Philly Food Swap

This past week a group of thirty or so food lovers and home cooks gathered together in the basement hall of the First Unitarian Church in Center City to exchange homemade foods at Philly's first food swap.

With a hyper awareness of where our food comes from, home cooking arts like canning, baking, and gardening have become hot topics that bind many like-minded home cooks. Besides reading blog posts about garden harvests and delicious kitchen adventures, there really hasn't been a way to share in each other's creations.

That's where the idea of "food swaps" comes in. A food swap is typically a small event where people get together to socialize, but, most importantly, to swap homegrown or homemade foods.

Other cities like Brooklyn and Portland have already established a strong food swap community, and it was only a matter of time before Philly got their own food swap.

Thanks to the organization of Georgia, Marisa, Alexis, and Amanda, Philly's own food swap group, Philly Swappers, was formed earlier this year. Philly Swappers aims to hold food swap events a few times a year to bring together like-minded food lovers and food crafters. The best way to find out about upcoming events is to "like" Philly Swappers on Facebook. How does a food swap work?

How I Used My CSA: Weeks 18 & 19

Week 18: Italian eggplant, bok choy, tomatoes, bell peppers, apples, onions, and delicata squash.

Swapped out beets (I have so, so many) from our Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA half share for an extra share of apples.
These apples from Three Springs Fruit Farm mark the beginning of my fall and winter-long apple eating. When I get in the groove, I'll eat an apple every afternoon as a snack. It just so happens that I like to get my apples from Three Springs Fruit Farm! At the end of October (or maybe it's the beginning of November), I get an entire crate of mix-and-match apple varieties for just $20 from Three Springs Fruit Farm at Headhouse Market when they have their crate sale.

Latin Farmer

Update: no longer in operation.

Puerto Rican native Wilfredo Manzano aims to bring a healthier version of Latin foods to the streets of Philadelphia with his lime green Latin Farmer food truck. We found him parked at Headhouse Square Farmers' Market on a recent Sunday, but he also pulls up to Love Park, Norris Square Farmer's Market, and Temple. Like most mobile eateries, it's best to follow their whereabouts on Twitter.
Using local foods when possible, Latin Farmer's menu is comprised of empanadas, bocadillos, collard wraps, hummus, and usually at least one dessert and special drink. Any truck in Philly that sells empanadas seems to sell out fast, and the same is true for Latin Farmer.

As a vegetarian, I would like to see one of the two empanadas, and one of the two bocadillos offered be vegetarian, but with such a short menu, I guess we're lucky that Latin Farmer offers a vegan collard wrap and hummus.

Caramelized Pear Butter

In a determination to not let food go to waste, we've canned more food this summer than we ever have in past seasons — cherry jam, pickled beets, dilly beans, bread and butter cucumbers, peach salsa, peach jam, watermelon rinds, pear chutney, pear relish, and pear butter.

I wish I had documented every thing we canned to share with you, but lately I've been taking a much needed break from blogging recipes (sometimes it's just nice to eat food without documenting it), and falling back on the very easy to write CSA posts (sorry to all of those out there who have hit the unsubscribe button).Back to canning. You'll notice that in that long string of canned foods there are quite a bit of pears. That's because I take care of three Bartlett pear trees that produce a lot of fruit. Sort of.

Recap: A Full Plate's 5th Annual Rib Cook-Off and Vegetarian Quick-fire

You couldn't have asked for a more beautiful, sunny day for A Full Plate's 5th Annual Rib Cook-Off and Vegetarian Quickfire at Liberty Land's park in Northern Liberties.

Shannon Dougherty and Liz Petersen, owners of A Full Plate Café always make sure their cook-off competitions are vegetarian-friendly with a buffet of veggie sides and at least one vegetarian cook-off category.

This year the ladies added a vegetarian quickfire, à la Top Chef, where contestants were tasked to create a dish from a table of vegetables and kitchen staples. It was a mad dash to raid the table I hear (as a judge, I stayed away from the fest until my services were needed in order to keep the judging blind) , then back to the grills for intense cooking.

Nine teams, both professional and amateur, competed in the vegetarian quickfire. Each dish was so different from the next, and they were all delicious. There were a few standout, though, all of which came from amateur teams!
This grilled watermelon gazpacho with cilantro and jalapeno oil from amateur team Pork Sword was perfectly balanced and absolutely delicious. Not sure if I've had a better gazpacho from a restaurant!

How I Used My CSA: Week 17

Week 17: bok choy, Yukon Gold potatoes, portobello caps, heirloom tomatoes, mixed sweet peppers, sweet onions, dumpling squash, and delicata squash.

This week's half share from Lancaster Farm Fresh had a share of two delicata squashes, plus a share of one dumpling squash. I meant to swap the one dumpling squash out (two squashes total is plenty for us), but one of the delicata squashes was so stubby, it looked like the dumpling squash, so I messed up and put the wrong one back. Whoops.
So happy to still be getting tomatoes. Summer, don't leave me, yet! The reddish purple tomato in the bunch looked to be a Cherokee Purple, which is one of my favorite tomato varieties.

And, as far as the bagel debate in the city goes, we get ours (a dozen every other week) from South Street Bagels on 3rd St. out of convenience of location, and because they are great.

Deep Fried Kool-Aid

Many years ago, I decided that Kool-Aid would be my happy thought. You know, when someone says,"Think happy thoughts!" Kool-Aid is not really my happiest thought, it's just a brightly colored, sweet, childish object that I randomly picked so I wouldn't struggle with finding a thought or image to conjure when given the directive to think happy thoughts. (I swear I did not make that nonsense up just to intro this post.)

As it turns out, Kool-Aid is not always so happy when it is not used as intended. I'm looking at you Kool-Aid pickles, and, now, deep fried Kool-Aid.Deep fried Kool-Aid is the latest fatty, fried monstrosity to tour the festival circuit, alongside deep fried butter, deep fried Snickers, deep fried Oreos, and, well, deep fried just about any thing.

A Full Plate's 5th Annual Rib Cook-Off and Vegetarian Quick-fire

It's time for A Full Plate's 5th Annual Rib Cook-Off, and you all should come out. Especially vegetarians!

Professional and amateur teams will be judged on three categories — ribs, "anything goes", and vegetarian quickfire.

Vegetarian quickfire, you say? Yes! Similar to what you have seen on Top Chef and other TV food competitions, teams will be given a mystery box of vegetables from local farms, and tasked with grilling/smoking a vegetarian dish.

The $20 all-you-can-eat extravaganza includes food prepared on-site by competing teams, a buffet of vegetarian sides provided by A Full Plate, and sweets provided by Flying Monkey Bakery. Bottomless cups from Philadelphia Brewing can be purchased separately for $15.

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Teens 4 Good, which works with youth to transform vacant lots into urban gardens/farms.

This truly is one of my favorite food events in Philly, because A Full Plate really does look out for and love vegetarians. I'll be there judging the vegetarian quickfire, so stop by and say,"Hi."

Stick around, as Northern Liberties Fall Music Fest kicks off after the cook-off is done. Gonna be a great day!

A Full Plate 5th Annual Rib Off and Vegetarian Quick-Fire
Sat., Sept. 10, 11am, rain or shine
Liberty Lands Park, 926 N. American St, Philadelphia, PA 19123
$20 all-you-can-eat

How I Used My CSA: Weeks 15 & 16

Week 15: corn, red romaine lettuce, roma tomatoes, red beets.

From this week's Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA half share, I swapped out garlic (had some) for extra tomatoes, and parsley (grow it) and one tiny Japanese eggplant (not enough to do much with) for beets and more beets!

All this time I've been showing up early to pick up my CSA share thinking that I'd get a better selection from the swap box if I was first in line, but this week I was a little late and discovered that if you like beets (I do!) you should show up late, because there are an awful lot of people out there that don't like beets. This discovery had me giddy!

I could have come home with even more beets, but decided to stop at three bags (one in my share, two that I swapped for). I understand not liking bitter vegetables like mustard greens or dandelion greens, but, come on people, beets are almost pure sugar!

My strategy for swapping out this week was to get items that would store or freeze well, because I was going on vacation (hence the lag time in getting this post up).

Red romaine lettuce is so pretty! I downed a couple of salads with CSA red romaine lettuce, roma tomatoes and corn, and homegrown yellow pear tomatoes and basil before getting out of town.