One Local Summer Week 3

Maybe it was the rain this week, but for whatever reason, coming up with and cooking a local meal was really hard this week. By the time I even got around to cooking dinner on Thursday, I realized the short ribs we were going to be having were still frozen, and probably not going to turn out too well. And I was right. At least I cooked up some fine creamed spinach to go along with them...and some toasted locally baked multigrain bread to go along with it all didn't hurt either.


Easy creamed spinach:

1 Tablespoon bacon grease (we always save some from fried bacon and keep it in the fridge)
1 Tablespoon butter
1 pound fresh baby spinach
1/4 cup whole milk
1/8 cup sour cream
salt to taste

Wash spinach well, making sure to get out all the sand. Melt the butter and bacon grease over medium heat. Add the spinach to the pan and cover immediately so that the spinach will steam in the water still on the leaves from washing. When the spinach is cooked add the milk and sour cream. Stir well to combine, creating a sauce in the pan. Turn heat to low, and continue to cook until the sauce is to the desired thickness. Taste for salt and season as necessary (I found with the bacon fat and butter that none was needed).

As for the short ribs, they were braised in beet juice and honey. While the sweetness was nice, it would've been even better with a splash of vinegar to create a sweet and sour sauce for them.

Local ingredients:

Butter: Kate's Homemade and Vermont Butter and Cheese
Honey: Paradise Farm, Wilton, NH
Beet juice: Nashua Farmers' Market (frozen puree from last summer)
Short ribs: Savage Road Farm, Milford, NH
Milk: Fitch's Dairy Farm, Milford, NH (raw milk!)
Bacon grease: Garfield's Smokehouse, NH
Spinach: Locally Known, Maine, found at Trader Joe's in Tyngsboro, MA
Sour cream: Hood
Bread: The Good Loaf, Milford, NH

One Local Summer Week 2

First, I have to confess I kind of cheated this week...we spent last weekend in Connecticut, so I was able to pick up a few ingredients that weren't quite ready up in our local area. I was figuring that since we were down there visiting family anyway, it wouldn't really add to our carbon footprint, but was just really a good opportunity to expand our local food zone. Right? So, I picked up some peas, spinach (I used later in the week), soda (Foxon Park, out of East Haven, made with real sugar!) and we picked some fresh strawberries from our friend's garden. As soon as I saw the peas I knew exactly what I would make this week, a spin-off of a traditional Italian dish using some locally raised pork....

Spezzatino di Maiale (adapted from Marcella Hazan's Spezzatino di Vitello recipe)

1 pound pork steak (or shoulder, anything good for braising), cut into 1 inch cubes.
1 pound peas (pre-shelling weight)
1 small shallot, minced
1 cup crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons olive oil

In a heavy pot or dutch oven, heat the butter and oil over medium heat. When the butter has stopped bubbling, add the shallot. Allow the shallot to cook until soft and almost browning, then add the pork. Brown the pork on all sides. Add the tomatoes, bring to a boil, then cover and turn the heat to low. The tomatoes should barely be at a simmer. Cook the meat for 1 1/2 hours. About 15 minutes before the meat finishes cooking, add the peas to the pot.



This dish is great served along side potatoes, or as more traditional in Italy, to be served after a risotto or soup dish.
Peas: Brookside Gardens, Woodbridge, CT
Pork: Savage Road Farm, Savage Rd. Milford, NH (link is a map, they have an outdoor freezer open on weekdays)
Potatoes: Maine
Gassosa Soda: Foxon Park, East Haven, CT
Salad Greens: our garden!

Late update: more planting

This is one of those updates that never actually happened. I had all intentions of adding these planting dates, but never actually did. Luckily I did add the dates to my journal so I really know when I planted these!

Red cabbage: 5/12

Beans - Scarlet Runner and Cannellini: 5/20

Cucumbers: 5/18
Super Zagross Middle Eastern Cukes: 5/19 (seeds)

Eggplant - Calliope, Ghostbuster, Little Fingers, Twinkle: 5/18

Kale - Lacinato/Nero Toscana: 5/12

Red Leaf Lettuce: 5/12

Green Peppers: 5/15, 5/18

Popcorn - Dutch Butter: 5/12, 5/19

Spinach: 5/12

Tomatoes - Plum, Jet Star, Early Girl, Black Krim, Costoluta Genovese, Green Zebra,
Mr. Stripey, Box Car Willie, Sungold, Yellow Brandywine, Juliet: 5/17

Zucchini - Cocozelle, Costata Romanesca, Black Beauty, Tondo Chiaro di Toscana: 5/19

Flowers - Nasturtium, Torch Sunflower, Marigolds, Zinnia, Cosmos: 5/17

Herbs - Basil, Oregano, Thyme: 5/17

The garden has really taken off with the recent rain and plenty of sun that we've had. Unfortunately, we have yet to put up any stakes for tomatoes, or trellises for the peas and beans. I think we are looking to build this kind of set up for the tomatoes: Stake-and-weave trellis system. We have corn growing behind our peas in hopes to use the corn as a trellis, but the peas are growing much faster than the corn right now, so I am unsure about that system actually working. I was hoping to build teepees for the beans, as I planted them in little squares in the rows in order to do that eventually.

The lettuce is growing nicely, and providing us with more than enough for salads everynight. The arugula has begun to bolt and go to seed, so it is much to spicy for eating now. I will have to try and plant more, as well as new lettuce before we finish harvesting the heads we have now. In any case, the lettuce is far more successful than in our smaller garden last year, where it bolted before we harvested any for eating.

One Local Summer 1st week

Eating local here in New Hampshire is still a bit hard as far as fresh vegetables go, though we are harvesting more than enough salad greens to enjoy with every meal. For this week's meal I focused more on the proteins of the meal, which are available year round from local sources, right here in town. We dined on a local version of Spaghetti Carbonara, with homemade pasta made from fresh duck eggs and NH smoked bacon. Unfortunately the semolina flour was from Bob's Red Mill in Oregon, but that was the only ingredient (aside from salt and pepper) that came from far away.


Spaghetti Carbonara (New Hampshire version)

serves 4

For the spaghetti dough:

3 eggs (we used duck eggs)
2 cups semolina flour
1 cup AP flour

Create a well on a board or counter in the flour. Crack the eggs into the well, and scramble the eggs slowly using a fork. Gradually bring the flour into the eggs until the eggs become thick enough that they will not run out onto the board. Using your hands, bring in the rest of the flour (adding water if necessary) until a ball forms. Knead the dough for at least 10 minutes, until it becomes smooth. Allow the dough to rest for about 20 minutes. After resting, cut the dough into smaller pieces, about the size of a golf ball. Using a pasta machine, roll out the dough to the second to last setting on the machine. Lay out all the pieces, allowing them to dry out a bit to prevent the dough from sticking in the next step. (You may also need to flip them, or rub a bit of flour over them to help the drying) Using the thinnest noodle cutters, cut the dough and lay onto towels or on a rack to dry.

Get a pot of water to a boil on the stove.

For the carbonara:

6 slices of bacon, chopped
1 tablespoon bacon drippings or oil
2 eggs

In a skillet melt bacon drippings. Add the chopped bacon to the skillet and cook until crisp; it is better to get them quite crispy since they soften up a bit when mixed with the pasta. Begin cooking the pasta, it should only take 3-5 minutes, and will be ready when the bacon is ready. While the bacon and pasta are cooking, beat the eggs into a serving bowl, large enough to hold the pasta.

When the pasta is finished (cooked al dente) reserve a bit of the cooking water and immediately drain the pasta. Quickly add the drained pasta to the bowl, and begin tossing with two forks, which will help to cook the eggs. Add the bacon, and all the drippings from the pan to the pasta. Continue to toss the pasta for about 2 minutes, adding some of the reserved cooking water if the pasta seems dry. You will notice that when you continue to toss the pasta a creamy sauce is created right in the bowl from only a few simple ingredients.



Local sources:

eggs: Fitch's Farm, Milford, NH
bacon: Garfield's Smoked Bacon (purchased from Lull Farm)

Spring Flowers

Here's a small sample of the flowers we have seen popping up around here this spring...






Here's a small sample of the flowers we have seen popping up around here this spring...

More planting

This is the time in gardening I most look forward to - planting dates beginning! I really enjoy being able to have a garden to tend to, but sometimes it seems that there isn't much tending to do at all. Or, that the weeds have gotten so out of hand that there is too much to tend to. I of course enjoy the harvesting, but that's too easy...it's really the eating that I enjoy from that, which is no work at all. It seems now that the time when we can start getting more and more plants or seeds in the ground is upon us. Here's what we've been up to lately:

Arugula: 4/10 and 4/28 (I tried making a seed tape, but I don't think they are germinating)

Beets, Golden Detroit: 4/15, 4/29 (looking good so far)
Bull's Blood and Chiogga: 4/29

Carrots: 4/15 (they've sprouted nicely!)

Lettuce: Salad Bowl Mix: 4/28, all are sprouting nicely, and we've transplated successfully the heads that are growing too closely.

Radishes, French Breakfast: 4/15 (looking good, about 2 weeks until harvest!)

Peas, Wando Shelling: 4/28, 5/8 (filled in the holes where seeds did not germinate)

Squash, Trombocino: 4/29 (I don't think these will germinate, the heat wave got me overly ambitious!)

Broccoli, Packman (transplants): 5/3, 5/7

Cauliflower (transplants): 5/7

Parsley (transplants): 5/3

In the kids' garden: Peas: 4/28
Green Beans (transplants): 5/7
Broccoli: 5/7

Early season gardening

So far we have done a decent job getting an early start to the garden this year. We got a huge delivery of "super soil" (a soil/compost blend) to the garden the last week in March. The boys were really excited about that. What could be better on a Saturday morning than watching a dump truck drive through your yard to dump some dirt piles? Oh yeah, playing in those dirt piles that afternoon...


The dirt has been shoveled around the garden to make two large beds with one long path for flowers down the center. Hopefully the added depth will give us a little help with the horrible rock and clay conditions found here in New Hampshire. With the dirt in we were able to start on our spring seeds: Wando Shelling Peas (3/30 and 4/9), Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce (3/30), Salad Bowl Mix (3/30 and 4/9) and Arugula (4/7).

Though the morning started out cloudy and rainy we lucked out and enjoyed a sunny afternoon at a maple sugar house in Lyndeborough. Maple weekend is always a fun little activity celebrating the beginning of spring around here. Last year we checked out Ben's Sugar Shack, but this year we headed to the Maple Guys Sugar Shack, which was a bit closer to us, and I kind of liked their syrup better. It had a nice smoky flavor to it that I never noticed in other syrups before. Both places offer mail order syrup, so check either out if you are in need of some real syrup!