Tag: <span>wine</span>

Tag: wine

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 21

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The husband has returned home and planted himself in the kitchen. I can’t say I mind, when the result is an amazing crock pot meal. He took a Bison chuck roast out of the freezer and threw in all manner of vegetables and fruit that I had from the farmer’s markets and came up with something AMAZING. The bison was SO tender after cooking for five hours and the way the flavors blended together was really a work of art. I think I’m still in a food coma over this one!  It was all served over some home made noodles using Whole Wheat Pastry flour and Buckwheat flour from the Mill at Anselma.

Crock Pot Bison Roast:
Bison Chuck Roast – Backyard Bison
Onion – North Star Orchard
Purple Potatoes – Unknown Vendor at Anselma
Apples – North Star Orchard
Noodles – Egg from Mt View Organics, Flour from the Mill at Anselma, Buckwheat flour from the Mill at Anselma
Peppers – My Garden
Wine – Paradocx
Beer – Homebrew Imperial Blonde
Sage – My Garden
Cilantro – My Garden
Basil – My Garden
Non-Local – Spices

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 20

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Pumpkin, again. Yeah when I get on a kick, I get on a kick, but at least here there are plenty of other ingredients involved. The recipe took a lot of searching – I wanted to use both bison and this little Long Island Cheese Pumpkin I brought home last week. Finally, I came across a recipe for Potato Topped Beef and Pumpkin Casserole which ended up being the perfect recipe to use for my new little casserole dish. Naturally, there were a few modifications. I didn’t have any carrots, so I used turnips instead. Left out the beef stock cube, and used three types of potatoes. The pumpkin makes for a great base, but the sweet pumpkiny flavor is mostly lost in the recipe – I suppose this works out okay, since the flavors all run together well, but I was expecting more smack-you-in-the-face pumpkin. Still, it’s delicious, and VERY much edible.

Oh and if you’re curious, the dish comes from Karin Lorenc on etsy.

Potato Topped Beef and Pumpkin Casserole:
Bison – Backyard Bison. Sirloin
Flour – Mill at Anselma. Bread Flour
Onion – North Star Orchard
Turnip – Maysie’s Farm
Long Island Cheese Pumpkin – Smith’s Produce
Red Wine – Paradocx. Barn Red
Sweet Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Purple Potatoes – Unknown Vendor at Anselma
White Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Non-local – Olive Oil, spices

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 2

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And we’re onto Week 2. So far, there’s not a lot of produce to pick from at the market given that our growing season REALLY gets moving at the end of May into early June. Oley Valley Mushrooms always comes through with fantastic mushrooms – these Crimini ‘shrooms were seriously the best mushrooms I have ever eaten. There may have been one or two that didn’t make it into the pan.  The recipe we used was the Beef Stroganoff recipe from SimplyRecipes.com with a couple of local substitutions made.  We used bison in place of beef, goat’s milk yogurt instead of sour cream, and since we couldn’t find onions at the market just yet, we ended up replacing those with a few leeks and it worked out just fine.  So, let’s start in the back with the bread and run around, clockwise.

Bread:
Bread – Saint Peter’s Bakery.  This was their rustic white bread, which was sweet and super soft.

Beef Stroganoff:
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms.  Crimini mushrooms with this incredible earthy flavor.
Bison – Backyard Bison.  We used a sirloin that we happened to have in the freezer from a few markets ago.
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm.  The yogurt is tangy and actually made a perfect substitute for sour cream.
Leeks – Hoagland Farm.  It’s a little bit of an odd substitution for shallots, but it worked out well.
Noodles – Mill at Anselma.  The base for the noodles was whole wheat pastry flour from the mill made with wheat grown in Pennsylvania.  This is one find that I’m SUPER proud of and just love that it’s a local ingredient.  I also used an egg from Mountain View Organics and a touch of olive oil.  Then the pasta roller/cutter and KitchenAid mixer did the rest of the work.  These noodles really came out fantastic, arguably my best attempt at pasta yet.
Non-local – Olive oil, spices.

Honey Rhubarb Muffin:
Okay, maybe this wasn’t 100% local, but we’ll call it a bonus localish item on the plate.  The recipe came from here and I tried to keep it as local as possible, but with bakery items, it’s just not possible to use pastry flour and get just the right consistency.  A blend of flours (all-purpose and pastry) seems to work out best, and I figure it’s better to stick with that than force the locality issue and get something that’s more like hardtack than a muffin.  We left out the chopped nuts.
Flour – Mill at Anselma.  Split 50/50 with generic all-purpose flour.
Rhubarb – Hoagland Farm.  I remember not liking rhubarb as a kid, but now?  I cannot get enough.  There is chopped rhubarb in the muffin as well as a sort of honey rhubarb reduction jelly sort of spread on top.
Egg – Mountain View Organics.
Sour Cream –  Shellbark Hollow Farm.  Substituted goat’s milk yogurt here again, and it worked fine.
Honey – Baues Busy Bees.
Non-local – Sugar, Canola Oil, Salt, Baking Soda, Vanilla

Wine:
Penns Woods Chambourcin Reserve (2006).  It’s a local winery that we hadn’t had the chance to try before and decided to go for it since they were at the farmer’s market running tastings.  We were not disappointed.

This might just be the best one local summer meal we’ve ever made.  I’m pretty sure it will be going into regular dinner rotation in the future!  Now I want to hear about some other recipe sites that you enjoy using for dinner ideas.  I’m slowly picking through Elise’s Simply Recipes site and am just plain running out of meal ideas.  So, please share your favorites!

Local

Bliss

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I had a Saturday off with no obligations and planned to stop by the SAFONA Fiber Festival.  It was being held about a 45 minute drive from home through some Amish farmland and pretty historic parts of Pennsylvania.  The whole drive out had me making a mental checklist of all the places I wanted to see on the way home – wineries, shops, etc.  Met some wonderful people and made purchases from Rock Creek Yarn, Wolle’s Yarn Creations, and Black Diamond Alpacas.  All are wonderful vendors and I had a blast taking time to chat with each of them and oogle their display items.  Practiced my knitter’s handshake a few times (grab knitted item, squeeze, ask wearer if he/she made it).  After having my fill of fiber, I turned the car around for the adventure back home.

First stop was the Goodville Fabric Outlet which is basically a HUGE warehouse filled to the top with fabric.  All kinds of fabric.  Cheap fabric!  It was really overwhelming and while I wasn’t looking for anything specific, it was really neat to stop there and find the deals for future reference.

Then I came across the Poole Forge which had been turned into a beautiful park with a classic red covered bridge, winding stream, and lovely old stone buildings.  I stopped for a while with the camera, smiled at an Amish man passing by with his buggy, and took in what had become a gorgeous afternoon.

Next stop was Olde Peddler Wools.  Great shop with a good variety of classic, workhorse yarns – the stuff that is cost efficient and quality fiber.  It’s a shame that they’re not closer to home!

The next detour was the Kog Hill Winery.  When I walked in, the gal behind the counter who was running wine tastings was KNITTING!  She had just learned and was working on a garter stitch scarf.  We chatted about knitting as she fed me wine samples, and it was one of many random-acts-of-randomness that really made the day.  Bought some wine, wished her luck with the knitting, and headed back out.

Wineries?  Pennsylvania has a lot of them, and it’s almost hard to drive more than 10 miles without running across at least one and the next detour brought me to another winery.  Most of them produce decent wine – stuff that’s delightful to drink, but nothing really world-class incredible.  The J Maki Winery is not that kind of winery.  Their wines BLEW ME AWAY, specifically the Gewurztraminer which is a really unique interpretation of that grape.  The reds were dry – just how I like them – and the ice wine, particularly the Cabernet Franc ice wine, was phenomenal.  Really quite the gem of a vineyard, and I will definitely visit again to pick up some more wine.

My final stop before home was the Glasslight Studio.  I took a detour for a historic sign that didn’t pan out the way I thought it would and ended up passing this place on the way.  After being greeted by a large, black Bouvier mutt (who later nudged my arm for more head-scritches and buttrubs), one of the glass artists talked to me for at least a half hour about the glass blowing classes they offer.  He let me look in on the class that was in progress and took my email address for future classes.

I know this post has gotten long, but honestly, the whole day was filled with such wonderful people and I really needed this kind of a day after a sort of rotten week.  Now, a photo!
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One Local Summer

OLS: Week 6

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Week six of One Local Summer and it’s almost the mid-point of the thirteen week challenge. The husband decided to take the lead on this week’s meal with no objection from me.   In the back is a pile of mashed turnips and carrots with maple sugar added for flavor.   Clockwise, next is a Bison Meatloaf using ground bison, tomatoes, garlic scapes, swiss cheese, an egg, and last year’s frozen tomato sauce.   Finally, sugar snap peas finish the plate.   In the wine glass is a Strawberry wine.   It was a great meal, and even better, I didn’t have to cook it!

Rundown of ingredients:
Turnips: Willow Creek Orchards
Carrots: Willow Creek Orchards
Maple Sugar: Miller’s Maple
Bison: Backyard Bison
Garlic Scapes: Willow Creek Orchards
Tomatoes: Lancaster County (via Willow Creek)
Tomato Sauce: My garden, last year
Egg: Pleasant View Farms (via Willow Creek)
Swiss Cheese: Hendricks (via Willow Creek)
Snap Peas: Willow Creek Orchards
Wine: Mount Hope Vineyards

One Local Summer

OLS: Week 4

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Week four!   This week was a full dinner for two and I may have cheated a little more than I usually do with the locality of all of the ingredients, but to do a meal like this, well, sometimes you have to do what works.   This week features most items coming from a trip to the Anselma Farmer’s Market.

The wine is the May Wine from the Mount Hope winery.   Not sure if the grapes in the wine are local or not though, but it was a great bottle of white wine.   In the back is a salad using red lettuce (still) from Week 3 and cucumbers from the Anselma Market.   There’s also a piece of Dillicious cheese from Week 3.   The blueberries for dessert are also from the Anselma Market and were perfectly ripe and delicious.   The main plate was the bulk of the cooking, but 100% worth the time involved.   The pork chops come from Wright’s Meats at the Anselma Market.   They were brined in a salt/water/maple syrup for about 5 hours.   The Maple Syrup we have is from Miller’s Maple in PA, so even though it’s not from around the corner, it’s closer than Vermont and still counts as local for me.   The chops were then browned quickly on the stove and put in a baking dish in the oven with a vinegar and maple syrup glaze that was basted over the chops every 15 minutes or so.   The idea isn’t mine, so I’m giving credit to Elise of Elise.com for the recipe which I modified a little, omitting the onions.   The potatoes are again from the Anselma Market and were tossed with olive oil and roasted in the oven.   There’s a dressing that goes on top of the potatoes, another recipe from Elise.com, which again I modified a bit to fit my local theme.   I used basil and oregano from the back deck, omitting the mustard and vermouth but adding vinegar.   Overall, pound for pound, the non-local ingredients I used when put in contrast with the local ingredients still keep the mileage total down.   So, even though it’s not 100% local, the spirit of local ingredients is there for sure, and the husband didn’t seem to mind if it was local or not, because he ate everything on the plate.   It was fun to make a nice dinner for two this week for something different and I’m glad I challenged myself to do so, especially when I’m the first to admit that I’m not a great cook and don’t necessarily enjoy the kitchen.   These past four weeks have taught me a lot already about my culinary skills (which I previously thought were non-existent) and that sometimes, cooking isn’t so bad, especially when the results taste SO good.

Not Local: Salad Dressing; sugar, vinegar, olive oil, pepper, salt (pork chops); olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, pepper (potato dressing).

I really need to start bringing around a notebook to the markets with me so that I can keep track of what comes from where.   These incredible vendors deserve credit and I never seem to be able to remember what comes from which stand, especially after the dinner is done and the  packaging is  in the garbage.