Adventures in mostly local cooking

[magid]

This morning I went west for the traditional pre-Rosh Hashanah picking of the apples. I was surprised that there weren't many varieties available right now, just Macintoshes, Gravensteins, Cortlandts (off in another area, so I didn't bother), and Liberty. I got mostly Macs, with a couple of the others in the bag for variety. They're not my top favorite, but they cook well, and I'm intending a bunch of applesauce to can, plus possibly some baked goods, in addition to the canonical apples and honey (both of which will definitely be local this year :-). Unfortunately, the last of the peaches were picked yesterday, so I had to go down the road a bit to a farm stand and get already-picked peaches. Usually peaches don't inspire me to cook, for some reason, but this year, I have lots of things to make: fresh salsa, chutney, cran-peach jam (minimizing sugar for a tart fruit spread).

Apples: $18 for a little over 22 lb
Peaches: $13.90 for about 13.5 lb
Impulse buy: local cranberry honey

So tonight I started in on the peaches (apples are a bit more temporally forgiving). First up, mostly-local peach chutney.

Local ingredients: 5-6 lb peaches, an onion, three fat cloves of garlic, two long red hot peppers, a bit less than a thumbworth of new ginger (harvested from my porch! *happy dance of gingerosity*)
Non-local ingredients: a cup or two of apple cider (distributed locally; no clue about original source), a cup or two of brown sugar (I didn't measure either of them, just added until it looked right. Sorry 'bout that.), some nutmeg

Some of the peaches I got the skin off of, some not; I decided I didn't care enough to be thorough. It's simmering now, and I'm guessing I'll get about five pints out of it. (edit three pints and two half-pints, with a little bowl for using now.)

Second up, mostly-local green and yellow chicken.

Non-local ingredients: chicken thighs, black pepper, chipotle mustard (atop the chicken)
Local ingredients (under the chicken): a sliced leek, a diced golden tomato, two diced peaches, two earsworth of corn kernels

It's a total experiment; I'm not sure they all go together at all. Should be ready in about an hour or so, just after the chutney finishes, if I'm really lucky.

Comments

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

You've reminded me--I was trying to figure out how to make Totally Local Salsa the other day. I usually like to use lime juice, so substituting for that it the main obstacle. Apple cider vinegar would be one reasonable choice. I've read about verjus, but never actually encountered it--it seemed like a very plausable way to go, though, that might have some of the freshness of flavor that I love in limes.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Cider vinegar will get you part of the way, but I suspect it's not going to be enough for lime addicts. Maybe you'll have to grow your own?

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

Cool! Though I admit I'm not sure whether FedExed Extreme Containerized Citrus from Texas is truly in the spirit of Totally Local.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's grown locally....
Even farms that grow exotic stuff have to get their plants from somewhere.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I had a strange thought over the weekend: for the tartness of lime, what about a bit of cranberry? There are definitely local cranberries!

[feygele.livejournal.com]

Completely off topic: iirc, you mentioned places where female-identified folk could by tallit and tzitzit in Jerusalem. If this is you I am recalling, telling me this info, could you tell me again? Thanks!

[magid.livejournal.com]

No, I only tried to buy sfarim in Jerusalem (which wasn't trivial either; one place was "out of Rambam"!). I don't remember whether the sfarim store I ended up frequenting most carried tallit and tzitzit or not, either. Sorry not to be more helpful.