OLS dinner 2007 09

This week's One Local Summer meal has been brought to you by the letter S: scrumptious squashed and stuffed spicy seitan!


One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 09

• Pattypan squash (DelVal College - 12 miles), stuffed a sauteéd mixture of the squash, seitan (Ray's Seitan - 37 miles), onion, red frying peppers, carrots, garlic (all from Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles) and jalapeño (our garden - 0 miles). I spiced it up the hot sauce Jason made last week with peppers from Blooming Glen and our garden. Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, sage, thyme, black pepper
• Boiled red potatoes (Blooming Glen) with with vegan buttery spread (Earth Balance - 117 miles).
• Fresh, raw heirloom tomato slices and cucumber half-circles (Blooming Glen).
• Whirlwind Witbier (Victory Brewing Company - 45 miles).

I was planning on not featuring the same beer or wine twice at any of these OLS meals, but this Whirlwind Whitbier is awesome. We had a few bottles left over from last week and instead of going out to pick up something new, we stuck with it. At this point, the I'm confident saying that it's my favorite Victory brew. I love white beers like Blue Moon and Hoegaarden, and Victory does a fine interpretation with this spicy cardamom and citrus blend. I didn't even know that Victory made a white beer - another unexpected benefit of OLS this year - and I think it's becoming my favorite local beer overall.

Ok, now to the food!

I'm overflowing with produce to the point that I'm storing some of our CSA and garden bounty on the dining room table. It looks pretty and takes care of a centerpiece, but I discovered an added benefit, as well. Because they're always in view, all week, I've been considering how to use the peppers, onion, garlic and potatoes in my meal. And when I saw some gorgeous pattypan squash at DelVal, I immediately put them in the context of that bowl on the table.



From the recipes I found online, patty pan squash seems to be traditionally stuffed with sausage, so I incorporated some sausage-y spices like pepper and sage into the seitan mixture I put together for our vegan dinner. I upped the hotness a bit more by using Jason's pepper sauce. I decided to serve the squash with very simple veggies that would cool all that spice. It was a great meal, and two squash fit perfectly into the toaster oven. Hooray for no super hot kitchen or preheating a giant stove!


Only one more week of OLS. I can't believe it!

OLS dinner 2007 07

Brought to you by... Rhode Island!


One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 07

• Kalamata loaf (Fisherman's farmers market - 0 miles) with vegan buttery spread brought from PA (Earth Balance - 117 miles).
• Stir fry of onion, zucchini and yellow squash (Alternative Food Co-op - 5 miles) and string beans (Fisherman's farmers market - 0 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil.
• Seitan brought from PA (Ray's Seitan in Philadelphia - 37 miles) stir fried with onion and garlic scapes (Alternative Food Co-op - 5 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil.
• Blueberries and blackberries (Fisherman's farmers market).
• Boiled corn (Hodgkin's Farm - 18 miles) with Earth Balance.
  
• Trinity IPA (Trinity Beer Company - 34 miles) and Newport Storm Summer Ale and Rhode Island Blueberry Ale (Coastal Extreme Brewing Company - 24 miles).
  

Lucky for me, our campground has a weekly farmers' market. I visited both Sundays that we were there and, in addition to the above, I picked up flowers and basil. Another bonus is the great food co-op located just about five miles from the campground. Although I don't recall exactly what farms the zucchini, squash, onion, scapes, berries and bread came from, I know they were all from RI. When in Rhode Island, every place is a half-hour away - definitely local ;)

This is my favorite OLS meal so far. Probably because it was gobbled up while in front of the campfire.

OLS dinner 2007 05

Barbecue!




















One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 05

• Grilled Summer squash, zucchini and onion (all from our Blooming Glen FarmCSA crop share - 5 miles) marinated in dressing and chopped purple and green basil (Blooming Glen) with grilled tempeh (Cricklewood Soyfoods - 28 miles) smothered in barbecue sauce (DelVal College - 12 miles), on a bed of steamed-then-sauteed beet greens, Swiss chard (Blooming Glen) and garlic (bought at the Skippack Farmers' Market from Jack's Farm - 24 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, and Italian dressing*.
  
• Chilled salad of blanched string beans and orange and red tomatoes (Blooming Glen).
• Sliced peaches (bought at Plumsteadville Natural Foods from a farm in Solebury - 23 miles) and strawberries (Blooming Glen).
• Butt Monkey Chiller Chimp Ale (Lion Brewery - 84 miles)

*I'm one of those people that always ends up with the leftovers. You know how at the end of a party or a picnic, when things are getting put away, packed up and tossed, and there are always those two or three things that could stay or go? The, "If you don't want it, I'll just throw it away" things? Yeah. That's how I got an industrial-sized bottle of Italian dressing. What can I say? My maternal instincts kick into high gear when I see food being thrown away :)

Barbecue was a One Local Summer dinner that I had stashed away in the back of my mind since I signed up for the challenge. It's something that I knew I would do eventually, but wanted to save for a busy week. Coming down from the Fallingwater trip has pretty much depleted all of my energy this week, so barbecue it was.

Earlier in the week, I went to Plumsteadville Natural Foods to stock up on local tofu, and at the last minute asked if they carried seitan; specifically, my local Ray's Seitan. I was happy to learn that they did, and when I went to pull it out of the freezer, I saw a row of an unfamiliar tempeh. Knowing that the owners of the store have a special interest in small, regional manufacturers, my heart skipped a beat as I picked up the package. Could it be local? Hell yeah - it was!




















And this is a perfect example of the frustration I have been experiencing in finding local vegan protein sources. Since last year, I've been scouring the internet looking for "tofu in Pennsylvania," "quinoa in Pennsylvania," "Tempeh in Pennsylvania," "amaranth in Pennsylvania," etc., etc., etc., and coming up with nothing. I've spent the last 12 months thinking that southeatern PA is just a dead zone in the way of local vegetable-based protein. It turns out, I'm all wrong. They're out there, but why are they so hard to find? Why aren't these companies listed on the buylocalpa.org website? Better yet, besides Fresh Tofu, why don't Ray's and Crinklewood Soyfoods have a website?

I mean, really. I gotta get on this. I'm going to go write some letters :)

OLS dinner 2007 03

One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 03

• Fried green bell peppers (from our Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles), purple bell peppers (DelVal College - 12 miles), onion (also Blooming Glen), seitan (Ray's Seitan in Philadelphia - 37 miles) and a splash of DelVal's own barbecue sauce, atop a sliced heirloom tomato (Blooming Glen) and wrapped in a complet baguette (Baker's on Broad - 0 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil.
• Fresh red cherries (bought by kah for me at her CSA, Pennypack, who imported them from Lancaster, PA - 84 miles) and yellow cherries (Windy Spring Farm - 15 miles).
• A cold salad made from raw red beets and very quickly steamed-then-cooled carrots, green string beans (all Blooming Glen) and yellow string beans (Windy Spring). Nonlocal ingredients used: vinegar.
• The classic in these parts, Yuengling Lager (Yuengling Brewery - 68 miles).
  

It's obscenely hot around here, and so I've been anticipating an easy sammich, raw side dishes and icy cold beer OLS dinner since Sunday. Bakers on Broad makes my favorite bread each Wednesday and Sunday. Complet is made from organic quinoa, spelt, amaranth, millet, brown rice, white flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, salt and vitamin C powder, making it nutritionally fulfilling, or complete. Those bakers. So clever. Especially the French ones.


I went in this morning to get my a loaf of complet and a baguette for my OLS hoagie-style sandwiches, and who knew? They had a complet baguette. Brilliant! Actually, as it turns out, the baguette was a bit heavy for how I used it. Next time, I'll hollow it out.


My favorite part of tonight's meal was a side of cool veggies. I steamed-for-just-a-minute, some green and yellow string beans and carrots, added raw beets (all julienned) and let everything cool in the fridge until it was time to eat. If this weren't my local meal, I probably would have added slivered almonds and a sesame oil dressing, but instead I simply sprinkled on a few drops of vinegar before eating. The result was chilly and crisp - a perfect compliment to the spicy sandwich. Also, it looked real pretty.


So, that's it - my number three meal is done! If you're interested in seeing what other people are cooking and creating, visit OneLocalSummer.blogspot. There, you can see the meal roundups each week, which are organized (mostly) by region:

• New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT)
• Mid-Atlantic (DE, NJ, NY, PA)
• South (AL, AR, DC, GA, FL, KY, LA, MD, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV)
• Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, OK, SD, WI)
• West (AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY)
• International
• Latecomers

And be sure to check out the One Local Summer photograph pool at flick'r for photographs of OLS dinners, as well as farmers' market scores, garden bounties, pick-your-own trips and, of course, CSA shares.

Bon Appétit!