tomatoes – Sheetar.com

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 13

By Sheetar 1 September 2016 31 August 2016

It may not be the world’s most exciting meal, but it’s classic Chez Sheetar comfort food – meat and potatoes. It was a quick and easy meal to make in the oven in one pan, and I get to show off the peach jam I made! Our single little peach tree yielded quite the harvest this year, so I was able to do two batches of jam, a run of canned peaches, and even froze two bags of skinned and pitted peaches for pies over the winter. Of course, the squirrels got a fair share of the peaches too, but it’s no big deal since there were SO many. Anyway, the meal is kielbasa with potatoes plus a small salad and some cheese and jam. The cheese is Birchrun Hills’ Red Cat that was washed in Tired Hands beer and it was OH SO DELICIOUS with the jam. It actually made for a nice little dessert!

Ingredients:
Kielbasa – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Lettuce – North Star Orchard
Tomatoes – Our Garden
Peach Jam – Our Honey, our Peach tree
Non Local – Salt, Olive Oil, pectin (for jam), Salad Dressing

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 12

By Sheetar 19 August 2016 19 August 2016

Yep, still playing catch-up. It should be week 15 as I’m posting this, so I’m still behind. Life just keeps getting away from me and the first thing to go when things get to be too much is cooking. But hey, I’m still here making the effort, and I have to wonder if I’d even bother cooking at all if it weren’t for this challenge! So, this meal was a ham steak with grilled onions and eggplant and a cucumber and tomato salad on the side. Everything was cooked on the grill, so it was great to not have to heat up the house on a day that was already too hot to begin with! I may have ever so slightly overcooked the ham steak, but it was still delicious since it was given a little rub down with our own honey before it was introduced to the grill. I need to remind myself that I don’t have to be fancy, and it’s okay to slap meat and veggies on the grill and thats good enough (and better than a microwaved boxed dinner).

Ingredients:
Ham Steak – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Tomato – Kimberton CSA
Eggplant – Kimberton CSA
Cucumber – Jack’s Farm
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Peach – Our Tree
Honey – Our beehives
Non Local – Olive Oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2016 – Week 10

By Sheetar 26 July 2016 25 July 2016

Still playing catch-up, but here’s One Local Summer week 10! I had originally looked up recipes for Polenta Pizza, and came up with a recipe that had that name, but it much more resembles cornbread pizza than polenta pizza. I figure once you add anything other than water and butter/oil to cornmeal, especially when the extra ingredients are flour and baking powder, it ends up being cornbread and not polenta. Still, for cornbread pizza done in the cast iron skillet, this was pretty decent! I think the blue cheese and chorizo actually worked out well with the cornbread base so it wasn’t a traditional pizza on top of cornbread. The quick jolt near the end of cooking under the broiler was really key to really bubble the cheese on top, and the crust ended up with a nice, crunchy bottom (not burnt, just nicely well-baked). The leftovers are even good!

The recipe came from here (http://www.simplehealthykitchen.com/skillet-margarita-polenta-pizza/) and let’s forgive them for the misspelling of Margherita because even though the recipe was a little misleading, it was still good and cooked up as specified!

Ingredients:
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Cornmeal – Mill at Anselma
Smoked Chorizo – Countrytime Farm
Tomatoes – Jack’s Farm
Basil – My Garden
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Egg – Deep Roots Valley Farm
Non Local – Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, Baking Powder

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 21

By Sheetar 14 October 2015 1 October 2015

Husband has returned home and cooked up this classic summer meal – a pulled pork sandwich. A good part of this one was a long time in the making. The sauerkraut was made months ago, fermented from fresh cabbage in a huge stoneware crock. The pickles were started a month ago and came out as terrific sour pickles. The buns were made last year and pulled from the freezer. The cider in the glass was also made last year and was just kegged and ready to drink this past month. The only thing new on the plate is the pulled pork which cooked up in the crock pot all day with some cider, peppers, onion, vinegar, and tomatoes, and came out DELICIOUS.

Ingredients:
Cabbage – Jack’s Farm
Pork Butt – Countrytime Farm
Cucumbers – My Garden
Peppers – Steer Vegetables
Tomatoes – My Garden
Onion – Clover Hill Farm
Cider – Fermented from apples picked at my grandparents’
Buns:
Flour Mill at Anselma
Egg Deep Roots Valley Farm
Butter Spring Creek Farms
Honey Baues Busy Bees
Non Local – Salt, pepper, spices, homemade vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 20

By Sheetar 8 October 2015 1 October 2015

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 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 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