Tag: <span>cornmeal</span>

Tag: cornmeal

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2017 – Meal 6

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Meal 6 in week 9!  I actually cooked this on Saturday right after the farmers market, having come home with my head full of ideas thanks to the kind folks at North Star Orchard.  You see, I was gushing over how pretty the rainbow chard was and how versatile the leafy green is since it’s the best of celery and spinach in one plant, plus, THOSE COLORS.  We chatted for a bit about the myriad of ways to use this gem of a plant, and how great is it that farmers take the time to extol the virtues of their vegetables and offer recipe ideas and cooking advice?!   Well, a quiche is just one of the ways to use chard, so the second I got home, I set out to make a late breakfast for myself.  I like using recipes since I need a good guide when I cook, so I found this one that included a cornmeal and flour crust for the quiche.  I replaced the shortening with lard, because lard, and again instead of milk, I used goat’s milk yogurt.  Chard replaced the spinach, and I sautéed the chopped stems with spring garlic, garlic scapes, and scallions.  Instead of swiss cheese, I used blue cheese fresh from my first Collective Creamery  cheese CSA pickup.  I cheated a little and just pressed the crust into the pie dish instead of rolling it out, saving myself the trouble of washing the rolling pin and mat, but that worked out just fine since the crust came out nice and crispy, and the dark roasted cornmeal I used kicked the flavor of the whole thing up a notch.  On the side are three asparagus spears wrapped in culatello, topped with a bit of Red Cat cheese (because always cheese), and a wee little fried quail egg.  The bowl in the back contains fresh strawberries drizzled with our own honey, and I’m not ashamed to say I polished off a whole pint of strawberries in one sitting because they were FANTASTIC.  There’s also a mug of non-local (but absolutely necessary) cold brew coffee.  I also now have a whole bunch of quiche leftovers, so there’s breakfast for the week!

Ingredients:
Asparagus –  Hill Creek Farm
Eggs (Quail and Chicken) –  Deep Roots Valley Farm
Cheese (Red Cat & Blue) –  Birchrun Hills
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour –  Mill at Anselma
Dark Roasted Cornmeal –  Mill at Anselma
Lard –  M&M Creek Valley Farm
Goat’s Milk Yogurt –  Shellbark Hollow Farm
Rainbow Chard –  North Star Orchard
Culatello –  Countrytime Farm
Garlic –  Charlestown Farm
Scallions –  Jack’s Farm
Garlic Scapes –  Jack’s Farm
Strawberries –  Jack’s Farm
Honey – Our Beehives
Non Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 10

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Still playing catch-up, but here’s One Local Summer week 10!  I had originally looked up recipes for Polenta Pizza, and came up with a recipe that had that name, but it much more resembles cornbread pizza than polenta pizza.  I figure once you add anything other than water and butter/oil to cornmeal, especially when the extra ingredients are flour and baking powder, it ends up being cornbread and not polenta.  Still, for cornbread pizza done in the cast iron skillet, this was pretty decent!  I think the blue cheese and chorizo actually worked out well with the cornbread base so it wasn’t a traditional pizza on top of cornbread.  The quick jolt near the end of cooking under the broiler was really key to really bubble the cheese on top, and the crust ended up with a nice, crunchy bottom (not burnt, just nicely well-baked).  The leftovers are even good!

The recipe came from here (http://www.simplehealthykitchen.com/skillet-margarita-polenta-pizza/) and let’s forgive them for the misspelling of Margherita because even though the recipe was a little misleading, it was still good and cooked up as specified!

Ingredients:
Flour –    Mill at Anselma
Cornmeal –    Mill at Anselma
Smoked Chorizo –  Countrytime Farm
Tomatoes –  Jack’s Farm
Basil  – My Garden
Goat’s Milk Yogurt –  Shellbark Hollow Farm
Blue Cheese –  Birchrun Hills
Egg –  Deep Roots Valley Farm
Non Local – Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, Baking Powder

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 2014 – Meal 10

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Wow.  So this is a pizza.  Kinda.  The crust is polenta that was baked in the oven to help crisp it up.  Then the toppings were added.  OH THE TOPPINGS.  Husband was away, so I was free to add as much fungus as I pleased, and I did.  The mushroom guy was on vacation the week prior, but found a bunch of Chanterelle mushrooms growing in the wild, so he grabbed them and brought them home.  This was the first time I’ve ever had Chanterelles, and just typing about them is making my mouth water.  They’re peppery but sweet and might just be my new favorite mushroom.  I sauteed the mushrooms with some onions and peppers.  Once the crust (a polenta crust with a wee bit of butter) was crispy enough from baking in the oven, I globbed some homemade Cherry Jam (from locally picked cherries), blue cheese spread, then put on the onions/mushrooms/peppers.  On top of that I sprinkled on some more blue cheese and popped the whole thing back in the oven to mush together.  This was INCREDIBLE.  The whole thing disappeared in one sitting since it was about a 12″ pizza anyway.  The cherry jam ended up oozing off the pizza and made the crust a little mushy, but it really didn’t matter – it just meant I had to use a fork and knife instead of picking each slice up.  It was worth it!

Ingredients:
Corn Meal – Mill at Anselma
Butter – Spring Creek Farms
Peppers – Charlestown Farm
Chanterelle Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Onions – Jack’s Farm
Blue Cheese (spread and crumble) – Birchrun Hills
Cherries – Walnut Springs Farm
Non Local – Sugar (in jam)

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 Meal 8

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Another one down, and just six more to go till my goal of 14 for the summer.  So far, it looks like we’ll more than surpass the goal of 14 meals, and I really do like the pacing of meals vs. weeks MUCH better.  It feels less like an obligation and more like fun this way.  What’s on that plate?  A sort of remix of chicken parm.  I breaded the chicken using goat’s milk yogurt and cornmeal for more of a cowboy sort of version of chicken parm, topped it with tomatoes, blue cheese, and mushrooms (MUSHROOMS!  Oh how I love fungus).  Some potatoes and zucchini on the side and KABAM.  A pretty easy one local summer meal.  Instead of frying the chicken, I popped it on a tray and baked it which kept it lighter and, in a weird way, crispier.  Sometimes the greasiness of pan frying just doesn’t work, and I’m glad I baked it instead.  The leftovers from this are already gone even, it was that good.

Ingredients:
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow
Zucchini – My Garden
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Chicken – Deep Roots Valley Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Cornmeal – Mill at Anselma
Tomatoes – Jack’s Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 22

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CHILI! My favorite, and the first time we’ve been able to pull this off as a one local summer meal.  Our local orchard, North Star, had been experimenting with growing beans and drying them, so we finally got a harvest and my FIRST thought upon seeing them at the market was CHILI!  Husband again took the lead on this since he’s the chili master and had this amazing stuff simmering in the crock pot all day.  I can honestly tell you that the only thing holding us back from the chili was the beans, and we had been pretty much doing this locally anyway, using bison instead of cow beef since it makes the resulting chili way less greasy.  The whole meal together on the table was incredible – the asian pears were heated up a bit and drizzled with maple syrup.  We managed to get enough tomatoes from the volunteer tomato plants to put in salads, so that worked out great.  Really can’t wait to do this again!

Chili with Cornbread and Salad:
Bison – Backyard Bison
Hot Bison Sausage – Backyard Bison
Beans – North Star Orchard
Celery – North Star Orchard
Peppers – Jack’s Farm
Jalapenos – Charlestown Farm
Onions – Jack’s Farm
Tomato sauce – Homemade, frozen from prior harvest
Tomatoes – Our Garden
Asian Pears – North Star Orchard
Cornmeal – Mill at Anselma
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Maple Sugar – Miller’s Maple
Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Salad Greens – Jack’s Farm
Non Local – cocoa powder, salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 12

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I’m sort of split on this one.  I had a great idea, it just ended up being poorly executed mostly due to a bad recipe.  Yep, that’s supposed to be a taco shell.  Unfortunately, I used this recipe, instead of the one I had used before, and got what’s basically a cornmeal crepe instead of a hard taco shell.  It leaks, doesn’t hold together, and it basically rubbish.  Everything else was great though – the ground pork came out great, the squash was wonderful, the fruit sweet, and the sheep’s milk feta cheese!  YUM!  Oh well, at least I know better for next time!  A quick note on the nectarine and plum – our local orchard was hit by a hail storm earlier this season and fruit has been pretty scarce in comparison with prior years.  They put up a sign on their fruit bins at the market that the fruit is, “Hail kissed but still delicious!”  It makes me laugh every time, and they’re right.  Visual imperfections don’t make the fruit taste any different.

Pork Tacos and Fruit:
Cantaloupe – Brogue Hydroponics
Nectarine – North Star Orchard
Plum – North Star Orchard
Egg – Deep Roots Valley Farm
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Cornmeal – Mill at Anselma
Squash – Maysie’s Farm
Ground Pork –  Bendy Brook Farm
Onion – Maysie’s Farm
Tomato – Maysie’s Farm
Sheep’s Milk Feta – King’s Creamery
Lettuce – Brogue Hydroponics
Non Local – olive oil, salt, pepper, taco seasoning

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 10

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We tried out a new type of zucchini this year called the 8 ball squash that grows into a ball shape instead of the normal long and narrow zucchini shape.  They just happen to be absolutely perfect for hollowing out and stuffing with all sorts of vegetables and sausage.  The polenta was an afterthough, but it fit well with the spicy chorizo.  This was a big hit, and I’m so glad we have leftovers!

Stuffed Zucchini with Polenta:
Zucchini – My Garden
Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Corn – Hoagland Farm
Onion – Hoagland Farm
Cornmeal – Mill at Anselma
Non Local – Butter, olive oil, salt, pepper