FoodieTots.com

You may have seen this floating around the internet lately, but the intrepid locavores who spearheaded the White House Organic (WHO) Farm movement have moved on to encourage all 50 states’ governors (and Washington’s Mayor Fenty, I presume) to serve local and sustainably sourced foods this Independence Day. Take a moment to sign the Food Independence Day petition and see if your governors have responded. Locally, Kim O’Donnel reports that Maryland Gov. O’Malley’s July 4th menu will feature, naturally, Chesapeake Bay crabcakes and salad greens from the first lady’s vegetable garden. Join the cause by declaring your own independence from the industrial food system (seen Food Inc. yet?) and plan your own locally-sourced July 4th meal.

5 Tips for A Local 4th of July Cook-out:

1. Make those burgers local and grassfed — and avoid worry over the latest e.coli beef recall.
2. Buy the buns from a farmers market vendor or local bakery — they’re fresher and most likely made without the high fructose corn syrup and preservatives of most supermarket brands.
3. Stick with seasonal veggies — sweet corn is just beginning to appear here, along with fresh from the field tomatoes, garlic and plenty of herbs for a homemade fresh salsa.
4. Skip the made-in-China, flag-covered disposables — take sheets outside or have the kids decorate a (recycled) kraft paper banner to use as a tablecloth — local and green.
5. Nothing’s more patriotic than domestic beer or wine; just skip the (now Belgian-owned) Bud Light and search for a local craft brewer or vineyard, or stir up a red, white and blue sangria with berries from the farmers market. (And reserve some of those berries for a family-friendly cobbler for dessert!)

Some favorite summer cook-out recipes from the archives, for added inspiration:

• Roasted Tomatillo Peach Salsa
• Patriotic Potato Salad
• Peach Berry Sherbet

My son has requested that we spend the holiday at the Farmers Market and the pool, and I’m happy to oblige — with perhaps a few minutes spent getting a fresh Pennsylvania cherry pie in the oven. What’s on your plate for the holiday?

(Submitting this to Fight Back Friday over at the Food Renegade - go check it out!)

We were out of town again over the weekend, so our local foods eating was partly an effort to use up market and CSA produce before we left. This colorful pasta creation used a rainbow of locally-sourced ingredients, starting with a favorite staple at our house, fresh pasta by Nancy of Smith Meadows. Nancy uses their wildly popular free-range eggs and herbs and vegetables grown at neighboring farms to make these delicious pastas. The flavors range from oat and wheat to herbed fettuccine and mixed greens or blue cheese pecan ravioli. Nancy has also expanded her offerings to include sauces, for an even more effortless “fast food” meal you can feel good about, too.

This week, I used bacon, cherry tomatoes and chard for a “BLT” (subbing chard for the lettuce) pasta dish, a flavorful and quick weeknight dinner, with a side of green and yellow string beans for good measure.

Recipe: “BLT” Fettuccine

Ingredients:

• 1 pound fresh sun dried tomato fettuccine
• 4 slices nitrate-free bacon
• 1 bunch chard, rinsed and cut into thick slices
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes
• 1 pound string beans, ends trimmed
• several basil leaves, thinly sliced
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and pepper

Instructions: Bring large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, heat cast iron skillet over medium high heat and cook bacon until crisp and brown, 6-7 minutes. Remove to drain on paper towel lined plated. Drain excess grease, leaving a light coating in the bottom of the pan. Add chard and season with a pinch of salt and pepper; reduce heat to medium low and cook until chard just begins to wilt. Remove from pan. Add cherry tomatoes to pan, increase heat back to medium high and cook until tomatoes begin to blister, 6-8 minutes.

While the tomatoes cook, blanch string beans in salted boiling water just 1-2 minutes, then use slotted spoon or pasta skimmer to remove beans and rinse with cold water in a colander. Set aside and boil pasta for 2 minutes (or according to package instructions if using boxed pasta). Drain pasta, reserving 1/4 cup of cooking water.

In a large pasta serving bowl, gently stir together cooked pasta, tomatoes, chard, bacon, and basil. Press gently on tomatoes to release their juices. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil and reserved pasta water until moist. (Optional: grate parmesan cheese over top.) Arrange string beans around the side of the pasta, and enjoy! Makes 6 servings.

Farms of Origin: Cibola Farms (bacon), Potomac Vegetable Farms (chard, basil), Three Way Farm (beans, tomatoes), Smith Meadow Farm (pasta) — all in Virginia.

One Local Summer is an annual challenge in which people around the world join together for 13 weeks of seasonal eating, supporting local farmers and exploring their local foodsheds. Visit FarmtoPhilly on Tuesdays for the weekly round-up; here’s what my neighbors in the Southern region cooked up this week.

The aforementioned Saturday morning thunderstorms made for a damp morning at the Del Ray Farmers Market, but fair weather shoppers missed out on one of the best weeks of the year — the turning point between spring and summer where the final strawberries cross paths with the first field-ripened tomatoes and even a few small ears of sweet corn. We had a Father’s Day picnic planned for Sunday, so the boy picked out green and yellow beans (Mr. Biggs) and a pint of sweet cherries (Toigo) to share. We picked up Smith Meadows’ sun dried tomato pasta and sun-colored cherry tomatoes from Three Way Farm, whose stand was bursting with bright yellow and green summer squash, green and red tomatoes, and more. The farmers from Riva had deep red rhubarb and the first pints of the boy’s favorite, blueberries. In true FoodieTot fashion, he devoured his pint whilst roaming the market (pausing for his weekly slice of Tom’s aged cheddar), slurping the final few berries as we escaped to the car just as the next downpour began.

By the way, Jane Black at the Washington Post confirmed today what we’ve been hearing from our market vendors — all that spring-into-summer rain has pretty much washed out this year’s cherry crops. If the trees at Moutoux Orchard are any indication, though, peach season is still on track.

I devoured a wealth of local foods over the weekend - from delicate fried softshell crabs with watermelon at West End Bistro, to dinner on our farm and the Father’s Day picnic at Naked Mountain Winery — but did very little cooking. Never mind, fresh beans served raw needed little more than some fresh locally-made hummus, and those sweet cherries gave a “cheat local” touch to store-brought mini-cupcakes. Hey, at least the wine was homemade….

One Local Summer is an annual challenge in which people around the world join together for 13 weeks of seasonal eating, supporting local farmers and exploring their local foodsheds. Visit FarmtoPhilly on Tuesdays for the weekly round-up; here’s what my neighbors in the Southern region cooked up this week …. and, speaking of picnics, last week we shared a grilled nectarine and tomato salad for Cookie magazine’s virtual picnic; check out the other contributions from some of my favorite foodie parents!

Saturday morning I awoke thinking it must still be night given how little light was coming in through the blinds. No, just yet another rainy morning. My heart sank fearing that our “fork to farm” summer solstice dinner, to be cooked by Vermilion’s Chef Tony Chittum in the fields of our CSA farm, Potomac Vegetable Farm in Purcellville, would be canceled. Fast forward eight hours — after a damp trip to the farmers market where the farmers were practically giving food away in “rainy day sales” for the dedicated few who braved the storms — and here is the vista that awaited as we strolled from the reception at neighboring Moutoux Orchard to the dinner site.

We began the evening sipping peach-infused sparkling voignier in the peach orchards, before moving on to a surprisingly intimate feast for 100+ fellow diners, ingredients provided by six Virginia farms and Horton Vineyards, and prepared by Chef Chittum and his crew over a grill and makeshift kitchen in the middle of the field.

The additional farms — Greenstone Fields, Tree and Leaf Farm, Wheatland Vegetable Farms, and New Frontier Bison. An appetizer paired sweet beets with Alberene Ash goat cheese; the salad featured “this morning’s deviled eggs”; heirloom beets accompanied sweet Virginia ham-wrapped scallops and magnificent crab cakes; a mixed grill of beef, rabbit terrine and bison was served family-style with a sheep’s milk yogurt dressed potato salad; and luscious Caromont Farm chevre cheesecake, spiced with strawberry black pepper preserves, and Virginia peanut cookies swept us away at the conclusion of the meal, while fireflies punctuated the fields and the sun settled behind the Blue Ridge Mountains. A truly magical evening!

(full photoset here)

“Who Wore It Better?”, Dairy Godmother frozen custard edition …

(left, the boy, 10.29.07. right, Sasha Obama, 6.20.09)