new toy

Here are photos of my christmas gift and two meals made so far.A reproduction reflector oven from Sturbridge Village. I also received hearth cooking lessons at woody hill Inn in RI. The first meal we cooked was a pork roast with potatoes and turnip greens and an apple cake all produce was local.The pork roast cooked in front of the fire for only 35 minutes.It was excellent. The second meal was a local chicken with local sweet potato and a salad of greens dried cranberries and mushrooms.the chicken cooked in 45 minutes was done perfect and had a beautiful crispy skin.We also took a hearth cooking class at Plymouth plantation.We were the only students so we had the instructor all to ourselves.We had an egg and bacon fricassee,onions and currants on sop(toasted bread) a cabbage pottage,mince pie,cranberry tart and cranberry pie.We haven't the class at the Inn yet I will write about that later.

local lunch

Todays local meal was a simple one. Stuffed quahogs from the freezer and sauerkraut made last fall.The sauerkraut was made by me last fall with local cabbage. It is amazing to me how crunchy it still is. The stuffed quahogs were made a few weeks ago by me. Joe dug the clams and the chorizo i used was local the onions and peppers were from the freezer from last summer(local)the bread i used was just leftovers from the freezer. This is a meal showing how freezing and preserving can give you a local meal any time of year.

celery root

I have been trying to really cook just from what we have at home since i stored,froze and canned so much this year. Today we had a soup of leeks,celery root and homeade chicken broth with whole wheat bread and olive oil. All was local except the olive oil.The vegtables from Platos harvest in Middleboro,chicken broth from a chicken grown in middleboro and the bread with whole wheat flour grown in Maine. After using the imersion blender we had a silky sublime soup.
It was so comforting and much healthier than potato look soup.This is a meal I will make again.
If you have not seen a celery root it is hairy,ugly blob but worth the trouble to scrub peel and chop.

One local summer week 5

We missed last week 's one local entry. We were on Vacation in Virginia and Pennsylvania,So we ate a lot of food local to that area since they are a little farther ahead in their season.I will blog more on the vacation later. Tonight we will have a lot of items from PA. since I count anything bought on vacation as local. We are having a PA. grown chicken bought at the wonderful Central Market in downtown Lancaster flavored with rosemary from the garden and garlic bought last fall.. This is supposed to be the oldest farmers market in the country. It was really great and you will see people coming in with their milk bottles for refills. They had a great butcher with free range poultry and grass fed beef, fresh not frozen. We will also have the first corn of the season from Billlingsgate farm in Plympton a few miles away, carrots thinned from my garden and asparagus bought from an Amish farmer on vacation and pickled beets I put up in the fall. Dessert will be grilled peaches also bought at the market in PA.

Week 2 one local summer

Week two of One Local Summer 2009. My definitions of eating local are, 100 mile radius and anything I buy while on vacation. Tonight our meal is a grilled pizza with a salad topping. The whole wheat for the dough was bought in Maine last fall and kept in the freezer. I usually buy 20 lbs a year. The cheese is Atwells Gold (a hard flavorful cheese) from Narragansett Creamery in Rhode Island and a smoked mozzarella from Maplebrook farm in Bennington VT. The topping for the pizza added after the shell with cheese is off the grill is composed of: greens and oregano from back yard, garlic from last fall,red wine vinegar from a local red wine,tomatoes bought at a farm stand in Mattapoisett (greenhouse) a basil mixture from the farmers market.Non local ingredients,olive oil salt and pepper. We also picked strawberries in Mattapoisett this week,bought heavy cream from a local dairy,and bought some local asparagus,we are also picking our own radishes.Pizza is usually my local (lazy meal) when I don't feel creative but the freshness of the salad on the grilled pizza base was really,really good. I will definitely be making this again. The dough is a little chewy and dry with all whole wheat but was very easy to grill compared with crusts I have tried with white flour.

Eating local without trying

Tonight dinner was almost all local without even trying. We had meatloaf :hamburger Plato's harvest Middleboro, oatmeal,grown in Maine,green peppers frozen this summer,homemade ketchup.eggs Plympton
all local except spices. Mashed potatoes from RI,green beans canned this summer.Salad was spinach and radishes from RI,our sprouts.Not local:spices,onion,oil,vingar,cucmber.I did not realize what a local meal it was till we sat down to eat it. Saw a great interview on Alice Waters on 60 minutes. I would of missed it except hubby read about it on South Shore Edible's twitter site. Now I can see a reason for Twitter. I would not have known about this if he had not read it.

a local meal in the winter

Last night we had a couple also interested in eating local over for dinner. We had a beef brisket from Simmons farm in RI. We had mashed potato,maple glazed carrots homemade bread,salad(spinach,micro greens,sprouts,radish,tomato,cucumber) apple crisp with homemade ice cream. Everything was local to New England except for cucumber,condiments and flour. We had great conversations on many food related items, and I think we all learned a few things we had not heard of before. We have been out of the habit of having company over for dinner but will be trying to do more of it in the future.

Still using it all up, no grocery challenge

Last night was a true New England winter meal. We had clam chowder with quahogs from the freezer and last of the local potatoes, homemade Boston brown bread and cole slaw with 1/2 of my last local cabbage. This morning hubby let me know we are almost out of cereal and the last banana. So today we will make granola and I made some fruit salad from the apples and oranges in the fridge that we never remember to eat. Lunch will be leftover soup and dinner will be chicken and dumplings from the chickens in the freezer that need to be cooked a long time to be edible.

a cold snowy day

What would be better on a snowy Sunday than homemade soup. I used homemade beef broth, shell beans I froze this summer,tomato's I canned,summer squash I canned,onion and garlic,carrots and celery. Also added some egg noodles and a Parmesan cheese rind from the refrigerator. This soup was warm and comforting, I usually don't make vegetable soup I thought it was a good way to use veggies I canned this summer.It was so good and will become a regular recipe in my kitchen.I also made cornbread with corn from the local mill in Plymouth. Since I did not have to leave the house today, I spent the day cooking and working on craft projects.

eat local challenge day 10

We still had many clams left from Joe's trip clamming on Wednesday so steamers for dinner again tonight. Lunch was pizza on cibatta bread same as yesterday. I went to the grocery store for a few things,coffee filters,sponges,crackers I came home with just what was on my list(this is unheard of) only eating locally this month leaves very little that can be bought at the store. I will miss the farmers markets once the end of the month comes.The farmers market I go to every week is in Plymouth mass, it will end the last Thursday of October they also have one on Saturday mornings. I assume all other local markets will stop about the same time. I have quite a great stash of local food in the freezer and canned but I will miss the market. Last year they had a Winter farmers market in Providence, Hopefully this will happen again and will have more vendors.