Tag: <span>cheese</span>

Tag: cheese

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 3

 , , , , ,

DSC_7360

Another relatively simple plate  for this week, but simple can still be delicious!  Husband is home again and took over both the shopping and cooking this week (HOORAY!).  On the plate, we have a basic salad with red wine, vinegar, and oil dressing, steamed pea shoots, a grilled pork loin marinated in red wine and vinegar and rubbed with salt and pepper, and then cheese, paired with a glass of Barn Red from Paradocx Vineyard.  The husband  has taken to making his own cheese and this is his first gouda.  I WHOLLY approve of this pursuit and its results which were incredibly perfect.  The milk for the cheese even came from a local dairy farm, so it counts!

Ingredients:
Lettuce – Jack’s Farm
Cheese – homemade with milk from Birchrun Hills
Pork Loin – Countrytime Farm
Pea Shoots – Jack’s Farm
Wine – Barn Red from Paradocx
Non Local – Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, homemade vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 2

 , , , , , , ,

DSC_7145
After last week, I knew that I’d be going with asparagus again.  Not wanting to just grill it again, I found a recipe for bacon-wrapped asparagus.  Well, bacon-wrapped anything is delicious, so this seemed like a fantastic plan.  The result is that the plate looks a lot like the one from last week with a few changes.  What can I say, when something works, it works!  Another salad (MMM GREEENNNSS, said like a vegetarian zombie), grilled mushrooms, that bacon-wrapped asparagus, and a chunk of bison sausage.  Finished off with a cool glass of water to end a yucky hot and humid day, and it was a great, easy, meal all cooked on the grill.

Ingredients:
Mixed Greens – Charlestown Farm
Red Leaf Lettuce – Charlestown Farm
Pea Shoots – Jack’s Farm
Bison Country Sausage – Backyard Bison
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Asparagus –  Hill Creek Farm
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills (honey and sea salt cheese spread)
Non Local – Olive Oil, dressing

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 22

 , , , , , ,

DSC_1298

TWENTY TWO!  Yeah, that’s a lot of orange on that plate (Heyooo Dutch reference again), but it’s delicious orange!  The plate contains a pork butt steak with steamed carrots, mashed sweet potatoes, and a chunk of delicious Fat Cat Cheese.  Mmmm root vegetables and meat, all washed down with a glass of sweet apple cider.  Husband braved the chill outside to cook the pork on the grill after it was rubbed with a sweet and spicy  rub  which, while the rub isn’t made from locally sourced ingredients, it is blended by a local woman, so I’ll count it as a partial win.  This is probably one of our favorite cuts of pork because it’s easier to grill up and still keep it tender and juicy.  Pork goes from edible to rubber quickly if you’re not careful with the temperature, but the butt steaks seem more forgiving.  It was devoured quickly, but there was enough steak and vegetables for some leftovers.

Just a quick note too, the cheese maker, Birchrun Hills, has started a Kickstarter to help them “Raise a Cave” at their farm.  They’re currently renting space at another facility to make their cheeses which isn’t incredibly cost or time effective.  We love these folks SO much and enjoy supporting local agriculture, and hope you might consider sending a few dollars their way!  It’s always great to see Sue at our local farmers market, and we’d love to see this succeed.  Also, if you haven’t yet been able to find their Smoked Blue Cheese, you aren’t really living.  Honest.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/993112740/birchrun-hills-farm-raise-a-cheese-cave

Ingredients:
Sweet Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Carronts – North Star Orchard
Apple Cider – North Star Orchard
Pork Butt Steak – Countrytime Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Milk – Camphill Kimberton
Non Local – Salt, Pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 17

 , , , , , , , , ,

DSC_0806

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

 , , , , , , , ,

DSC_0792
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 15

 , , , , , ,

DSC_0723
And now we’re surpassing the goal of 14 with ease!  I think this is the best attempt at cooking Bison Ribs the husband has ever had.  They’re a little tricky being much lower in fat and need to be cooked low and slow.  The ribs were back ribs and were put in the smoker with apple wood, cooked for about 4 hours resulting in DELICIOUS ribs.  On the side we have those popular corn fritters, a grilled peach with melted blue cheese, and a bowl in the back with tomatoes from the garden, a sprig of basil, and some local cheese.  The wine is a homemade mead made partially with cherries I picked in Maryland and was a great match to the rest of dinner.

Ingredients:
Bison Ribs – Backyard Bison
Corn – Brogue Hydroponics
Peaches – North Star Orchard
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Peppers – Neighbor’s garden (we share!)
Blue Cheese and Equinox Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Tomatoes – Our Garden
Basil – Our Garden
Non Local – Wine, spices, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 Meal 7

 , , , , , , , , , , ,

DSC_0442

Okay, so this one was OUT OF THE BALLPARK good.  I know I say that often when I talk about One Local Summer meals, but seriously.  I’m not sure there is too much that will top this.  We finally found a local source for butter and husband immediately remembered that the only thing holding us back from making these pretzel rolls was the butter.  BINGO!  Thus, dinner was Pretzel roll burgers with watermelon, grilled peaches with blue cheese, and a wonderfully delicious salad.  Even though there are some non-local ingredients in the rolls (baking soda, yeast, oil), they’re still really minimal in comparison to the whole of the meal, and we were even able to substitute the required sugar with honey.  Our rolls came out a little flatter than the recipe’s photos, and I had a feeling we should’ve used more flour (the dough seemed a little too squishy), but for a first time, they’re still 100% edible and delicious.  I was really glad we had leftovers of this meal so I could enjoy it a few more days, and we even have four more rolls tucked away in the freezer.  Definitely expect to see more pretzel rolls in our One Local Future!

Ingredients:
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Watermelon – Hoagland Farm
Peaches – Hoagland Farm
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Egg – Deep Roots Valley Farm
Veal & Pork Patty – Countrytime Farm
Lettuce – North Star Orchard
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Tomatoes –  Brogue Hydroponics
Cheese – Lambsquarters from Valley Milkhouse
Butter – Spring Creek Farms
Honey – Baues Busy Bees
Non Local – Baking soda, yeast, oil, salt, pepper, dressing.

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 6

 , , , , , , , , , ,

DSC_0427

Another meal cooked by the husband.  How can you tell he’s cooking?  There’s beef on the plate.  It’s just not my thing, but it is husband’s thing, and he’s learned to cook beef just the way I like it (VERY VERY well done) so I’ll eat it when he’s around to cook.  This week, he found a neat coffee chocolate spice rub at the market which really changed the flavor.  I do find a HUGE difference between grass-fed from the market and non-specific beef from the grocery store, so that makes it a little more palatable.  I’d still prefer chicken or turkey or pork over beef any day!  Anyway, getting on with things, we have corn fritters again, made with the same pickled peppers that I had canned summers prior.  They’re really becoming a house favorite, and we’ve even been putting them on the grill for an extra crisp crust on the outside.  In the back, there’s canteloupe, then a slice of Soltane bread topped with Tomme Mole.  The bread isn’t locally sourced, but it is locally made, so we’ll allow a little leeway here since it’s SO good.  The bowl in the back has cucumbers and tomatoes with some onions, oil, and vinegar.  I could easily eat the whole container we made of that, they were so good.  To drink, there’s a beer from Armstrong Ales, a  local brewery.  So, everything (even the not-completely-local items) was sourced very locally and made for a great meal in some great weather outside!

Ingredients:
Porterhouse Steak – Bendy Brook Farm
Corn – Hoagland Farm
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Onion – Brogue Hydroponics
Tomatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Cucumber –  Brogue Hydroponics
Canteloupe –  Brogue Hydroponics
Bread – Soltane
Cheese (Tomme Mole) – Birchrun Hills
Peppers – Our Garden
Non Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, java rub, beer