Tag: <span>cheese</span>

Tag: cheese

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 3

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Moving right along!  I’m a little late posting this (a theme you’ll see as we get into mid and late summer and I just get too busy to blog), but it was definitely made during week 3, I swear!  Here we have my sad attempt at an omelette and roasted asparagus.  I learned that while I make tasty omelets, they’re not very pretty to behold and probably work better as open face egg creations more than properly flipped and perfect omelets.  Presentation is just not as important as the flavor, and I can assure you that this disappeared pretty quickly!  Inside the egg are scallions, spring garlic, mushrooms, goat cheese, and spinach.  On the side is sliced asparagus, roasted with some salt and olive oil, and then given a little cheesy topping for the last few minutes.  You guys, I may never eat asparagus any other way ever again.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s great grilled, but roasted?  It comes out so much more tender and crisps a little on the edges which is so wonderful.  Of course, you can never go wrong with putting cheese on top!  I plan on doing this for breakfast a few more times since I still have spinach and goat cheese, but it will probably be more of an unsightly scramble than a nicely plated creation.  Did I mention that I’m a lazy cook?  Oh, and the coffee, not local, but absolutely necessary for  survival.

Ingredients:

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 2

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Husband was home briefly over the weekend, and thankfully I had thought ahead enough to pull some pork butt steaks out of the freezer.  I suggested we go out for our 12th anniversary dinner, but the man loves to cook, and I have a policy of never saying no to his cooking (any meal I don’t have to cook is a good one!), so dinner at home it was!  The pork butt steaks were given a little time to marinate in some homemade riesling with some fresh cilantro from the patio planters.  That stuff re-seeds itself and springs back every year, so we had plenty of cilantro to work with.  The asparagus was given a rub down with olive oil, salt, and pepper and then both the butt steak and asparagus were put on the grill.  Meanwhile, back at the kitchen, I was tasked with making spätzle.  I kind of did it by guesswork – it’s a combination of flour, eggs, and water (since we had no local milk) until the batter is almost the consistency of a thick waffle batter (thicker than pancakes, thinner than cookie dough).  The spätzle was then given a toss with some spring garlic, cheese, and pepper and plated together nicely with a glass of celebratory spumante.  A really nice meal for a rainy Saturday evening!

Ingredients:

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 1

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The first of another year of One Local Summer!  I’m going back to the weekly format this time since the husband’s work schedule is all over the place for the summer and, let’s face it, if I’m only cooking for me, I may only actually cook one meal a week large enough so I have leftovers for the rest of the week.  Hi, I’m the laziest lazy cook there is.  So, a recap of One Local Summer, the challenge originated with Farm to Philly back in 2008 with Farm to Philly.  I picked up on it in 2009 (AWWW my first ever One Local Summer post!), so that makes this year my (counting on fingers) EIGHTH year of One Local Summer.  The idea is that you make one meal a week your “local” meal, using only ingredients found, farmed, or grown locally with exceptions for spices and oils.  I usually run from beginning of May through as long as I can, typically October or so.  It doesn’t have to be fancy either – sometimes it’s a huge bowl of lettuce with toppings (coughcough this week coughcough), and sometimes it’s homemade tacos from the shells to all the fixings or bacon and cheese waffles.  What constitutes local?  That’s up to you.  The idea is to reduce your food miles (the length food has to travel to get to you) which in turn reduces your carbon footprint since you’re not eating food from across the country.  It also  supports your local economy by giving your money to small producers instead of large conglomerates.  There’s  something really special about getting to know the people who grow your food since you get to put a face to the hard work that goes into growing vegetables or tending animals and ask them questions about their processes (pesticide use, butchering etc), AND you get to know that it’s all produced with love and care.  I have sworn over and over that knowing the people behind the food makes it all taste better (even if that’s probably baloney, don’t pop my bubble!)

So, that all out of the way, that photo above is my first week!  We’re still in early spring around here despite it being almost mid may, so most of what the farmers market has to offer as far as vegetables is a lot of leafy greens.  Kale and I have never really gotten along well (it tastes like angry dirt to me), but I LOVE the abundance and variety of lettuces and other greens available this time of year.  I routinely buy a big old bag of greens and make a GINORMOUS salad for dinner in a bowl that could double as a helmet.  On top of the lettuce mix are slivers of cheese, some tomato and basil pork sausage, Portobello mushrooms sautéed in butter with some spring onions, and some bok choi that I wilted over the pan with the mushrooms and onions.  The only non-local thing here is the salad dressing which was just olive oil and vinegar.  I think I did pretty well this week, getting back into the One Local Summer routine, and I’m already dreaming up ideas for next week!

Ingredients:

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 22

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Husband is at it again for this installment of One Local Summer.  It was more like a One Local Fall sort of day – gloomy and rainy – so soup it is!  The soup is a chunky potato leek soup since we happened to have all those things on hand and husband is truly the soup master.  He somehow manages to make everything work well together in one pot whereas I tend to make disasters that skirt the line  between edible and fodder for the garbage disposal.  We used up the last of the pretzel rolls from the freezer and paired the roll with some mustard seed gouda made from local milk.  Top the whole meal off with a glass of cool cider and we have a filling and warm dinner for an icky day.  This may be the last of the meals for 2015 seeing as there was a vacation happening during the time the last three OLS posts went up, but fear not, we’ll be back next year!

Ingredients:
Flour Mill at Anselma
Egg Deep Roots Valley Farm
Butter Spring Creek Farms
Honey Baues Busy Bees
Cider –  North Star Orchard
Leeks –  North Star Orchard
Onions – Clover Hill Farm
Potatoes –  North Star Orchard
Garlic –  North Star Orchard
Cilantro – My garden
Milk –  Birchrun Hills  for homemade cheese
Whey – frozen from cheesemaking using  Birchrun Hills  milk
Non Local – mustard seeds, salt, pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 18b

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The husband isn’t terribly fond of mushrooms, so what do I do when he’s gone?  Put mushrooms in ALL THE THINGS!  There are only a few foods that he’s not particularly fond of including mushrooms and fennel most notably, which happen to be two of my favorite things.  If fennel happened to be in season, it would be in this meal, but I had to settle for making a galette with mushrooms, onions, chorizo, and blue cheese.  I added a half an asian pear to the side, a salad with blue cheese dressing, and a glass of homemade cider.  We actually pressed and brewed that cider ourselves using apples from the house where my grandparents lived.  We have no idea what variety the apples were, but the trees gave up an incredible harvest last year and made for a tart, dry cider that’s exactly how I enjoy them most.  For the galette crust, I used a recipe from here that uses yogurt, substituting honey for the sugar.  I also added a tablespoon of lard instead of milk to help lighten the crust since goat’s milk yogurt is rather low in fat in comparison to a cow’s milk version.  It came out not quite flaky enough, which means more lard next time!  All in all though, the spice from the chorizo, paired with the onions and mushrooms came out incredible and I’m super happy with this one!

Ingredients:
Mushrooms  Oley Valley Mushrooms
Cheese  Birchrun Hills, Smoked Blue Cheese
Dressing –  Birchrun Hills
Onions –  Jack’s Farm
Tomatoes Full Circle CSA
Lettuce –  North Star Orchard  and  Charlestown Farm
Cucumbers – Our Garden
Asian Pear –  North Star Orchard
Chorizo –  Countrytime Farm
Lard –  M&M Creek Valley Farm
Goat’s Milk Yogurt –  Shellbark Hollow
Flour –  Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Honey –  M&M Creek Valley Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 18a

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Yep, still playing catch-up on posts, but I’m almost caught up.  This is the last meal husband made before heading out to work.  It’s basically veal parmigiana with squash, a salad, and a bowl of peaches and raspberries.  The veal was breaded with flour and a little cornmeal, double dipped in buttermilk, and fried up in a cast iron skillet with lard.  The sauce we had made from local tomatoes in a large batch and had plenty left around for this dinner.  We added sliced squash to the sauce to cook up as a side to the veal, and finished off the whole thing with a glass of Pinot Noir.  A pretty substantial meal for a One Local Summer dinner, and every bit of it delicious.

Ingredients:
Veal –  Birchrun Hills
Blue Cheese Dressing –  Birchrun Hills
Cheese –  Birchrun Hills, Equinox
Tomatoes – Clover Hill Farm
Buttermilk Maplehofe Dairy
Lettuce –  Charlestown Farm
Raspberries – Our Garden
Peaches – Our Tree and  North Star Orchard
Wine – Sandcastle Winery
Squash –  Jack’s Farm
Flour  Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Cornmeal –  Mill at Anslema
Lard –  M&M Creek Valley Farm
Non Local – Salt, pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 17a

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We got ahead of ourselves this week and had two local meals which is of course, never a problem.  Two years ago, I had made something very similar to this when I was home alone, which is why when husband suggested it as something new, I said OH that old thing, been there, done that, completely forgetting that he hadn’t!  So, here we have Philly Cheesesteak stuffed peppers which turned out great.  On the side are french fries with homemade fruit ketchup using peaches from our tree.  Next is a salad with blue cheese dressing and bacon.  Finally, to round out the dinner, Blackberry  wine.  The whole thing was delicious and disappeared quickly!  It made for great leftovers too, the mark of a really excellent dinner.

Ingredients:
Peppers – Charlestown Farm
Mushrooms –  Oley Valley Mushrooms
Onions –  Charlestown Farm
Blue cheese dressing – Birchrun Hills
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Lettuce – Charlestown Farm
Tomatoes –  Full Circle CSA in salad, Clover Hill Farm in fruit ketchup
Chip Steak – Backyard Bison
Cheese – Yellow Springs Farm, Goatzerella
Potatoes – Our garden and Charlestown Farm
Non Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil, spices

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 15

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Another backlog entry – this was photographed August 5th, almost a month ago!  Bad Blogger!  Catching up though, slowly but surely, even if some of the details of these catch-up posts have gone missing from my brain.  Perfect to follow the breakfast crepes tacos are actual tacos with home-made flour tortillas.  Clearly I need a little more experience making flour tortillas before I’d do this for a meal made for anyone else other than me and the husband – most of them came out oddly misshapen, sticky, and weird, but, they fit the bill regardless of appearance.  On the side are a summer favorite, corn fritters, and to top everything off, yet another cucumber and tomato salad.  There’s a glass of wine there too, but neither of us can remember which wine it is and I neglected to get a photo that included the bottle (oops).  Thinking back, it may actually be a glass of our homemade cider using apples from my grandparents’ house out in central Pennsylvania.  Regardless, the whole lot disappeared quickly and was delicious.

Ingredients:
Flour Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Cheese  Birchrun Hills, Equinox
Ground Pork –  Countrytime Farm
Jalapenos –  Charlestown Farm
Onions – Clover Hill Farm
Corn – Clover Hill Farm
Cucumber Full Circle CSA
Tomatoes Full Circle CSA
Eggs M&M Creek Valley Farm
Non Local – Taco seasoning, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar