Sweet Pickles
A friend recently gifted me a bag of homegrown cucumbers. It was more fresh veggies than my husband and I would be able to eat in a week, so I started brainstorming ways to preserve them. I needed a quick,…
Category Summer Produce
Summer Strata in the Slow Cooker
During 2020—(Remember that year??)—we all learned to make sourdough bread. We cultivated our starter. We hoarded our flour when we could, given the shortages. We weighed or measured our recipe ingredients. We mixed and waited and folded and covered our…
Always in Season Means Open Year-Round!
Here at Wolff’s, our slogan is “Always in Season, Since 1910.” We’re proud to have been serving our community these past 110 years, and 2020 was no exception. We’ve been there for our community as people have been looking for…
Fresh Tomato & Feta Pizza
You know a recipe is great when it’s been in your repertoire for more than a decade. This particular fresh tomato and feta pizza recipe was one I saved in college, when I was obsessed with the Mediterranean salad bar…
Savory Peach and Tomato Pie
July is peak season for peaches, tomatoes, and corn. This time of year, the corn is fresh picked and brought to Wolff’s daily so it’s sweeter. Sweet corn is best right after it’s harvested. Within three days, its sugar/starch ratio can change…
Balsamic Chicken with Asparagus and Spring Veggies
My mother’s recipe for this dish calls it “balsamic chicken”, a title that hides what I love most about it. It’s all about the veggies. Asparagus. Red bell peppers. Carrots. Mushrooms. Onions. The wealth of veggies makes the meal a…
Grilled Peaches with Caribbean Jerk Chicken
A Treasured Recipe Some recipes are made only once and then forgotten while others become so well-loved that the cookbook pages fall open right to that page and food stains help dogear the edges. The latter description is how this…
Heirloom Tomato, Cucumber & Chickpea Salad
Last summer, a friend brought an amazing cucumber, chickpea and heirloom tomato salad to a barbecue picnic. I asked for the recipe and she said she never really follows one – she just throws together a few simple ingredients and…
Zucchini Pappardelle with Herbs & Tomato
What do you collect? When I was in middle school, I’d begun a serious collection of horse figurines, equestrian gear, and books about horses (whether Misty of Chincoteague, National Velvet, or practical guides to running a stable). Now I collect…
Fusilli Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes & Summer Squash
By the time I’ve finished preparing a meal, my kitchen often looks like a frenzied and ravenous wild animal had been let loose in the house. I use pots. I use skillets. I use at least five different knives, not…
Skillet Mexican Street Corn
With the exception of one favorite coffee mug, the entire contents of my kitchen have been in storage for the past year while my husband and I have been living with his parents. Soon, I hope, I will get to…
Trying, Failing, and Continuing to Preserve the Harvest
Yesterday I tried something that didn’t work at all. And to make matters worse, I spent about 10 hours on it and roped some family members into the process. I tried making candied watermelon rind. I was pretty excited because…
Modifying Recipes to Cook with the Seasons
Summer in Pennsylvania, for me, means swimming in my parents’ pond. Or at least hanging out on the dock with the adults and drinking iced tea while the kids swim. A few of my friends’ and relatives’ kids have waded…
Cultivating Greens and Making An Easy Arugula Salad
Despite chilly, rainy days in the recent weeks of early spring, May will soon be showing us the brighter and warmer days which are perfect for planting garden greens. When it comes to cultivating different kinds of leafy greens to…
Cucumber Peach Salad
This salad is a taste of summer, pure and simple. You’ll want to make it every year, as soon as peaches are ripe!
Rotini with Roasted Tomatoes & Summer Squash
As we transition into warmer weather we can take advantage of ingredients for delicious local produce recipes being in season! Try this recipe and use vidalia onions on special instead of red onions for a bit of a different taste.…
Roasted Summer Veggies
Make these on the grill! They are perfect as a picnic side dish. Make them in foil packs or on skewers!
Leek Soup With Potato and Tomato
This recipe is a Wolff’s favorite! Tip: Freeze leftover soup for an easy weeknight meal later on.
Yummy Chicken Salad
“My mom has been making this salad for years. As a kid it was one of my favorite dishes, and it still is! I make it for my family all the time now. It’s very easy to prepare, it’s absolutely…
Grilled Corn and Tomato Salad
Grilled corn is amazing! You’ll love it in this fresh, flavorful salad. Best news: You can “grill” the corn on your stovetop! SaveSave
KITCHEN COPY: WATERMELON-TINI
The single memory from my childhood of eating watermelon centers more upon the large, black, unpleasant, inedible seeds than it does the deliciously sweet and totally consumable flesh. It is a memory which speaks volumes about the kind of person I am. It’s no secret how I…
KITCHEN COPY:NOTEWORTHY NECTARINES
I’m fully allowed to taste the produce at Wolff’s Apple House. As their resident chef, it’s part of my job. Nevertheless, there is always a moment (right about the time I lift the fruit from the display) when it feels criminal. Like I’m getting away with something.…
Easy Cheesy Vegetable Casserole
The name says it all! For this Easy Cheesy Vegetable Casserole, prep the veggies ahead of time for a quick, pop-in-the-oven dinner.
KITCHEN COPY: HEAVENLY HEIRLOOMS
Some heirloom tomato varieties hardly resemble tomatoes at all. That’s what one might think, anyway. The truth is that only in the last hundred years did tomatoes become so uniformly round, and red, and (Let’s admit it!) often flavorless. That’s all changed, of course.…
Watermelon Green Smoothie
Green smoothies have been gaining popularity for the past few years. Throw in some fresh spinach or kale with your fruit smoothie, and: POW! Your pink, red, or peachy smoothie is now a brilliant shade of green, but still tastes the…
In Late July, Wolff’s Is Tomato City!
Perhaps you marveled at our huge selection of tomato plants when the weather was just warming up and local produce season had barely started. Now, in the heart of tomato season, you can feast your eyes on the magical, beautiful…
Peach Flatbread Pizza with Prosciutto, Mascarpone and Thyme
Some things make going to the gym totally worth it. This peach flatbread pizza is one of them. Last night, I returned to Women’s Workout World after a long hiatus. It was high time to return because over the course…
Early Summer Crop Rotation Smarts in Your Backyard Garden
This week in June is a good time to think about what plants to add to backyard gardens after you’re ready to take out what you might have planted at the end of April or the beginning of May—likely radishes,…
Zucchini Pesto
This is a great way to add a bit more body (and vegetables!) to your usual pesto. It is very creamy, and has less of a bite due to the garlic being cooked first.
Cucumber Watermelon Salsa
Crunchy cucumbers—especially when you can get them locally-grown and fresh-picked!—make a great base for a salsa. Here, they are paired with ripe, sweet watermelon for a unique cucumber watermelon salsa that tastes great with grilled seafood!
KITCHEN COPY: SCANDALOUS STRING BEANS
Whether whores first invented puttanesca is no concern of mine. The sauce is bright, flavorful, pungent, and goes with just about anything you can scrounge together. Including the ubiquitous green bean. Literally translated, alla puttanesca means “in the style of a prostitute.” It is…
Roasted Veggies & Quinoa
This is a very versatile recipe. The veggies and the herbs can be changed to suit your taste, but after a lot of trial and error I find this exact combination to be outstanding! You can use any color quinoa,…
Smokey Eggplant Vinete & Lessons from the Garden
I like to think that I am a great cook and a good gardener, but there is much more to these two tasks than meets the eye. This week I will be harvesting the last of the squash, tomatoes, peppers…
15 Easy In-Season Recipes for Labor Day
How wonderful are Labor Day vacations? They snag the last bits of summer, salvaging time with family and friends before the rush of fall schedules pulls us in different directions. They celebrate cooler weather and golden sunlit evenings. They offer…
Grilled Spanish Corn from Wolff’s Own Chef
If you’ve visited the prepared foods section at Wolff’s Apple House and seen delicacies like Apple BBQ Pulled Pork, Roasted Chicken Romaine Salad, Best Broccoli Salad and hummus in all kinds of flavors, then you know that we have an…
Chicken Cacciatore: The “Hunter’s Meal”
When my sister mentioned earlier this week that chicken cacciatore means “The Hunter’s Meal,” I knew I had to try making it again. I’d first tried my hand at it when I was 22, a grad student freshly uprooted from…
Ginger-Watermelon Salad & A Brief History of Ginger
Knowing that I wanted to make a ginger-watermelon salad later today, I woke up with questions about ginger dancing in my head: When did people first try using ginger as a spice? When did they figure out the knobby…
Fresh Indian Summer Salsa is Savvy in September
As a fitting segue in saying adieu to the heat of August while saying hello to September, a Fresh Indian Summer Salsa crafted from ingredients at Wolff’s Apple House is a great food-geared introduction to this autumn. The recipe, put…
Labor Day Picnic Possibilities and Some Feisty Guacamole
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…
Peach Smarts and a Cobbler, Too
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…
Rosie VS. the Jalapeño in Spicy Fresh Corn Soup
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…
Testing Out Tantalizing Tomato Pie
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…
Mingling Meat and Melons
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…
The Zeal of Zesty Watermelon Gazpacho
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…
The Perfect Summer Palate Perk: Peach Oat Crisp
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…
Heirloom Tomatoes Make for Great Salsa
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…
Southwest Corn Fritters with Chipotle Honey Makes it Easy to Love Corn
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…
Berry-Topped Pavlova
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…
The Cunning Way of Caprese
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…
Crazy about Canning
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…
The Glory of Greens
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…
Natural Fertilizers at Home: Feed Those Tomato Plants
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 Recipe of the Week
Are you trying to eat healthier and incorporate more fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet? Well, then we have some really good news for you! We just launched our brand new Recipe of the Week program, where we’ll feature…
Cool as a Cucumber and Peach Salad
A few summers ago, someone sent me a recipe for a simple cucumber and peach salad. This was a recipe that combined two ingredients I never thought would like each other. Didn’t one belong atop lettuce, and the other beneath…
Local Produce Makes a Big Difference with the “Big Three”!
Fran Wolff calls corn, peaches and tomatoes “the Big Three,” because when it comes to local produce, these are the fruits and vegetables that everyone around loves and looks forward to. And there is just no denying it: local varieties…
A Locavore’s Delight: Corn & Peaches
When it comes to produce, I’m kind of a snob. Produce items – like corn and peaches – that I eat in the summer as if they were the only food that existed pretty much have no place in my…
Gardening Aspirations
I’ve always wanted to be a farmer, or at least a gardener. My parents were raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia and New Jersey and always dreamed of having a place to raise their kids where they could actually see the…
Corn on the Cob, Fresh off the Grill
Fireflies. Volleyball. Sandy toes. Lemonade. Grass poking through a picnic blanket. Campfires. Corn on the cob. All of these bring summer vividly to mind, and fresh, locally-grown corn on the cob, with its buttery-sweet crisp crunch, is one of the…
Celebrate Peach Season with Local Peach Salsa & Local Peaches
It’s peach season right now at Wolff’s Apple House! Beginning in early July, our store manager, Brian Bednarz, begins to hand-select the best New Jersey peaches available from local farms. New Jersey is famous for its peach orchards, and since…
The Proof is in the Peaches
Edward Behr, author of The Artful Eater, believes that the best apple you will ever eat is a stolen one. In my case, the best peach I have ever eaten was stolen from a neighbor’s fruit tree on a hot July evening in 1992.…