January is National Soup Month, so celebrate with some Local Food Journey soup recipes

We have a January thaw going on today, but tonight Old Man Winter ends the party and back into the ice box we go. A traditional way to beat the chill is having a nice hot bowl of soup. January is National Soup Month, and given how cold this month can be, that makes a lot of sense.

Soup is actually rather fun to make, and fairly simple. There’s really no limit to variety when it comes to soup, there are the standards like chicken noodle, ham and bean, tomato, etc. but there are some really unique and fun soup recipes out there. In fact, over the years, here at Local Food Journey we’ve gathered quite a selection!

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Tags: soup | winter | recipes |

A quick meal at the shore

When you prepare for a beach vacation, there are so many things to think about that often, you are not thinking about that first meal you will eat when you arrive. You just tell yourself, “we’ll just run to a restaurant or grab a pizza and take it to the house.” Yes, a restaurant with your favorite fresh crab cakes or flounder! That’s it!

But then reality hits—everyone is happy by the time you ditch the traffic and smell that sea breeze, but everyone is also ravenous! Waiting time for a meal at a restaurant will not work for little people who have been done with the day before dinner arrives. Even waiting for a pizza seems too long. What to do?

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Tags: recipes | pasta | tomatoes | basil | vacation |

Fight winter blues with some tropical comfort food: arroz con pollo

It’s cold and miserable outside, which is another way of saying “January in Central Pennsylvania.” Hearty food, aka “comfort food,” has always been something people turn to during the dark cold eves of winter.

While comfort food for many Pennsylvanians is a pot of stew or a roast chicken dinner, for some Pennsylvanians it’s food from their much warmer homeland. Pennsylvania has relatively large population of Puerto Ricans, and this includes my hometown of York. I had Puerto Rican friends growing up who introduced me to food from their sunny island, such as mofongo, tostones, and arroz con pollo, which means chicken with rice in English.

Arroz con pollo is a caldero dish, which means it is made in a large pot or dutch oven. A caldero, a kind of dutch oven, is a standard item in the Puerto Rican family kitchen.

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Tags: ethnicfood | recipe | recipes | chicken | rice |

Baked apple sundaes an easy-to-make holiday crowd pleaser

Everyone loves apple pie a la mode, this recipe takes the basic concept of an apple pie and simplifies it for those who don’t want to deal with a crust.

The first step to baking apples is making sure you choose one that can hold up to baking, otherwise they’ll fall apart. The best firm baking apples include varieties such as Granny Smith, Jonagold, and McIntosh. Very important to choose the right variety if you don’t want to deal with a real mess. You can definitely still find apples from local sources like Way Fruit Farm.

Once you have the right apples, then you core them. You can use a paring knife if you have the skills, otherwise an apple corer can be had for cheap. The key is to get all or most of the core out, and not cutting the bottom to allow the melted butter/brown sugar mix to stream out the bottom during baking.

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Tags: apples | icecream | recipes | recipe | Holiday |

Pennsylvania Dutch sand tarts are a fantastic holiday cookie

To many who live in Pennsylvania Dutch country, sand tarts are a big part of the holiday festivities. Topped with sprinkles or ground almonds, hese wafer-thin sugar cookies are crispy and delicious. I feel bad for the parts of Pennsylvania that do not have them, as they are quite the holiday treat.

Below is an old recipe for these tasty cookies that you can easily do at home. The ingredients are simple, but key to a great sand tart is rolling them thin. Otherwise, they’re not sand tarts!

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Tags: cookies | recipe | holdiays | PennsylvaniaDutch | recipes |

Spiced cranberry sangria combines local shrub, wine

Editor’s Note: Linda Weaver of Mt. Nittany Vineyard and Winery offers this delicious recipe for a pleasant cocktail full of holiday flavor that features Mt. Nittany wine and cranberry shrub from Tait Farm Foods.

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Tags: recipes | recipe | wine | Mt.NittanyVineyard&Winery | TaitFarm | shrub | holidays |

Taking back the reputation of fava beans

There is no doubt that Anthony Hopkins is one of the finest actors of all time. In fact, he is so good, he actually managed to ruin the reputation of one tasty vegetable—fava beans.

Even if you haven’t seen his role as the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lector in the film The Silence of the Lambs, unless you live under a rock you’ve probably heard Hopkins’ character’s infamous quote about one of his devious meals, and how he accompanied it with fava beans and a nice Chianti. To this day, I’ve noticed that whenever you mention fava beans, that scene is mentioned.  However, fava beans are not a horror, they are a tasty vegetable that has a long history as a food, going all the way back to the Romans and Ancient Greeks.

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Tags: recipe | gardening | favabeans | recipes |

Recipe: Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas cookies

I grew up in York, part of the original Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Therefore, there are several things that say Christmas to me that most others have no idea about. One is Der Belsnickel, a sort of nasty fellow who’s job it is to make sure children are good in the weeks before Christmas by, well, beating them with a stick. Think of him as Santa’s muscle.

Another, more benevolent aspect of Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas is some of the traditional cookies that families bake for the season.

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Tags: recipes | PennsylvaniaDutch | Christmascookies | cookies |

Co-owner of Way Fruit Farm shares three favorite apple recipes

Way Fruit Farm offers all sorts of things that are good to eat; from different types of fruit to a variety of local food products from places like Tait Farm Foods and Hogs Galore. But their bread and butter, what put them on the map, is of course apples.

As a big fan of Way Fruit Farm, I can tell you that I see a lot of people buying huge amounts of apples for all sorts of recipes. I met a woman there last year who was baking apple pies for recipes, planning on giving them as gifts…a total of 25 pies! Apple pies certainly are a great way to use Way’s apple bounty, but I recently had the opportunity to talk to Megan Coopey, who with her husband Jason are co-owners of Way Fruit Farm, about some other recipes for apples. Jason and Megan are two reasons to visit Way Fruit Farm, always friendly and helpful, and Megan was glad to help by giving me several fantastic recipes that would make a fantastic addition (or additions) to the Holiday table.

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Tags: recipes | apples |

Fall recipe of apple cheesecake takes memory back to California high desert town

When you live in Southern California you start to miss some of the things from home. The thing I missed the most was the seasons. So-Cal had two seasons Hot and less hot. For the winter season they had some cooler days with occasional rain. So for Spring we had green. For summer it was brown. For fall more brown. Winter was brown and dreary.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to shovel sunshine, so, I was happy for the most part. I did miss fall though. I love fall with its brilliant colors and cooler temperatures. It also has my favorite holiday, HALLOWEEN! Now I like the things that become available in fall for making pies such as apples, pears, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins. As you can imagine fresh apples were hard to find.

One day a friend of mine and I were talking about food, of course, when she asked me if I had ever been to Yucaipa. The blank look on my face must have told her everything she needed to know. So the next weekend she drove me over to Yucaipa, CA. Now Yucaipa has grown a lot since but back then they had apple orchards and had a fall festival celebrating apples. I was in my glory. Here was a place close by that had not only apples but seasonal leaf changes. For her help in finding this gem of the high desert I made her my Apple Cheesecake. I have included my recipe below but when ever I look at an apple my mind drifts back to that high desert city and it’s hidden treasure.

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Tags: recipes | recipe | apple | cheesecake | fall |

Here’s two recipes to give you something to do with all those zucchinis

When I was a young lad I was in Sicily in the city of Palermo doing the tourist thing checking out the castles. After much walking around viewing the sights my tired feet and grumbling stomach reminded me I had not had lunch. I stopped in a small ristorante and had a dish similar to the recipe below. Years later I remembered the dish and recreated it from what I remembered. This recipe comes from a lot of trial and error, mostly error, until I got it to the point it closely matched my memory of the dish.

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Tags: recipes | zucchini |

Fantastic Fourth recipes that will rock your holiday cookout

July 4th is a fun time, almost as much of a celebration of our American summer as it is a celebration of our American freedom. As a general rule, the gatherings of friends and family take place outside (weather permitting, of course) and take the form of the cookout/backyard barbeque. I am sure other culture do this, but the American version is unique to us. We play a variety of lawn games like horseshoes, ladder toss, etc., hang out with friends and family, and enjoy a variety of summer foods. This is the time of the year when local food really shines; and I asked a sampling of local food vendors and Local Food Journey vendors to offer some favorite Independence Day recipes that will dazzle backyard diners. In fact, I got so many I decided to do this in two parts. Today, we offer you part one.

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Tags: July4th | recipes |

Grilled Chicken Bread Salad with Asparagus and Fennel

There are certain recipes that have nearly cult followings online, and the Zuni Cafe Roast Chicken and Bread Salad is one of them. I’ve never had it in person, but have heard so many people rave about it that I decided to put my own spin on it.

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Tags: recipes | spring | asparagus | chicken |

Rhubarb Applesauce

I wanted to do something slightly more savory with my recent bunch of rhubarb, which is tough because it is very tart and needs some sugar. I settled on the idea of something “applesaucey” and it was a hit with our grilled pork. It would be great with some strawberries added in (if you like the strawberry-rhubarb combo and are willing to part with your strawberries—but I’m not there yet.)

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Tags: recipes | spring | rhubarb | apples | honey |

Mother’s Day Brunch

Don’t forget to spoil your mother this weekend! Here are a few recipe suggestions for an extra special Mother’s Day brunch.

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Tags: recipes | spring | holiday |

Pulling Summer from the Freezer when it’s Freezing Outside

During my garden harvest season, which stretches from summer through much of fall, I preserve a lot of what we get from our backyard in two ways—canning and freezing.

I like to do both because of cooking flexibility. You can do a lot of great things with canning: sauces, relishes, pickles, etc. But freezing for me tends to be about just the vegetable/fruit.

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Tags: gardening | recipes | kale | winter |

Asparagus and Artichoke Dip

Now that April is upon us, it means that asparagus is coming into season! This dip is a quick and easy way to utilize this versatile vegetable.

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Tags: recipes | spring | asparagus |

Green Week: Pistachio Cookies

Get into the spirit of Saint Patrick’s Day with these festive cookies! Pistachio pudding provides the green coloring, but you could substitute another flavor like lemon or butterscotch.

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Tags: recipes | cookies | holidays |

Glazed Carrots with Orange and Ginger

This isn’t the first time I’ve made this dish, and it won’t be the last.

In How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman suggests quick glazing carrots in butter or oil with a variety of herbs for a flavorful side dish. You could use dill and lemon juice, brown sugar and walnuts, or maple syrup and pecans. But I especially like the combination of grated ginger and freshly squeezed orange juice.

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Tags: recipes | winter | carrots | oranges |

Pesto and Prosciutto Pizza

Try homemade pizza tonight in place of delivery. It will be hot out of the oven in the same amount of time a cardboard box could arrive on your doorstep—and it’s much more satisfying.

What are your favorite pizza toppings?

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Tags: recipes | winter | broccoli | garlic |