Tuesday, August 28, 2007

CSA crop share 2007 14

Yikes! My camera battery died, so no picture of the share board this week. Of course, if you're really dying to know just how many pounds of tomatoes that is, you can see notes at flick'r.

Ms. Cinder helped with the picture-taking and splitting-up of the share this week. What a gal!

> Cross-posted at www.farmtophilly.com.

Monday, August 27, 2007

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!

Sunday, August 26, 2007

RI pictures

Whew! The last of the RI photographs have been flick'r-ed. I'm seriously taking forever to get my head out of this vacation. It was great to be away for two weeks, outside, in a tent and at the beach. Perfection.


We've done this camping trip to Fishermen's every year for the past 25-plus years, staying for 8 to 10 days each time. This year, we just couldn't stand the thought of having to pack up any sooner than we absolutely had to. Fishermen's has a maximum consecutive renting period of two weeks, so two weeks is was this year. And will be from now on.

It was during our last day or two that I realized I could've stayed away for another two weeks - and easily! It got me wondering, just how long would I have to be away before I started missing home? I often hear people saying about their vacation things like, "oh it was great, but I was ready to get home." Do you feel that? This trip made me realize that I never have. Of course, there must be a threshold, right? Maybe a month? Six months? A year?

I don't know what it is, but man, I'd love to find out. Anyone want to sponsor me? I'll travel about with my monster, you can make sure my bills are paid on time and my job will be waiting for me when (if?) we come back. I'll send postcards. A pictures! Any takers? :)

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Speechless

So, uh.

Avery has a girlfriend.

...

?!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

CSA crop share 2007 13

Daddy-O picked up the share for me this week because I had an appointment. What a guy!

(Click on the photos to see larger images and notes at flick'r.)

Sunday, August 19, 2007

OLS dinner 2007 08


One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 08
  • Homemade whole wheat flour tortilla tower (McGeary Organics/Annville Flouring Mill - 94 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: baking soda, salt, canola oil.
  • First layer is lettuce (Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles) and marinated and baked tempeh (Cricklewood Soyfoods - 28 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: tamari, liquid smoke.
  • Second layer is sauteed yellow squash brought home from Rhode Island (Fisherman's farmers market - o miles), red pepper (Blooming Glen) and onion (Lancaster - 83 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, salt, cumin.
  • Third layer is sauteed corn, green bell peppers (both from Blooming Glen) and onion (Lancaster). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, salt, cumin.
  • Topped with raw tomatoes (Blooming Glen and our garden - 0 miles).
  • And drizzled with Jason's homemade hot sauce (peppers from Blooming Glen and our garden). Nonlocal ingredients used: vinegar, cumin.
  • A chilled salad of raw lettuce, blanched string beans, raw onion (all from Blooming Glen) and raw tomatoes (from Blooming Glen and our garden).
  • Watermelon (Blooming Glen).
  • Whirlwind Witbier (Victory Brewing Company - 45 miles).
This was by far the most time-consuming, though absolutely the most delicious, OLS meal I've done. From the time I started mixing the batter for the tortillas until we sat down to eat, over four hours passed. Because we've been away, I had lots of random veggies both from RI and from the crop share to use up. It felt good to be in the kitchen after a couple weeks away from home, though I can't say I was thrilled to be spending such a large part of my Saturday cooking one meal.

I was trying to come up with a clever way to utilize the variety of produce when I started making the tortillas. This time, I borrowed my dad's pasta maker to roll them out. It worked beautifully, creating rectangular, uniform pieces of dough that I quickly realized would lend themselves wonderfully to a tortilla tower theme - perfect for incorporating my many vegetables!

While I diced and chopped and stir fried and rolled, Jase decided to try his hand at homemade hot sauce. I must say, it was super-nice hanging out and creating this week's meal together.


My next OLS meal will for sure be much lower maintenance. Cereal is sounding very good right about now :)

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.

CSA crop share 2007 12

Our August 14 crop share; pick up and photos by Brookie, again.



She thought this week's cherry tomatoes were especially cute. I tewtally agree :)


CSA crop share 2007 11

Our Blooming Glen crop share from August 7, picked up and photographed by the best seester ever, Brookie :)


Saturday, August 18, 2007

Back already?

Man. I can't believe the holiday is over.

Although it's been slow easing my way out of this view:


I'll be posting my OLS 7 and 8 meals and CSA 11 and 12 shares soon :)

Thursday, August 02, 2007

See ya!

I'm off to the land of lots of tents and no internets :)

I'll be back in a couple weeks with crop share, OLS and ocean pictures.

Bye!

PS: You can play with this while I'm gone, http://www.factoryfarmmap.org. And after you've had enough of reality, feel free to cheer yourself up at http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail173.html and http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/web_crash_2007.php.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

White hot flower lovin'

The ginormous hibiscus in my white flower garden finally bloomed. I saw the other white flowers taking bets as to whether it was going to bloom before it was being devoured by Japanese beetles. Fuckers. (The beetles, I mean, not the other white flowers.)


This photo and some others have been added to my flick'r album. I especially like this little guy:


Reminds me of fireworks :) Pretty, pretty, pretty!