Homegrown Happy Valley

Growing up, July 4th meant celebrating my sister’s birthday by eating breakfast at our local swim club. Friends and family members fired up the griddles in the picnic grove and filled them with their breakfast items of choice. My mother always made sourdough pancakes and blueberry buckle, my personal favorite. I couldn’t find my mom’s recipe, but this one worked out quite well.

What did you do with your local food for the Eat Local Challenge this week? Leave a reply and let us know!

HOT ITEMS OF THE WEEK:

• tomatoes
• blueberries!
• zucchini

The arrival of tomatoes…the first sign of summer produce!

Tomatoes? The last of the asparagus and strawberries? What did you do with your local food for the Eat Local Challenge this week? Leave a reply and let us know!

HOT ITEMS OF THE WEEK:

• tomatoes!
• strawberries

ON THE MENU:

Day 1

Lasagna enchiladas and fresh greens, early tomatoes and radishes

• 10 lasagna noodles
• 15 oz. ricotta cheese
• 1 cup parmesan
• 2 cups mozzarella (Meyer Dairy)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp olive oil
• fresh basil (Village Acres)

In a perfect green world, we’d all have the time, space, and skills to maintain a vegetable garden, a satisfying and sustainable way to get your produce. I always thought I didn’t have a big enough yard for a vegetable garden, but at least I have one. What about people living in urban areas or those in apartments or townhouses?  When there’s no dirt to dig in, where do you turn?

Many towns and cities across the country now have community gardens (Penn State’s Sustainable Agriculture Club started one this year on campus)–space set aside for individuals to sow and grow their own mini-bounty. But due to space constraints, getting a spot in a community garden can be difficult.  If you didn’t make the cut, what are your options?  Yardsharing!

Rain, rain, go away…

Even with all of the gray days, it’s easy to get excited about the local food scene as more and more vegetables are showing up in our CSA boxes and at the markets.

What did you do with your local food for the Eat Local Challenge this week? Leave a reply and let us know!

HOT ITEMS OF THE WEEK:

• asparagus (Sadly, I think the end is near for this star veggie. However, we are on the cusp of maximum bounty for so many other items!)
• strawberries

Make room in your produce bag for next week’s Boalsburg Farmers’ Market. Tuesday, June 23rd marks the second annual Art at the Market, which means you’ll be ogling more than food.

What could be better than browsing for fresh food, while admiring–and maybe even buying–paintings, jewelry, photography and fine crafts by fellow locals? The artists will be there to discuss and demonstrate their work and some will even be painting scenes from the market.

Some comfort food—soup, breakfast for dinner, and spaghetti and meatballs—as we yearn for the sun to come back on a regular basis. What did you do with your local food for the Eat Local Challenge this week? Leave a reply and let us know!

HOT ITEMS OF THE WEEK:

• asparagus
• strawberries
• zucchini makes its first appearance

ON THE MENU:

Day 1

Ten Minute Asparagus and Brown Rice Recipe

The other day my 4-year-old son spotted a rabbit in our backyard and asked for a carrot to feed it.

“We don’t have any,” I told him.

“Just make one,” he said, using that “duh, mom” inflection common in 4-year-old speak.

Clearly he has a lot to learn about food.

As a child, I was a big fan of the Strawberry Shortcake doll. I would dream up different ways to serve strawberries to my Barbies and G.I. Joes with my Berry Bake Shoppe. Now that the first berry of the summer has arrived, I’m once again dreaming of strawberry concoctions. Fortunately my recipes have matured a bit.

Week Two marks the beginning of strawberry season. How will you use strawberries, and how are you doing on your personal Eat Local Challenge? Leave a reply and let us know (you can now opt to be e-mailed with follow up comments!)

When investigating CSAs this winter, I found many options in State College and the surrounding area. Most work like this: People pay between $500 and $600 in the spring for a share of the farm’s bounty. Each week between May and early November you pick up your share of fresh fruits and vegetables (usually enough to feed a family of four) at a designated location or the farm. If you have a smaller family, some farms offer half shares at roughly half the cost. And some farms also offer a limited amount of work shares, where instead of paying for your produce, you offer up your sweat and services in the field.

Each Monday during the Eat Local Challenge we’ll post “7 Days of Local Eating.” This is a compilation of what the three of us at Homegrown Happy Valley do with the food that’s available at the farmer’s markets and in our CSA boxes each week (Katie and I belong to Village Acres CSA; Michele belongs to Tait Farm.) We’ll try to note the source of the food where possible, but since we sometimes lose track, we’ll denote those food items as simply “local.” We’ll also include a tip or special note for each week (and we’d love to hear from you in the “Leave a Reply” box below for your own tips and recipes!)