Tag: <span>peppers</span>

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 2013 – Week 19

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Husband is back at cooking and made this simple but delicious meal in no time flat.  We’d had the chorizo in the freezer, so after that defrosted, he browned the chroizo, stuffed it into big red peppers, sliced some cheese on top, and set it in the oven until the peppers were soft and the cheese was bubbly.  I REALLY love this cheese (Equinox) for topping food that goes in the oven – it crisps up really nicely and doesn’t melt too far all over the place.  On the side, for desert, is a bowl of sliced asian pears drizzled with maple syrup and warmed up just a bit.  WOW was that a winning combination.  Plus, this week, only local ingredients!

Chorizo Stuffed Peppers:
Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Peppers – North Star Orchard
Asian Pears – North Star Orchard
Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Maple Syrup – Miller’s Maple

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 16

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Stuffed Peppers, One Local Summer style!  The Anselma market had these huge red peppers and I couldn’t resist.  We used ground pork, tomatoes from our own garden, and instead of rice, wheat!  The substitution worked out really well, and in fact, I think I might prefer it – the wheat is really much more flavorful than rice, even if it takes longer to cook.  Add to that a big chunk of cantaloupe and some potatoes, and it makes for a very filling dinner.  It really came out well and I’m SO glad we had leftovers.  Yeah, I know I’m behind on blogging again – this was actually prepared a few weeks ago, before vacation, but I’m just finally getting it online now.  Oops.  Better late than never?

Stuffed Peppers:
Red Peppers – Brogue Hydroponics
Blue Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Yellow Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Cantaloupe – Brogue Hydroponics
Onion – Maysie’s Farm
Ground Pork – Bendy Brook Farm
Wheat – North Star Orchard
Tomatoes – My Garden
Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Non Local – Olive oil, salt, pepper

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 19

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Another week all on me.  We finally got a REALLY ripe watermelon from the garden.  So ripe, it practically burst open the second I started to cut. The watermelon naturally has this glowy orange-yellow inside, so no, your monitor isn’t off.  The garden is pretty small, so I usually only get one watermelon, but that’s enough for me.  A local farm was offering a new product, veal kielbasa, so I jumped on it and got the last package.  It was delicious!  Spiced just right.  I decided to pair it with some zucchini (we’re STILL getting zucchini from the garden) cooked with onions and shitake mushrooms.  The neighbors and I have a little garden exchange program going on, so I picked up a bunch of peppers from them which I sliced, grilled, and stuffed with cheese from the same farm that had the kielbasa.  The beer is a maple porter, homebrewed with maple syrup from the state, even if the malt and grains aren’t locally sourced, I’ll call it part local.

Kielbasa with vegetables and watermelon:
Kielbasa – Birchrun Hills Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Peppers – Neighbor’s Garden
Watermelon – Our Garden
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Onion – Jack’s Farm
Non local – olive oil, salt, pepper

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 2012 – Week 10

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Yup. Ten weeks already! Our garden is finally giving us a whole bunch of zucchini, so I made the best of a pretty insane situation. The zucchini in question is the 8 ball zucchini which grows in a round, softball shape/size instead of the typical elongated shape of a normal zucchini. They’re much more seedy than regular zucchini, but once hollowed out, they’re perfect to stuff with all sorts of good things, which is what I did here.  I know I did this in prior years, but it’s just so easy (and delicious).  The zucchini is stuffed with chorizo, pepper, tomato, onion, garlic scapes, and topped off with a few slices of goat mozzarella.  I had leftover potatoes from last week, so I put those in tin foil on the grill and used them on the side.  Not bad!  And, there were two whole zucchini, so I’ve got a TON of leftovers.  Also, I have a TON more zucchini, if you’ve got any recipes to recommend!

Stuffed Zucchini:
Zucchini – My Garden
Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Potatoes –  Brogue Hydroponics
Peppers – Brogue Hydroponics
Tomatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Garlic Scapes – Jack’s Farm
Goat Mozzarella – Yellow Springs Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 18

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This one was pretty simple. We were getting ready for vacation and I had little time to get something together, so I went with what I’d already stashed in the freezer. The pasta was made a while back and frozen, the sausage was frozen as well, and the peppers and tomatoes came from the garden. Pretty simple, but it counts as local, and even super local considering the maybe 100ft walk from the house to the garden.

Pasta with Peppers and Tomatoes:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Peppers – My Garden
Tomatoes – My Garden
Chicken Sausage – Mountain View Poultry
Non Local – Olive Oil

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 17

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Gnocchi!  This was my first time ever making gnocchi, and I think we did alright!  It was pretty simple – boil about 1lb potatoes for an hour, or until tender, then rice or mash or make them smooshy and non-lumpy as best as possible, add about a cup of flour, shape, dust with flour, and then boil until they float.  Husband worked up the sauce from our own tomatoes canned this year, a load of peppers from the garden (SO MANY PEPPERS THIS YEAR), an onion, and some Ground Bison.  This is really my idea of comfort food, and it fit the bill.  Most of the ingredients came from a farm stand we passed on the way home from a trip to Lancaster, and I neglected to get the name of the farm.  Suffice to say, they weren’t shipped in from California, but from just a county away.

Gnocchi with Bison Sauce:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Potatoes – Lancaster Farm Stand
Bison – Backyard Bison
Tomato sauce – My Garden
Onion – Lancaster Farm Stand
Non Local – Spices, Salt, Pepper