Archive for the 'Cooking' Category



One Local Summer – Week 8

One Local Summer

I thought we’d switch-up our local meal and make a brunch this week. A successful brunch for me needs to have something sweet and something savory. For sweet we had plum kuchen made with local plums, eggs, butter, and flour — no local baking powder, sugar, or cinnamon. I also made a crustless quiche — I hate rolling out pie crusts — with local eggs, bacon, chives, milk, and cheese. Both were made last night so after church today I just heated the eggs and then we dug in. Yum.

- cheese (17 miles)
- butter (19 miles)
- spelt flour (30 miles)
- chives (30 miles)
- eggs (32 miles)
- plums (69 miles)
- bacon (88 miles)

One Local Summer – Week 7

One Local Summer

This weeks meal was made in an effort to use up some of what we had in the fridge that was nearing the end of it’s usable life. The roasted chicken was leftover from another meal, and the summer squash was a week old. The fresh pasta is made somewhat locally and our CSA farm sells it at their roadside stand. I combined the chopped squash with minced shallots and diced tomatoes from our garden. In the meantime I made a roux — with local flour — and added chicken stock and local cream to make a sauce. I added a splash of wine and about 10 oz of shredded local gouda cheese to the sauce and stirrred it until smooth. The only thing left was to combine the pasta, vegetables, and cheese sauce and top with some basil from the garden. Yum.

One Local Summer – Week 6

Local Dinner

Baked Chicken with Herbs, Garlic, and Shallots, Roasted Beets, Spelt Bread.

I’m so happy I’ve found a source for local flour. This time I got spelt flour and I need to figure out how to make bread with it. This bread ended up being a flat bread but it still tasted good. The chicken is a nice easy recipe and very good. The roasted beets were not a hit. In years past we’ve always given any beets we get in our CSA share away but we enjoyed some at the solstice dinner so thought we should try them. We need to figure out another way to prepare them.

- rosemary, thyme (0 miles)
- chicken (17 miles)
- butter (19 miles)
- spelt flour (30 miles)
- beets, shallots, garlic (30 miles)
- olive oil (non-local)

Barbecue Time

Did you all have a good Independence Day? We had the cousins together for a parade, a visit to the water park, and then a barbecue at Grandmom and Granddad’s house. Aren’t they cute:

Independence Day

Earlier this week we had good old fashioned pork barbecue for our all local meal. We actually had ribs too but I’m not a big fan of ribs so they weren’t on my plate. The local pork butt was cooked on the grill, the local pork spareribs were roasted in the oven, the local veggies were mixed into coleslaw, and I canned the bbq sauce last summer from local ingredients.

BBQ

- corn (17 miles)
- cabbage, kohlrabi (30 miles)
- pork butt, pork ribs (88 miles)
- vinegar, spices (non-local)

One Local Summer – Week 3

One Local Summer - Week 3

Last week our local meal was lamb kebabs and a cucumber-feta salad. The lamb kebabs were seasoned with curry — a favorite of Katie’s — and grilled. The cucumber salad was made with local cucumbers and feta and seasoned with herbs from our garden. As usual the only non-local ingredients were the oil, vinegar, and spices. I need to find a local source for the vinegar at least but I am excited because I found a local source for grain this week. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the other local meal we had this week. Oh my.
- dill, mint (0 miles)
- lamb (17 miles)
- feta (19 miles)
- onion (69 miles)
- cucumber ()

One Local Summer – Week 2

One Local Summer - Week 2

Another salad. I promise it will get more exciting soon. I actually had better plans for dinner last night but they got changed at the last minute. So, salad for lunch is my one local summer meal today. Once again the only non-local ingredients are the oil and vinegar for the salad dressing and the spices on the grilled chicken.

- grilled chicken (17 miles)
- feta cheese (19 miles)
- lettuce (30 miles)
- radishes, carrots (100 miles)
- bacon (88 miles)

One Local Summer – Week 1

One Local Summer - Week 1

So I officially signed up for One Local Summer this year. I think in previous years I had missed the deadline or forgot to sign up or something. So here is our first OLS meal of 2009. We had local lamb sausage with a local salad. The only non-local ingredients were the oil and vinegar for the salad dressing.

- lamb sausage (17 miles)
- cheese (18 miles)
- lettuce, radishes (30 miles)
- eggs (32 miles)
- bacon (88 miles)

Making Me Happy Today

:: wearing matching outfits with my girl on Mother’s Day ::

Happy Mother's Day

:: first berries of the season, and consequently the first canning session of the season as well ::

First of the Season

:: herbs in pots on my deck ::

:: a vegetable garden that is planted and ready to grow ::

Vegetable Garden

Party Like Picasso

It was tonsillitis. Sore throat, high fever, crummy tonsillitis. I think it’s been banished by the mighty z-pack but I’m not claiming total victory just yet. I noticed while working out this morning that my throat is still feeling a bit swollen. Luckily, I had recuperated enough by Saturday to celebrate an upcoming sixth birthday. Our little artist and a whole bunch of her friends gathered at our house to create some art and sing happy birthday. We set up three stations — the kids are so familiar with the station concept from school it was a good way to keep them organized — for the art projects and divided the kids into three groups. We really wanted the kids to use real art materials so at station number one they used watercolor crayons — less messy than watercolor paints and just as fun — to paint on canvas.

Art Party - Katie's Watercolor Painting

This was the painting Katie created. The watercolor crayons are great, the kids draw with them like crayons and then use a wet paint brush to move the color around on the paper. I so wish I took a photo of all the different paintings drying together. At station number two the kids made a sculpture. We used crayola model magic clay for this because it is lightweight, not messy, and only needs to air dry. I did not want to be worrying about baking clay in the oven, especially because station number three was perler beads and that was crazy enough with Tristan repeatedly trying to use the iron.

Art Party - Katie's Sculpture

For the food we had sliders and pigs-in-a-blanket with french fries. We also served a variety of fruits — organized by color on a painter’s palette — with fruit dip. Papa made the cupcakes and we placed them on another palette — I just picked them up at our local art supply store — by color. Today on the way home from kindergarten a mom stopped me and said her son told her it was the best girl birthday party he had ever been to — success!

Art Party Birthday Cake

Weekend Report

Thomas Run

March may have come in like a lion but we sure had a lamb of a weekend. Temps were in the 70s both days. Crazy. We’re back to more seasonal March weather now, blustery and colder. But about the weekend, it was a really good one, and not just the weather. Saturday morning Katie and I headed to Molly‘s place to have lunch with Molly and Emily and their gangs plus Erin who was visiting for the weekend.

These are Some Seriously Tiny Mud Boots

It’s always fun to go to Molly’s and it was great to meet Emily and Erin. We arrived a little early and Katie just took off to collect eggs with Mary and Emma and I helped Molly get lunch ready. How I wish we lived closer. I’m blessed to have such thoughtful and generous friends though, even if they live hours away. Both Emma and Katie were hoping to go in the swimming pool — apparently being 6 or 7 makes you immune to freezing water — but after Emily and Erin arrived we went to the creek instead. I brought some gifts for the ladies and we ate lunch, each helping with the other’s children. Erin and Emily left and I helped Molly clean up lunch while we talked about our girls.

Did We Mention the Mud?

On Sunday Stefan had a race in the morning and we celebrated his birthday with some of our extended family. Katie went to my parents’ and Tristan helped me make the birthday dinner — spaghetti bolognese — and birthday cake before everyone returned for a loud, laughter-filled evening with the windows open. A perfect weekend really, thank you March.

My Little Baker

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