November 11, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

In 2006, the legislature of Maine updated its Food Policy, and in doing so set a goal that by the year 2020, 80% of the food calories consumed in the state would be grown in the state. This would be an increase from the 20% currently grown and consumed in the state of Maine. (Information via the Maine Foods Network)

80% of food calories. This means Mainers will still be enjoying things that have no business growing in New England: bananas, coffee, pineapples. But it will shift the focus to making most meals mostly local, and it will certainly cut down on the silly situation of buying apples from New Zealand at the height of apple season. I like the idea of 80%, it’s a good goal, a strong statement for local foods and the social and environmental benefits brought about by increased support for local agriculture, but it’s also something that allows us all to be human and enjoy a diverse diet.

I’m eating an 80% meal myself tonight, a lentil dish I learned to cook in Turkey. While the lentils themselves are from Indiana, the lamb, onion, tomatoes, butter, and yogurt for serving are all very local, and very delicious.

Turkish Lentils
(enough to feed a crowd, or plenty for a family with awesome leftovers)

• 1 lb lentils
• 1 lb ground lamb (Riverslea in Epping is a great source)
• 1 b onions
• 1 qt canned tomatoes
• 1 cup plain, thick yogurt (like Silvery Moon Creamery’s)
• White bread and butter to eat alongside.

Chop onions and saute in a large pot until soft and a little brown. Add ground lamb and continue cooking until browned. Add lentils and tomato. Stir, then add additional water until the lentils are covered. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, until tender, about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally and add more water if needed. Season with salt and serve with giant dollops of yogurt and slices of bread and butter.

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November 6, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

this one a soup, courtesy of Freddie and the Great Big Vegetable Challenge. This one merits inclusion for its use of potatoes, which, although I haven’t tried it yet, I think will give it a great texture, and for its ingredient list which includes all potentially and possible local foods:

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with maple syrup
Serves 4-6
1 medium sized pumpkin
2 medium sized potatoes, peeled and finely diced
800ml of vegetable or chicken stock
2 onions, chopped finely
2-3 tbsp of olive oil
1-2 tbsp of maple syrup
2 tbsp of crème-fraiche
1 clove of garlic
Salt and Pepper
Sprig of rosemary

Preheat oven to 400F. Cut the pumpkin in half, scrape away the seeds and white pith and rub olive oil over the flesh inside. Season with salt and pepper and then place the two halves of the pumpkin with the cut side facing down, on to a baking tray. Put a sprig of rosemary under each half as it bakes in a preheated oven for 45 minutes, depending on its size, or until the flesh is completely soft. Scoop out the flesh into a bowl. In a large pan, sauté the chopped onions, crushed garlic and finely diced potatoes in a tablespoon of olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the pumpkin flesh and stock. Bring to the boil and then turn down the heat to low and simmer gently for 15-20 minutes. Turn off heat and when it has cooled a little, pour into all into a food processor and blend until smooth, adding the maple syrup and crème-fraiche.

Pumpkins will be among the many vegetables, meats, breads, cheeses and more at the Holiday Farmers’ Markets - November 17 and December 22, McIntosh Atlantic Culinary Academy in Dover, NH from 9am - 2pm. More information, including maps, products and vendors . . . 

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October 24, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

Over on the Great Big Veg Challenge (or, how a British mom is turning her 7-year old into a kid who at least will try vegetables and have a pretty open mind about them through the wonders of blogging - and it’s working!), Freddie is up to P for Pumpkin which means we get lots and lots of great pumpkin recipes - just in time for our own wonderful pumpkin season.

And yes, the pumpkin really is the State Fruit of New Hampshire

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October 23, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

“Twelve recipes developed for the Maine Harvest Lunch by Chef Cheryl Wixson and tested by school food service personnel at the Maine Harvest Lunch Food Service Class”

Aroostook Wheat Berry Fruit Salad
Autumn Harvest Corn Pudding
Barbeque Burgers
Carrot Ginger Soup
Carrot Raisin Slaw
Chicken Pot Pie With Maine Mashed Potatoes
Fresh Tomato Salsa
Italian Inspired Pasta w/ ME White Beans & Veggies
Maine Apple Gingerbread
Maple Roasted Root Vegetables
Pumpkin Snack Cakes
Wild Blueberry Cobbler

recipes here

found via Partners in Ending Hunger

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October 20, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

By March I’ll be craving anything light, bright, and green but right now the foods of fall suit me just fine. I love shanks of all sorts, in some ways sister cut to short ribs. Meaty, a bit fatty, but that means they are so full of flavor. A Chestnut Lamb Coop lamb shank purchased at the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market, over Meadow’s Mirth carrots, cippolini onions, and fingerling potatoes with herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and sage from the back deck. Preheat the oven to 500. After prepping everything and arranging in a large roasting pan and adding plenty of salt, roast for 45 minutes or so at 500, then cover with foil and turn the heat down to 300, and roast for another hour or so.

Onions as a vegetable in their own right are under appreciated, but roasting them in this way, in the juices of meat and at temperatures to both brown and cook thoroughly, they are wonderful - creamy, mild, and sweet.

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October 19, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

We made this beautiful soup the other day that sort of typifies how our eating will go throughout the winter and now that the September Eat Local Challenge is behind us. The cannelini beans, lacinato kale, and onions were from Meadow’s Mirth Farm, the garlic was from New Roots Farm, and the andouille sausage and tortellini were from the store. Yup, the plain old grocery store. I can’t really imagine a meal that doesn’t have its basis in local foods, but fill-ins from the store are much more frequent in the winter.

The inspiration was an old Gourmet Magazine recipe that we just about tripled, and are happy we did as the leftovers are getting better and better every day.

Tortellini, kale, cannelini bean, and sausage soup (rough concept):

Soak and cook 1 1/2 cups cannelini beans, about 1 hour for soaking, 1.5 hours for cooking if you are using fairly fresh dried beans. I suppose you could use canned, about two cans, in which case they don’t need cooking. In a giant pot, saute 2 or 3 chopped yellow onions in vegetable oil, along with a whole head of minced garlic and 1 lb of andouille sausage sliced (you could certainly substitute a different spicy sausage). When the sausage is browned and the onions are cooked, add the beans to the pot. Add plenty of water or stock, bring to a simmer. Remove the stems from 2 large bunches of kale (we used the more tender and mild lacinato, or dinosaur, kale) and then roughly chop. Add to the soup. Add a large bag or package of tortellini. Allow to simmer until the tortellini is cooked through, 5 - 8 minutes. Serve with hard grated cheese such as grana padano (my favorite) or parmesan and a sprinkle of hot chile.

Try to make this a day ahead and it will be even more amazing as the beans break down and thicken the soup and the flavors meld.

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September 20, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

We have been eating really really well. Sort of blowing ourselves away by the amazing meals on our plates. I wish we could take more credit, but the truth is it is simply the quality of the ingredients that makes it all so awesome.

B and I are on our 3rd year participating in the challenge, but the first time we’ve done September (previous two were Augusts), and we’re finding that September opens up a whole additional world of foods while still keeping almost everything we got in August. This year in particular we are having fun discovering we can make some good ‘ole standards out of totally local ingredients.

This is Lasting Legacy ground beef, bought at the farm, buns made with Vermont flour, roasted fingerling potatoes from Meadow’s Mirth Farm and Bibb lettuce from Wildroot Farm purchased at the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market, and blue cheese dressing made from Great Hill Blue Cheese, purchased at basically any store and plain yogurt.

The cooler weather has inspired a couple chowders, this one is corn and fingerling potato, with a little bacon on top. Corn from Barkers’ Farm, on rte 33 in Stratham, potatoes from Meadow’s Mirth, purchased at the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market, milk from Brookford Farm in Rollinsford, bacon from Kellie Brook Farm, also from the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market.

Bubble & Squeak is theoretically made from the leftovers of your boiled dinner. We plan it for the same week as some mashed potatoes, then prepare a double batch of potatoes. Add in some chopped, blanched cabbage chunks, a bit of onion, and plentyo’bacon fat. Yup, bacon fat. Cook over fairly high heat in a heavy pan, turning sections as they brown. The dish gets its name from the fun bubbles and squeaking it produces as it cooks. Potatoes, cabbage, and bacon are all easily found at the farmers markets.

These guys were the beginning of some crab cakes made by adding eggs, onions, and garlic from the Portsmouth Farmers’ Markets, herbs from the back deck, and a slice or two of Borealis Aroostook Wheat bread toasted then whirred in the food processor. Fried in Butterworks Farm sunflower oil. I purchased the crabs at the Old Mill Fish Market in Portsmouth, where the staff is very helpful and doesn’t mind endless questions about how-to and where-from.

Roasted stuffed poblanos with refried beans. Beans (beans!) from Meadow’s Mirth farm (Portsmouth Farmers’ Market). Onion, garlic, and chile peppers for the beans from New Roots farm (Portsmouth Farmers’ Market). The poblanos (Barker’s Farm, Portsmouth FM) were roasted till black, then peeled and stuffed with ground lamb (Chestnut Lamb co-op, Portsmouth FM) seasoned with garlic and onion and coriander from the back-deck cilantro that got out of hand. The stuffed poblanos went into a small baking pan along with some cooked yellow tomatoes (New Roots farm, PFM) and Silvery Moon cheddar (York Farmers’ Market) and the whole thing was baked just until the cheese was melted. yum.

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September 6, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

From the comments, an onion tart recipe via our friend Jeff:

Onion Tart
- Tasteful Treasures, Friends of Fremont Library Cookbook
9” pie crust, unbaked
3 large onions, thinly sliced
3 large eggs, beaten
1/8 tsp pepper
1 1/2 cup light cream
3 Tbsp butter
3/4 tsp salt
Fry the thinly sliced onions gently in butter. Do not brown.
Arrange the onions in the pastry case. Mix the eggs, salt
and pepper with 1/4 cup of the cream. Heat the remaining
1 1/4 cups cream, add to the egg mixture and pour
over the onions. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes,
or until a knife comes out clean.

thanks! And thanks Lenore for the prompt!

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July 9, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

The vast majority of my summertime shopping starts at the farmers’ markets. This puts the most money straight into the hands of the farmers, gives me the opportunity to stock up without having to do too much driving to farm stands, and is generally a fun time - chatting with producers and growers, seeing all the neat stuff each farm brings. But sometimes I just plain can’t make it to the market, or run out of dinner material on a Friday night before the big Saturday markets.

Fortunately, we have several stores and markets that do a decent job selling local products, and to a lesser extent, local produce. By local products I mean those things created here or near to here, but not necessarily from local ingredients, such as our wonderful local bakeries. There just isn’t local flour to be had, but we have great local companies we can support.

Two stops - Golden Harvest in Kittery, for the tomatoes from Mackenzie’s in Milton and the bread, and Philbrick’s Fresh Market in Portsmouth for the bacon from North Country Smokehouse - netted me these amazingly delicious BLT’s. The lettuce is Meadow’s Mirth’s Love My Lettuce salad mix gotten the previous week at the farmers’ market - and because it doesn’t spend time travelling it can spend a bit more time in my fridge before I use it.

The mayonaise, well, it’s Hellman’s. Some things are just necessary for a perfect BLT, wherever they may come from.

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Arugula Pesto Pasta

June 22, 2007 by Sara Zoe.

As the season progresses, eating locally is getting easier and easier. And since it isn’t in the thick of the September Eat Local Challenge, I keep things like locally made bread and locally made pasta around as easy staples. Into a boiling pot of water went Terra Cotta Pasta Company’s linguine. Into the food processor went Back River Farm arugula and green garlic, purchased at the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market, along with Silvery Moon Creamery’s new garlic and chive soft cheese, purchased at the Gateway Farmers’ Market in York, ME. I toasted some pine-nuts (that and the olive oil were the only things not in any way local) to round out the pesto. Into the toaster went some Me & Ollie’s ciabatta, which I then smeared with garlic butter I made from Brookford Farm cream and more green garlic.

Download a printable version of the recipe (pdf):
Arugula Pesto Pasta

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