Daftly Smitten

Excuses, Excuses...

2011-04-26T17:04:00.000-04:00

I swore that this time I would catch up on the blog. With FOUR entire days off work, I was schemeing to get through all the backlogged photos and post some decent recipes... along with a giant garden update. And yet... the weather - it has been too beautiful! And my friends - they've been popping out babies like crazy and I find myself wanting to hold them. I am typing this right now since I already fit in 4+ hours of baby-holding today, and soaked up so much sun that I needed to come in and take a water break. So let this be a place holder for now. More will come. Maybe just one or two pictures a week - but I'm getting back on track!

Things to look forward to hearing about:

I learned how to ski in Tahoe.

Dave bought a smoker.

My brother & sister in law went to Japan and sent us over 20 different flavors of Kit Kat.

I plan to rate each flavor.

Dark Days - Meals 9 & 10

2011-02-15T21:20:00.001-05:00

So I don't even know if this Dark Days thing is going on anymore since I haven't seen a recap in months, but I really wanted to see this to the end, so I am still posting my wrap-ups twice a month.

Roasted Cauliflower with spices

OK - this meal does not qualify as local in any way, but this sockeye salmon is wild-caught Alaskan, which according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch list is the most sustainable type of salmon to eat. Check out that list before making a fish choice - it's a great resource for those interested in making the best choice for the environment. I wanted to include this since my husband has a fun way to cook it in paper lunch sacks - really fun!

sweet potatoes, red and yellow onions and garlic (all from our winter buyers co-op) in a cast iron pan

Happy local organic chicken goes on top (I believe the carrots got added in as well after the last photo)

BEAUTIFUL veggies upon roasting in the oven

a plate of our chicken and veggies dinner

Making homemade stock with the leftover bones the next day

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 11

2011-02-11T20:35:00.001-05:00

Lettuce, crimini mushrooms, cabbage, red onions

Some might ask... Have we gotten sick of mushrooms yet? Honestly - not really! I like slicing them thinly, sautéing them and adding them to everything from omelets to soups to topping our steaks. Basically, we use mushrooms as condiments around here. YUM.

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 10

2011-02-05T15:32:00.001-05:00

Multi-colored carrots (yeay!), crimini mushrooms, apples, cabbage

Dark Days - Meals 7 & 8

2011-02-01T09:14:00.000-05:00

Well then. I had a plan this time to break up this post in to smaller segments - but I am a slave to deadlines, and apparently other things have been popping up every time I go to write a blog post (ahem, maybe getting lost in reading other people's blogs?).

First off, here's a shot of the finished product of French Onion Soup from the last recap. The topper was made of homemade herby french bread and local swiss cheese. YUM! I froze a few jars so that I can bring them out later to enjoy.

The past couple weeks we were able to eat out at not one, but two resturants which focus very much on SOLE food. The first, Woodberry Kitchen, we went to for brunch with friends. OH MY! Dave had the sausage biscuits and gravy, I had sausage and grits with an egg on top, and one of our friends we were with got shirred eggs (I had to google that at the table - it means baked in a ramekin, sometimes with other stuff). We both chose sausage since it's made in-house!

biscuits and gravy

My grits

Shirred eggs (I believe the menu said there was fairytale pumpkin inside!)

Later in the week, we had dinner at Dogwood. These are horrific photos, but I will share them with you anywho:

This was mine: organic lentils & barley with Moroccan spices, local chevre cheese & roasted red peppers on Tunisian carrot salad.

Dave got the Lamb Borek: Persian spiced domestic lamb baked in phyllo with feta, mint, garlic & rosemary, cucumber salad and local lettuces

So obviously these meals out were not entirely 100% SOLE, but simply supporting the resturants with such a commitment to local farms and good whole foods is a win in my book.

At home a couple meals were made - mostly brunch food (I feel like winter is the season for a hearty brunch):

Local potatoes, onions and eggs over easy

I couldn't eat all the sausage from Woodberry Kitchen in one sitting, so we fried up the slices and served with eggs and cheese for another brunch.

Roasted these butternut squash from our winter co-op for a soup, but the one on the left was so OUT OF THIS WORLD amazingly tasty, that I've been eating it plain as a side all week.

Purple kale from Pennsylvania (found at Whole Foods - surprisingly within our 100-mile range). I've been eating the stems chopped up in omlettes, and the leaves I made into crispy kale chips. (here's a good recipe)

That's about it for this wrap-up!

Just as a reminder, this post is part of the Dark Days Challenge,

hosted by Laura at the (not so) Urban Hennery. You can find my intro post here.

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 9

2011-01-30T10:18:00.001-05:00

crimini mushrooms, garlic, red onions, yellow onions.

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 8

2011-01-22T21:16:00.002-05:00

Crimini Mushrooms, Bibb Lettuce, Grapefruit, Sweet Potatoes

Dark Days - Meals 5 & 6

2011-01-16T23:08:00.001-05:00

Here's the SOLE food that's been served up since the New Year:

Steak from our 1/16 happy cow, plus potatoes, onion and mushrooms from the winter buyer's co-op. Let's just say those green beans in the background aren't there - since they are straight-up from the grocery store.

Husband took a day off during the week last week and made totally SOLE beef stock for me in preparation for the weekend, when I had plans for french onion soup! In the pot were bones from our 1/16 cow (really trying to clear out the freezer), carrots grown in pots on our deck, mushrooms & onions from the winter co-op, and water!

Actually, this was the weekend of soups. Here's a soup I completely made up based on what we had lying around the fridge. The orange color is due to a puree of sweet potatoes that were baked for another meal and I had a lot leftover. Mixed that with some of the beef stock, added some SOLE sage pork sausage from the market, a jar of the previously featured, totally SOLE One Straw Farm diced tomatoes and then you'll see my cheat on top - diced jalepeno from the grocery. I also added chili powder which was not SOLE.

here's my french onion soup: onions - freshly cut in local raw cultured butter

After an hour....

After two hours...

And with the broth added!

Didn't get a shot of the soup in a bowl with homemade herby french bread and local swiss cheese all brown and bubbly on top - but I'll include that in next months wrap-up, since I made this just tonight and the leftovers will surely be eaten this week!

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 7

2011-01-14T20:53:00.001-05:00

Carrots, kholrabi, more carrots, yellow onions

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 6

2011-01-06T19:15:00.001-05:00

crimini mushrooms, greenhouse bibb lettuce, butternut squash, apples

Dark Days - Meals 3 & 4

2011-01-01T21:59:00.001-05:00

Rather than presenting two specific meals, here's a smattering of SOLE food that's been spotted in our kitchen in the past couple weeks!

Tomatoes from our garden - very slowly ripening under newsprint

An all-SOLE fritatta with eggs, kale, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, onion and swiss cheese.

Mutant Mushroom!

Mushroom soup (found on http://userealbutter.com/, see below for recipe)

AMAZING shredded beef made in the crock pot with diced tomatoes and pickles (you add the whole jar - liquid and all). Used a chuck roast from our 1/16 a cow purchased earlier in the year.

Picked the last batch of carrots from the garden this week!

Made sandwiches from local bread, completely SOLE smoked turkey lunch meat (such a seasonal treat from our Amish farmers!) and the last of the tomatoes from our garden.

___________________________________
Creamy Mushroom Soup with Sherry and Thyme

from Fine Cooking issue #74 (found here)

2 tbsps unsalted butter
2 tbsps olive oil
1 medium onion, medium dice (~ 1 1/2 cups)
4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 pound fresh mushrooms, wiped clean, trimmed, and thinly sliced (~ 4 1/2 cups) – I used crimini
1/2 ounce bag of dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated in 1-2 cups boiling water (reserve the liquid, but leave any sandy dregs behind) – this is optional, I did not have any dried mushrooms, so I just used more fresh
2 tbsps plus 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves (from our garden!!!)
1/2 tsp salt to taste
1/2 tsp ground black pepper to taste
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 cup half-and-half
3 tbsps dry sherry (I used balsamic vinegar instead... not a fan of sherry)
1 tbsp soy sauce

In a large stockpot heat the butter and olive oil over medium-high. Sauté the onions until they are browned, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and stir about for a minute. Then add the mushrooms, 2 tablespoons of thyme, salt, pepper, and cook until the mushrooms begin to wilt (in a couple of minutes). Pour in the broth and the porcini liquid (if using) making sure to scrape up any fond that has formed on the bottom of the pan (the good browned bits). Bring to a boil over high heat and then reduce to a simmer. Cook for about 7 to 10 minutes until the mushrooms are tender. Remove the soup from the heat and let it cool slightly. Either using a food processor, a blender, or an immersion blender, purée about half of the soup. Return the purée to the pot and stir in the half-and-half, sherry, and soy sauce. Season with more salt and pepper to taste. Reheat as needed. Garnish with fresh thyme and extra mushrooms that have been browned in butter. Serves six.

(in my soup, the vinegar, soy sauce and olive oil were not local)

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 5

2010-12-30T20:27:00.001-05:00

Florida Avocado, Juice Oranges, Onions, Crimini Mushrooms

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 4

2010-12-23T21:24:00.001-05:00

grapefruit, 3 jars of One Straw Farm chopped tomatoes (this is the farm we get our CSA from - so fancy!)

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 3

2010-12-18T16:22:00.000-05:00

Crimini Mushrooms, Cranberries, Apples, Kohlrabi

Dark Days - Meals 1 & 2

2010-12-16T20:54:00.000-05:00

Our happy local Thanksgiving turkey carcass got simmered (by the hubby, dlb) for hours with onions from the farmers market, carrots from our garden and I believe the celery was from whole foods (of unknown origin... dlb bought it). Once we had turkey stock, dlb and I split it in half and each made a soup. He made an Italian wedding soup, I made a southwestern tortilla soup. They were both so good I didn't get a chance to take photos!

Parisian something-or-other carrots... which grow to have more of a beet-shape. YUM!

This dish is made with collard greens from our CSA - which I cooked with a ham hock (left over from LAST YEARS winter co-op... amazing how things can get lost in the freezer!). I then used the excessive "pot liquor" to cook some speckled butter beans I bought fresh at the farmer's market. Served with a slice of toasted sourdough from the market, it was quite a nice weekend meal.

This salad was a combination of spinach, radishes, greens peppers and smoked swiss cheese, all picked up at the market. I really don't know how the green peppers were in season locally. Greenhouse? They may not have been within the 150 miles...

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 2

2010-12-10T20:19:00.001-05:00

Grapefruit, Crimini Mushrooms, Cauliflower, Kale

Dark Days Challenge - 2010-2011 Introduction

2010-12-08T18:42:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure why I think I can keep up with this, since blogging has taken a "back-back" seat (that's an official term for the seat in a station wagon that's behind the back seat - usually also facing the back of the car, fyi) in my life.

But sustainable, organic, locally-sourced, ethical food (SOLE food) is still an important part of my diet, so I'm hoping I can piece together enough complete meals to live up to the challenge. It did lead me to think more about where ALL my food comes from last year - and it wouldn't hurt to try that again. For all the fine details, visit this posting... it's hosted by Laura at the (not so) Urban Hennery. There's something crazy - like 100 people participating, so it should be fun.

This is the post where I define what my terms are for the challenge. The standard we're asked to abide by in terms of what is local is a 150 mile radius. Thankfully, this works well for me since it includes key growing areas in Pennsylvania, most noteably my wonderful Amish Farmer's co-op. So I know that anything I order from them fits within the SOLE guidelines.

Also helpful is the local grocer where I buy most of my produce and some meat and dairy. Every week I think she's gotten something new this past year - and most products fall within 150 miles. It is there that I pick up my Winter Buyers Co-op - a share of 4 veggies each week from Dec-Feb. THAT will make things pretty simple for produce.

Last year I found a local flour source as well as several grains. It took me practically the whole challenge to do so, but now I feel pretty set.

I will try to use primarily local herbs - but this is where I feel okay cheating. So spices will be used and I will note when they are not local.

Basically - I will try my best to make fully-SOLE meals, but there will be times where I will simply note what is not SOLE in order to get dinner on the table. A 90% SOLE meal is much better than take-out pizza!

So I will most likely post for each "recap period," which will be twice a month (again - check out the details of the challenge here).

I'd also like to reserve the right to simply list all the SOLE dishes that I've prepared over the half-month period rather than describing two particular meals. :)

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 1

2010-12-02T22:17:00.001-05:00

Carrots, Butternut Squash, Crimini Mushrooms, Green Beans

Holy smokes, where'd the summer go?

2010-09-10T12:46:00.000-04:00

I felt like it had been awhile since I posted something (ya think?!?), but it really shocked me to come here and see my last post was week 1 of our CSA. Today is something like week 14. Where did the summer go???

I haven't stopped taking photos, of course... just stopped uploading and posting.

So please excuse me while I catch up on the weekly CSA posts... and then maybe garden updates... and then maybe some other fun stuff I've been up to. As usual, I will post them on or around the date taken since I can't stand things not being chronological here...

All I know is it may not all happen today. It is too beautiful to be indoors; however - all the windows are open, I have a breeze at my side, and I can't really go anywhere until I'm done babysitting the tomatoes slow-roasting in my oven. So stay tuned!

CSA: week 8

2010-07-30T21:32:00.001-04:00

cucumbers, garlic, orange cherry tomatoes, yellow pear-shaped tomatoes

CSA: week 7

2010-07-24T18:30:00.001-04:00

tomatoes, yellow summer squash, zucchini, eggplant

CSA: week 6

2010-07-17T16:28:00.000-04:00

green onions, potatoes, kale, patty pan squash

CSA: week 5

2010-07-10T14:24:00.001-04:00

red leaf lettuce, snap peas, garlic, zucchini

(blur due to extreme change in camera lens from indoors with AC to outdoors with HORRIFIC humidity)

CSA: week 4

2010-07-01T20:18:00.001-04:00

Collard Greens, Radishes, Cucumber and Kohlrabi (purple and green)

CSA: week 3

2010-06-26T18:09:00.001-04:00

Broccoli, curly-leaf kale, zucchini, romaine lettuce.

CSA: week 2

2010-06-17T20:05:00.001-04:00

Golden beets, spring onions, spinach, collard greens.

CSA: week 1

2010-06-12T21:29:00.001-04:00

Hooray, hooray, it's CSA time again! In case you've been living under a rock, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You buy a "share" directly from the farmer at the beginning of the season (usually sometime Jan-April) and then you get weekly deliveries of fresh produce in return. We buy a half-share (4 items) in a 24-week CSA that runs June-November. The farmers get the money they need to start their crops (rather than taking out bank loans) and we get fresh produce straight from the farm. No middle man means much lower prices!

Each week I will take a picture of our haul and post it here. It's my favorite post since it's so easy to do!

this week: rainbow chard, garlic scapes, green leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce.

In the beginning, you definately have to handle a lot of greens!

Food & Faith Challenge: Money

2010-06-04T15:24:00.000-04:00

I have gotten behind on all my blog posts, but this is the challenge I am most upset to be missing out on. For the rest of the challenge I have promised myself that I will post the current week on time, along with 1-2 additional "back-logged" posts each week so that I've responded to each topic by the end of the challenge.

This week's topic is Money.

Questions for Reflection:
•Using our money to buy fresh, local food–which may or may not cost more than the supermarket equivalent–is an exciting way to put our values into practice. Even the smallest step in that direction makes a difference. Thinking about buying local food in this way, how might it be good stewardship to buy local, seasonal food even if it costs more than other options?
Especially when you are focusing on stewardship, in figuring the total cost of the food you are buying, you have to account for the TOTAL cost - not just the cash you pay up front for the product. Just as Michelle brings up in her post, a low-cost processed food today may bring you higher doctors bills down the line! The cost to the environment alone should bring the "real cost" of conventional foods higher than locally grown organic produce, so I feel it makes sense to buy SOLE food, bottom line.

Challenge to Action:
•Evaluate your food budget. Are there processed items or restaurant meals you can give up so more money is available for fresh, local products or fair trade items? Or would you consider increasing your food budget itself for this purpose?
I know that we can give up more processed foods to re-channel money into making better choices, specifically to buy more ethically and sustainably raised meat. My main roadblock is my husband, who prefers to buy whatever meat is on sale at the supermarket. He has yet to be convinced that better treatment of the animals, greater thought as to how the farming of those animals effects our environment, and even proper diet and lack of chemicals (promoting a healthier animal) is better for us, the eaters of said animals. Or more rightly, he doesn't feel it's "better enough" to pay the higher prices.

To his credit - I have not been able to fully explain why I am so passionate about the subject. That's partially why I chose to take part in this challenge; to try and flesh out why I feel we should be focusing our dining on real foods made by people we've met in places not so far away. I struggle as well when it comes to the cost of certain foods. It's also daunting trying to figure out where to find the "real thing". Can you trust the labels, or do you have to know the farmer himself (or herself)? If you know someone who knows the farmer, is that enough? Do they have the same definition of humane that you do?

Sometimes I feel that there are more questions than answers.... but what it really comes down to is doing what you can do. Taking those baby steps towards something better. Taking the time to stop and think about what you are about to buy... what you are about to eat.

I. Am. So. Behind!

2010-06-02T17:08:00.000-04:00

So much for catching up over the long weekend, eh? Please don't worry - I haven't fallen off the face of the earth... just been living the real life too FAST. Not making the time to slow down and contemplate and write about stuff...

I have been taking pictures of the garden progress though, so sometime soon I will probably be updating the weekly garden posts in a back-dated manner since I can't stand things being out of order chronologically.

Things to look forward to hearing about:
-I biked 140 miles (in two days)!
-Rhubarb has come and gone. How did that HAPPEN? HOW IS IT JUNE?!?!?
-Strawberry picking season is upon us. (two strawberry desserts already made last weekend...)
-CSA starts up next week. FOR REAL. If I hadn't picked spinach while we were out picking strawberries this weekend, we would have no vegetables in the house (slept through the farmers market Sunday...), so I'm totally ready for the CSA to start.

Strawberry & Spinach picking

2010-05-29T20:28:00.001-04:00

We picked strawberries... and then made stuff!

strawberry rhubarb crisp

I washed all the spinach....

And then Dave made a strawberry cream pie:

4 years

2010-05-29T07:59:00.002-04:00

Hooray for anniversaries! Four years of marraige? Even crazier: March 2010 marked 10 years (yes, TEN) together. Dave planned a lovely evening out to Dinner at the Milton Inn. Check out their site and see all the awards they've won... crazy stuff. Although we're an old married couple... we felt like we wouldn't really fit in here for another 20 years. Or maybe never. It was very old-school hunting lodge meets fancy french restaurant? Maybe? I can't quite describe it. Although the service and food was excellent.

Since I'm obsessed with food, of course I will share:

We split the Venison Pate for an appetizer: (example of old-school charm: when the waiter found out we were planning to split the dish he had it divided into two equally beautiful plates).

I had the swordfish. Dave ordered the rack of lamb. We each had a glass of wine. Everything was very tasty and fancy and I don't quite remember the details but it was lovely!

Then the dessert. Isn't this cute? Dave got the macadamia torte and I had the tiramisu. This is the only point at which I felt I could whip out the camera, since hey - they wrote us greetings on our plates! How can you not record that?

Harvest!

2010-05-26T07:18:00.004-04:00

radishes and mountain spinach for my salad today.

Swings

2010-05-22T10:28:00.003-04:00

Visit to Omaha May 19-24 to help a friend conquer her wedding planning. We decided after a long day of dresses and venues that swinging at the local playground was the best way to end the day.

Remote garden update

2010-05-20T16:23:00.019-04:00

I am in Omaha right now, but Dave texted me these pictures of things growing in the garden:

A radish is poking up above the soil...

The amish sna peas are blossoming...

And the brocolli raab needs to be picked since it's flowering already!

I'm Done!

2010-05-17T07:46:00.002-04:00

I just rode 140 miles on my bike. 103 miles day one, 30+ miles day two. From Rehobeth Beach to Baltimore City. And in doing so I raised over $1200 for Moveable Feast - enough to feed one client for an entire YEAR! Thank you to everyone who made a contribution. It was one awesome ride!

My bike taking a break at one of the pit-stops... She's a heavy one, so she needed to rest on the ground.

Someone else's more trim bike frolicking on the playground at the rest stop.

The whole team at AVAM, waiting to ride the last few miles together through downtown Baltimore.

Weekend Garden Update - 5/9/10

2010-05-10T07:22:00.017-04:00

Went to the first farmer's market of the season (for me) with a good friend Sunday morning and had a GREAT TIME! Since it's the season.... my haul included rhubarb, asparagus and strawberries. SO YUMMY. I got one gift for Dave: last year we saw bay leaf plants but hesitated in buying them, only to never see them again. I found him one and am excited to nurse it into a big happy plant.

Our tomato plants getting SO BIG!

The kale is really struggling. I'm not sure it's going to make it.

Snap peas climbing along!

Weekend Garden Update - 5/2/10

2010-05-02T15:20:00.001-04:00

carrots sprouting bigger!

spinach - the real leaves are forming!

Mountain Spinach

Neighbor's super cool kitten

Dave's Okra plants

Broccoli Raab

Peas & radishes getting bigger

all the sprouts still growing under lights in the basement (they are SO in the way)

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 13

2010-04-30T20:12:00.000-04:00

some sort of greenhouse lettuce, mushrooms, baby red chard, baby spinach, eggs, bison patties, spring garlic.

This is our LAST WEEK of the winter buyers co-op! A month and a half break until the CSA starts...

Fun Watermelon Art

2010-04-25T20:18:00.000-04:00

Funky swirls!

Weekend Garden Update - 4/23/10

2010-04-23T22:13:00.000-04:00

radishes all in a row... peas starting to climb

carrots sprouting!

mountain spinach sprout!

spinach is sprouting!

the deck is still pretty bare...

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 12

2010-04-23T18:08:00.001-04:00

This week: oranges, green beans, yogurt, mushrooms, smoked bacon. I forgot to pick up greens, so I'll have to make up for that next week!

Weekend Garden Update

2010-04-18T09:45:00.002-04:00

This is one of Dave's Okra buckets I forgot to photo last week.

This is the current set-up on our back deck. From left to right: spinach, cilantro, ruby orach, mixed salad greens, ceramic pet frog, carrots, mint & lavendar that both survived the winter.

Here are the growing snap peas. Also - I forgot to mention that last week (April 11) I planted Early Scarlet Globe Radishes and White Hailstone Radishes from Baker Creek. Look - they are sprouting already (directly to the right and slightly above the middle pea plant)!!!

Look at these cute little sprouts - they are Yellow Wonder Wild Strawberry plants!!!

Dave transfered some of the tomato plants into larger containers... I'm not sure they were quite ready, but we shall see!

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 11

2010-04-17T14:43:00.001-04:00

Boston lettuce, yogurts, ground beef, cremini mushrooms, fingerling potatoes (freebie since they're starting to shrivel), onions and green beans!

All arranged on one of our new plastic Adirondack chairs that Dave picked up on a whim at the hardware store. I like the style... but really can't wait til we own a home and can get real nice wood ones.

Food & Faith Challenge: Creation

2010-04-16T22:34:00.000-04:00

This week's topic is Creation.

Reflection
•What are examples of sustainable agriculture you’ve encountered? Do you know farmers who are actively improving their farm’s soil, water quality, treatment of animals, biodiversity, or community involvement?
The CSA we buy into has a fantastic set-up on a large scale (one of the largest in the country) although small enough that they invite all the shareholders for a tour and a picnic dinner, and then a couple I am friends with back in Nebraska have been starting sustainable agriculture on a much smaller scale with their start-up farm and CSA.

Action
•Walk slowly and mindfully through a piece of land that’s important to you.
I took a stroll through our very small city back yard (stroll might be exaggerating!) and tried to imagine what our small garden will look like when it is the middle of June or July and the plants are bursting with fruits. The land is not even our own - but the fact that we have made a choice to amend and nurture the earth in hopes of providing ourselves with food (we are still young enough gardeners to get really excited about the fact that WE GREW THAT TOMATO!!!) increases the value of the land ten-fold!

•Watch Food, Inc. and post a review on your blog or email me your thoughts.
I am bummed about the timing of this action item and urge everyone who hasn't already watched the film to watch Food, Inc. for its television premier on PBS April 21st! That is my plan (although it's absurd we haven't already watched it through Netflix, I am very happy to support public television!).

Sorry to be short, but I wanted to get in under deadline for this week and it is also WAY past my bedtime!

Food & Faith Challenge: where does your food come from?

2010-04-16T20:03:00.003-04:00

I'm a little behind on the blog, but hopefully this weekend I can get caught up on the highlights of everything. First of all, the Food and Faith Challenge: check out the explanation here... this is put on by The Local Cook, who was also a participant in the Dark Days Challenge.

I had a slight pause in joining the Challenge since the texts that are focused upon are very much Christian based (an fyi... I'm Jewish), but as someone who has studied religion at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, it's not like I haven't seen the new testament before and conveniently much of it is sourced from the first 5 books (aka "old" testament) anywho. In addition, it sounded like Wendy (I'm pretty sure that's her name) is pretty welcoming and open to non-Christian participation, and the focus seems to be how each person relates their food experience with their own faith - which I can certainly do!

SO ONWARD!

The first week (last week), the topic was "where does your food come from?"

Reflection:
My biggest concern about the current food chain is the loss of flavor and nutrients in industrial ag's produce. In a very short period of time we have gone from a nation (and world, for that matter) where communities grew their own produce and ate it only when in season to an environment where nothing is off limits at any time of the year. Don't get me wrong... those champagne mangos (grown in chili, maybe?) are mightly tasty - so flavor is not always sacrificed. But the resources required to get those mangos to me in Baltimore in the dead of winter are certainly contributing to a much larger problem.

Action:
•At your usual grocery store, see if you can find information about where the produce is grown. Then check out meat, milk, and eggs. Is any of it local?
I am very proud to say that our "usual grocery store" is a small locally owned market where the owner carefully sources everything she sells. If she sells eggs- she visits the farm and makes sure the conditions are acceptable. Just about every item in the store lists the source of the food, and about 90% is within 100 miles of the store. We've gotten to the point where we go to the market to pick up our Winter Buyers Co-op (in the winter) or CSA (June-Nov), and then grab whatever dairy, meat or bread we might need - AND THEN, if there is an additional something in particular we need which cannot be found at the market, we'll hit the "regular" supermarket. Honestly - I say we (as in my hubby and I), but the local agenda is being pushed by me - and my very lovely husband is being very good in going with my SOLE leanings when I am in the lead. When he runs to get ingredients for a dinner he is fixing while I am working late - he still goes straight to the supermarket for the meat that's on sale or the frozen totino's pizza. Baby steps, I say.... I try and pick my battles for now.
In the summer we try and hit the farmers market at least every other week - but with the CSA and the fact that we've begun growing some of our own veg - we're normally swimming in local produce.

A quick note on the text selection:
3 He will judge between many peoples
and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

4 Every man will sit under his own vine
and under his own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the LORD Almighty has spoken.

The bolded is the emphasis from The Local Cook - the italics highlight a passage I am much more familiar with. It is good to see the two passages together.... that once we stop fighting there might come a time when we would all be able to provide sustanance for ourselves and our families.... although I'd like to think that we can work on both goals concurrently!

Garden Update

2010-04-12T06:47:00.041-04:00

Lots of stuff in the ground this week - woohoo!

Amish Snap Peas from Seed Savers Exchange

Dinosaur/Lacinato Kale from Seeds of Change

This shot shows the kale on the right and Broccolli Raab from Seeds of Change on the left. Not sure if those will make it - they're rather leggy... they were started from seed in a tiny little container all together in our kitchen window sill months ago!

This shows the garden in relation to the rest of our little yard.

No pictures for the remainder of today's planting since nothing has sprouted yet, but I also planted Ruby Orach (Mountain Spinach) & Tarpy F-1 Spinach from Seeds of Change in window boxes, Cilantro from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in an old salad container and St. Valery & Atomic Red carrots from Bakers Creek in a round 21 quart planter.

We also gave our indoor plants a little sunshine to start hardening them off:

Don't worry... we're planning on giving some of these away!

One last thing: Dave is growing Okra in two 5-gallon buckets on the front porch. I forgot to take pictures, but they are already impressive little sprouts!

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 10

2010-04-09T21:36:00.001-04:00

MORE PARSNIPS, thick-cut bacon, cremini mushrooms, cream cheese, multi-colored beets, apples

Dark Days Week 19 - Midwest represents!

2010-04-07T11:07:00.000-04:00

I wrote this March 29.... but had a heck of a time posting it.... so here it is, rather late - but better than nothing!

Is this the last week? I think it is... but I'm not sure. I was totally planning on going out with a bang, but things have sort of fizzled around here. Most people have claimed they are too busy preparing their gardens and seedlings for spring - but we haven't even done that! Working a lot of nights has been a major issue for me. Preparing for vacation was another. In our stage of life, vacation means going to visit family in Omaha. Both my husbands family and mine live there, and would like us to visit often. We would like to visit often as well, but it really makes me mad that a pair of non-stop tickets to some place AWESOME like San Francisco are cheaper than flying to Omaha. So we don't really vacation... we just visit family. Some day this will change, but that's what it is now.

I did go on a local food buying adventure, however. I was curious, now that we've made all our SOLE finds in Baltimore... how easy it would be to find local produce and meats in Omaha. You'd think that a city surrounded by a bunch of farmland would have a good system set up, but I know better and was doubtful that there would be an abundance of anything that I could directly eat (Nebraska grows mostly corn and soy feed for cows).

I was pleasantly surprised. This place called Tomato Tomato (I don't know how to type the markings that make those two words get pronounced different - long A for the first word, short A for the second) was a store my mother in law has been telling me about forever, so we checked it out this past weekend.

Here was my haul: LOCAL BARLEY (yeay - I can finally make that mushroom barley soup!), ostrich jerky things, tomatoes (heavenly), english cucumber and kale. Oh yeah, and that little tube is honey-lavendar lip balm... yummy!

I immediately turned the kale into kale chips for my in-laws to snack on:

An now the rest of the haul is sitting untouched as we prepare a not-so-local Passover seder meal at my parents house. Although I'm very excited to eat a cucumber tomato salad tomorrow for lunch.

All in all I really enjoyed this challenge. Even though there were weeks where I got to Sunday and had to scramble to put my meal together, I know for a fact that our cupboard has a much higher percentage of SOLE items than it did when we began, and I also know that most my meals all week long had at least one SOLE ingredient.

I have decided that I like the challenge of this so much that I am going to go right into another challenge which requires weekly posts (and has to do with food, of course!). More on that later (I'm almost late for dinner!).

PARSNIPS!

2010-04-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

I FINALLY made the roasted parsnips I had been meaning to make, having talked about doing so here and here. Recipe originally found over on Sprouted Kitchen.

I also broke in the Silpat the hubby bought for me (hanukkah, maybe?)

With the marinara sauce they were quite tasty - although Dave's commentary was that they tasted too much like parsnips (shocking, I know). So make this if you are a fan of parsnipy parsnips.

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 9

2010-04-05T16:18:00.002-04:00

I was still out of town when Dave picked up our share for this week... so he took the picture. Sure, I could have photoshoped the edges out to exclude my little note to nudge him to take care of getting the new comcast box before posting - but what's the fun in that?

Red onions, salad mix to plant, jumbo eggs, apples, fingerling potatoes, breakfast sausage links & orange rind muenster cheese.

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 8

2010-03-26T14:12:00.001-04:00

I totally took a picture of the goods we received on March 25th, but my Palm Pre decided it was going to randomly delete 150 photos from my phone. ARG!

Anywho - this is what would have been in the photo posted here:
Celeriac, Valencia Oranges, Onions, Carrots, Colby Jack Cheese & Chorizo Sausage

Not-So-Dark Days - Week 18

2010-03-22T21:03:00.023-04:00

This past weekend I did something that I RARELY EVER DO.... I ate almost EVERY meal out. It was insane. Friday night was a birthday celebration for a couple friends of mine, Saturday's dinner was a foodie potluck with a group of local food-obsessed home cooks (so I guess that's not as bad as a restaurant), and Sunday I had brunch and dinner out. It was not my ideal weekend.

I wrote that last sentence, and had to laugh. It may have been my ideal weekend a couple years ago, it most certainly was my ideal weekend. I thrived on going out with friends and keeping myself busy around town running errands and such.... but now I am much happier staying around the house most the weekend catching up on "me" time (some of it is "us time" I suppose what with the husband being home and all). Reading a book or actually spending time knitting, cooking food from scratch, poking around in the backyard which will soon be our garden.... it helps me balance the hectic pace of the rest of my week.

So due to all the eating out, I haven't made a specific "dark days meal" again since we have leftovers out our ears and between those I've been noshing on all the items I posted about last week. I have all the ingredients for the parsnip recipe I hinted at a couple weeks ago, and I have yet to have the time to make them. Worked last night and have class tonight. Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow night?

I just wanted to tell a little more about the potluck we went to Saturday. First - it was another BEAUTIFUL day in Baltimore - sunny and pleasant and wonderful. The couple who hosted the meal had a good sized garden in their back yard to tour, as well as edible landscaping in the front and some city chickens that provide them with eggs. I had such a good time I can't believe I forgot to take pictures.

People brought an amazing array of food and drink. Home brewed beer, home-fermented kimchi, duck-fat eclairs stuffed with olives and onions, red lentil dal, potato & beef perogis, an amazing asparagus salad with roasted red peppers, olives and almonds... the list goes on and on. Dave volunteered to make our dish. He used the last of his pickled pork to make pork and red beans over rice... a big hit!

It's quite a sustainable group; everyone brings their own plates and flatware so that no paper goods have to go to waste. We spent most of the time chatting about how to best trellis your peas, which weeds the chickens don't like (and which house plants they do!), and where to buy local fruit trees. There was also ALWAYS someone throwing a ball around with the very fetch-obsessed dog.

Dessert was Egyptian orange cake with chocolate glaze - and homemade chai tea. This is a monthly potluck (and March was the first one we could make it to), so I'm looking forward to more yummy dinners in the future!

(next week I'll have a much better dark days post to wrap up the challenge)

Thursday Design Post

2010-03-18T23:15:00.001-04:00

Today was an odd day. I was technically "working," but work consisted of driving a 15-passenger van full of Israeli teenagers around Baltimore site-seeing in the most beautiful weather we've had all year. What can I tell you... I get paid to do good work.

The highlight of the day was twofold: being outside in the beautiful sun most of the day, and getting to go to the National Aquarium for the rest of the time. I've never been to the aquarium since the ticket prices are rather absurd, but after seeing it today - I may splurge in the future to go with visitors. It's quite an aquarium!

Here's me being a tourist with Mr. Great White of Jaws.

The dolphins blew bubbles at us... the jellyfish exhibit was INSANE!

This made me laugh... a crab, in its "natural" Chesapeake Bay Habitat.

I wonder if they add toxins to the water to make it feel at home?

Relaxing in the Inner Harbor soaking in the sun...

Taking a small rest on the pavement while waiting for the group to meet up and head back uptown.

After all the fun of the day, this evening Dave and I switched gears to go visit a friend whose grandmother had died and was sitting shiva. I added the blazer to try and not stick out without having to change entirely.

Details:

skinny blue jeans: Mossimo from Target

green tank: Gilligan & O'Malley from Target

white button-up (in shark photo): Columbia Titanium line (it's SPF 30!)

sunglasses: H&M

blazer: another awesome sale purchase at Banana Republic

sneakers: Simple from Marshalls

Dark Days - Week 17

2010-03-16T11:26:00.000-04:00

So behind this week!

No pictures have been uploaded, so it's a little boring, but these are SOLE items which have been gracing my lunchbox with their presence:

fridge-pickled carrot sticks
(lazy person's recipe: when you run out of your store-bought dill pickles, cut carrots into sticks and add to the jar with all the leftover pickle juice. Let them chill out in the fridge for a couple days and then get your carrot pickle on!)

boiled root veggies
Dave made a corned beef boil (sadly, the beef was not so SOLE) with all the lovely root veggies we had hanging out: carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips and rutabagas. We took the boiled veggies out and mashed them all together chucky style with a fork.

cheese cubes and boiled eggs
smoked swiss and colby cheese cubes
boiled local eggs... not much else to say there!

an orange and an apple a day
oranges aren't local, but they are organic and in season, and I wouldn't have even bought them on their own if they hadn't have been given to us in our Winter co-op share.

locally made (by my secret Amish farmer) sauerkraut
just when you think you can't eat any more cabbage...

Are you serious?

2010-03-14T22:22:00.002-04:00

Are you serious?
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Went to Target to get a gel seat for spin class... And came across this gem of a product. An ash tray... For your bike. Because all bikers who smoke while riding are so gracious to depose of their butts properly. Insanity!

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 6

2010-03-13T16:01:00.001-05:00

Today we trekked out into the rain to retrieve: baby beets, fingerling potatoes, 4 (giant!) Matzu apples, 1 fuji apple, 4 pink lady apples, block of colby cheese (any ideas what to do with this?), two boneless pork chops and parsnips. This is my plan for the parsnips. YUM!

Thursday Design Post - this week!

2010-03-11T21:21:00.002-05:00

Nothing brightens up a home more than flowers. Dave and I both appreciate having flowers around the house, so in addition to buying him the cookbook I Know How to Cook, I got off work early and showered our home with flowers the day before his birthday as a surprise gift. Bonus for the both of us!

Here is a photo tour of the flowers:

I LOVE Hydrangeas. If you are detail-oriented, you may notice that in my clothing photos, there were two bunches of hydrangeas, whereas here there is just one. Sadly, for some reason the white bunch just shriveled away to nothing overnight. Didn't even leave a note to explain itself!

I love the contrast of the roses with the deep purple and kermit green!

I put the flowers where I knew he would enjoy their presence most (flanking the TV).

These roses opened up beautifully almost instantly!

I love putting flowers in the bathroom. It makes you feel like you're in a fancy hotel and you should tip the towel guy on the way out. Conveniently we have two bathrooms:

This is in the master bath.

and this is in the half bath.

All flowers were purchased at Trader Joes!

Thursday design post (from last week!)

2010-03-11T11:42:00.002-05:00

Things got hectic and I did not get to this last week, but today I will make up for it!

This is what I wore Monday. I should not have stood with my feet together (obviously), as it creates too great a difference between the width of my hips and that of my ankles (it's the truth, so I'm just saying it and moving on). But I was on a small chair. And so it goes. The flowers were for Dave - his birthday was Tuesday so I filled the house with flowers (more on that later today).

Yeay power lines! It was *almost* still light out when we got home from work. ALMOST.

Close-up of the jacket. I love that it's both black AND brown, so it goes with everything, but I most often wear this with a bright pink to go with the magenta stripe in the fabric. Puts a little kick into an outfit.

Sadly, it took years of sitting in the back of my closet before I suddenly realized that this jacket is a gem and should be worn in heavy rotation. I like how the arms are a little long and flare out at the end.

And not to forget my favorite part... MY NEW BOOTS! These are one of three pairs I bought last week in a crazy fit of boot-buying at the local shoe and chocolate shop (don't YOU have a local shoe and chocolate shop?). They were having a one day sale. I actually have deep regrets for not going back and getting the fourth pair of boots that I had told myself would just be too much. I really don't buy shoes all that often - especially boots since they rarely fit over my enormous calves! This pair and one other are by OTBT (Off The Beaten Track), and they are ultra comfy. I will be on the lookout for more of this brand in the future, because they are just heavenly!

UPDATE: (forgot details)

white collared shirt is short-sleeved; Columbia sportswear on sale at REI

pink sweater vest: Cherokee from Target

jacket from H&M circa 2005

Mossimo black skinny jeans from Target

OTBT boots from Ma Petite Shoes in Hampden, hon!

Dark Days - Week 16

2010-03-08T10:33:00.001-05:00

CABBAGE!!! I have had a monster head of cabbage just hanging out in the fridge for weeks now, and I was hoping to do something with it this weekend. So here are two cabbage dishes I made yesterday to feed us cabbage for weeks to come (some went in the freezer).

1. Another spin on the rustic cabbage soup I made back in January (can you believe it was that long ago?):

This time I stuck with green cabbage only and switched the other veggies up a bit. Started with 2 carrots and 3 rutabagas diced (in place of the potatoes) - threw those into the dutch oven with olive oil to brown for 5-10 minutes. Added 1 diced onion and 1 tsp smooshed garlic. 2 minutes later, added the dice cabbage, gave it a quick stir and then poured in 4 cups beef stock and 1 cup water. Let that simmer with the lid on while I sauteed the innards of 2 sweet italian sausages in a separate skillet, then added the sausage and one can of cannellini beans (only non-local ingredient - still can't find any local beans!!!) to the soup. Seasoned with salt and pepper and it was all good!

2. Tried another recipe passed on to us shareholders at Mill Valley for Braised Red Cabbage with Apple and Mustard:

Obviously, I used green cabbage. I think this will make a very nice side for meals throughout the week. Rather tart for my husband's taste, but I like it.... especially the mustard. The soup is really more for his consumption - I put the sausage in there just for him!

That concludes this cabbage smorgasbord!

Design Thursday?

2010-03-06T22:09:00.002-05:00

I totally owe you all a design post, but somehow photographs did not get taken Thursday of what I wore, and then I had planned to take pictures of what I had on today to make up for it and then I changed into my PJs before remembering! I hope to make up for it later this week!

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 5

2010-03-05T16:46:00.002-05:00

This week's share: Thick-cut smoked bacon, eggs, whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread, oranges (valencia this time - much tastier than the oranges last week which, apparently, were better for juicing), carrots, boston lettuce, red potatoes.

Dark Days - Week 15

2010-02-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

I know other people have felt like they were "cheating" when they use breakfast as their dark days meal, but I am not one of those people. Maybe if I made bacon and eggs every week and called it good... but I feel as though my breakfast meals have been just as creative as the dinner ones.

This afternoon I came home and made myself quite a meal for lunch... I had just returned home from a two-hour spin class in preparation for a ride I am doing in May (more about that another time), and I was FAMISHED.

I had frozen some of the leftover polenta pancakes last time I made them and threw 2 of them in the toaster while I whipped up more strawberry syrup and an omelet.

Inside two eggs I added: swiss cheese (after buying this for the french onion soup I have found it keeps really well and it very tasty when added to a plethora of dishes and so I keep buying more when I run out!), 1 bison breakfast sausage, onions, mushrooms and one non-local cheat: spinach.

I just had to have some greens in there, and getting myself to the local farmers market is difficult since I work at the gym Saturdays when it is open. In May, once the big market on Sundays open, I have no problems... but for now it's a tad difficult.

Dinner last night

2010-02-26T21:32:00.001-05:00

Have you ever heard of groupons? Well, dlb is recently obsessed with them, and as a result we will be trying lots of new restaurants in the next year. (he also got me a massage, so no complaints here).

Last night we went to The Reserve in Federal Hill after work.

Brie, Bacon, Lobster Mac & Cheese. Seriously.

Seared Scallops with a pile of mango chutney with a lavender syrup

Bison Burger with cheese + fries (SOOOO good)

Arugula salad with candied walnuts, craisins, mustard dressing and bell pepper strips. The balls are gorgonzola almond fritters. They were crazy!

I ended up taking home leftover salad AND mac and cheese... the salad was lunch today (after adding some spinach and chickpeas), and the mac and cheese became my dinner, after adding sauteed spinach & mushrooms. Voila:

I am a HUGE fan of using even the tiniest amount of leftovers in repurposed form for future meals because it just KILLS me to throw away perfectly good food, and thankfully I've gotten past the point in my life where the solution to that was clearing my plate wherever we ate (can we say tummy ache?).

The food was all very tasty... the only critique I have was for the mac and cheese: I'm not sure Brie is my cheese of choice for a pasta dish. Turkey Brie Cherry Chutney sandwich at Golden West - totally sold. Brie wrapped in crescent roll and baked into deliciousness - yes, please. But melted in a mac & cheese setting? Not as big a fan.

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 4

2010-02-26T18:04:00.003-05:00

This week: more cremini mushrooms (we're not sick of them yet - we really LOVE mushrooms), sweet potatoes, hydroponic greenhouse lettuce, sweet italian pork sausage, rutabagas, flavored yogurts.

Thursday Design Post

2010-02-25T21:16:00.001-05:00

Looking back through my photos in February, this is one of my favorite shots from this month:

This is no surprise, since I have a un-healthly obsession with power lines, and trees covered in snow so they look "just-so".

In other news, I am taking a life drawing class Tuesday nights at MICA. This makes me unbelievably happy, even though it will often make for a very long day! An old friend of mine had approached me with the idea of taking the class together (both of us have backgrounds in art and miss it terribly), things just fell in place, and now we're going into our third week. SO EXCITING!

Dark Days - Week 14

2010-02-22T09:41:00.001-05:00

This week I got a tiny bit more creative since I felt I had the energy to put something together on Sunday. It didn't hurt that our co-op share was enormous this week!

I started with a recipe for roasted turnips and beets in a yogurt mint sauce. I actually didn't have any mint, so it ended up being a yogurt dill sauce! The recipe was from a great food demo at Mill Valley where we get our co-op. It was tailored specifically to what we had just received over the past couple weeks. I unfortunately was unable to go, but of course Cheryl was nice enough to post all the recipes on her blog. Go there to check out the details for this salad.

Here the veggies are nice and roasted:

And then combined with the yogurt sauce:

For the main dish I prepared spelt pasta with a bison meat sauce. The sauce had ground bison, onions, carrots, LOTS of cremini mushrooms - and then for the tomato base I actually used a big jar of locally made salsa (ha ha... it was $3 less than the pasta sauce, and it was mild, so I figured it was practically the same thing!). I think the biggest hole in my local food pantry has been the lack of tomatoes since we didn't get enough to can due to the blight!

I added generous amounts of dried spicy oregano we harvested from our plant after we accidently forgot to continue watering it inside and it dried up and died. I think that really made the difference in turning the salsa into a pasta sauce.

That's it for this week... although if you count frozen previously made soups, I also had another serving each of french onion and beef/cabbage/white bean. I love being about to whip out those single serving soups for a nice warm meal!

fun at the SPCA

2010-02-20T16:17:00.001-05:00

tiny grey kitten

This dog was hilarious. She loved the snow, and their were mountainous piles in the "fun run" (enclosed area where we can let them off leash). She ran loops around the run, running and jumping off the snow piles at crazy speeds.

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 3

2010-02-19T21:36:00.001-05:00

SO MUCH FOOD! From the top left: assorted baby beets, bison "cubes" (I'm guessing it will make good stew meat), yogurt, baby turnips, 3 Matzu apples, 3 pink ladies, 3 of something else I forget type of apples, 8 oranges, 1 grapefruit and more cremini mushrooms. (one of the fruits was to make up for none last week)

What I Wore Today

2010-02-18T22:09:00.048-05:00

These pictures are slightly silly because I just got home from a wine tasting and dlb was enjoying taking pictures AND making fun of me. So that's that.

This is not the best representation of this dress... but it is what I have to show head to toe. Some day I will get myself set up with a tripod so I can take reasonable head-to-toe shots. Somehow I am not good at being photographed by others.

Coincidently, this necklace was made by the same artist in Jerusalem as the one in my last wardrobe post... also made of ceramic.

I didn't think I could wear these tights, but with the grey dress and the black boots I think it balanced out enough.

Details:
Dress: H&M, winter 2009 (I'm pretty sure I paid like $5 for it!)
tank: target, spring 2009
tights: target, winter 2009
Necklace - CADIM ceramic co-op, Jerusalem
boots: canfields sporting goods (Omaha, NE) (SO good for the snow!)

Freedom!

2010-02-16T23:22:00.001-05:00

Freedom!
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Monday night our street was finally cleared and today we took the car out ON THE STREETS! To work! In the car! Nice to be independently mobile again.

Dark Days - Week 13

2010-02-15T14:50:00.000-05:00

This week was a little odd. The continuation of "Snomaggedon" (or snOMG, which I think is a wee bit hilarious) meant that dlb and I were home Monday - then both had horrificaly complicated commutes getting to work Tuesday (neither involving our car, still buried in snow), then gave up and stayed in both Wed and Thursday. Friday dlb HAD to get in to work... since unlike me, his office hadn't ever been declared "closed" and he can't work remotely and staying home again would mean not getting paid again! So he pushed through the pathetic skeleton of public transportation to get to DC, while I stayed in again and worked from home. As I write this (SIX DAYS after the snow stopped falling), we have still yet to get the car out onto the roads. (although it is a goal of ours, since we're both planning on getting to work tomorrow... today was a planned day off for me since dlb's office is closed for President's Day.)

ANYWHO. This week was odd, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't some good local eating happening. It was just in little random bits.

Wednesday morning I decided I was going to make Bittman's polenta pancakes, which had been recommended to me on a local food thread I follow. Throughout the snow storm people were posting what they were cooking at home and it was wonderful inspiration!

Adapted from Mark Bittman's Polenta Pancakes :

1/2 cup cornmeal (I used yellow stoneground grits we had purchased on a trip south)
Salt
1 tablespoon sugar, optional (I used local maple syrup instead)
1 1/2 cups flour (here I used a mix of 2/3 local roasted cornmeal, 1/3 local whole wheat pastry flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk, more as needed
Butter or olive oil as needed.

1. Combine cornmeal (or grits) in a small saucepan with 1 1/2 cups water and a pinch of salt. Whisk until smooth while bringing to a boil over medium heat, then continue to stir for about 10 minutes. Turn heat off and let cool.

2. Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium-low heat. In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, baking powder and a little salt. Beat eggs into cornmeal, then stir in milk. (here it made more sense to me to stir in the cold milk first, thereby cooling the grits enough to not cook the eggs). Add to flour mixture and stir to combine, adding milk if necessary to make a batter.

3. Add about 1 tablespoon butter or oil to griddle. When hot, add batter by large spoon. Cook until lightly browned on bottom, 3 to 5 minutes, then turn and brown second side. Repeat, using more butter or oil.

Yield: 4 servings.

Over these cakes I served up strawberry syrup, made by simply taking about a cup of frozen locally hand-picked strawberries from the freezer and heating them up with just one TBS maple syrup. YUM!

THEN, last night dlb prepared a VERY delicious Valentine's Day meal for us - the absolute highlight of which was this 100% local dish he called Potatoes Anna. He layered very thinly sliced potatoes and apples(using a mandoline) with onions, mushrooms, salt, pepper and a bit of cream into a pie dish and baked it forever (loose recipe, obviously). I was way too busy swooning over the intense flavors of this dish to pay too much attention to the exact details of how it was made. Why Potatoes Anna? That's what they called it on the internets where he found the base recipe. He altered it a ton though according to what we had on hand.

SO AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!!!!

Winter Buyers Co-op, Week 2

2010-02-12T09:22:00.003-05:00

Here's what we brought home Thursday from Mill Valley: green cabbage (a big one!), cremini mushrooms (fyi, last weeks were white button), carrots, butter, bison breakfast sausage. Just 5 items. We held off on getting a fruit for the week since the produce from Baughers hadn't arrived due to snow issues.

It was awesome that they were open... and it was a fun walk to go and pick up our share. (correction: I enjoyed the walk, however dlb did not. His boots have lost their water-proofness and the slush made his feet awfully cold). The streets were busy with foot traffic and the occasional truck, and it was good to get out and walk around, since my gym was still closed and I was jonesing for some cardio outside the house.

Design Thursday: Our House

2010-02-11T14:27:00.016-05:00

I made a fatal mistake when I put out the idea that I would be sharing posts on design from our house: I would have to make our house presentable enough to photograph and share with the world.
At first I was even at a loss as to what I would post... what is blog-worthy enough in our humble abode???
Well... I think I have somewhere to start, and maybe it will have to be a goal of mine to straighten things up enough that I can take a few photos each month. It wouldn't be a terrible thing for things to be a little more orderly here!

This week I'm going to show one little section of the wall in our living room that I would call a creative use of the space that we're given. With the door to our 1/2 bath to the left and the entry to our kitchen to the right, this is a small little swatch of wall. It is further complicated by the thermostat (digitally programmable energy efficient thanks to BGE!), and an intake vent for the heating and cooling system.

My solution was to hang this little triad of paintings I did for a history of photography class back in undergrad. I can't remember the artist I was emulating (if you figure it out, let me know!), but it was indeed an assignment where you mimic the style or process of a known photographer. I found this to be a curious solution to the assignment, since at the time I was a photo major considering switching to a painting major - and this artist took found tin-types and created a new piece of art by incorporating them into a painting of his own. I was thrilled to get away with submitting a painting for a photo assignment! These bring back fond memories of sitting with friends at Village Inn, working on the assignment (yes - I had my paints out in the restaurant!) and finding visual inspiration from my friend Becky's biology book (or was it chemistry?) for the orange painting in particular.

Anywho... I recruited the hubby to hang them since they have no proper backing or frames and in the past had simply been displayed on a wall shelf. His solution was 3 little tiny nails acting as brackets of sorts to hold them on the wall. I love how it turned out!

A word about Haiti...

2010-02-11T10:11:00.000-05:00

I've been contemplating a post on Haiti ever since I stumbled upon this post over at everybody likes sandwiches (go on... click on over and read the post). I wasn't going to "go there," but I was just really inspired by what I saw.

What these bloggers have done through blog aid: recipes for Haiti is astonishing. I bought the book right away, and would encourage you to do so as well - right now! Click here and buy it!

(p.s. here starts the rant... skip over it if you aren't feeling all that open-minded at the moment)

What you might not know about me - which makes this endorsement all the more interesting - is that I despise crisis campaigns. Before you go and make a mean face at me - hear me out: I studied fundraising for my masters, so I know how successful crisis campaigns can be. I also know how unsuccessful they can be in actually getting people the help that they need. Remember when all those wonderful people collected blankets and shipped them all the way to Myanmar (which, btw, is Burma) after the cyclone/tsunami? Oh you don't? Probably since the blankets sat in a giant puddle and did nothing since Myanmar is in Southeast Asia - where it was HOT & HUMID at the time. Beyond that - crisis campaigns focus the money and effort on a very short period of time and often over-look the long-term sustainability of the relief they are providing. Anybody thought about how the people of Myanmar are doing nowadays? Didn't think so.

I understand that what happened in Haiti was horrific, and that beyond the recent earthquake, the country has suffered numerous disasters... but what about the every day disasters here at home? How often is the entire country mobilized by hunger in OUR COUNTRY, by the state of the public schools, or providing people with decent healthcare? Pockets of people are, for sure - but the whole country... rarely.

And yet somehow, this cookbook made me start thinking a little less pessimistically about making a donation towards Haiti.

WHY? Well, bottom line, the organizers leveraged their funds to go as far as they could.

• the publisher donated their services so that all proceeds are donated to Haiti AND threw in a matching gift
• all bloggers who contributed obviously are not getting kick-backs
• the Canadian government will even be matching the funds (only until Feb. 12th though, so buy yours now!)
• you get an awesome cookbook out of it (although... don't get me started on people who buy pink things because 2% of the proceeds go towards breast cancer research - JUST donate $50 dollars already and make a real difference... but I'm not being judgmental at all, am I?)

Now, the only thing I am still not 100% supportive of is that the money is being funneled through the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. I am not a big fan of the Red Cross. Just heard too many stories of money not being handled the way it should in a non-profit (ie, sometimes they think they are a business, and they should be making a profit). But it’s Canada’s Red Cross…. So maybe they are better? Let’s hope.

I should also mention that there is another very similar fundraising effort going on over at Celiac Teen – who is a blog friend of my real-life friend Amy I. of Playing House. Since I found out about it after I had already written this whole thing… I will simply add that they are doing virtually the same thing, except I believe it’s an e-cookbook which you may download after donating whatever amount $10 and above you feel inclined to donate. All goes to Haiti – also comes with matching gifts from Canada (what up, Canada? You are rocking the food blog world!)

More snow!

2010-02-09T22:52:00.001-05:00

More snow!
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Happiness is sunshine and a giant heap of snow!

Dark Days - Week 12: Mushroom Spelt Soup + Winter Buyers Co-op - Week 1

2010-02-08T13:12:00.001-05:00

Hmmm... note to self: spelt is a poor substitute for pearled barley when making soup. The yummy creaminess that you would get in a mushroom barley soup was just not achieved with this soup. But I had local spelt, and I didn't have local barley - and so it goes.

This recipe is from one of my favorite cook books: The new American plate cookbook: recipes for a healthy weight and a healthy life by American Institute for Cancer Research.

I forgot to take pictures since the camera was in the other room from taking so many photos of the snow (24 inches more than we normally get). So you will get snow pictures with this food post!

Mushroom & Barley Soup (find yourself some local barley and make this yourself!)
(check out AICR's website for more great recipes)
1 TBS canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1/2 cup pearl barley, rinsed and drained (I used spelt, which I soaked for 4 hrs in hot water first)
6 cups fat-free, reduced sodium veg broth (I used leftover homemade chicken and beef broths from my freezer)
5 cups chopped button mushrooms (about 3/4 pound)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce (not local)
3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
salt, pepper, cayenne

In a large soup pot (I used a dutch oven), heat half the oil over med. heat. Add onion and celery and saute for 3 min. Add barley and stir constantly for 2 min. Add 4 cups of the broth and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, simmer for 40 minutes.

Then, heat the remaining oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat and saute the mushrooms for 6 minutes. The recipe says stir constantly, but this causes the mushrooms to leak all their moisture so I didn't stir very much. Add Worcestershire and stir for one minute. Remove mushrooms from heat, add in carrots and set aside.

Once 40 minutes is up, add the mushroom carrot mixture to the soup along with the remaining 2 cups broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, simmer for 30minutes. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne.

I didn't realize how vital the pearl barley is to the overall texture and taste of this soup. We each ate a bowl, but I took the remains and blended half of them in my magic bullet to try and get a creamier base for the leftovers. Hoping that will help.

The mushrooms and onions were from our Winter Buyers Co-op Share - which started this week. So exciting! I did remember to take a picture of that, so here it is:

Mushrooms, onions, potatoes, grapefruit, apple cider and ground bison. All seasonal, all local except for the citrus. All farmed more sustainably (is that a word?) than most... Cheryl does a really good job at sourcing her products. Due to the storm she has extended the deadline to buy into the Winter Buyer's Co-op through Saturday, February13th, so if you're local and interested, go in and sign up! (We got the full 6-item share with meat and dairy. There is also a veggie share with 4 items for less.)

What I Wore Today

2010-02-04T22:15:00.000-05:00

Today I wore what could be described as the most professional looking "comfy outfit" I own. The pants are as cozy as pjs, the blazer is not too restricting, and the shoes are overly sensible. Funny story about the pants: the hem of one of the pant legs came out roughly TWO months ago, but at the time I insisted that since I owned a sewing machine (albeit freshly packed in the box from the store... unopened and unexplored), there was really no reason to take them to the tailor - and I don't even have a tailor since my legs are generally the length of pants sold in stores, so I've basically never had anything hemmed.

Well, obviously I haven't quite pulled out the sewing machine yet... but was sick of not having my comfy black pants, so I brought them in Monday to the dry cleaners down the street - who I realized did alterations. $4, and they were ready the next day. FOUR DOLLARS! ONE DAY! I waited 2 months for this? ABSURD. All hail the comfy black pants.

This photo shoot is entitled: Jennie acts like she has a screw loose... in someone else's office.

Supposedly there was a touch better lighting in here, but it's all blown out by the flash of my stupid point and shoot. Does my hair look that red in reality? Not quite. Only when I'm in very bright light. Or at the end of the summer. It's actually a nice camera... just not as nice as the hubby's SLR at home.

p.s. look closely - notice the striped lining on the sleeves? half the reason I bought the jacket!

Really, REALLY, blown out with the flash.

Here's a refreshing photo with the Canon at home. Still would have been nicer in natural light, but lo and behold the sun was gone. This is one of my favorite necklaces of all time.

Black pants - GAP, circa 2004

V-neck beige striped shirt - GAP, circa 2008

Purple velour blazer (AKA my willy wonka jacket) - Rafaella at Filene's Basement, 2006?

Loafers - Born from the shoe closet at Von Maur

Necklace - CADIM ceramic co-op, Jerusalem

A treat

2010-02-04T08:44:00.001-05:00

A treat
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Sadly, it's been a long time since I've had a latte made with enough care to have a design in the foam. It's not directly related, but in my experience foam like this has always accompanied an extremely well made espresso drink. Hooray for the little things!

More snow...

2010-02-02T22:18:00.001-05:00

More snow...
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Really? More snow? I thought we lived in Baltimore!

Dark Days - Week 11: cabbage kale saute with cheese toast

2010-02-01T10:45:00.001-05:00

This week I needed to use up leftover cabbage that's been chillin in the fridge for months now, and swiss cheese from last week's french onion soup. Friday night I was looking for something not-so-heavy (we had a big dinner out on Thursday), so I decided to saute the cabbage in butter (about 1 TBS) along with a bunch of kale. Once it started to really get brown I added a bit of apple cider to keep things from burning and steam any of the bigger pieces that weren't cooked through. Not exactly as decadent as "fried cabbage", but almost as tasty. A normal family woud serve this as a veg side, but I simply served this along side a slice of locally made raisin bread toasted with melted swiss on top and called it a day. A simple but filling dinner!

Start of a long day

2010-01-29T07:40:00.001-05:00

Start of a long day
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

The sun just came up over the supermarket my office shares a parking lot with... And I've been at work over 2 hours already.

Long day indeed.

Wasn't it just Thursday?

2010-01-28T22:40:00.000-05:00

I really don't know how it got to be Thursday again... this week has really flown by. I'll get the design post up by tomorrow, but since it's on my brain (and in my belly), I thought I'd tell you about our dinner this evening.

It's restaurant week here in Baltimore (one of many throughout the year), and this year Dave was determined to go somewhere we would really "get a deal". He did a lot of research and found that many restaurant week menus add up to no savings at all, whereas others are a significant discount from the every day menu. He gave me three different suggestions and I picked B & O American Brasserie. Part of me picked this place since they claim to use "only sustainable seafood and local farmers' products" and that's something I find attractive in a restaurant. Another part of me had just heard that it was a fantastic place to eat - so there you go.

Here's what we had:

me: Hamachi Tartar with red Quinoa salad and sweet potato chips

(drink was citron vodka, kumquats, ginger and cardamom)

dlb: Crispy Pork Belly atop bread crumbs and vegetables

me: 24 hr. Vande Rose Pot Roast with Creamy polenta and braised vegetables

(plus mache and pickled red onions on top)

dlb: Crispy Duck Confit and Pappardelle with root vegetables (hmmm... just looked up the P word, and it's a type of fettuccine, which I don't remember there being on Dave's plate. maybe they subbed with mashed potatoes? I think so. There was also red cabbage braised in apple cider on the left there.)

me: "Wicked Pissa" Cupcakes

dlb: apple cobbler with creme fresh

I just realized how late it is (10:30) and I am still FULL. Such a yummy meal, and neither of us could clear our main course plates.

See:

(my plate after eating dinner... no worries - I packed that up to go!)

I did take care of the dessert, however:

reminds me of a zen garden.

Oh, and the bread was good... definitely a mix of white and wheat flours, and it was served with butter topped with basil salt. That basil salt was extra tasty!

This dinner was def. a special treat. Beforehand, Dave was totally planning on trying another restaurant next week, but after the richness of tonight's meal, we thought we'd wait a couple weeks (or months) to go all out again. B&O gets my vote as a place to visit again!

Taco night!

2010-01-27T10:14:00.001-05:00

Taco night!
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Last night Dave and I went to dinner with a couple friends at Clementine. Tuesday nights they have limited hours and a limited menu... Of tacos! Four different taco platters were offered with drink specials on mexican beers, sangria and margaritas. I got the mahi-mahi and Dave tried the beef. Both were excellent, although I especially loved the cabbage slaw that came with the fish tacos. A definite departure from their regular menu, but tasty all the same!

The change is upon us...

2010-01-26T18:29:00.001-05:00

The change is upon us...
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

The days are getting longer, I can FEEL it. When I left work this evening the sky had a hint of light - unlike the normal almost-black! Hooray for sunlight!

Dark Days - week 10

2010-01-25T14:51:00.001-05:00

Wow - week ten already? Times flies! As promised, I will tell you about the cabbage soup. I unfortunately could not make it our true local meal (although I'm sure you could if you can find local beans!), so I'll also tell you about the french onion soup which was successfully local.

Last weekend I set out to make beef broth. I had a "soup bone" in the freezer from my Amish farmer in PA; they sell it either by one bone or something like 20 pounds of bones. I am not yet set up to process 20 pounds of bones into stock, so it was one bone that I had purchased. After reading through all of the advice to Sarah on our dark days list serve, I set forth making my own broth!

The bone was frozen and raw; I put it in a small oven-safe dish with one onion (skin and all) chopped up and roasted until it was nice and brown. I then emptied the entire dish of goodness into my stock pot and covered with a big glug of apple cider vinegar and enough water to cover the meat. Let that sit for about an hour. I then added carrots, more onion and a giant bag of kale stems that have been hanging out in my freezer. Oh - and also some mushrooms that had shriveled up in the back of our fridge.

Added water up to almost the top and let it simmer... for the next 24 hours or so. Every once in awhile I stirred it around and added more water to be sure it didn't cook down to nothing. Once cooled, I strained it through cheese cloth and filled two quart jars and then some. I let it cool to skim off the fat, but not much appeared in the end.

So on to the cabbage soup. I found the recipe on 101cookbooks a couple weeks ago, and really couldn't stop thinking about making it. I'm not sure how she feels about her recipe on my website, so for the full run-down, click thru to her recipe. Below are the changes I made in making my soup:

For the 5 cups of stock, clearly I used my beef broth rather than Bouillon that she used (also turning a vegetarian soup into a not-so one)
I still haven't been able to find any local beans, so I used canned cannelli for my soup.
From her picture I can tell her cabbage was green; I had both red and green cabbage, and used both. Not as attractive in the end, but it used up my red cabbage that was really beyond it's prime.

Now she says to saute the potatoes in 1 TBS of olive oil until soft; maybe my pan wasn't as thick-bottomed as hers, but I had some major sticking issues with the potatoes, eventually adding broth early to keep them from burning. In the end it made no difference - the soup turned out fantastic! I was unable to locally source the parm as well - so that and the beans make this not local, but everything else was!

On to the French onion soup:

This was another recipe where I simply googled french onion soup on my palm pre to be sure I had all the ingredients at the market and then made it without much research. I think next time I'll try Alton Brown's recipe, but this one turned out to be an easy week-night meal. This is the one I ended up using since it called for things I had and could easily source locally.

Instead of the cans of beef broth it calls for I used mine. I omitted the sugar, but afterwards wished I hadn't, because even Dave felt the soup should have been sweeter. I also would have caramelized the onions longer if I weren't trying to get it on the table in record time. I used my local buckwheat flour instead of AP, and a local whole wheat baguette instead of french.

The swiss cheese was from South Mountain Creamery, and I had to buy a pound but only used a couple slices. We don't usually buy swiss, so any suggestions as to dispose of the rest of the pound (dispose in our bellies, that is) are welcome! The red wine was from Basignani Winery, a Maryland vineyard we discovered at a wine festival this past year.

So aside from the "not sweet enough" comment from the hubby, and my personal opinion that I was a little too light-handed with the swiss, this first time in making french onion soup was awesome. It is WAY easier than I once thought!

Pound puppy of the week

2010-01-24T14:57:00.001-05:00

Pound puppy of the week
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

This one would just not stay still long enough to get a good shot. Female hound dog who would rather spend all her time vertical than on four paws... But also loves to cuddle. Good day to volunteer at the SPCA!

Drive from PA last Saturday

2010-01-22T23:15:00.000-05:00

Photos from the drive home last week after our un-successful market trip:

That crack in the windshield sure is more annoying from the viewpoint of the passenger!

What I Wore Thursday

2010-01-22T23:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the piecemeal shots; didn't have anyone to help me out this week.

Taken in the a.m. with my coat on... I like that you can see how dirty the mirror is in the picture on the top. I stopped taking pictures right then and there to clean it. :)

I like to tuck my scarf into the giant neck of this collar since it never really fits on the outside!

closest I got to a head-to-toe shot

A very cozy outfit for a chilly winter day!

Wool Pea Coat: Jones New York purchased at Burlington Coat Factory ($99? it was too long ago...)

Black skinny jeans: Mossimo from Target, $24.95

Green striped quarter length t-shirt, Merona from Target, $2.99

Purple jacket from Martin + Osa (my new favorite store!), $18.99

Scarf: purchased last Saturday at the flea market in PA, $5

Flats, xhilaration from Target, $9.99

Dark Days - week 9

2010-01-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

This week was a rough one for finding local produce... mostly because I thought I had plans to bring in a mother load of local produce, but my plan was foiled.

When I was searching for local flours, I had heard from someone that the Saturday Market in York, PA might be a good place to find it. When I looked it up online, it appeared to be the holy grail of local food... but this was clearly my imagination, since in reality it was anything but.

First of all... it's not in York. It's about a half an hour past York. Which is already an hour away from Baltimore.

Second, the Saturday Market is more of a giant garage/yard sale than a farmer's market. Yes, there was food. Homemade potato chips (the peppered BBQ was delish), spicy kettle corn, several purveyors of baked goods and a couple of the butchers appeared to be local. But the two produce stands were entirely non-locally sourced. (They did say they had local produce in the summer though.)

The most frustrating part was all the crap that surrounded the food. For every food stand, there were approx. 10 stands of people selling old books, DVDs (that fell off the back of truck?), cheap perfume, Steelers jerseys, military garb, etc. Add to that the fact that many vendors didn't even appear to be open, and it made for a frustrating trip.

So we were left with no more local produce than when we started, and I once again am fixing breakfast for our local meal:

2 eggs over-easy, a slice and a half of bacon and hash browns made with mushrooms as well. The raisin bread is from a local bakery, although not the one that I am positive sources local ingredients. The coffee is from a local roaster which sources organic fair-trade beans.

Although this is a pretty decent weekend brunch, I was hoping for something a little more augmented by vegetables. Some kale, maybe? I really wanted some kale.

The best I could find after making a trip to our local market, was cabbage. I'm thinking I'll make a cabbage soup... and in preparation, I decided to make some beef stock from some local soup bones I had in the freezer from my "secret Amish source".

So that's what's coming down the pike. Cabbage soup. With homemade beef stock. Details next week.

Speaking of design...

2010-01-15T18:04:00.001-05:00

Speaking of design...
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

We've eaten at Holy Frioles in Hampden many, many times, but never arrived early enough to get one of the coveted front booths. Last night we finally snagged one and I realized what they were constructed out of: church pews and a confessional booth wall. In this picture you can see the little screen meant for speaking through. So cute! I love how we were partioned off from the rest of the room - it was nice and cozy.

Thursday design photo

2010-01-14T19:20:00.001-05:00

Thursday design photo
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Well... I said this week would be home-design related, but I saw this shot this morning and decided I'd rather post this “out in the field” sort of design shot.
I've always enjoyed the aesthetic of industrial and agricultural buildings. Add to that the fantastic light this morning... and don't even get me started about my obsession with power lines!
This building is practically on my way to work, but somehow this morning was the first time I saw it. I love making little discoveries like this!

Dark Days - Week 8

2010-01-11T15:50:00.000-05:00

I feel like this past week of meals has involved above-average leftovers consumption. There was no reason for me to make a 9x13 baking dish full of lasagna for my husband and myself. It was just too much! I like making big meals and then having leftovers, but it works better when it's something like a soup, stew or chili that you can freeze. Don't get me wrong - I did freeze a couple servings of the lasagna, but it probably won't keep as long as a soup would. And we aren't in a position to be owning a second freezer yet, so freezer space is limited. Add to that the fact that we're still trying to finish the ham from week 6, it becomes clear that we are STILL eating local meals.

There was one new meal of note. After I made pasta last week, the hubby got super jealous and wanted to make pasta too. Except he went out and bought a pasta maker, since he will use any excuse to go shopping for kitchen gadgets. (p.s. - having a husband that loves to cook and does it well is super awesome. although... I was spoiled by a father of the same ilk).

Dave made us some simple ravioli using local flour & eggs for the pasta and a stuffing of local italian sweet sausage and cheese. They were so tasty that we ate most of them with a little salt and pepper and no sauce! (that's how they kinda count as the local meal....)

In the end they were served as part of a larger less-local meal of roasted cornish game hen (organic but not local) and asparagus (WAY not local or seasonal, but this was Dave's meal, and he wanted asparagus).

p.s. There was way too much food on this plate. I could not eat it all.

Funny note as well: Dave told me proudly that this was a "vegetable-heavy" meal. Am I crazy or is he?

First Thursday Photo Shoot - 1.7.10

2010-01-08T08:48:00.000-05:00

So I've been thinking of adding a design element to this blog since I find myself more and more interested in reading design blogs. Whether it be home design, product design, graphic design or fashion (mostly following what other people are wearing on a daily basis like Jen and Whitney and Amanda), it's something I've become more aware of and thought I'd start to explore here.
In order to ease myself into this new concept, I was thinking the first Thursday of the month would be what I'm wearing; the 2nd Thursday would be something design-related around the house, the 3rd would be me again, and the 4th would be something design-related I photographed at some point during the month.
So this being the 1st Thursday post - here's what I wore yesterday:

The scenery is a bit of a joke; I thought of this at work yesterday and had one of my collegue's snap photos of me in our awful bathroom - I liked that the old broken Kotex dispenser matched my dress.

On a side note; I almost didn't use this picture since it makes me appear a little too plump in the face, but then I got honest with myself and realized it wasn't the camera's fault. Ever since I finished my last race (10-miler which I ran right after my last half-marathon) and increasingly after I injured my neck in August, I've really dropped the ball on going to the gym. Add to that the fact that I stil eat like I'm training for a marathon and you've got problems!

In mid-December (yes, BEFORE the holidays) some office mates and I started a weight-loss competition in order to kick ourselves into shape. We're all achieving this in different ways; one is a big weight watchers fan, another does south beach. I'm just going back to my standard "eat less & better food, get your butt to the gym" method. So hopefully seeing me every two weeks in a new outfit will also show you the shrinking effects of proper eating & exercise.

My buddy Max looking over my shoulder...

About the clothes, for those who care: I love this dress. I have it in three different colors/patterns (mostly because my pants don't fit lately and I refuse to buy larger ones). I found each color on a seperate trip to Target, and felt it was such a simple classic dress that I allowed myself to buy it each time at full price, which really wasn't that bad! Tights and boots are also Target. I feel like I thought the tights were more opaque than they appear here... might want to find some that really aren't fully see-through. The boots are fun and comfy, too!

The jacket is from Banana Republic and was one of my best finds there - I paid something like $29 for a $150 blazer. The necklace is from my great-aunt; one of the few "everyday" items I inherited when she passed, so it gets a lot of wear.

Dress: Target, $24.95

Jacket: Banana Republic, $29

tights: Target, $3

boots: Target, $15.99

necklace: from great-aunt

Dark Days - Week 7

2010-01-04T09:22:00.000-05:00

This week there were a couple all-local dishes feasted on by our household. The first was actually cooked last week, but eaten mostly this week, so I'll share:

A very simple stew, made with beef, carrots and potatoes. The beef was stew meat local to Nebraska, where my in-laws purchase half a cow each year, and hand carried to us (in a cooler full of dry ice) when they visited Baltimore this summer. We are still working at eating all the meat they brought us!

I popped all the ingredients in a crock pot and let it go for about 6 hours on high. I can't provide the exact recipe, as it was one of those instances where I googled "beef stew" on my palm pre and follow whatever recipe looks acceptable for the ingredients I've chosen. I can tell you that, especially with the potatoes being purple, the completed meal was not the prettiest looking stew, so I have no pictures of the finished product.

The next meal was quite a lot of work.... something I'm not sure I'll be making very often, although it came out well! I spotted the recipe for lasagna in Martha Stewart Living and filed it away for a Dark Days meal, since the primary ingredients were squash and homemade pasta (and sage, a plant of which we have just barely kept alive in our kitchen).

This was my first time making pasta from scratch, and of course I start by experimenting widely with ingredients, crossing my fingers it would turn out. Instead of the 2 cups AP flour, I used 1 cup buckwheat flour and 1 cup whole grain pastry flour, since those were the local flours I could find.

Here I am making a mess as the well in my mound of flour did not hold the 3 eggs,

which then went running all over the counter!

Unfortunately, there aren't any in-between shots, since my photographer went back to watching Iron Chef America re-runs after I stopped freaking out about my eggs running away. But the good news is, I have now successfully made pasta from scratch, BY HAND! (I had asked around at work last week to see if anyone had a pasta maker, but figured in the end that a rolling pin would do just as well!)

Here's the end result:

I also roasted brussel sprouts in olive oil and balsamic vinegar to accompany the lasagna

(inspired by the Good Eats episode on brussel sprouts, although Alton never roasts them on the show):

Things I changed from Martha's recipe:

I couldn't find local ricotta, but did find local cottage cheese, so I threw it in the magic bullet (worth buying if you like smoothies or pesto alone) to make it creamy like ricotta.
My husband doesn't think a meal is a meal without meat, so I added the same local brand sage sausage I used for the stuffing at Thanksgiving. It's good stuff - and sage flavored, so it blended well with the rest of the dish. I folded it in with the squash before layering.
Since I added the sausage, I skipped the step where you saute the sage in butter - and instead sauteed the sage with the sausage. Even though I drained most the fat off, I figured the fat in the sausage would be enough.
I technically didn't use butternut squash. I think what I used was a type of pink squash? It looked the exact same color when you cut it open, and it was the right weight, so I used that instead. Still left over from our CSA.
I forgot to find parmesan, so I just sprinkled more mozzarella on top.

That's it! The dinner turned out to be very tasty, and after the hours of work it took to put it together, I'm really glad I liked it.

Brunch New Years Day

2010-01-03T14:47:00.001-05:00

Brunch New Years Day
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Dave and I went to Golden West up the street for brunch on Friday. Browsed through seed catalogs while we waited for a table. He wants to grow okra, but I'm not sure it gets hot enough here. I was looking at the ground cherries and wondering what they taste like!

New Years Day Supper

2010-01-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

My mom always talked about how she used to eat black-eyed peas on New Years for good luck, although in my 28 years of life I do not recall her ever making them for us. Although she grew up in Columbus, Ohio, her father was from Florida and I've always sensed there was something more southern about her upbringing than her location let on (example # 2, she LOVES okra).

So this year I wanted to try out the old southern custom of black-eyed peas and collard greens for New Years Day. The crazy thing was - when I checked wikipedia to give a source for this being a meal of good luck, it said the southern custom actually found its roots in Judaism! How crazy is that? Obviously, the non-Jews of the south were the folks to add the component of pork to the dish. And since we had a ham hock in the fridge just waiting to turn something into deliciousness, that's where I started.

I soaked the black-eyed peas the whole day (8 hours), then added them to a pot with the ham hock, a shallot cut in half and some kombu seaweed. The seaweed not only adds flavor, but is said to cut down on the gas you might experience as a result of eating the beans. Brought to a boil, then simmered away for about 45 minutes. In another pot, I boiled water and vegetable stock, and slowly added thinly cut strips of collard greens (probably 2 lbs before I cut out all the stems). Once they were all in and beginning to wilt, I added 2 cups of diced ham, one diced onion, and some garlic puree. That was on the heat for 35-40 minutes.

To top it all off, I made cornbread in our cast iron skillet (although I must not have realized how large our skillet was, since the batter hardly reached the sides of the pan!) I added hot sauce to my greens AND beans, and everything came out fantastic. May this New Year bring much luck and yumminess!

Dark Days - meal 6

2009-12-28T08:35:00.000-05:00

This week we picked up a very lovely local ham from our market. Baked using this recipe, it came out just beautifully! This evening for our dark days meal we ate that ham, served with roasted acorn squash (from our CSA) and my husband's home-made herby bread & local butter.

I like to pre-cook my squash a little in the microwave so it doesn't take as long in the oven. Just 10 minutes on high (cut in half, cut-side down on a plate), then I season with salt, pepper, hungarian paprika (adds a kick) and cinnamon sugar. A nice balance of sweet & savory. Add a small pat of butter and pop them in the oven cut-side up for an additional 10 minutes at 400 degrees F.

We also had a very special treat as an appetizer: tomato slices! I'm a little embarrassed to admit, but while cleaning off the counter I "found" the VERY LAST TOMATO from our garden, which had been brought in the house, green and rock solid, before the first freeze. It was perfectly ripe and ready to eat. I had my slices straight up with a touch of salt, while my husband added a dab of mayo. It was a heavenly little taste of summer!

A word about the bread: he still used the flour we had bought before the challenge (according to my own rules I put forth in the beginning), but in the future we will be able to make bread and other stuff with locally sourced flour, since I found local flour last weekend in Philly!

I bought buckwheat flour, whole spelt kernels, and whole wheat pastry flour, all made less than 100 miles of Philadelphia and even closer to Baltimore!

I also did some research on other resources for local flour and came up with a couple additional choices. Our local market is even going to contact the sources for flour I found in Philly to see if they'd be interested in selling at Mill Valley. Pretty excellent.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T21:32:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

My husband's little project today. It requires quite a bit of humor to appreciate fully, but you gotta give him credit for creativity!

Dark Days - Meal 5

2009-12-20T19:03:00.000-05:00

My local meal this week almost got ruined by a blizzard, but we prevailed and made it to our planned meal at the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, PA. We had planned our little weekend trip to Philly well in advance and were not going to let the forecast of a little snow stop us from going. However, we did not expect the near 2 feet that came down!

The only change in the end was the fact that we had to order off the bar & grill menu rather than the full dinner menu - which was great, since some other stores and restaurants outright closed, and the bar & grill menu was still quite extensive.

Here's why this meal counts for the Dark Days Challenge:
On their website: "The White Dog Cafe's support of sustainable agriculture is driven by both taste and food politics. Seasonal, local, and organically grown ingredients taste better. Humane and sustainable agriculture produces safe, wholesome food in a manner that is ecologically sound, economically viable, equitable, humane, and provides a healthy and safe environment for the present and future generations."

Dave and I tried to choose meals that were local enough to fall within the 150 mile range. Here's an ultra grainy photo of me enjoying a pint of Troeg's Rugged Trail Ale, from Harrisburgh, PA (94 miles from Philly):

We then split the Artisan Cheese Plate:

Birchrun Hills Farm Blue served with pomegranate seeds, Shellbark Farms Chevre with Slow Roasted Pecans and Pennsylvania Noble Cave Aged Cheddar with a spicy apricot sauce. So delicious. The Chevre was my favorite.

Then for dinner, I ordered the Wild Mushroom Soup with Grilled Amish Chicken and Truffle Chive Creme Fraiche, which Dave informed me was really an appetizer and I wouldn't get enough to eat. I reasoned that with the beer and cheese and the thought that dessert would likely follow, I would be just fine, thank you! The chicken in the soup was indeed more of a garnish, but the soup was still very rich and creamy.

Dave got the Amish Grassfed Veal Meatloaf served over grilled escarole with homemade marinara sauce. I took a bite and informed Dave that my meatballs from DD meal one were way better. I think he felt I was a little harsh in my judgment, but his meatloaf was a bit dry - and my meatballs were certainly not!

Here's where we went off the local boat: dessert. Chocolate and Oranges - totally not local. But I have a thing for chocolate cakes. Maybe once I make one of these molten suckers at home, the novelty of gooey chocolate cake will wear off, but for now - I love me some chocolate cake. And even when most of the other desserts appeared to be sourced locally, I ordered me some chocolate cake. Warm Molten Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Sorbet, Cocoa Nib Tuile, Candied Orange and Orange Campari Syrup to be exact. It was beautiful, and heavenly to eat. See how the dark chocolate under the cake was painted on with a brush? I scraped it all off with my fork it was so delish.

So if you find yourself in Philly, even in the middle of the Blizzard of 2009 - stop by the White Dog Cafe and get yourself some SOLE food!

Philly in the Blizzard of 2009

2009-12-20T18:20:00.001-05:00

Philly in the Blizzard of 2009
Originally uploaded by daftly smitten

Did you read that title with enough dread in your voice? I always love laughing at newscasters and how seriously they report everything. Although maybe you should be the one laughing at the hubby and I for walking outside all day long in a friggin blizzard! We were good little tourists.