Fresh Produce from Local Roots Market
I love my local farmer’s market, it’s fantastic. I enjoy chatting with the vendors and seeing all the things they grow. If I want endive or arugula I have to grow it myself or do without, none of the vendors at my local market carry the more exotic vegetables. If I want regular potatoes I can find them, fingerlings – not a chance. If I wanted anything but apples past September I was out of luck. I thought I hit the exotic vegetable jackpot this summer when I spotted one savoy cabbage.
Not so with the Local Roots Market. I spotted lots of arugula, endive, fingerling potatoes, bitter winter greens and lots of other interesting things. I mentioned yesterday that I was impressed with the variety of produce I spotted on Saturday. It was a hard choice deciding what to buy, but I finally settled on these things.
Four stalks of brussles sprouts and a big celeriac root. The sprouts we’ll roast or saute with bacon and onions. The celeriac is most likely going to be made into this soup.
These fingerlings were roasted in the oven last night. We ate half last night and the other half will be eaten with eggs tonight.
These oyster mushrooms will be sauteed in olive oil and tossed with some soy sauce. The winter greens don’t have a plan yet, I think perhaps they’ll end up being paired with a warm mustard bacon vinaigrette and topped with those mushrooms and some caramelized onions.
I scored a huge bag full of red onions and a few cipollini onions. The red ones will be caramelize and made into caramelized red onion soup to be enjoyed with a crusty bread. Some of them will make their way into braised red cabbage and others will most likely top potatoes and grace other savory dishes.
These carrots were roasted in the oven whole and we enjoyed them with a side of fingerling potatoes, brussels sprouts, and mushrooms. I also bought a few more balls of hand spun yarn from Trinity Woolen Mill, I forgot to take a photo of them until too late last night.
I also scored a few bunches of sage which will come in handy for our Thanksgiving feast on Thursday and for savory soups throughout the winter. I didn’t buy any endive, I forgot actually. I have arugula growing in the garden so I didn’t buy any of that either.
What’s your favorite exotic vegetable?
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Local Roots Market in Wooster, OH
This past Saturday I went to the Local Roots Market in Wooster, Ohio. I heard about it this summer while at the local fair and I’ve been watching their website for news and updates. They opened recently and since I had Saturday off, I headed over to Wooster to see what the market was like.
Their plan is to have an year-round indoor farmer’s market to connect the community with local sources of meat, dairy, vegetables, honey, and other locally produced products.
I was given a tour and told all about the future plans of the Local Roots Market. They plan on opening up a cafe that uses local food. A local butcher would like to open a shop in the back of the building selling locally raised meat. They want to install a commercial kitchen the farmers can use to add value to their produce. It’s a wonderful plan that I can get behind. I’m very excited to have a source for produce all winter long. I plan on attending several times a month (when I have a Sat off) and supporting this great initiative.
There were a variety of farmers/artisans there on Saturday because they were holding their annual Holiday Market. Generally they don’t have vendors selling crafts. This is a nice change. I’ve heard that some farmer’s markets are more craft markets than produce markets.
The variety and quality of produce available was wonderful. I do love my local farmer’s market (which ended yesterday morning), but because it’s a very rural area the variety of produce is at times lacking. I’ve never seen arugula, endive, bitter greens, fingerling potatoes and other interesting items at my local market. This market featured many of the items I love to eat. I saw endive, arugula, purple and white carrots, all kinds of herbs, ground cherries, brussels sprouts on the stalk, spelt artisan bread, raw milk cheese, grass-fed beef, celery roots and much more.
All the vendors have signs with their farm name, the type of farming they do: organic, conventional, integrated pest management, etc. This is great because you can look at the sign and know right away if the use chemicals or practice organic methods.
The market was packed, which is always good to see. It’s clear that there are a lot of community members that are interesting in eating locally and strengthening the local food system and the local economy. I’ll show you all the delicious things I got tomorrow.
Have you found that the local food movement is growing in your area?
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Making Preserved Lemons
I’m a huge fan of all things lemon. If I have a choice I’ll take lemon anything: cookies, cakes, scones, etc. Sadly lemons don’t grow in NE Ohio (unless you can manage an indoor tree) so finding a local source is not going to happen. The next best thing to local, is finding a small orchard to buy them from. I searched on-line and found a small orchard in California called Lemon Ladies Orchard. I ordered a 10-lb box of Meyer lemons and they arrived several days later.
I have so many recipes for these lemons I probably will run out of lemons long before I complete them all. First on my list was making a batch of preserved lemons for the pantry.
I picked out 15 nice lemons, coarse sea salt and grabbed a nice sized jar from the pantry. While I sterilized the jar, I washed and quartered 10 of the lemons (cut the stem end off and quarter lemons lengthwise). Next I added the lemon quarters to my jar adding a scant tablespoon of salt after each row. Pack the lemons tightly but don’t crush them. You can also add spices if you’d like, cinnamon, cloves, etc.
Keep adding lemons and salt until you’re up to the top of the jar (I used a quart jar, you can use 2 pints if you’d like).
When you reach the top, take the remaining 5 lemons and roll on the counter to soften (makes them juice better). Juice the lemons into the jar, add enough juice to cover the lemons, use more lemons if needed. Remove any air bubbles and top off with the remaining salt (you want to use about a half cup total for this recipe).
Allow lemons to ferment on the counter for 2 weeks (3-4 weeks if you used regular lemons and not Meyer). Shake the jar occasionally (every couple days) to redistribute salt. Store in the fridge and enjoy in recipes, they’ll keep for about 6 months. When you want to use them you can rinse the lemons if you don’t want to add so much salt to your recipe or you can leave them salty. They may acquire some white crystals, this is OK. Here’s a recipe for Israeli Couscous with Butternut Squash & Preserved Lemons.
Not wanting to waste any part of these lovely lemons, I decided to candy the rinds of the lemons I used for juice.
These little jewels are so tasty! I also used the syrup left from the candied lemons and made some lemon ginger hard candy. *recipe for candied lemon peel
What’s your favorite flavor?
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Making Sauerkraut for New Year’s
On Wednesday I started my sauerkraut for our New Year’s Day tradition. We’ve been eating sauerkraut for New Year’s in my family since I can remember. We used to go out to my grandma’s house and she would have a big roaster full of sauerkraut, sausage and dumplings. When my grandma died my dad took over. He developed his own special recipe, changing it each year to make it better. It’s not your typical kraut recipe, it includes carrots, apples, tomatoes and all kinds of delicious goodness. For a few photos of my dad cooking on New Year’s and the recipe see this post.
Sauerkraut that ferments at cooler temperatures – 65 or lower – has the best flavor, color and vitamin C content. The fermentation process takes longer at these temperatures, around 4-6 weeks. That’s probably why it’s traditionally made in the fall. Looks like I’m making mine at the right time, it should be ready by mid-December and waiting in the fridge for New Years!
Making sauerkraut is quite easy all you need is cabbage (red or green), salt, and time (generally 3T of salt for every 5 lbs of cabbage). First you slice up the cabbage as thinly as you’d like, I usually do some really thin and some thick for variety. Then you put some sliced cabbage in a bowl and sprinkle salt over it, then smash with a wooden spoon or potato masher and mix. Continue adding cabbage and salt and mixing and smashing until the bowl is half full.
When the bowl is about half full I let it sit for 10-15 minutes to take a break and to let the cabbage wilt a little. This makes it easier to stuff into the glass jar I’m using as a fermenting crock. Transfer the cabbage to the jar, smash it down and continue working until all the cabbage is salted, smashed and packed into the jar. Let the cabbage sit overnight, if the brine hasn’t covered the cabbage make some brine (1.5 T of salt to 1 quart of water) and pour over the cabbage. I use a canning jar to weigh down the cabbage because I’m not comfortable using plastic. Let it sit for 4-6 weeks until it stops bubbling and it tastes like sauerkraut. You really can’t get much simpler. I’m hoping to try a few of the recipes in my The Joy of Pickling, Revised Edition
When I was making this I thought about all the women in past generations of my family that spent time each fall making sauerkraut for New Year’s. Connecting with our food heritage is such a wonderful thing. Hopefully our nieces & nephew will grow up with fond memories of eating Grandpa’s Famous Sauerkraut on New Year’s and continue the tradition with their families.
Do you have a specific food or menu that has been passed down through the generations of your family?
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A Trip to the Orchard
Last Monday Mr Chiots and I stopped by a local orchard to buy some apples to make applesauce & apple butter. It’s a great little orchard that is as organic as you can get and still have apples. They use the bare minimum of treatments on their trees. They also try to keep their business small and do things the way they’ve always done it. It’s such a cute little place, when you drive up you’re greeted by 5 dogs that are very happy to see you.
All the apples are stacked under a huge tree beside their house. The owner explained to us that he could buy a second cooler, but then he’d have higher electric bills and then he would have to work more. So he just stores his apples outside and sells what he can before they all go bad.
They had cats patrolling the crates for mice and I’m sure the dogs kept the deer, opossums and raccoons away.
I was up till the wee hours of the morning today making applesauce with the bushel of apples I purchased for $12. What kind did I get? I simply asked them for a bushel of good applesauce apples and they picked out a selection of 4-5 different kinds for me. If you are anywhere close to Orrville, Oh, head on over and visit Hochstetler Orchards, 13460 Church Rd, Orrville, OH 44667.
Do you have a favorite local place that you purchase specific items from?
