Tag: <span>sausage</span>

Tag: sausage

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 5

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I actually have TWO this week for One Local Summer, so I’m jamming them into one post instead of splitting them into two.  This week was husband’s final week home before going out to a ship for quite a long while, so he took advantage of the time home to cook up a storm.  This is me, not complaining.  First up!  A house favorite, biscuits and gravy with a side of yogurt and strawberries and of course, coffee.  We made our biscuits with lard – I have no idea where the recipe came from, but if I find out, I’ll add a link  – and they come out so delightful.  We had the buttermilk for the gravy and it felt like it would be a slight not to include it in the biscuits as well.  The flour is probably my favorite part of this.  We actually have an old stone mill locally that buys their wheat from PA farmers and then mills it with a gigantic water wheel just a few minutes down the road.  They sell it, along with cornmeal, to help fund the mill’s educational programs and it’s SUCH a delight to have locally grown and milled wheat available to us, not to mention the historic aspect of the fact that it was ground in  a mill that’s 250 years old!   In order to make the meal just a little more healthy, we added the side of strawberries and yogurt.  The coffee?  Not local, but I dare you to tell me that I can’t have it with breakfast.

Ingredients:
Lard – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Sausage – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Strawberries – Hoagland Farm
Yogurt – Seven Stars Farm
Buttermilk – Maplehofe Dairy
Non Local – Coffee, Salt, Pepper

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I did mention this was a two-fer, right?  Second local meal for the week features ribs with grilled vegetables, a cucumber salad and CHEESE.  The ribs were cooked in the slow cooker first and then given a quick roast in the oven with our own homemade fruit ketchup using tomatoes and apples from the farmers market and peaches from our own tree.  Pretty sure this is the same recipe we used from the Ball Canning Book  for the ketchup.  The veggies on the side were carrots, snap peas, and zucchini.  Then there was the classic cucumber salad – cucumbers soaked in vinegar making not-quite-pickles, but a nice refreshing not-lettuce sort of salad for the side.  Then there’s the CHEESE – I believe that’s all Birchrun Hills cheese between Fat Cat, Red Cat, and some Clipper.  REALLY a good dinner – the ribs were absolutely perfect and it was a nice way to end a stormy evening.

Ingredients:
Ribs – Countrytime Farm
Cucumbers –  Jack’s Farm
Zucchini –  Jack’s Farm
Snap peas –  Jack’s Farm
Carrots –  Charlestown Farm
Cheese –  Birchrun Hills
Non Local – Homemade Vinegar, Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 20

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Winding down to the end of One Local Summer with just a few weeks left of our set.  Usually we drag this out through November, but we’re taking a break and wrapping it up soon.  At the top of the meal, we have a bowl filled with all sorts of tomatoes, drizzled with some balsamic vinegar and topped with basil.  Next around is a mug of homebrewed beer.  The on the main plate is zucchini, sweet potatoes, lamb sausage, and banana peppers stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in bison bacon.  This meal involved a good bit of prep work, but once everything was cut and wrapped and ready, it all went onto the grill (except the tomatoes).  Pretty easy!  The lamb sausage was absolutely delicious and I’m glad I sprung for it at the market.  The whole thing together made for a great dinner.

Ingredients:
Tomatoes – My Garden,  Full Circle CSA
Basil – My Garden
Zucchini –  Full Circle CSA
Sweet Potatoes –  Jack’s Farm
Lamb Sausage – Canter Hill Farm
Banana Peppers – Steer Vegetables
Bison Bacon –  Backyard Bison
Cheese –  Birchrun Hills, Blue Cheese
Non Local – Balsamic Vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 17b

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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 12

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This summer has gotten ahead of me so quickly, but I finally have time to sit down and catch up on the blog backlog!  This one goes back to June 24th when I was on my own again.  A neighbor had dropped off a spaghetti squash since their garden was going wild with them.  Never one to turn away free vegetables, I steamed the squash, scraped out the wonderfully nutty and delicious spaghetti strands, added some Italian sausage and tomatoes, topped it off with blue cheese, and called that a dinner!  On the side is a tomato and cucumber salad along with a bowl of raspberries from our backyard invader raspberry bush.  The neighbor isn’t fond of raspberries, but the plant has special family meaning (I believe it propagated from another family member’s garden and has been passed down and around a bunch), so she’s more than happy to let us collect all the berries we can have.  This past year it took off under the fence and found a nice spot in our yard, so we’re happy to let it stay.

Ingredients:
Spaghetti Squash – Neighbor’s Garden
Italian Sausage – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Blue Cheese –  Birchrun Hills
Tomatoes –  Full Circle CSA
Raspberries – Our Yard
Armenian Cucumber –  Full Circle CSA
Non Local – Vinegar, Salt, Pepper

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 10a

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Another catch-up week here, but to switch it up a little, we have a one local breakfast!  Breakfast is a pretty simple meal to make, and we’ve become quite fond of our waffle iron (btw, our waffle iron is surprisingly amazing for the price and we get these ridiculously fluffy and perfect waffles from a cheapie iron, you know, in case you’re in the market for a waffle iron).  Halving the recipe that comes with the iron gives us two full waffles, so it’s easy enough to do without a ton of cleanup.  We even substituted honey for the sugar, so aside from baking powder, the waffles were as local as it gets!  On the plate on the left is a delcious link of maple sausage, then, of course, maple syrup, a shot of espresso (not local, but absolutely necessary to fill my caffeine habit), and a small bowl of Maple yogurt.  There’s definitely a maple theme going on here.. The breakfast was probably more of a brunch, but it was still a great meal to start the day!

Ingredients:
Eggs –  M&M Creek Valley Farm
Milk – Camphill Kimberton
Flour – Mill at Anselma, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Honey – Baues’ Busy Bees
Yogurt – Seven Stars Farm, Maple Yogurt
Maple Sausage – Birchrun Hills
Maple Syrup – Miller’s Maple
Non Local – Baking Powder, coffee

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 12

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Husband is back home and went for a simple but delicious favorite this week – Sausage and peppers!  The farmer’s market has seen a glut of peppers, so we went with it, using some tomatoes from our garden along with pork sausage and some homemade sourdough bread.  Topped off with a cool glass of crisp, tart cider and we had ourselves a great meal.  It doesn’t look like much, but it’s a quick and easy meal that always goes over well.

Ingredients:
Pork Sausage – Countrytime Farm
Tomatoes – My Garden
Peppers – Jack’s Farm
Onion – Jack’s Farm
Flour – Sunrise Flour Mill
Cider – North Star Orchard
Non Local – Olive Oil, Pepper, salt

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2014 – Meal 4

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DSC_0288The husband is home again and took over for One Local Summer for this meal.  We have fries, sausage, a bowl of tomatoes, and a seasonal favorite, a peach with blue cheese!  We had planned to do everything on the grill, but a crazy rain storm and lack of propane pushed us inside.  We did finally have occasion to use our homemade vinegar though, so that was a neat addition and worked really well with some oil over the tomatoes.  We soaked the potatoes in salt water before frying, and that really worked out much better than previous attempts.  Not a bad meal for a stormy evening!

Ingredients:
Peaches – North Star Orchard
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Potatoes – North Star Orchard
Beer Brats – Backyard Bison
Tomatoes – Hoagland Farm
Non Local – malt vinegar, oil, salt, pepper,

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 24

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This was the last week of One Local Summer for 2013.  Things were starting to get really busy with my photography business and I just didn’t have the time to dedicate to going to the market, finding ingredients, planning the meal, cooking, and doing a blog post.  I was purely in microwave-the-leftovers mode, and the husband was out to his ship for a longer than normal stretch.  Still, I made it to November 5th, and did 24 weeks of meals which is really pretty decent!  This particular meal is one that I only make when the husband is gone since he absolutely loathes fennel.  It’s SO easy to make and tastes SO good! Layer the sweet potatoes and fennel on the bottom of a baking pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper, bake for 30 minutes, then add the sausage on top until that’s done.  Somehow all the flavors melt together just right and it’s magic.

Now, I’m FINALLY all caught up, and am looking for ideas for meals for 2014.  If you happen to have any and want to share, please leave me a comment!

Fennel, Sweet Potato, and Sausage Bake:
Sweet Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Fennel – Charlestown Farm
Sausage – freezer stock from Mountain View Organics
Non Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil