spring onions – Sheetar.com

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 3

By Sheetar 8 June 2013 8 June 2013

Pardon the blurry photo, but I was so hungry and managed to rush the photo in order to devour the meal. Week three, and we’ve hit strawberry season! I went out and picked 12 pounds of berries at a local farm – Walnut Springs Farm – the majority of which went into the freezer for a batch of jam later, and possibly for a batch of mead at a later time. The meal is a salad, but with lots of fun toppings. On top of the lettuce and pea shoots are strawberries, goat cheese, smoked chorizo, garlic scapes, spring onions, and the homemade dressing which also included strawberries. It was REALLY filling, and a perfect late lunch. I have just enough leftovers for another!

Spring Salad with Chorizo and Goat Cheese:
Lettuce – Jack’s Farm
Pea Shoots – Charlestown Farm
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Strawberries – Walnut Springs Farm
Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Garlic Scapes – Jack’s Farm
Spring Onions – Jack’s Farm
Non Local – Balsamic vinegar, olive oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 2

By Sheetar 1 June 2013 1 June 2013

Week two! We’re slowly seeing more vegetables show up at the market, and since the husband is away, I jumped at the chance to use mushrooms. He’s not a fan of mushrooms, so when he’s away, I get to have my fill of them. You might not be able to see it in the photo, but that’s a BIG portabella mushroom topped with ground pork, kale, spring onions, and chevre. Pretty easy to make – browned the ground pork in a pot with the onions, mushroom stems, and then added the kale just until it was wilted. Put a heaping scoop of that on top of the mushroom that had been marinating in olive oil and vinegar, topped it off with some crumbly goat cheese, and popped the whole thing into the oven until the mushroom was tender. On the other side of the plate is a pile of kale chips. I’ve heard people talk about how good they are, so I thought I’d give it a try. They’re good, but they’re time consuming and really fragile – kind of like eating one thin layer of phyllo dough. They were fun to try, and the entire batch of chips disappeared quickly, but I don’t think I’d make them again. Overall, the meal was great, and the leftovers are already gone too!

Stuffed Portabella and Kale Chips:
Kale – Charlestown Farm
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Ground Pork – Countrytime Farm
Spring Onions – Jack’s Farm
Portabella Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Non Local – salt, olive oil, vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2013 – Week 1

By Sheetar 26 May 2013 26 May 2013

Back at it again for the FIFTH year! We missed the first two weeks of the farmer’s market due to travel, but it seems like we didn’t miss too much. The market is really short on vegetables this year so far, and it seems spring has taken a hiatus for the weekend, with temperatures down in the 40s at the end of May. Ridiculous! Husband was pretty excited to get started on One Local Summer again, so he took the lead on the first meal of the year.

Just a re-cap, in case you’re just picking this up this year, One Local Summer involves making one meal a week through the summer using only locally sourced ingredients. The end game is to eat better and reduce your carbon footprint by finding local sources for food instead of buying things that are trucked in from across the country. In my experience, the food is FAR better in terms of flavor and quality, and if you have any questions about how it was grown, you can ask the grower in person! My little market has also never had a single case of salmonella contamination or any recalls either. It’s considered acceptable to use non-local ingredients like salt, pepper, oil, spices, etc, as long as the big ingredients are local.

The meal! Husband had been itching to use his new smoker to cook up some pork ribs. Our pig farmer finally had ribs back in stock, so we grabbed them up along with some HUGE asparagus (that’s a 9″ plate, for scale) and made a salad from some lettuce and spring onions. Sadly, the dressing (not pictured) was not local, but that was the only big non-local item in the meal. Here’s the rundown of ingredients and sources, and here’s to another One Local Summer!

Pork Ribs and Asparagus with Salad:
Pork Ribs – Countrytime Farm
Asparagus – Hoagland Farm
Lettuce – Jack’s Farm
Spring Onions – Jack’s Farm
Non Local – spices, salt, pepper, vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2012 – Week 5

By Sheetar 5 June 2012 5 June 2012

The husband is home again and took over full responsibility for this meal. He went to the farmer’s market and picked everything out and even cooked it too! The chicken is stuffed with spring onions, mushrooms, and blue cheese, served with grilled vegetables. Again, all cooked out on the grill, and served with a local wine, Paradocx’s barn red.

Stuffed Chicken:
Chicken – Mt View Organics
Spring Onion – Jack’s Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valey Mushrooms
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Zucchini – Jack’s Farm
Carrots – Jack’s Farm
Wine – Paradocx, Barn Red
Non Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 7

By Sheetar 22 June 2011 22 June 2011

Okay, I know I say this every week, but, I REALLY made a good one here. It’s no secret that I love garlic scapes, the spirally green vegetation that grows above the garlic bulb. In order to get a proper garlic harvest, the green shoots need to be cut back to allow the garlic bulb to grow and harden. Those shoots, or scapes, are gently garlicky, and can be cooked up much like scallions. After a little googling last week to find other uses for garlic scapes, I came to a brilliant conclusion. Garlic scapes could be steamed and blenderized and then used to make pasta (why no, I haven’t been on a pasta kick either), and then topped with a garlic scape pesto. That’s exactly what I did. I steamed the garlic scapes for about 10 minutes. Then, using a stick blender, added in a little of the water from the steam pot, and blended until I got a thick slurry of garlic scapes. Made and rolled the pasta using about 1/4th cup of the garlic scape slurry instead of water and allowed that to rest while I cooked up zucchini, diced scapes (yes, ALL THE SCAPES!), spring onions, and some crimini mushrooms along with pork sausage. The remaining garlic scape slurry was given a boost of smoked sea salt and a little olive oil to make the pesto sauce. Boiled the pasta, threw some sauce on top, added the sausage and vegetables to the plate, and there was dinner! A little chunk of cheese on the side of the plate finished off dinner – which, I’ve just finished off dinner as I’ve been sitting here typing this up for you, it was THAT GOOD.

Garlic Scape Pasta with Sausage and Vegetables:
Garlic Scapes – Jack’s Farm & North Star Orchards
Crimini Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Zucchini – North Star Orchards
Spring Onions – Jack’s Farm
Pork Sausage – Countrytime Farm
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Fat Cat Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Non Local – Olive Oil