September 23rd and 26th

Bitten by Frost

Friday and Saturday night we were hit with frost.  The earliest I have seen since we have been here.  Nothing too important was lost.  Many times there is huge "pre frost stress"...frantically running around covering and harvesting in the wind and rain (and one year I remember, lightening storm). Luckily we had already brought in the sensitive winter squash and pumpkins and we did cover the peppers.  The saddest loss was the PYO garden.  The forecast was for patchy frost with temps between 35 and 38, I guess we were on the hopeful side.

 

The animals have surely bundled up.  There is a pig pile every morning and the turkeys huddle under their circus tent.  Despite the fact that it feels like October already and summer is coming to an end (wait, did we even have a summer?), I can't complain.  I think I can count on one hand how many days over 75 we had and even though it felt like it rained every day for a chunk of time, the working conditions this year have been pretty ideal and the crops look amazing.  I still have lots to harvest, and many things could still go wrong, so I hope I am not jinxing myself, but I almost feel like I can take a sigh of relief, another growing year under my belt. 

 

 

This weekend was full of stocking up for the winter...freezing corn, making salsa, roasting peppers, snapping beans, plucking edemame and whipping up my new winter favorite treat: chimichurri.  I hope you have found some space on your storage shelf or freezer for a little taste of summer in winter too.

 

 

This week's bounty: lettuce, chard, tat soi (I am going to keep giving it to you until you eat it all!), carrot, sweet pepper, onion, tomato, spaghetti squash

 

 

The Farmer's Table:

*French toast with Paul's walnut raisin bread and plum sauce from Zach's plums

*Bangalore Spicy Eggplant and Rice Casserole

*Beef burritos with chinese cabbage and cucumber/corn/cilantro salsa

*Stir Fry with beef, broccoli, radish, edemame, tat soi and plum sauce

*Italian Casserole with potato, tomato, edemame, hard cheese and sopressatta

 

 

The Shareholder's Table:

"Thank you for the ingredients for the perfect harvest soup.

Purple cabbage and carrots cooked in homemade chicken broth.  Pasta added to make it more hearty, then garlic, hot peppers and parsley at the end.  And your bread to sop up the broth- what more can I say!"

"Hi Keena. Just thought I would share this with you. I made Succotash that was off the charts with this weeks bounty. Replaced the traditional Lima beans with edamame. It has white wine, basil, parsley, rice vinegar.

All of your food is soooo good."

 

 



MARCH

I must admit, these pre-spring days have been glorious!  The ducks have been in queaven--crusing all over the farm.  Every day a patch of snow melts and is replaced with nice, wet, soggy earth.  The cats have changed their schedule to sleep all day to sleep just most of the day and Simon has been sniffing the new season until he zonks out for the night. 

Usually in March most of our time is spent collecting maple sap with our friends Mitch and Penny.  We hung buckets in the mid February thaw (very early for Maine).  But soon after, the temp dropped into single digits and stopped the trees from "running".  We had a few good days last week and then the heat moved in and stopped the trees once again.  So it's been a funky sap year. 

No field prep or planting yet, but thousands of onion, lettuce, chard, kale and cabbage seeds have been started in the greenhouse.  We finished pruning our last apple tree this week, now on to the blueberries and peaches.  Tractor and equipment maintenance will commence soon--oil changes, blade sharpening and repairs.  All signs lead to spring!

Maine made Dinner

(yes my mouth really did fit around that burger!)

The hoop house is overflowing with spinach.  I have had the doors open often these last few weeks to keep it cool enough in there for the vigorous plants.  Once we crest mid February, the new growth on the plants is measurable--it's all due to the increased day length and height of the sun--what a beautiful thing. 

Winter Share Pick up March 15th from 3-7

Recipes:

This week everyone gets a bag of dried edemame soybeans!  They were grown here last season (GMO free of course!), dried and then hand threshed (the process of removing the dried pod from the edible bean).  I believe I removed all dirt, pod parts, etc, but be sure to scan them quickly and rinse before eating.

To shorten their cooking time and make them easier to digest, dried soybeans should be presoaked. There are two basic methods for presoaking. For each, start by placing the beans in a saucepan and adding two to three cups of water per cup of beans.

The first method is to boil the beans for two minutes, take pan off the heat, cover and allow to stand for two hours. The alternative method is to simply soak the beans in water for eight hours or overnight, placing pan in the refrigerator so that the beans will not ferment. Before cooking the beans, regardless of method, drain the soaking liquid and rinse the beans with clean water.

To cook soybeans, you can either cook them on the stovetop or use a pressure cooker. For the stovetop method, add three cups of fresh water or broth for each cup of dried beans. The liquid should be about one to two inches above the top of the beans. Bring the beans to a boil and then reduce to a simmer, partially covering the pot. If any foam develops, simply skim it off during the simmering process. Soybeans generally take about one to one and one-half hours to become tender using this method. They can also be cooked in a pressure cooker where they take about 40 minutes to prepare. Regardless of cooking method, do not add any seasonings that are salty or acidic until after the beans have been cooked since adding them earlier will make the beans tough and greatly increase the cooking time.

Eating them!
Once you have soaked and precooked the beans, they then can be used alone as a side dish, thrown into a cold bean salad or a soup or...

Baked Crispy Edemame
Place precooked edemames into a baking dish, sprinkle with olive oil and Parmesan cheese.  bake at 400 until crispy and golden

Spinach!!!

I think this time of year the spinahc is sooo sweet and awesome that it should just be eaten raw in salads or on sanwhiches or just lightly cooked. 

Spinach Chop --Heidi Swanson

16 oz of spinach

1 TBS olive oil

3 cloves minced garlic

1 TBS harissa (or some type of chili powder)

4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped

1/2 slivered almonds, roasted

sea salt

grated zest from 1/2 lemon (optional)

Hard boiling eggs: cover eggs by 1/2 in of cold water in a souce pan. Bring to a gentle boil on medium heat.  Turn off heat, cover and let eggs sit exactly 7 minutes.  Place eggs in ice water for 3 minutes.

Roasting Almonds: Place nuts in a skillet and toss every few minutes until fragrant.

Recipe:

Add 1/2 in water to a pot and bring to boil.  Add spinach and stir one minute.  Drain and run under cold water to stop cooking.  Spin spianch in a salad spinner or in a towel to remove excess water.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet.  Stir in garlic and lightly cook garlic (stop before it browns).  Remove from heat and stir in harissa and add the spinach.  Add the eggs, almonds, salt and zest.  Serve warm or at room temp.

September 6th and 9th

Under the Circus Tent

 

The turkeys are out!  They have enjoyed their tour through the raspberries and now they are moving along the driving paths and ends of fields.  As they get older I have to move them more and more (up to once daily) to make sure they have fresh grass to both eat and lounge on.  On moving day, I take the entire fence down and move it to its new location.  Then I drop a side and wheel their circus lounge to the center of their new pen.  Finally I move their waterer and their troughs.  Meanwhile the turks are "clucking" around exploring new places and chasing bugs.  Once I get the new netting up and their shade moved, I fill up the grain bucket and shake it a bit.  The clucking stops.  The turks stand still for a moment and then a few see the grain bucket and head toward me.  Soon the rest follow and viola they are all in.  The whole process takes about 10-15 minutes.  It all depends on how many good bugs are out there to chase, but as long as I get their attention, grain trumps bugs. 

Sometimes I think the turkeys are a pain.  For staters, they aren't the smartest animal on the farm.  For some reason they love to huddle against the fence at night, instead of under their hut for protection.  And if it is raining you can guaruntee they will be out in it getting soaked and sometimes hypothermia.  Something strange happens every year to the birds, some unforseen accidental death.  Raccon, owl, fox, coyote are always worries for me and sometimes in the middle of the night I get out of bed and go out to check on them. 

Generally though these featherd hens and toms crack me up.  They have a sound for every mood they are in and I have gotten to know them quite well:

"cluck, cluck, cluck" this is a bit more excitable and higher pitched sounding than a chicken.  It says "I am eating new fresh grass and chasing bugs and I am loving it!"

"cluck, rrrr, cluck, rrrr"  this is a lower pitched cluck with a kind of purring in beetween meaning "life is good"

"chirp! chirp! chirp!"  very high pitched yelling "help! help! help!" (generally "Help! I am an idiot and I have gotten myself into some silly situation taht I cannot figure how to get out of"  This call is common when they are very young and still in the barn.

"gobble, gobble, gobble"  you all know what this sounds like.  And I think it says "hey how ya doing?" like a greeting but it is usally done all in unison.  I usually gobble at them to get their attention.  And it works, they usually all gobble back... I think they think I am their mom, or maybe god : )

PYO PUMPKIN PARTY and POTLUCK

Saturday October 1st 11-2

This Week's Loot: Potatoes, leeks, edamame soybeans, peppers, chard, carrots, beets and basil



And melons for the Friday half share folks

What is Edamame?   http://www.edamame.com/