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OLS 13 & Farm Tour

We have been so busy that blogging has taken a back seat of late and now I have a lot of backlog to get through.  But I guess I'll start with dinner. 

This is the last week of the One Local Summer challenge.  I think I only missed 2 weeks of 13, and even in those weeks I made great use of local ingredients, just not always all at the same time or photographed.

This week, Eliot went fishing with the grandparents at my brother's farm.  They did well.

 

They managed to catch about 7 bluegill that were keepers.  More went back in the pond.  We split the haul with grandma & grandpa and last night we had a fish fry.

 

I dipped the fish nuggets in a cornmeal and milk mixture and deep fried it.  We served it up with green beans and bruschetta which included tomatoes, garlic, onions and basil, all from our CSA, Moon on the Meadow.

And speaking of Moon on the Meadow, Jill hosted an open house at the farm on Saturday.  It was a lovely afternoon.

 

There's a whole set on Flickr.

Happy September! We're celebrating tonight by reading about the first day of school - always the first day of September - at this special place.

OLS - week 11

I am so happy to be in the back-to-school routine.  It means I can leave work at 2:45 to pick the girl up from school at 3:00 and go home, have some time to decompress, do a few household chores, sew a bit and still start dinner at a reasonable hour.  No more working until 5:00 and fighting traffic to pick up Eliot by 5:30.

This week's One Local Summer dinner was made ahead of time and left to sit overnight in the fridge.

 

I threw some tomatoes, garlic, onion, cucumbers, and basil into the food processor and blended with a little olive oil.  Voila!  Easy gazpacho.  I topped it with a bit of edamame for protein and paired it with some fresh, hot-from-the-oven bread made with Hudson Cream Flour.

All of the gazpacho ingredients, save the oil, came from our CSA, Moon on the Meadow.  The edamame came still on the plant and Eliot was a great help in pulling off the pods and shelling them once they were cooked and cooled.  Aidin completely turned up her nose at the idea of a soy bean, although she drinks soy milk, but then tried ONE and decided she loved edamame.

Woo Hoo!  Now that's a successful meal.

Other successes this week, that haven't been photographed but were inhaled:  beet pasta from farmer's market, italian flat beans, corn on the cob, steamed baby carrots and mashed potatoes.  We have eaten well this week.

Have a great weekend, my friends.  Being back in the school swings means I'm now volunteering in Aidin's classroom on Friday mornings and I have a little sewing project for Eliot's class.  Oh, it is good to be involved.

OLS - week 10!

Wow!  The summer is flying by.  We have gone from a glut of greens to tomatoes and potatoes.  This week I used some tomatoes from my CSA and a few left at my front door by my neighbor (thank you, Jeannie!) and some summer squash to make a summery pasta.

The basic recipe was from the Midwest Gardener's Cookbook.  I changed the proportions some.

Summer Pasta

2 cups diced summer squash

3 cups diced tomatoes

1/2 large onion

1 clove garlic

olive oil

basil

oregano

salt & pepper

I sauteed the onion and garlic in the olive oil, added the squash and tomatoes and cooked covered for about 20 minutes.  Added the herbs at the end.  Served it over pasta with some parmesan.

It needed something.  More garlic?  More basil?  Black olives, maybe?

And I was the only one in my family who liked it.

::sigh::

Maybe next week will be a winner. What are you making?

OLS - last week (9?). I've lost track.

We have had a busy and exhausting few weeks.  Weeks where all we managed to eat was cherry tomatoes straight off the vine and cold cereal morning, noon and night.  I finally cobbled together a fantastic pizza over the weekend with juliette tomatoes from Moon on the Meadow - our CSA, and fresh mozzarella from Cheryl at Bradford Cheese.  Homemade crust from the Artisan Bread book made with Hudson Creme Flour.  My family scarfed it down.

 

In another bit of local, we celebrated Mead Day once again (this is the third year running) with our good friends, Paul and Kim, and enjoyed several varieties of home-brewed mead.  I would have loved to have tried them all, but there was the small detail of driving the 35 miles home.

 

Cheers!  How was your weekend?

OLS - week 7

I finally managed to pull off week 7's meal last night (now that it is week 8).  I started it last week.  It just never came together.

My grandma grew up during the Great Depression as the oldest daughter in a family with a slew of kids.  Sunday dinner had to stretch a long way to feed the big family and the inevitable extra folks who might drop in.  So Sunday dinner usually consisted of Roast and Noodles.  You could stretch a rather small piece of meat by serving it with noodles cooked in broth.  For added starch value, they served it all over mashed potatoes, but personally, I think that is overkill.  Everyone loved it that meal, so throughout the following decades, Roast and Noodles remained a fixture of Sunday meals.

Earlier this summer I discovered a woman at Farmer's Market that makes home-made egg noodles.  Personally, I *know* how to make home-made egg noodles - not only did I watch my grandma perform this weekly ritual, but I also taught the ladies who cooked for us in India how to make them -  but I am rather lacking in time, will and counter space and more than happy to buy them from a local vendor. (She's working on noodles made with beets next!)

So, one bag of egg noodles, one roast from my brother's farm which I cooked in the crock pot last week and a few carrots from our CSA.  I'll call it dinner.  And we ate every last bit.

 

OLS - week 6, plus a recipe

Wow!  Six weeks into this challenge!  That's halfway through.  And already, my whole family is more mindful of what we eat and where it comes from.  And I have had more conversations with more vendors at farmer's market this summer than I ever have.  I'm lovin' it!

This week was a great meal.  One that really says "summer" to me - and reminded me of all those summer Sundays spent on my grandparents farm as a kid - grandpa manning the grill, grandma with pots boiling on the stove.

 

Kansas City strip from that very farm - once the home of my grandparents, now the home of my brother and his family.  Corn on the cob from farmer's market, cooked on the grill.  And green beans with new potatoes and onions, all from Moon on the Meadow CSA.  And beer.  My favorite local beer. 

 

Last weekend I made a really tasty dip and took it to two 4th of July celebrations.  The original recipe is here.  But here is what I did:

Creamy Leek Dip

1 lb. thick cut bacon, less 3 strips which my kids ate.  Okay, I had a piece, too.

1 block cream cheese

1 container feta (mine came from Cheryl at Bradford Farms)

1/3 cup sour cream (yogurt would work well too - it was just what I had on hand)

7 leeks, white and light green parts

splash of worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. all purpose greek seasoning (we are big fans of this stuff)

cut ingredients into 1-2 inch cubed.  dump it all in the food processor and spin until combined and creamy.  It kind of needed something.  Maybe next time I'll add some dill.

Easy peasy.  And good.  And it got better as time went on.  I served it with Triscuits and Ritz, because - again, I had them on hand and who doesn't love a Triscuit?  It would also be good with veggies.  It made a huge amount - enough to take to two different potlucks from one recipe.  And we still had leftovers, which sneakily went on Aidin's roll up sandwiches (tomato/basil tortilla spread with dip/cream cheese + ham + spinach all rolled up and cut into sections) in her lunch this week.

I've been working on some very cute things for a baby shower I'm going to tomorrow.  I can't wait to show them to you on Monday!

Have a great weekend!

OLS - week five

This week's meal was GOOD!  Well, at least Tim and I thought so.   

Beef and Apple Brats, bought at farmers' market - Aidin thought they were too spicy, but I loved them,

 

served with kale chipsand fresh snap peas (probably the last of the summer ::sniff::), japanese turnips and more of those delicious carrots - all from my CSA.  Jill sends out a newsletter each week with recipes for some of the things that you will get in your bag.  The kale chip recipe was already on my mind, but when Erin posted her review of kale chips, that clinched the deal.

Can you tell I am kind of a meat and two veg. kind of girl?  Maybe next week I'll branch out a bit more.

I'm planning on taking local dishes to two Independence Day potlucks this weekend. 

Enjoy the fireworks and I'll see you next week.

OLS - week 4 - a day late

Last week, with the heat and camp, all my dinner-making mojo just went out the window.  I couldn't even make a grocery list, let alone something fit to eat.

So last week's one local summer meal happened last night.  Variation on a theme.

Swiss chard, leek and colby frittata -

 

accompanied by CSA carrots  (so wonderful) -

enjoyed al fresco. 

 

Okay, "enjoyed" may not be the right word.  Neither of the kids thought much of dinner.  Aidin ate the carrots.  We eat quiche all the time, but she claimed she missed the crust. Personally, I like it better with swiss, but I haven't found a local swiss cheese.

But dessert was grand - black raspberry cobbler seen here in the pan -

 

and here on the plate.

 

Dang!  It was yummy.  I had it for breakfast too. 

The eggs, again, came from my market friend, Richard Bean.  Swiss chard and leeks were from my Moon on the Meadow CSA bag.  And I used Hudson Cream Flour, which is not within 100 miles but is from Kansas - the four mill is just about the only thing in the town - and I could buy it in my favorite grocery store while also buying the Alma Cheese. (Click on the GiveBack link over on the sidebar to see how my favorite grocery store contributes to our community.)

The raspberries came from the Peters Family Farm and were purchased at farmer's market.  Black raspberries were not on my list, but they called my name when Aidin and I were making our usual Saturday-morning-market-breakfast purchase of home-made cinnamon rolls. 

More cinnamon rolls appeared at my front door on Saturday afternoon.  My 16 year old next-door neighbor and favorite babysitter has a summer job at Wheatfields.  And gets to bring stuff home.  That made for a very nice Sunday morning with the newspaper on the back patio.

Saturday we had a fun meal that I didn't photograph.  Won Tons made with a little leftover hamburger combined with cabbage, purple cauliflower and carrots - all from Moon on the Meadow.  I baked the leftover Won Ton wrappers a la Molly and they were a hit - although mine were just squares, not fancy heart shapes.

This week we have some beef and apple brats on the menu as well as fava bean crostini, kale chips, stir fry, and a roasted fennel, onion and potato side.

Now I'm hungry.  I guess I'll go have that last piece of black raspberry cobbler.

Ciao for now. ~ L

One Local Summer - week 3

Beef tips, CSA carrots, some strange fries - also from the CSA, and local bread from Wheatfields.  A lack-luster meal this week.  I tried to make a local wine reduction / gravy thing but it was a total disaster.  I'm hoping for something more stellar this week.

Cheers!  And happy Father's Day!

Spiffy

Between trying to save money, use all those greens* from my CSA, and Michelle's job change - which has meant she is no longer free for our weekly lunch date - I've been bringing my lunch to the office a lot more often. 

Our office fridge has plenty of room, and on any given day there are several paper or plastic bags littering up the shelves with my co-workers lunches.  But that's not how I roll.  Ever the recycler, I've been bringing mine in this little green canvas tote, leftover from a freezer-paper stencil Brownie project last year.

Finally, I spiffied it up.

Two evenings of sitting in front of the TV for an hour and I had a pretty little lunch sack.  I was going to embroider "Lori's Lunch" across the bottom, but I thought I might want to use this for something besides lunch - or someone else in my family may need to use it.  (It's a Sublime Stitching pattern.)

 

We have a busy weekend (what's new?) in store.  Tonight (and most of tomorrow) I'm running camp training and sleeping in a tent, Tim has a gig playing for Michelle's husband's photography opening, and the kids are camping at the lake with Grandma & Grandpa. 

Sunday we are celebrating the June & July birthdays with my side of the family and Father's Day, so I've got some crafting to do in the next 48 hours.  I've spent all week not knowing what day it was - oh, wait, trash day is TODAY? - so I'm glad Friday is finally here.

 

Orange you glad it's the weekend, too?

Okay, sorry, but I couldn't resist.

Cheers! L

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*  The Martha Stewart bok choy salad that I linked to yesterday:  scrumptious!  Even though I used a little less soy sauce than it called for (I ran out - can you tell how much stir fry we've been eating?) AND substituted olive oil for sesame and peanuts for cashews. (Can I even call it the same recipe after all that substitution?  I don't know.)  But just ask Miss Chris.  She made it too - but actually followed the directions. ;)

I just made it again for lunch (the office has soy sauce) and added bacon bits.  Oh.my.god!  I need more!