One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 19

By Sheetar 21 September 2015 16 September 2015

The weather turned crisp and cool over the past week, and I decided it was time for chili! Usually husband is the chili master, but the pork shoulder was on special sale at the farmer’s market, so I went for pulled pork chili done up in the crock pot. I used the remainder of the leftover tomato sauce, added some spices, onions, and peppers and let the whole thing simmer for hours until the pork fell apart. I added some beans towards the end, and topped the whole thing off with blue cheese and a biscuit from that biscuits and gravy breakfast. A juicy asian pear on the side and a glass of homebrewed cider, and we have a meal! It was just the thing for a cool evening.

Ingredients:
Buttermilk Maplehofe Dairy
Pork Shoulder M&M Creek Valley Farm
Lard M&M Creek Valley Farm
Flour Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Asian Pear – North Star Orchard
Beans – North Star Orchard
Onion – Jack’s Farm
Peppers – Clover Hill Farm
Cider – Homebrewed from apples picked at the grandparents’ house
Cheese – Birchrun Hills, smoked blue
Non Local – Spices, salt

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 18b

By Sheetar 16 September 2015 14 September 2015

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

By Sheetar 14 September 2015 14 September 2015

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 17b

By Sheetar 9 September 2015 7 September 2015

Biscuits and gravy – true comfort food. This is quickly becoming an occasional favorite of the husbands (and, let’s be honest, he’s not alone), and as I’m sitting here writing this up, I’m realizing just how much One Local Summer has encouraged us to cook more from scratch instead of eat out of boxes. Eight years ago, I’m not sure we would have considered this worth the bother, but now? ABSOFREAKINGLUTELY. The biscuit dough is SUPER easy to make, and as of this round of One Local Summer, we’ve embraced that which is lard. Lard! Even the word has a negative connotation, and is used as an insult. It isn’t a replacement for olive oil which is a far healthier fat, but when put up against butter, it’s got less saturated fat and more monounsaturated fat (the good kind of fat). Of course, you want the stuff that’s un-hydrogenated, and I believe the tub we got from the farmer’s market is just plain rendered pork fat. I honestly can’t tell a difference in the taste either. To make things a little more healthy, we added a bowl of fresh berries and peaches, and of course that mug of cold brewed coffee. A side note about the raspberries – the little invader raspberry bush that pushed under the neighbor’s fence into our yard has been producing about a cup of berries a day. We’re happy to have this new addition to our garden and enjoy fresh berries almost every evening now!

Ingredients:
Buttermilk – Maplehofe Dairy
Sausage – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Lard – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Flour – Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Raspberries – Our Garden
Peaches – North Star Orchard
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, coffee, baking powder

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 17a

By Sheetar 8 September 2015 3 September 2015

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 16

By Sheetar 4 September 2015 1 September 2015

PASTA! One of my favorites. We had a few leftover jalapenos from prior dinners and husband thought, hey, jalapeno pasta! I thought hey, that sounds like a fun thing, until I realized, later, that when you puree jalapenos, you basically make liquid pepper spray and aerosolize a little bit of it into the air when using the stick blender. Suddenly, it was not such a fun thing. However, already having the jalapeno puree in progress, I soldiered on and finished the pasta which did lend a nice spice to the dinner. Not something I’d do again (I learned my lesson the hard way). The sauce was made from local tomatoes in a gigantic batch along with peppers and onions. The plate was completed with pork Italian sausage. It’s a pretty basic, classic sort of meal, but this is comfort food to me, coming from an Italian background. Add that now almost mandatory tomatoes and cucumbers salad and a glass of wine and that’s a meal!

Ingredients:
Tomatoes Full Circle CSA
Cucumber – My Garden
Flour Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Jalapenos – Charlestown Farm
Tomatoes – Clover Hill Farm
Peppers – Clover Hill Farm
Onions – Clover Hill Farm
Wine – Chaddsford Winery, Proprietors Reserve
Non Local – homemade vinegar, salt, pepper, olive oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 15

By Sheetar 2 September 2015 1 September 2015

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

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 14

By Sheetar 1 September 2015 1 September 2015

Husband returned home again and as his first act of One Local Summer head chef, he made a quick breakfast. Let’s be honest, most of these meals are a little team effort, but I usually play sous chef to his ideas, chopping and prepping ingredients for him to work his magic. Well, I happened to have a few crepes left over from the last meal, so he quickly turned those into chorizo, egg, and cheese crepes (though, overstuffed like that, really tacos more than anything else!). We also had a bunch of pink potatoes which made the oddly colored hash brows on the side. Our grape harvest was just starting to come in from the vines in the back yard, so we included a few bunches of those along with a big cup of cold brewed coffee, my newest obsession. Sadly, the coffee isn’t local, but as a caffeine addict, I can’t function without it. Fairly simple, but filling and mighty delicious – a great way to start a One Local Day!

Ingredients:
Flour Mill at Anslema, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Milk Shellbark Hollow
Butter Handmade by Abby
Smoked Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Eggs – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills, Blue Cheese
Potatoes – Charlestown Farm
Grapes – Our Garden
Non Local – Coffee, salt, pepper, olive oil