Tag: <span>One Local Summer</span>

Tag: One Local Summer

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 24

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On my own this week (and a little behind, still/again, on posting), but here’s glorious week 24.  Simple, as is my style, we have sweet potatoes, mild burgundy Italian pork sausage, and the fancy bit is the saffron polenta stars, pan fried to be crispy.  Saffron polenta, you say? Saffron isn’t local!  OH YES IT IS.  If you can grow crocuses in your area, you can grow saffron.  Three little red filaments poke out of every little purple  saffron crocus  flower that blooms in the fall.  Pull out the red filaments, dry, and you too can have your own saffron.  This was made with the saffron harvested last fall (I usually get about a teaspoon of saffron from my six bulbs).  It’s not a lot, and requires checking for new flowers every morning for about a month, but pays off!  For the price of six bulbs (which cost about $15 for the six), I’ve got free saffron for as long as the bulbs last (typically a lifetime or more).  It’s pretty neat and is the big star of this meal (HURRR GET IT?!).

Pork Sausage with Sweet Potatoes and Saffron Polenta:
Sweet Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Mild Italian Burgundy Pork Sausage – Countrytime Farm
Cornmeal – Mill at Anselma
Saffron – My Garden
Non local – Salt, pepper, olive oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 23

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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 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 22

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Another week down, this one cooked by the husband.  Husband had an outing with a friend to go ‘hunting’ for quail and pheasant.  They managed to get a few, and this is part of the result of that.  The hunt was local-ish so we’re calling it good for the Local Summer.  The dish is basically Waterzooi (a Belgian chicken stew) made local.  Waterzooi typically has cream added to it, but goat’s milk was easier to find, so we went with that.  The vegetables can be different depending on who you ask, so we’re pretty good there, using mushrooms, leeks, carrots, celeriac, onions, potatoes, and sage.  Everything was simmered together in a big pot with chicken stock we saved from the last time we did wings (using locally sourced chicken wings), so it’s very very local there.  The only thing that’s not are the spices.

Quail Waterzooi:
Quail – hunted and shot locally
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Leeks – North Star Orchards
Carrots – North Star Orchards
Celeriac – Jack’s Farm
Onions – Jack’s Farm
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Goat’s Milk – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Sage – Back deck planters
Non Local – spices, salt, pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 17

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I was on my own this week, so I did a recipe from last year since it was one of my all time favorites.  The husband does NOT like fennel, so I get to go wild and cook with it when he’s gone which is fine with me.  MORE FENNEL FOR ME!  It’s pretty basic – Sweet potatoes, roasted with fennel at 350F in the oven for about 45 minutes (or until the potatoes are just about tender), and then the sausage is laid on top for the another 30 minutes.  The way the flavors all melt together is just perfect, and it reheats well later too.  The wee green things in front are more Mexican Sour Gherkins.  I have ONE plant in the garden and it’s been going wild on me.  I haven’t found another use for them other than nomming them down fresh, but I’m thinking a big jar of refrigerator pickles may be in order soon.

Sweet Potatoes with Fennel and Sausage:
Sweet Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Fennel – North Star Orchard
Turkey Sausage – Mt View Organics
Mexican Sour Gherkins – My Garden
Non Local – Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 15

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Just something simple for breakfast this time.  This is a frittata, the cooking world’s way of using up leftovers in the fridge. You can throw anything in the pan, cover it in eggs, toss it in the oven and VOILA!  Frittata.  This one has potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and a little cheese.  Add a slice of melon on the side, and you’ve got a nice looking plate for breakfast.

Frittata:
Melon – Smith’s Produce
Tomatoes – My Garden
Potatoes – Maysie’s Farm and Jack’s Farm
Onion – Maysie’s Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Eggs – Mt View Organics
Non Local – Salt, pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 14

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Here’s where I admit there was a little cheating going on with a few of our ‘weeks’ in the challenge. We had a two week vacation to Scotland, so these weren’t exactly cooked during the exact week listed. It’s pretty close, but I figure we’re still making the local meal, even if it’s later, so it counts in my book.  This meal is particularly interesting.  The sausage is from a little farm in New Hampshire, so it’s not local to where my home is, but we passed through while on vacation, so I’m saying it works.  The farm is a small farm, run by a lovely couple, and every time we vacation up that way, we stop in usually to feed my yarn and fiber habit, but decided to bring back home some meat this time.  Husband wasn’t as impressed with the taste of the goat meat – the texture is more firm than other sausages – but I liked it well enough.  The meal is your basic sausage and peppers, with tomato sauce we made using tomatoes from our garden.  It’s been a really great year for tomatoes, finally, given the last two were pretty dismal.  Here’s the ingredient rundown, and I’m still catching up on posts for the last few weeks, so bear with me!

Sausage and Peppers:
Goat Sausage – Riverslea Farms
Onion – Maysie’s Farm
Peppers – Maysie’s Farm
Melon – Smith’s Produce
Tomato Sauce – My Garden
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 13

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Time is really getting away from me this summer. Is it really week 13 already? And to think that I was considering not doing this!  Local meals can be breakfast too, and this is pretty much what breakfast looks like every morning.  Some sort of meat, an egg, fruit, and a seriously not local but very necessary double shot of espresso.  The meat is a pork roll, or if you’re from New Jersey, Taylor Ham.  Both are cooked up in a little pan, and I usually just crack the egg over the pork roll and let them cook together, but I figured to make it look nice, I’d do them separately this time.  Our local orchard has had an abundance of fruit from plums to nectarines, peaches and even the first apples of the season!  And that coffee, well if you’re a coffee drinker, you know.

Ham and Eggs with Plums:
Pork Roll – Countrytime Farm
Egg – Mt View Organics
Plums – North Star Orchard
Non Local – Coffee

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 9

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This one is getting posted late, but I’ve been busy, honest!  This one was on my own since husband is out to sea for a month.  We’ve got veal cubes with turnips, fennel, and mushrooms on a skewer, and potatoes on the side, all cooked up on the grill!  The skewers are pretty neat – they’re Fire Wires, and are basically stainless steel cables with a tip.  Put the food on, marinate in a bag or bowl, then throw on the grill.  Once the tip has been heated for about 10 minutes to burn off any bacteria, you move it off the grill so that you can pick up the whole wire using the tip that has cooled.  Pretty easy!  I filled up four Fire Wires, so I have plenty of leftovers.

Veal Kabobs:
Turnips – Jack’s Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Veal – Birchrun Hills Farm
Fennel – Jack’s Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil