Winter Fare Shopping List

Greenfield Winter Fare is coming right up, this Saturday Feb. 4! I'll be giving a workshop at 10:30:

10:30 am to 11:15 am, Room 82:
Freezing & Drying Summer’s Bounty for Winter Eating
Workshop leader: Meggin Thwing Eastman,
Come learn easy techniques to preserve the summer and fall harvest with a home dehydrator and chest freezer.Many fruits and vegetables can be dried or frozen with minimal advance preparation. Snack on home-dried peaches and apples all winter and top pizza with your own dried tomatoes. Freeze corn, peppers, berries, green beans, tomatoes, and other veggies, and enjoy their burst of nearly-fresh flavor in your cooking all through the cold months.

And I'll be shopping! Here's what on my list so far:

- onions
- potatoes
- carrots
- celeriac
- sweet potatoes
- salad greens
- cooking greens
- bacon
- hard red wheat

There will be lots more than that on offer, though, so I'm sure we'll leave with more than just these items.

Cooking from the Freezer

It's gotten remarkably easy to come by local winter foods all through the cold months here in the Pioneer Valley, and there's really quite a variety available - but even so, I still sometimes get tired of root vegetables and greens. This is where the freezer comes to the rescue (not to mention that a full freezer means less grocery shopping and there's always something to cook!). If you followed this blog through the summer and fall, you know that I froze a lot of different vegetables, some from our garden (like the bumper crop of green beans) and some from local farms (corn, tomatoes, extra peppers). The key for me is to have some variety and make sure that most of what I freeze can be used for lots of different types of dishes.

In the past week I've made a couple vegetable-heavy dishes straight from my freezer stocks: chili with beef from our share, black beans I had cooked and frozen previously, tomatoes, corn, and red peppers; and last night fried rice with edamame, red peppers, corn, and green beans from the freezer. So easy, so delicious!

If you're interested in learning more about freezing food, come check out my workshop at Greenfield Winter Fare on Saturday, Feb. 5 (time TBD - I'll post it when I know).

Greenfield Winter Fare - Workshop Poll

I will be giving a workshop at the Greenfield Winter Fare on Saturday Feb. 5. Yet to be determined: the precise topic. So here's an informal poll: which of these two subjects would you find more interesting?

1. A how-to on freezing and drying

2. A presentation and then discussion on the many ways to cook winter vegetables

Please leave a comment with your preference!

Springfield Winter Fare Dec. 18

Save the date for Saturday, December 18, especially if you live in the southern part of the Valley. Springfield's first ever Winter Fare will be happening from 10-2 at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC).

See CISA's great roundup of additional Winter Fare markets, one-day winter markets, and regular weekly winter markets here.

Bringing Winter Fare to Springfield

Some exciting news from CISA's October newsletter:

Help CISA bring Winter Fare to Springfield!
Winter Fare is a vibrant, diverse, one-day winter farmers' market that has become an annual event in Greenfield and Northampton, and CISA is bringing it to Springfield this December! In addition to an amazing array of locally-grown foods, Winter Fare features workshops on eating and growing locally, a barter fair, hot soup, and educational displays. We need volunteers to help with planning and advance promotion of the market, as well as help running the event. Please contact CISA's volunteer coordinator Ann Pemberton at volunteer@buylocalfood.org or 413-665-1700 x 18 for more information.

The availability of great local food through the winter just keeps growing and growing in the Pioneer Valley, and CISA has played a huge part in this.