Local Meal of the Week (DDELC09/10 #3)

My theme this week was cooking with fire…

I made a fire in the fireplace with wood from my next door neighbor—wood from trees that grew on his property and went to their wood pile when he had some tree work done. Local wood, local fire:

I made a few Girl Scout Camp favorites. For a main course, I had a pocket stew of sorts, which consists of meat, veggies, and seasonings wrapped in a foil pouch and cooked over hot coals. For my pocket stew, I used:

• ground beef from Stuarts Family Farm, seasoned with my thyme, and salt, cumin, and chili powder from out there.
• a small sliced onion from Shenandoah Farms, Easton, CT
• several slices of hot cherry pepper from Maple Bank Farm (from my freezer because she said I could freeze my peppers.)
• sliced blue and fingerling potatoes from here (Late Bloomers Farm)
• celeriac from some farm at the New Haven market…missed it in my notes…
• carrots from Riverbank Farm
• garlic from Cherry Grove Farm, Newtown, CT
• butter from Trinity Dairy, Ensfield CT (grease the heavy duty, double-wrapped aluminum sheet and put a pat on top for flavor)

Ready to wrap:

Seal well, all the way around.

Wrapped and cooking:

Ten minutes a side, sealed side first. (The item on the right is a baking apple.)

Done:

It was a tad on the hot (spicy) side—next time fewer cherry pepper slices (or at least no seeds). Also need to figure out the timing for medium rare.

For dessert, I made a baked apple, also over the coals. I have a picture of the pre-baked apple, but totally forgot about the camera when it was time to dig in!

It’s a Northern Spy from Shenandoah Farms, Easton, CT. I left some of the bottom in while coring so that the hole did not go completely through. I sprinkled some cinnamon and put in about two teaspoons of honey (from the Stuart’s neighbor). Some folks like to add chopped nuts and/or raisins. go for it—whatever you like. I wrapped it doubled heavy duty aluminum like the pocket stew and cooked it for about 15 minutes, having moved some coals up around the sides for better heat distribution.

For the post-dessert dessert…I stoked the fire back up and roasted chestnuts on an open fire.

Using a popcorn popper:

Yes, they really do make a pop-pop sound. That’s how they signal that they’re done.

Then just peel and eat. They go nicely with a glass of Sharpe Hill Cabernet Franc. On the nutritional side, chestnuts are closer to winter squashes than they are to nuts. In other words, more carbs, less protein.

The leftovers (if any) can be frozen. I peel them before freezing.