Wednesday, September 30, 2009

common ground fair

Last weekend we attended the Common Ground Fair in Maine put on by the Maine organic farmers. I attended three lectures. The first was on growing and using sprouts the second was a great demonstration of fermentation,the speaker took the fear away and showed a way that is very easy using jars with gaskets. The third was a speaker on the fatback diet on getting back to whole foods and stop using low fat an d fat free products.We also saw awesome artisans and the best collection of farm stands in Maine,veggies,herbs,meat cheese they had it all. I even saw local foraged chicken of the woods mushrooms for sale.It was a great weekend.

Monday, September 21, 2009

9/21/2009 a few local treats







This week I made a gingered squash soup with anadama bread from jenny's bread at the farmers market.We also had steamers dug by Joe.The funny looking vegetable is Brazilian eggplant.The skin was tough and the eggplant was on the bitter side.Looked better than it tasted.Finally a good batch of mozzarella and I smoked it after it dried on the counter for a while. I found these great smoke cones at Aubochon hardware that you can cold smoke with.I haven't tasted it yet but it smelled good. I made 4 pints of kosher dills from the garden and froze some tomatoes that i blanched peeled and seeded. I also made some new pickles.The ones like you get with deli sandwiches that are still white inside, my favorite.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

One local summer week 14
















This week I had a lot of good experiences.I went blueberry picking at Dufort farm in Rehoboth,I also bought some beef and pork from them. The pork was very good.I have experienced some pork that has been a little strong tasting for my liking but this was really tasty.I cooked the pork with a hot slaw of cabbage,apple,onions,sage and carrots. I also cooked a wonderful corn tart with roasted cherry tomatoes from a recipe a friend gave me this week.I bought 25 pounds of tomatoes and made ketchup out of them.Homemade ketchup is worth the work.We went to a pot luck for slow foods on Labor day in Bridgewater. Not a lot of people but we had a good time and some good food and conversation.The best of the week was when I finally brought my first try of sauerkraut up from the basement. I made it about mid July in a crock in the basement and never looked at it. I sealed the top with a plastic bag of water and hoped for the best. I was really afraid of what I would find when I uncovered it. To my surprise it was beautiful! Nothing funky on top,no slime, nothing growing just beautiful fresh looking sauerkraut. Joe and I tried it together it was perfect and really crunchy.I have been having a terrible time trying to get mozzarella to come out right so I was so happy to have something work the way it should. I froze 8 cups of blueberries that I picked and will make the rest into a pie tomorrow.One local summer is actually over but I am continuing on.

  Local Dining One of the first warm evenings of the year means a trip somewhere for seafood on the water. Usually this trip would be to the...