Category: Featured

Labor Day Picnic Possibilities and Some Feisty Guacamole
By Categories: Cooking Methods, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Holiday, Locally Grown, Peaches, Prepared Foods, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes, Vendors

While Fran, Pete and Ashley Wolff work every Labor Day, they’re grateful for the opportunity to help people appreciate their goodbye to summer with great foods and ideas for good spots for picnics. And they like that they close at 4 p.m., too, so they can get together with the rest of their family as…

Peach Smarts and a Cobbler, Too
By Categories: Cooking Methods, Desserts, Featured, Locally Grown, Peaches, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Vendors

Wolff’s Apple House sells some of its selection of peaches from Weaver’s Orchard in Morgantown, Berks County. And its owner, Ed Weaver, has plenty of peach smarts regularly on the mind from growing them each year. He raises 15 acres of peach trees, primarily freestone varieties. Weaver notes that one unique attribute of peaches is…

Rosie VS. the Jalapeño in Spicy Fresh Corn Soup
By Categories: Cooking Methods, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Soup, Summer Produce

Wolff’s Apple House’s marketing consultant, Rachel VanDuzer, recently shared a Spicy Fresh Corn Soup recipe with her family and had the new puppy in her parents’ home revved up vocally for it as well, with a humorous story tied into the comical kitchen moments. Her corn soup involves a fiery jalapeño pepper. “I dropped the…

Testing Out Tantalizing Tomato Pie
By Categories: Cooking Methods, Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes

Since August is known as the time for local produce, especially tomatoes, a homemade tomato pie recipe from Phoebe Canakis pleases the palate and complements plentiful tomatoes perfectly. Canakis of Phoebe’s Pure Food lives in Lancaster County and spends much of her time focusing on bringing a strong reverence and flair into the avenue of…

Mingling Meat and Melons
By Categories: Featured, Locally Grown, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Vendors

The marriage of melons and deli-ready meats is a great August meal add-on, especially with Wolff’s Apple House offering plenty of honeydew, canary cantaloupe, sugar baby watermelon, seedless watermelon and yellow watermelon right now. Di Bruno Bros., a vendor of freshly made cheeses available at Wolff’s, also sells a lineup of Italian deli meats that…

The Zeal of Zesty Watermelon Gazpacho
By Categories: Appetizers, Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes

As the face behind Global Vertical Farms based in Glenmoore, Chester County, Janice Kelsey and her whole food nutrition approaches keep summer recipes easily in the future: think Zesty Watermelon Gazpacho. “I prefer to use a smaller seedless watermelon,” Kelsey says about this recipe. “They’re easier to handle and a lot less waste.” And Wolff’s…

The Perfect Summer Palate Perk: Peach Oat Crisp
By Categories: Desserts, Featured, Locally Grown, Peaches, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce

Wolff’s Apple House Chef Chuck Smith crafts a Peach Oat Crisp recipe that brings one of summer’s most notable local fruits into the picture with an easily enticing want-worthy factor. “You could use any peach (white or yellow) and range in sweetness,” Smith offers. “Currently, Wolff‘s has great tasting Garnet Beauty variety.” Peaches are packed…

Heirloom Tomatoes Make for Great Salsa
By Categories: Appetizers, Cooking Methods, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Locally Grown, Recipes, Root Vegetables, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes

  Jillian Prout of Prout’s Jollyview Farm in the Oley Valley of Berks County enjoys the heirloom tomatoes she grows, but it might be fair to say she enjoys a good salsa from them even more. Heirloom tomatoes, known as heritage tomatoes in the U.K., are the ancient tomatoes of those who came decades and…

Southwest Corn Fritters with Chipotle Honey Makes it Easy to Love Corn
By Categories: Cooking Methods, Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Sides, Summer Produce

As the dairy manager of Wholesome Dairy Farms in Yellow House, Berks County, Rebecca Seidel handles most of the food production at the raw milk operation, and having grown up on a farm, knows how to appreciate sweet corn in summery sweeps of gratitude. “Corn goes with everything,” Seidel admits with enthusiasm. She discourages overpowering…

Berry-Topped Pavlova
By Categories: Berries, Cooking Methods, Desserts, Featured, Holiday, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce

Phoebe Canakis’ Berry Topped-Pavlova is a perfectly red, white and blue dessert to suit July 4th celebrations. Canakis lives in Lancaster County and is the food-mind behind inspiring seasonally chic, seductively wholesome, garden-to-plate eats through her blogs, magazine, catering and pure food pantry efforts. Her recently released online-based Phoebe’s Pure Food Magazine is what she…

The Cunning Way of Caprese
By Categories: Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Salads, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes, Vendors

Caprese is an Italian-inspired summer dish that riles mouth-watering factors with ease. It has a lot of possibilities in variation but usually involves slices of freshly picked tomatoes, basil leaves from the garden, cuts of mozzarella cheese and either drizzles of olive oil or balsamic vinaigrette. Sprinkles of ground pepper complement this flavorful and especially…

Crazy about Canning
By Categories: Berries, Cooking Methods, Featured, Locally Grown, Prepared Foods, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce

The kitchen smarts and culinary lure of canning have seen quite a comeback in recent years—and with good reason. Not only is canning useful and resourceful, but it’s a rewarding opportunity to support your own chomp factor from home. And canning-dates with friends and family are just plain fun, too. Think berries: Wolff’s Apple House…

The Glory of Greens
By Categories: Cooking Methods, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Leafy Greens, Locally Grown, Recipes, Root Vegetables, Seasonal, Summer Produce

Greens deserve a lot more credit in our dietary lineup than they often receive. Not only do they go swimmingly with many summer meals, but they are some the most nutrition-savvy add-ons we can join into our munching minutes. With a European origin, Swiss Chard is in the family of beets. Red, green, and the…

Natural Fertilizers at Home: Feed Those Tomato Plants
By Categories: Featured, Gardening Advice: Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs, Hardy Vegetables, Locally Grown, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes

With so many chemical fertilizers on the market today, it’s nice to know that there are plenty of natural versions of fertilizers and soil amendment possibilities right at home when you’re ready to feed the tomato plants you’ve purchased from Wolff’s Apple House. Eggshells Save your eggshells after breakfast or baking. Eggshells are rich in…

The Lesser-Known Uses and Benefits of Herbs
By Categories: Cooking Methods, Featured, Gardening Advice: Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs, Locally Grown, Seasonal

Rosemary is known for bringing out the impeccable flavors in Mediterranean cuisine, but it’s also quite a perk to skin. Not only does it help to shrink the appearance of capillaries, but it also acts as a natural anti-inflammatory, so it reduces redness and irritation of skin, which can be helpful with acne or a suddenly…

Grafted Tomatoes: Delicate Heirlooms Made Hardy
By Categories: Featured, Gardening Advice: Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs, Hardy Vegetables, Tomatoes

By Ashley Wolff A tomato connoisseur knows that heirloom tomatoes are usually the tastiest, juiciest and most oh-so-delicious ‘maters on the block.  But there is a reason that we seldom see abundant displays of these tasty gems in stores: they are often harder to grow than hybrids and have a shorter shelf-life. They were grown…