One Local Summer - Week Ten

Last night we had fritatta with red, green and yellow peppers and basil. We liked it a lot more than the green pepper and onion fritatta of earlier in the summer. I think the basil was a great addition. A side salad of tomatos and cucumbers. Also sweet corn of the "Honey Treat" variety - seriously, so sweet it could be dessert, and cantelope. This was our first local cantelope of the summer and it made us wonder why we ever bother with non-local cantelope. Is it worth eating when it has no flavor? And I guess that is what we were meant to learn with this project.
I am finally getting around to reading Barbara Kingsolver's book and I am determined to grow some of our own food (beyond meadow tea) next summer. Of course, Geoff's response to this idea was: "You are aware that vegetable gardens need to be weeded, right?"

One Local Summer - Week Five

This is a bit of a redo of last week's meal. We had a lot of goodies left over. I bought a hot pepper from a farm stand operated by inner-city teens. They have an urban garden in Lancaster (7 miles from me) that they plant and maintain with guidance from the adults who started the program. They have a stand at Eastern Market, which is also where I was able to purchase from Promisedland Farms and the farm that raises the free-range chicken in this dish. The hot pepper led me to make a chicken/veggie saute with a more Southwestern flair. In additon to the hot pepper and chicken, I used green pepper, green onion and red tomatos from Harvest Lane Farms, 3 miles away. My cheats were olive oil and seasonings.

The exciting addition to the meal was CORN BREAD! Last night, while wandering the grocery (our grocery store is a family owned dairy/grocery that puts a big focus on local producers) I found locally milled corn meal. The company is Haldeman Mills in Manheim, PA, about 20 miles from us. So I decided to make corn bread from scratch. This had my husband chuckling and Thing One wide-eyed with amazement. I found some flour in the bulk foods section that is distributed locally, and I am waiting for a call back from the store letting me know whether or not it is also produced locally. The milk came from the dairy at the grocery store. And the butter from Guernsey's Gift Market in East Petersburg (7 miles.) The egg was also local. So the only cheats in the cornbread were the sugar and the baking powder.

We rounded out the meal with sweet corn grown by my Dad's cousin (2 miles) and plums again.

One Local Summer - Week Four

I am late blogging about this meal, but life got in the way!

Free-range chicken from a farm in Paradise, PA (15 miles), sauteed with zucchini, yellow tomatoes and fresh basil from Promisedland Farm in Millersville, PA (15 miles). Also in the saute were onions left over from last week's meal. The roasted potatoes are from last week's farmstand visit. The gorgeous plums were purchased at our grocery store and the produce manager told me they were grown in York County (30 miles).

My cheats were olive oil, garlic and dried herbs.

The saute was really delicious. I sort of made it up as I was going along. I will definitely make it again.

The only thing the meal was missing was some crusty bread to dip in the broth that was left on the plate! Still searching for a local baker that uses local grains.

One Local Summer - Week Three

Life has finally resumed something of a normal pace, and I was able to make my first local meal this week.

I have learned a lot with this first meal. The most important lesson: ask questions. The Amish boy I mentioned in a previous post sold me some blueberries this week, and I wondered how they were growing blueberries. I was planning to ask for some tips. Well, of course, they are not blueberries his family grew; they are blueberries they bought at market! Silly me!

So, I was a much smarter shopper when I hit the nearby farm stand. I made the poor girl walk me through the whole stand and tell me the origin of everything she was selling.

Our first local meal consisted of red potatoes and green beans from Harvest Lane Farm, three miles from our house. A crustless egg pie (cheating! the recipe calls for ricotta, of which I could find no local substitute. I did however, choose the ricotta from New Jersey, rather than Oregon.) made with eggs from a local farm, and green peppers and green onions from Harvest Lane Farm. For dessert we had peaches that I purchased at Harvest Lane Farm, but were grown elsewhere in Lancaster County.

Delicious!