Day 197-200 LocalrootZ Project (July 19-22, 2010)

And what a week so far... a bit of cheating but only for some special Birthday dinners for Cassi...

Another typical early morning breakfast to start my day...

A wonderful combination of fresh corn from Merriweather Farm (saw it on my spin home from work, going through the monday farmers market) sungolds, chard & zucchini from our garden

and a little raw cheddar to top it off... Yum

 the garden in its second stage... Huge tomatoes... they were overtaking the neighbors plot so I had to lasso them and tie them back into my "space".  Tons of tomatoes to come....

 Carrots and cukes are doing quite well...

I had to pull up most of the onions because the cukes were choking them out !

 Here is todays take... lots of baby onions, as well as some baby carrots because I needed to thin them out a bi...t as well as good batch of chard, cukes and zucchini !

 

After alot of weeding I made some tasty cherry ice cream with leftover cherries from Old Ocean Farm

 

the rooftop peppers are doing very well...

 as well as our grilled salad bowl...

 

 our first cayenne of the season....

 

another view...

 

lots of different tomatoes are greening up with fruit

 

eggplant is coming in too !

 

We are having an early birthday celebration with Cassi's Mom and her other half Rick.  Here is the ingredients I started with minus the roasting cauliflower and potatoes... our first eggplant and alot of other things from our garden !

 

 My first homemade rieta... a combination of fennel, cukes some creme fraiche and salt

 we took it outside and they brought some extra fixings to fill out the meal... samosas and naan as well as a bowl of basmati rice !

 

 It was very very good....

on Wednesday I took Cassi out for dinner @ Caiola's in the west end to celebrate her big day... a day early, because she had to work on her birthday.... I would highly recommend Caiola's to anyone looking for a well balanced, high end dinner with alot of great selections !

We had Polenta fries with red peppers sauce and whipped cheddar

A house salad with cider vinaigrette dressing

A mussel and saffron cream sauce pasta dish

A whole fennel crusted sea bass with broccoli raab on the side

We also indulged in many of their specialty drinks at the bar !

And then her birthday lunch...

 

Alot of leftovers from the week with a few added surprises for the special day !

Ok back on track... lets try this again what do ya say !  Gotta start taking it one day at a time...

Day 192-196 LocalrootZ Project (July 13-18, 2010)

Ok so here I am again behind a bit and trying to come up with excuses... anyhow, Im gonna give myself a break and keep with the compiled posts as the busy summer continues to roll along !

A typical 5 am weekday breakfast... Pesto Homefries w/ Sunny Up Egg

Irie always like to be involved in the cooking process....

Our quick easy hot evening dinner...

Early Summer Stir Fry

(Broccoli, Snow Peas, Zucchini, Maine Shrimp tossed in sunflower oil and seaweed flakes)

A heaping plateful fills me up for a couple hours....

A spinach omelet before my work commute...

baked Lebanese Squash stuffed with Curried Garden Veggies

Always topped with fresh cilantro....

Pan Fried Cusk with side of Broccoli Rapini and the last of our kale...

I love this meal !

Blueberry Raspberry Pancakes

Cucumber and spinach salad with Garlic scape Pesto Dressing

One of our favorites as of late... especially because Ive been harvesting 10 pounds of cukes a week out of our garden !

As I said this week was a very busy one... with it ending as busy as it started.  The good news is I had alot of "firsts" on Saturday.  My first time selling prints at the Deering Oaks Farmers Market, my first meal at Local Sprouts, and it was great !  Also on Saturday evening I had the pleasure of supplying Portlands newest hotspot... Bayside Bowling, with reggae music from 9-1 !  It was a very busy day but very exciting also.  I will be dropping more post soon but first I need to get through another crazy week that will be highlighted by Cassi's birthday !

Day 176-190 LocalrootZ Project (June 26-July 11, 2010)

Oh Boy...what a couple weeks its been.  Sorry I got derailed from my task at hand. I will try not to let the blog slide between the cracks in the final couple months of summer.  I think Im going to lump the last couple weeks in one long post.... are you ready? Ok hear is what Ive been eating and doing while I was away....

A nice farmers market breakfast....

some local grown flowers for Cassi....

Maple Ice Cream w/ Saskatoon Cherry Crisp

Broccoli, Snap Pea, Tofu and Spicy Bean Dip Stir Fry

sooo hot outside and our 3rd floor attic apartment is a scorcher... hence a quick stir fry night after night... So good to have local New Leaf Farm Broccoli and Heiwa Tofu mmmmm !

Maine Shrimp, Green Spark Farm Cauliflower and snap peas soooo good!

and did I mention our good friends Geofferson and Hannah are in town for a bit from Philly.  Geofferson is also the other half of Cognizant Sound.  If you haven't been paying attention, Cognizant Sound is a reggae soundsystem that started in Portland back around 2003...?  Anyway, I always enjoy getting a chance to feed friends and with them staying just blocks away we have plans to eat dinner together frequently while they are still around !  On this night we enjoyed a Garden Plot salad with a  tasty honey garlicscape pesto dressing followed by yet another broccoli, snap pea and tofu stir fry, and  since it was a special occasion I also whipped up some pan fried goat cheese stuffed Zucchini blossoms that I had scooped out of the garden plot that morning ! Yum

 Cheers !

An excellent Indian inspired stir fry that incorporated our curry powder from the cupboard !  The inclusion of curried cauliflower and roasted potatoes as well as some fennel created a complex dish the blew me away... NEED MORE CAULIFLOWER !  Thanks to Green Spark Farm.

then it was off to Pierce Pond for a long weekend at my friend Brian's camp.

 Cassi and I needed a break from the city...

 

 I was hard to get away from the fire pit and the rocker swing for most of the weekend!

 

Our fabulous 4th of July Host Brian !

 

As the sun goes down the fire awakes....

as well as the loons and alcoholic beverages....

a wonderfully relaxing weekend where the camera was always packed away and i was in no rush to do much of anything but chill.... I don't really stop much these days and was glad to have the opportunity to do so.  We also had great company from with Brian having his fiancee Melissa as well as her brother Brian and his buddy Matt.  Good Company and good times.  We ate very locally but did cheat with a few items to make life a little easier...

I also took some time to paint a couple afternoons away while the rest of the crew went on kayak excursion and afternoon siestas.

none of which are done but I wanted to show you that the whole weekend wasn't completely unproductive !

and then we returned to the fine city rejuvenated and off to Geno's to sell some goods.... didn't go so well but Im sure Ill start moving some prints when i finally set up shop at the Deering Oaks Farmers Market !

Another thing waiting for our return was the garden plot... First Snow Pea and Zucchini harvest !

The garden is looking wicked... I also grabbed some young onions because the cukes are choking them out !

Now we had leftover pasta from the camping trip as well as my own homemade tomato sauce made with Olivias Tomatoe's so we decided with the heat and our newly acquired zucchini that we should go ahead and use what we had ... 100% local with the addition of a bag of bio-nature organic rotini... we will make our own pasta again soon but we were not about to make our own pasta in a tent.  Anyway enough explaining it was sooooo good, with the combination of garlic scape pesto and zucchini, some fresh Olivia's cherry tomatoes.

the next night we had the leftovers with the addition of some yellow zucchini from New Leaf Farm as well as some baby swiss chard from our rooftop deck!

July 10th Farmers Market

Blackberries, Raspberries, Blueberries, New Potatoes, Lebanese Squash, Patty Pan, Cauliflower, Eggs, Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, Fava beans, Cabbage, Green Garlic, Carrots, Broccolini Rapini , Golden Cuke, Green Onions and Cherry Tomatoes

Thanks so much to Green Spark, Freedom, Fishbowl, South Paw, Good Start and Ocean House Farm

for all the wonderful produce !

Tomato & Zuke Omelet

w/ Pesto Potatoes

& Aroostook Wheat Toast

Still working on the beer consumption... hot days and many visitors make it very hard !

A bit salty and smug Ive been told....

and what have Merrimac & Irie been up to... well they've been real real busy.