Get ready for Thanksgiving today at the Boalsburg Farmers Market

If you want to get something local (and delicious) to serve on Thanksgiving, today you can head out to the Boalsburg Farmers Market and find a holiday co-star for your table.

A few things the Boalsburg Market recommends include delicious pies from Ardry Farms, Nomad Kitchen’s soups (great starters for your meal!), and Katina Baklava. But, see below for the complete list of what you will find there today. The market is open in the winter months every Tuesday from 2 to 6 p.m. at the St. John’s United Church of Christ on 218 N. Church Street in Boalsburg.

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Tags: BoalsburgFarmersMarket | Thanksgiving |

Three great (and easy) Thanksgiving sides recipes, part 2: Pennsylvania Dutch baked corn

Editor’s note: This week in the three days leading up to Thanksgiving, we will feature three ideas for sides that you can pull together with a minimal amount of ingredients and little stress. Today’s second recipe is Pennsylvania Dutch baked corn.

If you grew up in York, Pa., like me, then you grew up around a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch food. A lot of this stuff is not found elsewhere in the country, or even in parts of Pennsylvania away from Amish country. When I lived in Pittsburgh, I looked forward to family holiday visits because I knew there would be at least a few PA Dutch items on the table, and one of these was baked corn.

Baked corn is actually a sort of savory hot custard, and to some it may seem a bit odd (like many PA German dishes). However, it is absolutely delicious, slightly sweet, and buttery. It is made with dried corn, a culinary treat that is not found outside of our region. John Copes is the brand we used, and the cartoon Amish man on the package makes me instantly think of family Thanksgiving dinners. Dried corn’s flavor is a bit more intense than regular corn, and is best described as nutty.

Plus, it’s very easy to make. If you can mix things together in a baking pan and put it in the oven, you can make baked corn.

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Tags: recipe | Thanksgiving | corn | PADutch |

Three great (and easy) Thanksgiving sides recipe, part 1: Sautéed Swiss chard

Editor’s note: This week in the three days leading up to Thanksgiving, we will feature three ideas for sides that you can pull together with a minimal amount of ingredients and little stress. Today’s first recipe is sautéed Swiss chard.

Swiss chard is a perfect Thanksgiving side dish. A truly cold-hardy vegetable, Swiss chard can be still found as a fresh vegetable, and it’s a staple of many fall gardens.

It’s also a very tasty vegetable, and in fact, is sort of two vegetables in one. The stems of the Swiss chard leaf looks a lot like celery, and you can chop them up and cook them much in the same way. The leaves are quite delicious, sort of in a sweet spot between the delicateness of spinach and the toughness of kale. The slight bitterness of chard is an absolute plus.

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Tags: recipe | chard | Thanksgiving |

Two Thanksgiving recipes from Tony Sapia of Gemelli Bakers

Tony Sapia, the highly skilled baker who brings us Gemelli Bakers, shares with us two things…two styles of holiday baking he’s excited about and two fantastic Thanksgiving side dish recipes, including one you can make ahead of time:

We started our stollen baking.  I learned from a good friend of mine whom is a third-generation German master baker in Cincinnati. This and panettone baking is what I look forward to every year. The two most ethnic diverse breads coming together for one community. It’s what makes me get up in the mornings. The aromas are fragrant with nostalgia and memories of living abroad learning the craft. Bringing it back to my home town of State College, PA, where I was born and now bread…..

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Tags: recipe | turnip | Thanksgiving | Gemelli |

Is it too late to get a local turkey for Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving is just over a week away, and many of you who read this blog have already pre-ordered your local-raised Thanksgiving turkey. Most of the local vendors in these parts require you to pre-order a few months in advance to ensure you have a Thanksgiving turkey that’s locally grown. But what if you didn’t pre-order and would like a local turkey?

Well, unfortunately, your options are limited, and after checking around for you, here’s what I found…

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Tags: Thanksgiving | turkey |

Winning (literally) apple pie recipes for Thanksgiving

After everyone finishes their seconds tomorrow at the Thanksgiving table, you always have to make some room for dessert. After all, dessert is as much a part of the Thanksgiving spread as the turkey.

Back in late October, Way Fruit Farm held their annual Apple Pie Contest. I had the honor of judging around a dozen excellent entries and it was very difficult to decide on a winner. After the contest, I thought to myself, any of those pies would be perfect at Thanksgiving. So, I figured I’d share a few examples of the wonderful pies I sampled.

The winner, Jamie Liner of Port Matilda, and a runner up, Cathy Cohan of State College, were gracious enough to offer their apple pie recipes for you to use if you decide to bake an apple pie for Thanksgiving dessert. Enjoy!

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Tags: applepie | recipe | Thanksgiving |

Five local food additions to your Thanksgiving table

It’s likely a bit too late to get a local turkey if you already haven’t, but there are a lot of local food items that you can add to your Thanksgiving table. You still have time to head out and pick them out (although based on the weather forecast might want to do it before Wednesday).

Here are five fine additions to your Thanksgiving table from local food producers:

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Tags: Thanksgiving | gluten-free | wine | beverage | bread | BoalsburgFarmersMarket |

Local food sides share a rightful place next to turkey star on Thanksgiving stage

Traditionally, unless of course you are vegetarian or vegan, turkey holds top billing at the Thanksgiving table. We’ve all seen the classic “Freedom from Want” painting by Norman Rockwell, an image that quickly became the template for our truly American holiday, Thanksgiving. Grandma lowers the giant golden-brown bird onto the table, as all the relatives ooo and ahh.

But really, the sides are the co-stars of this culinary production, and rightfully so. While there is certainly nothing wrong with tradition, they don’t have to be sugary sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green bean casserole, or “cranberry sauce a la Bart” direct from a can (Simpsons reference). With local ingredients, they can have flair and pizzazz that almost steals the show from the big turkey (not your one annoying uncle, I mean the main course).

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Tags: Thanksgiving | recipe | squash | cabbage | sandwich |