Homegrown Happy Valley

Summer is the easiest and hardest time to cook. Our CSA boxes and farmer’s market bags are exploding with vegetables, yet countless diversions–the beach, the pool, sign-ups for fall activities–keep us from actually doing anything with them. In a nod to summer’s hectic schedule (and the always present goal of preparing good local food) most of our dishes this week are fast and easy.

How did you transform your local food into quick meals?

HOT ITEMS OF THE WEEK:

• corn
• tomatoes
• peas

ON THE MENU:

Day 1

Tortilla pie served with garlicky kale

• Michele layered corn tortillas with left -over shredded chicken, sour cream from Meyer Dairy, local shredded jack cheese, and The Piper’s Peck salsa.
• She made three layers and baked at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes until the cheese was brown and bubbling.

Day 2

Katie had a poolside picnic with baked chicken wings, pea and potato salad, blueberries and watermelon.

Baked Chicken Wings

2 lbs wings (Blue Rooster Farm)
½ cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame (or olive) oil
One clove garlic
½ cup honey
2 tbsp ketchup

Mix the ingredients for the sauce and let marinate for at least one hour.  Then place wings in glass dish sprayed with olive oil and pour sauce over top.  Bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes.

Pea and Potato Salad

Peas (Village Acres)
Potatoes (Boalsburg Farmer’s Market)
Scallions (Village Acres)
Mayonnaise
Dill (Village Acres)

Boil peas and potatoes together for about 15 to 20 minutes, drain thoroughly and put in the refrigerator covered.  When peas and potatoes are cool, mix with 1/4 cup mayonnaise, chopped dill, and kosher salt and pepper to taste.

Day 3

Roasted Chicken and Caprese Salad

• Michele roasted Over the Moon chicken with Tait Mango Chutney.
• Salad: sliced tomatoes from the Saturday Hills Plaza Amish farmer’s market, topped with mozzarella from Meyer Dairy and pesto made with Tait basil and garlic from the Amish market.

Day 4

Katie prepared egg noodles (downtown Tuesday market) and meat sauce (tomatoes from downtown Tuesday market, basil and onions from Village Acres, meat from Blue Rooster), salad greens (Village Acres) and Gemelli’s ciabatta bread.

Day 5

Mark Bittman’s More Vegetable than Egg Frittata

Katie used eggs and veggies (whatever was left on Monday night) from Village Acres and Three Belle’s feta for the cheese.

Day 6

Cuizoo’s Pasta with Fresh Peas and Basil

I didn’t have any fresh basil or mint on hand, but I had frozen pesto that I made the week before, so I mixed the pesto and a little bit of warm water into the noodles instead.

Day 7

Zucchini fritters (from the Village Acres Farm Web site) and chilled cucumber yogurt soup (from The New Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen). Serve the soup as is, or drizzle it over the fritters. We served this with sauteed snap peas in tamari, salad grens, and local corn on the cob.

Note: I made the soup and shredded the zucchini in the morning before work, and then I put the rest of the ingredients for the fritters together just before preparing.

DRINK OF THE WEEK:

Fresh Tomato Bloody Marys

Michele and her sister-in-law Ashley made afternoon Bloody Marys to celebrate Ashley’s move from Denver. On Tuesday, after Michele couldn’t find tomatoes for the recipe at Tait or the Boalsburg Farmer’s market, she pulled into the Hills Plaza parking lot after spotting some Amish folk loading a truck. “Can’t we just buy the tomatoes at a grocery store like normal people?” Ashley asked. The girl appreciates fresh tomatoes, but clearly wasn’t prepared to hunt them down. But the Amish were more than happy to pull some tomatoes, along with a scale, off the truck and make one more sale before heading back to their farm. Michele drove away with three pounds of beautiful tomatoes, which made the best Bloody Marys she–or her sister-in-law–ever tasted.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 11:20 am and is filed under Eat Local Challenge, Farm, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.