​Harvest Seasonal Grill Teams With Bucks Co. Mill To Produce New Dish

DOYLESTOWN, PA — A pasta that's made with stone-milled, locally-grown wheat flour produced at a restored 1800s grist mill in Doylestown is making its debut this fall on the menu at Harvest Seasonal Grill & Wine Bar.

In a farm-to-table partnership, Harvest is featuring Castle Valley Mill's raditore pasta in a dish that features a seasonal winter squash sauce, sweet potato, macadamia ricotta, wilted spinach, toasted pumpkin seeds, dried cranberry, and pecan-gingersnap crumble.

"This is a big deal," said Frances Fischer, owner and comptroller of Castle Valley Mill. "Harvest has committed to using our pasta, which is very different from most pasta you find. They just don't have any flavor. Ours has the germ of the wheat still in it and that's where most of the nutrients, a lot of the flavor, and some of the oils reside. So when you have this pasta, the flavor is just amazing."

Castle Valley Mill in Doylestown.

In addition to using its pasta in one of its dishes, Fischer said Harvest is using the Castle Valley name on its menu at its seven Pennsylvania restaurants. "That is pretty cool for us," she said.

"When they reached out to us for a pasta and heard that there was only one ingredient, that it had the heart of wheat, that it was produced the old-fashioned way, and that we bought from local farmers, that's really the same song that Harvest is singing," said Fischer. "Harvest is very much farm-to-table and very interested in supporting local. So it is a win-win."

According to Regional Executive Chef David Schorn, the pasta exemplifies Harvest's "farm-to-table" mission of bringing fresh, high-quality locally sourced ingredients to its customers from local farms and suppliers.

“Harvest Seasonal Grill is excited to further our promise of partnering with local farms by providing the best products for our guests by expanding our list of quality ingredients sourced from Castle Valley Mill," he said.

Harvest Seasonal Grill in Newtown.

That list now includes Castle Valley's pasta, which is now a part of the “nutrient-dense, plant-based options for healthy dining” at all of Harvest's Pennsylvania locations.

Castle Valley Mill is a fully restored 1800s grist mill in Doylestown that began supplying local whole and stone ground, freshly milled flours, grits and meals to the tri-state area 12 years ago. In the past few years, they’ve produced the raditore pasta line made with one ingredient: stone-milled, locally-grown wheat flour.

“We are very excited to be part of Harvest Seasonal Grill’s menu," said Fischer. "Part of our mission is to support local farmers. Harvest Seasonal Grill is helping to strengthen that mission by designing dishes around our local stone ground products.”

“Delicious is healthy at Harvest Seasonal Grill with Castle Valley Mill’s ‘heart of wheat’ germ-in pasta,” said Castle Valley’s owner, founder and miller, Mark Fischer. “Locally-grown, milled, and produced, this product is superior in flavor, nutrition, and digestibility. We are delighted to supply Harvest with our authentic stone ground products that are good and do good supporting local farms and businesses.”

According to Fischer, Castle Valley sources its hard wheats and grains from local farmers who they contract with in Bucks County and nearby New Jersey.

The mill and the farmers enjoy a very close relationship, said Fischer. "It's so real to see what they are doing and then to know that we're treating their crops with attention to detail and with respect," said Fischer.

At the mill, the grains are ground into flour using a milling process that's centuries old. The hard wheat flour that is produced is brimming with 33 vitamins and minerals that are naturally occurring, said Fischer.

"Commercial production removes those to make it homogeneous and shelf stable," she explains. "So our flour does have a shelf life. It needs to be kept cool and we use special bagging to retard the oxidation so it stays nice and fresh. When we mill, we mill and we bag right away. And then we store everything in a cold room until our distributors pick it up."

Castle Valley Mill’s radiatore pasta can be found on the menu at all eight Harvest locations in Glen Mills, Harrisburg, Montage, Newtown, North Wales, Lancaster, and Collegeville in Pennsylvania, and Moorestown in New Jersey.