaches with blue cheese, another summer favorite, and beet chips which didn’t come out all that well.  My slices weren’t uniform, so they were too crisp on one half and just barely baked on the other.  That didn’t stop me from eating the whole beet though, and I really like how they taste when roasted.  One final piece of the plate was another new recipe I tried called  gougères – it’s a fancy french savory puff pastry made mostly with flour, butter, eggs, and cheese.  The recipe was part of the Birchrun Hills Kickstarter campaign rewards and I was really psyched to try something new.  It was easier than I thought and I sort of felt like a super hero having produced results that tasty and perfect on the first try!

Altogether a delightful dinner and really rather filling!

Ingredients:
Peaches – North Star Orchard
Cheese – Birchrun Hills, Blue and Equinox
Beets – Jack’s Farm
Wheat Berries – North Star Orchard
Fennel – Jack’s Farm
Eggs –  Canter Hill Farm
Peppers – Clover Hill Farm
Cucumber – Full Circle CSA
Tomatoes – Full Circle CSA
Butter – Handmade by Abby
Honey – Baues’ Busy Bees
Flour – Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Non Local – Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 3

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Another salad, I know, but the greens, they call to me! Also, we still don’t have much else available in terms of vegetables. At least this one is a little more creative?  I added a whole bunch of toppings to this one including some amazing bison chorizo.  Our local bison farmer (rancher?) is super nice, and I enjoy cooking with bison over beef any day of the week.  I’ll admit that my diet is skewed about 80% towards vegetables with about 20% meat in there, so while I’m not all vegetarian, I certainly appreciate vegetables in my dish.  So, this salad is a mix of three types of greens (romaine, mesclun, beet greens), roasted beets, chevre, grilled turnips, and that yummy chorizo.  I decided to pour myself a glass of homebrewed hard cider since it’s been a little warm this week, and since I cooked everything out on the grill and the evening was starting to cool off.. well it felt right.  The beets were put in an aluminum foil package with some olive oil on the grill first.  Then the turnips with some olive oil and salt in a slotted grill pan, and then finally the chorizo.  The rest is fresh, so it was easy to put together.

Chorizo Salad:
Romaine – Charlestown Farm
Mesclun – My Garden
Turnips – Jack’s Farm
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow
Beets & Greens – Charlestown Farm
Bison Chorizo – Backyard Bison
Non Local – dressing, olive oil, salt

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 1

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Seeing as our local farmer’s market kicked off its first regular market of the season, I figured I’d start One Local Summer back up again.  I seriously contemplated whether or not to do this again.  This year would be my fourth year of a summer’s worth of making one meal a week using only local ingredients.  To be honest, I’m lacking motivation this year, and have gotten pretty busy with a bunch of other things.  But, reason won out, and said hey, this is good for your health, it doesn’t have to be complicated, so cook something local once a week, no big deal.  This year may be a little less inspired than other years, but I’m still doing this.  ON TO THE FOOD!

This is pretty basic.  It’s still early in the vegetable growing season, so my veggie options are limited.  Our opening farmer’s market with the Phoenixville Farmer’s Market was a honey bee festival, so I included that here.  Going around the plate clockwise, we have chicken marinated in honey and olive oil, then crispy beet greens from the grill, crimini mushrooms, and wilted beet greens with wee little baby beets on the end.  When they ‘thin the herd’ so to speak, to prevent overcrowding with the beets, the greens and baby beets are perfect for eating.  The whole thing is edible – the greens are sort of spinachy and the teeny beets on the end grill up in short order and are perfectly tender.  The wilted beet greens were done up in foil with a little olive oil and salt and set on the grill.  EVERYTHING on that plate was cooked on the grill!  Easy peasy.  Here’s the rundown on ingredients.

Chicken and Beet Greens with mushrooms:
Chicken – Mt View Organics
Honey – Baues’ Busy Bees
Beets and Beet Greens – Charlestown Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Non Local – Salt, Olive Oil, homebrew beer (Saison)

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 23

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We had to quick throw together a meal before another trip (short one to Fort Lauderdale, FL for husband’s work), so I found all the vegetables in the fridge, and threw in a whole bunch of stuff.  Beets, goat cheese, onions, bison bacon, and fennel all went inside the easy crust (2 cup flour, 2/3 cup yogurt) and VOILA!  Dinner.  There are still leftovers in the fridge, and I love how the beets turned everything insdie a pretty shade of red.

Bacon and Beet Galette:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Beets – Jack’s Farm
Onion – Hoagland Farm
Fennel – Charlestown Cooperative Farm  
Bison Bacon – Backyard Bison
Non Local – Olive Oil, salt

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 15

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I managed to miss the farmers markets this week, but I did make it to Kimberton Whole Foods to grab a few things. It’s SO nice to have them nearby since they sell some of my local favorites and a bunch of local produce. I saw golden beets and just had to figure out something to make with them.  I settled upon a modified beet and goat cheese galette.  The crust is 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour and 2/3 cup goat’s milk yogurt.  That’s it!  Then inside are some beets, dehydrated tomatoes, red onion, zucchini and chevre.  I did this one open in a pie plate, but used the other half of the dough to make a classic galette.  All the vegetables have to be cooked before going into the dough, and then cooked together at 400F for about 30 minutes.  It’s really pretty simple – while the dough is chilling in the fridge, the vegetables are being cooked, and then it’s time to roll the dough and throw the whole shebang in the oven.  It turned out DELICIOUS and the beets cooked up perfectly.

Beet & Goat Cheese Galette:
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Golden Beets – Lancaster Farm Fresh
Red Onion – Lancaster Farm Fresh
Tomatoes – My Garden
Zucchini – My Garden
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Non local – coconut oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 12

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This week’s inspiration came in the form of beets.  I’d seen a few recipes around the interwebs about how to make beet pasta.  Having found beets at the farmer’s market the other week, I decided to give it a go.  The recipe is below, but the basics are to roast the beets, make a puree, and then make pasta as usual, but use 1/4th cup beet puree instead of an egg or water.  Perfect!  The color came out so vibrant, but leeched a little into the water while boiling, so the finished cooked pasta was light pink instead of deep purple.  Still incredibly beautiful and different.  We decided to go with a cheese/alfredo type sauce to top it off (marinara sauce just didn’t seem right), and add some turkey and grilled zucchini to finish off the red, white, and green theme for this plate.  Turned out amazing, and the sauce, while calorie packed full of fancy cheeses, was DELICIOUS.  Just a spoon full is enough!

Beet Pasta with Cheese Sauce, Turkey, and Zucchini:
Turkey Breast – Mountain View Organics
Zucchini – Back Yard Garden
Beets – Charlestown Farm
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Onions – Charlestown Farm
Garlic – Charlestown Farm
Equinox Cheese  – Birchrun Hills Farm
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Goat Cheese (Oregano & Paprika) – Yellow Springs Farm
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Wine – Chaddsford Winery (Pierreno Grigio)
Non Local  – Olive Oil, Pepper

 

Beet Pasta Print Print
Ingredients
3 average-sized beets
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
Instructions:
  • Preheat oven to 350F.  Wash beets and remove greens.  Wrap in aluminum foil with 1 tbsp olive oil drizzled on top.  Bake for 30-45 minutes or until tender.  Allow to cool and remove skins.  Process into about 1/2 cup puree.
  • Put 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour into bowl, making a well in the middle.
  • Add in 1/4 cup beet puree and 1 tbsp olive oil.
  • Mix together with your hands and kneed until dough is firm and not sticky.  Add water or flour if dough is too dry or wet.
  • Either roll through a Kitchen Aid Pasta roller/cutter or by hand with a rolling pin and knife.
  • Hang pasta and allow to dry or boil right away and enjoy!