Local Food Delivered

LFLF just had 3 chickens delivered tonight!  Now these chickens are "freezer ready", the 4-H'ers send the birds out to be processed and then deliver them.  We were successful bidders on a pen of 4-H poultry at the Hookstown Fair 4-H Livestock Auction on Friday night.  We really enjoyed the birds that we got last year and decided to do it again. 
The champion birds went for $22 - $24/lb. Businesses buy them to advertise their support for the 4-H youth programs. 

Volant Mill Winery @ Janoski's!

Janoski's Farm & Greenhouse  in Clinton is now home to a branch of Volant Mill Winery .  Here's an opportunity for folks in the Allegheny, Beaver, & Washington County areas & others who travel US Route 30 to get local Western PA wines.  LFLF didn't get the exact date, but Janoski's will be having a special for the grand opening of the winery shop.  Call them for more info ... is it the 26th of August???  Anyway, if you buy a bottle of wine, I believe that they are giving out a free 1/2 dozen ears of sweetcorn ........

Lot's of other fresh produce available now too!  If you are into home canning, Janoski's is the place to go.  Pecks & half bushels of peaches, tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, sweet peppers, banana peppers, green beans, etc are ready to go. 
LFLF picked up sweetcorn for dinner Saturday & it was delicious. 

Need Zucchini ???

LFLF is here to report that the markets are packed with fresh fruit, veggies, and flowers.  You can't miss the boxes of tomatoes, baskets of peaches, and piles of zucchini!  Something a little different in the way of zucchini, are what LFLF refers to as the "Personal Zucchini".   Douds-Floyd Farm brought these little beauties to the Ambridge Farmers' Market today.  The round zucchinis make great one or two person portions ..... easy to stuff, too. 

Even close to 6pm, there were customers in line waiting to buy their produce.  And let's not forget Mr. Market holding court at the cooking demo booth!  Eggplant was the featured veggie mixed in with a whole wheat pasta dish .......

Upcoming Event in Meadville, PA

Here's a different type of class/event relating to local meats.   PASA, along with Allegheny College Dining Services, is hosting a local meats and meat tasting event on Saturday the 28th at the Meadville Market House.  Should be interesting if you're in the area.  Many farmers' markets have meat vendors, but you do have to plan ahead and bring a cooler if you're not headed straight home after market.  This looks like a good way to meet some farmers and make a local connection for stocking your freezer year round. 

"And then there's melons" ......

We're used to seeing melons as we reach the peak of summer at the markets, and Saturday at the Beaver Farmers' Market was no different ...... LFLF picked up a perfectly ripe cantaloupe from Volkar Farms and we're just waiting for their watermelons to come in season.  Seems that they have 2 varieties of "lopes" planted, with the plan for one variety to ripen for market 2 weeks ahead of the 2nd variety.  You guessed it!  Both are ready now.  Well, that's better that having a blight or crop loss, eh?  :) 

And then there's melons ....... how about these Bitter Melons ???  And who knew that there is a "vibrant, diverse Bitter Melon community" out there?   Douds-Floyd Farm grew these beauties.  Of course, LFLF has no idea of how to prepare these veggies, so maybe next year ..... If nothing else, we have this link to an interesting web-site and some potential recipes & health tips! 

Ambridge Market - Front Page!

The Ambridge Farmers' Market made the front page of the Beaver County Times  today!  LFLF was shopping & browsing the market on Thursday ..... part of a very good crowd ..... when we spotted someone with a big telephoto lens camera.  Not the "rinky-dink" cameras that most folks carry around, and certainly not the ubiquitous cell phone cameras that take all of those crummy pics that get passed around the web.  We knew that something was up.  Was someone doing a story?   We got our answer today with this story and interviews from many of our local farmer friends! 

Big Summer Crowd!

The Ambridge Farmers' Market was in full swing on Thursday with a really nice crowd shopping all of the booths.  Today was the first Thursday that LFLF found a really good supply of all kinds of tomatoes and of course, the summer squashes and even a couple of winter squashes were available. 

May-Malone Farm had these great tomatoes and hot peppers ...... a bag of the Juliet tomaotes and the yellow pears came home to make a couple of tomato salads.  Just cut the tomatoes, add onion, salt, pepper, vinegar, & oil and it's ready to go!  

Remember the call for volunteers for cooking demos?  Renee from the Beaver County Penn State Extension office was at the market with recipes and a veggie pasta salad demo.  Very tasty!  More cooks and more demos are to come.   

Lots of Fruit!

The peaches, plums, nectarines, and early apples are all out at the markets now.  The greengage plums are hard to find & only available for a few weeks, so we picked up some of those ..... very sweet!  They were at the Ambridge Farmers' Market on Thursday.

Then it was off to Lisbon Ohio to the feed mill on Saturday morning and a stop at the market in the town courthouse square.  LFLF picked up a dozen ears of local sweetcorn and a cherry pie.  Another good choice!