Sweet sights in Boise

Saw this Mercedes Benz van also, had an encounter with a fox who had just eaten three city chickens. We saw him up close and personal. Just waiting around to get shot, uhhh, I mean caught.

Trial run of the Blogger App

So, Kellan and I have been off farm for two and one half months now. We have done a few things, seen a few places, and worked on the car a couple times. It is our intention to back track and share our pictures and stories with anyone who might be interested.

Unfortunately, now is not the time. Sitting in a Library! (library has an exclamation point in Boise) on an IPhone would not do our tale justice.
So, standby for a more complete recount of our travels complete with Irish saints in National Parks, Zen and the Art of Benz Repair, terrarium building for a luxury inn, and a synopsis of some great farms we have visited.

Be well.

Wil and Kellan.

June, a whole new world.

Ahh, the smell of summer: Basil

Cabbages

New potatoes, you never knew a potato could be this good.

Yellow crookneck, a beauty of a squash.

Green sungolds, they won't be green for long.

This week's bag sunning itself on a "hillbilly lawn chair." (an upturned wheelbarrow)


It includes:
Radishes
Green Garlic
Arugula
Pac-Choi
Tokyo Turnips
Head Lettuce
Spinach
Salud (not pictured.)

Mean Spring Greens, to keep us healthy and clean. Be well. 

If I Got a Bag of Veggies from Me, This is What I Would Do:

SALUD: Rinse it and shake off extra water or put it through a salad spinner. Then make your own dressing! In a small jar or bowl pour a few tablespoons of vinegar and add a little bit of mustard. Mix together with a fork and add some salt. Then, in a slow and steady stream, pour olive oil out of the bottle, mixing all the while with the fork so that it is getting incorporated into the vinegar as you go. Stop and taste. Add more olive oil or don't. Add your favorite salad toppings to the salud too: radishes, grated carrot, toasted sunflower seeds, etc.

STIR-FRY Mix: Wash and saute in oil of your choosing with garlic, fresh ginger, onion, and any other dried spices, any mushrooms or other veggies, tofu or meat, and serve with rice or other whole grain. You could also add it to hot miso soup.

SPRING ONIONS: Use as you would storage onions or scallions (green onions), or both! We substitute them for leeks too. I've been wanting to make this very simple lentil recipe (which I've made several times before—sooo goood!) with these onions, but haven't gotten around to it: http://bedouina.typepad.com/doves_eye/2004/04/mjaddarah_lenti.html

I sliced the greens up fine and added them to deviled eggs yesterday.

SPINACH: Wash for sure because dirt really sticks to these low growing plants! I had the good fortune of Wil making creamed spinach for my birthday...I highly recommend it! We've also been wanting to make an East Indian recipe called Saag Paneer: http://www.mykitchentable.co.uk/index.php/2010/12/madhur-jaffreyspinach-with-paneer-saag-paneer/.

KALE: I know Jennie makes kale chips! Do you want to send us the recipe? We could post it to the blog or send it out so everyone could have it.

I make kale salad: press or finely chop garlic into the bottom of a bowl, generously pour olive oil over it and mix it together so that it coats the sides of the bowl. Throw washed and chopped kale into the bowl and mix thoroughly. Squeeze a lime, or drizzle apple cider vinegar over the top and mix again. The acid in the lime or ACV serves to cook the kale, making it softer and really flavorful. Add any favorite salad toppings. You could make this type of salad with any of your fresh greens.

CHARD: I like chard wilted with butter and salt and an egg. It has oxalic acid in it and is very similar to spinach.

TOKYO TURNIPS: These little show stoppers are excellent raw. The greens are great in any of the above mentioned ways too.

HEAD LETTUCE: Put it on a sandwich. I really don't eat very much lettuce so I hope ya'll already have some ideas.

MIXED BABY UMBELLIFERA:

“The Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae), commonly known as carrot or parsley family, is a group of mostly aromatic plants with hollow stems. The family is large, with more than 3,700 species spread across 434 genera, it is the sixteenth largest family of flowering plants.[1] Included in this family are the well known plants: angelica, anise, arracacha, asafoetida, caraway, carrot, celery, centella asiatica, chervil, cicely, coriander/cilantro, cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, lovage, Queen Anne's Lace, parsley, parsnip, sea holly, and the now extinct silphium.” --from Wikipedia

Your bunch contains parsley, bulb fennel, dill, cilantro, and baby carrots. This is a new thing for us (specifically the fennel, which is quite succulent and tastes like anise—delicious!) What I would do with it is 1) roughly chop it and top your salud with it, or 2) finely mince it and add it to yogurt along with some mined garlic and salt to make a sort of tzatziki or raita yogurt sauce, or 3) medium chop it, and add it to a grain salad, like cooked quinoa or rice along with a dressing and maybe some raisins and toasted sesame seeds.

RADISHES: Try them on a slice of good bread with butter and salt. That's my personal heaven! (Aside from pumpkin pie.) Also good in salads or even cooked.

Tuesday May 1st Veggie Bag, In it's Natural habitat

Sneak peek of what to expect on Tuesday:

Romaine

Stir-Fry Mix

Young parsley, will be accompanied by young fennel, and baby carrots

Swiss Chard (un-photogenic Swiss Chard, it seems)

Photogenic spinach

One of those baby carrots I mentioned earlier

Kale

Spring Onions

Radishes

Salud, our specialty salad mix: many different types of lettuce, 3 types of kale, beet greens, baby swiss chard, buckwheat shoots, sunflower shoots, and pea shoots.... and others..

More Salud fixins'

Made by the most wonderfullest elves I know

 

 

 

 Now, of course, this is all subject to change. Given the many things that could happen between now and Tuesday, it is tenuous to make projects as to what one will harvest. Barring unforeseen occurrences those of you receiving produce from us will receive something very close to these items. In a tote resembling this one: Can not wait to see everybody!!

Spring: A Visual Taste of What is to Come.

Compost piles sharing heat.

 Summer Squash, Tomato starts, and tomatoes in the new greenhouse..

 Enos, the artichoke.

 Potatoes! They were all hilled this morning and are looking lovely.

 Spinach with garlic and callendulas in the background.

 Some carrots intersown with rutabaga, direct seeded kale for the mix, garlic in the background.

 Kellan's flock o' chickens.

 Radishes on a spring morning.

The hoop house is full to bursting. The summer squash was transplanted today. Another succession will take its place along with winter squash, eggplant, and much more.

Always in a Business Meeting, Always on Vacation

Napkin roll from the batch I just finished.

 The winter rains have finally come to Northern California and with them I am taking the opportunity to bask in the glory of indoor projects. I am finishing sewing projects, seeding flats and potting up perennials in the greenhouse, studying seed catalogs, scheming on summer marketing plans, and making lots of beef stew.

Meanwhile, Wil has been outside digging holes and planting the Honeycrisp apple trees we just acquired, digging a trench for a another stub-up in the orchard, filling cups of soil to start summer squash (yellow crookneck, black beauty zucchini, and white scallop), and scheming on setting up a major compost and worm operation.

Stan finished his greenhouse, and one windy afternoon week before last, the three of us pulled the glazing on and stapled it down. We're hoping to get some early squash out of it. Stan and Wil also fenced a new area for our gang of American Guinea Hogs, and really I should be pulling on my boots right now to step outside and help shuffle pigs over there. We're down to one sow, one bred gilt (for sale), a boar (for sale maybe to a couple of nice ladies who want to raise Guinea Hogs? He's too territorial with menfolk), and five six month old gilts (also for sale). We're down-sizing because there are more piglets on the way, and pretty soon all of our attention will need to be in the garden.
I've been rototilling in the areas where pig pens have been in the last three months, and throwing out some flower and herb seed afterwards. What I really need to do is get a five pound bag of clover, or some other dryland forage mix, but for now I just rummage through the seed cabinet and find stuff we have more of than we'll ever use and scatter it out there. Birds willing, I'll be pleasantly surprised at what comes up in those areas.
I'm really enjoying my birds too. They're getting to be real chickens with all their feathers, but I'm still bringing them in at night in order control their light and make them think the daylight hours are decreasing, instead of increasing. I don't want them to start laying yet and I'd be up all night worrying about them if I left them out while the weather is so unsettled.

We're still planning on bringing back the veggie subscription in May. We'd like to provide 20-25 people with weekly produce boxes this season, so if you know of anyone that might want to join, please pass on our email address. If you want to join, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can hold a place for you. I handmade a sheet of flyers that I'll photocopy and put up at the co-op and other appropriate venues around town, so if you want one to put up at your work, or gym, or where ever else, let me know.

Stan's Greenhouse: done! Will plant it soon.

The one with the red was formerly Igor, but has shaped up to be a fine Frida.

How we used our share.

 Friday Day 1

Kellan prepared a stir fry-- turnips (roots and greens), carrots, and mushrooms seasoned with five spice and cayenne.

Wil made cilantro chutney from Ayurvedic Cooking for Self-Healing.

3 cups fresh cilantro
1 cup water
1 cup unsweetened coconut
½ small green chili, chopped
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped fine (Kellan says use a spoon and less of the best ginger, near the skin, will be lost)
1 tablespoon ghee
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon mustard seed
1 pinch hing
4 curry leaves (excluded because we did not have them)
½ fresh lime (also excluded)
¼ teaspoon salt

Wash the cilantro leaves. Put in a blender along with the water, coconut, chili and ginger.
Blend at high speed until well mixed and a finely ground paste. It may be necessary to stir it down several times.
Heat a saucepan on medium and ad the ghee, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, hing and curry leaves. Cook until the seeds pop. Cool and mix well into the cilantro paste
Squeezed in the juice of the lime, add the salt and stir gently.
Eat a dab with each bite of food.

Store in the refrigerator. Good for 2-3 days.

This recipe is balancing for tridosha. Pitta might want to decrease the chili, salt and mustard seeds even though the cilantro is very cooling.

This recipe finished off the cilantro bunch but, we had the chutney to eat over the next few days.
We did not use all our turnips or carrots.

Saturday Day 2

For dinner Kellan prepared a turnip and onion soup from Vegetarian Cooking for everyone. It was delicious, think potato and leek.
We also had a quinoa salad with mixed greens and carrots.

Turnip Soup

4 medium turnips -- up to 6
1 1/2 (1 1/2 to 2 pounds)
with their greens if available
3 small boiling potatoes (excluded, we don’t have any…but, we‘ll plant soon.)
2 tablespoons butter
2 leeks -- thinly sliced
white parts only (We used green onions, and wouldn’t throw away the green parts anyway.)
1 garlic clove -- minced
1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 thyme sprigs or 1/4 teaspoon dried
Salt and freshly milled white pepper (we used black)
6 cups water
OR Basic Vegetable Stock
 1/2 cup cream or milk


Peel the turnips and potatoes, quarter, and thinly slice them. Discard the
stems and any yellowed leaves from the greens. Wash the remaining leaves well.

Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the turnips, potatoes,
leeks, garlic, parsley, and thyme. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add 1
'/2 teaspoons salt and the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and
simmer, partially covered, until the vegetables are tender, about 25
minutes. Puree all or just part of the soup, depending on whether you like
a smooth soup or one with some texture. Stir in the cream.

While the soup is cooking, chop the greens into small pieces. There should
be about 2 cups, although more is fine. Simmer them in salted water until
they're tender, then drain and add them to the finished soup. Taste for
salt, season with pepper, and serve with two cheese croutons in each bowl
or on the side.

The soup finished off our turnips but, we did not finish off the soup.

Sunday Day 3

We enjoyed an Arugula Salud, chopped arugula added to the mixed greens. We made a dressing using 1 cup yogurt, a handful of cilantro, few cloves garlic, green onions, and quickly sautéed cumin, coriander, and mustard seeds.

Winter Vegetable Soup (also a recipe by Deborah Madison)

Ingredients
Aromatics and milk
    10     peppercorns
    5     juniper berries
    4     large parsley branches
    1     large thyme sprig or 2 pinches dried thyme
    2     bay leaves
    ½     onion, sliced
    1     garlic clove, halved
    2     cups milk
Soup
    3     Tbsp. butter
    4     leeks, about an inch across, white parts plus 1 inch of the greens, sliced diagonally about 1 inch thick and rinsed
    8 to 10     cups (about 4½ pounds) root vegetables (see Introduction, above, for suggestions), peeled and cut into bold, attractive pieces
    2     cups (10 ounces) carrots, peeled and left whole if only 3 inches long, otherwise cut into large pieces
    2     bay leaves
    2     Tbsp. chopped parsley
    ~     Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
    3     Tbsp. flour
Bread, cheese, and garnish
    6     large slices country bread, toasted
    ~     Grated or sliced Gruyère or Cantal cheese to cover the toast
    ~     Chopped parsley or tarragon (or both) for garnish
Steps

    Prep the aromatics and milk: Lightly crush the peppercorns and juniper berries together in a mortar and pestle. Put the crushed peppercorns and berries, along with all the other ingredients for the aromatics and milk, in a saucepan. Slowly bring to a boil, then turn off the heat. Cover and set aside while you prepare the vegetables.
    Prep the vegetables: Melt the butter in a wide soup pot. Add the vegetables, bay leaves, and parsley, and sprinkle with 1½ teaspoons salt. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or so to heat them up, gently moving them about the pan.
    Make the soup: Stir in the flour, then add 5 cups water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the vegetables are tender but still a tad firm, 15 to 20 minutes. Strain the milk into a blender, add 1 cup of the vegetables, and purée until smooth. Add the purée back to the soup. Taste for salt and season with pepper.
    To serve: Lay a piece of toast in each bowl, cover it with grated cheese, spoon some of the soup on top, and sprinkle with the chopped herbs.


Monday Day 4

Leftover day.

Tuesday Day 5

Empanadas with Mixed Greens
Inspired by Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Empanada Dough:

3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
2 sticks + 2 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
½ cup + 2 Tablespoons ice water

Filling:

2 Tablespoons unrefined, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil or ghee
1 small onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
12 cup mixed chopped greens such as Swiss chard, beet greens, kale, spinach, and/or escarole
2/3 cup shredded fontina cheese (optional)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

 1 beaten egg + 1 Tablespoon milk

 1. Make the dough:  In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the flour, salt and sugar.  Add the butter and pulse until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.  With the machine running, slowly add the water through the feed tube and pulse until a ball of dough comes together.

2. Transfer the dough to a piece of parchment paper or plastic wrap.  Use your hands to pat the dough into a disk.  Wrap the dough with the parchment (or plastic wrap) and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

3. Divide the dough into 24 pieces:  first cut 8 equal wedges, like a pizza.  Then cut each wedge into three pieces.  Roll each piece into a 4-inch circle.  Transfer to a sheet pan and refrigerate.

4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Make the filling:  Heat oil or ghee in a large skillet over medium heat and add the onion, garlic, parsley and red pepper flakes.  Saute until the onion is tender, about 4 minutes.  Add the greens and sea salt and pepper to taste and cook until softened, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.  If there’s a lot of moisture, drain some of the liquid.

5.  Add the cheese to the greens and taste for seasoning.  Allow to cool slightly before filling the pastry.

6.  Place a spoonful of filling on the lower half of each dough circle, then fold the pastry over and seal the edges with the tines of a fork.  Brush with the beaten egg and milk mixture.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until browned.  (If you are baking these directly from the freezer, bake an additional 10-15 minutes.)  Serve warm or at room temperature

Wednesday Day 6


On day 6, we wrote this. It is difficult to tell what, if anything, is left of our bag. Honestly, the bag we picked for ourselves had the same fate as all the other produce we harvest. We sold it.

So, we did our best to recreate it  but, we never harvested a full share at one time.

At the very least, this was an opportunity to share some recipes we really enjoyed. All the recipes here were pilfered from the internet. We always exclude what we don’t have and substitute what we want to cook. We hope you will do the same.

Don't Get Bored, Get Eatin'

Last Week's Vegetables

We offered a weekly veggie subscription in December as a way to market through the winter. We enjoyed the creativity and control this type of marketing provided and kept it going. We are able to distribute some of everything we produce, to choose what we sell each week, how much, and to how many people. It is a great way for us to market directly and we feel very rewarded.
Judging from the feedback we get, and research we've done on other CSA-style programs, our weekly offering is the best winter CSA in El Dorado County. We provide at least 8 items a week, sometimes 10, and we grow everything (with the singular exception of some beautiful Turk's Turban and Acorn hard squash we traded for produce with a neighboring farmer friend). In comparing our box to others, none of which were in El Dorado County, we realized that we live in one of the most versatile growing regions in the country and very few are taking advantage of it.

From the reading I've done on other blogs and farm websites, there seems to be a fear of boredom with winter CSAs. Farmers are scared that people will tire of the same old roots every week, and the subscribers wonder how they'll ever use all their kale and parsnips. This is a foreign concept to us, as eaters and as farmers. So, we intend to pick a box worth of stuff this week for ourselves and record how we used it as a resource for folks who may be joining us.
This winter was extremely mild which allowed us to grow many crops without added protection. We had a wider palate to work with than other years would provide. Also, the production of Oyster Mushrooms allowed us to offer an exotic item in addition to keep things interesting. 
Vegetables are some of the most healthful and versatile foods on the planet. Hopefully if you are paying a farmer a living wage for them, you treat them like gold and become a real recipe connoisseur and foodie.


Lately, we've been discussing how we could improve our program. Our goal is to make it work for us as full-time farmers, as well as catering to our committed customers who make our farm part of their weekly food budget. We will unveil new ideas as they come and are open to input or suggestions from eaters. We want to continue to be a great CSA even as the change of seasons provide more competition.

P.S. We have baby chicks! 

Black Copper Maran Chicks

Blue Ribbon Rutabaga

Introducing one of two mammoth rutabagas...

The two who infiltrated the carrot bed...

Weighed out to twelve pounds each!

 I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my friend the rutabaga. If you haven't met this vegetable before, you should know that it is a member of the cabbage family--a cross between cabbage and turnip--and it deserves a place at your table. We grew them for the first time this year and have been pleasantly surprised by how versatile and delicious they are. Their greens can be used just like kale and if you asked our partner-in-farm how to eat this root he'd say, "Try it raw, don't cook it." They are sweet and crunchy and dense and way better than a turnip raw. "Ha!" I can hear you all chortle to yourselves at the idea eating these roots at all, but I urge you to give them a chance. Here are a few very simple ways to include rutabaga in your eating repertoire (for those of you that are getting rutabagas every other week through our veggie subscription, be thankful we didn't stick you with a twelve pounder and please comment with your own ways of preparing rutabaga if you have them :)
1) Slice them and use them raw as crackers. Wil made a snack of rutabaga slices, cream cheese, and homemade hot sauce tonight. My comment was, "Wow, it's like a real snack!"
2) Make rutabaga fries. Cut up into sticks and roast them drizzled with herbs and olive oil.
3) Boil them and smash them. You can use just rutabagas or a combination of potatoes and rutabagas. Make sure and mix in some milk and butter and salt and pepper too!
4) Cut into bite size pieces and mix into a grain salad. I made rice salad yesterday with carrots, rutabagas, and peas mixed into the rice while it was still hot, then flavored it with a little vinegar, oil, Bragg's Aminos, and gomashio.
5) Put it in soups and stews in place of potatoes. The last few potatoes we have in the crisper drawer from when we harvested last summer are sprouting and so we've been holding out to plant them again instead of eat them. Rutabagas can really cut down the cost of your potato budget (just kidding). Potatoes Anna made with rutabagas is delightful.

Here are a few more photos I couldn't help but share because they are so beautiful. Hope you enjoy.

Bathing Onions

Red Giant Mustard

Thanksgiving Bouquet

Know Who Your Enemies Are

I was preparing a bed for a new crop the other day and I found a cutworm:

I immediately heard Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel sing "Know who your enemies arrrre.."

Which Prompted this list:

 Cutworms, snails, Monsanto, deer, fast food, Walmart, gophers, Starbucks, Globalism, agribusiness and government subsidy, GMOs, Drought, Oprah, Alan Alda...

 True, some of these are preemptive strikes. Alan Alda never did anything to me. I'm sure he is not particularly evil, I should scratch him off the list.
          In many cases, this is the best way to deal with enemies anyway. Just ignore them. Unfortunately, when your enemies list includes giant corporations it is hard to know what to ignore.
          These companies buy up all sorts of stuff and the word takes forever to get around. An example, Mars Inc., the candy bar company, owns Seeds of Change. Seeds of Change was a seed company that also had a line of pasta sauce and salad dressings. Now, they are a subsidiary of Mars Inc. which closed the research farm and fired all but one farmer.
       I bring that up because it seemed so strange when I first heard it. I only knew them as a seed company and had no idea they had a line of processed food. I couldn't picture why Mars bars would have an interest in them.
        Similarly, my dad found it strange that companies like Monsanto were copyrighting life and making it impossible for farmers to save seed. He thought all humans had a vestige of humanity. He couldn't picture anyone would have an interest in jeopardizing the entire species by meddling with the reproduction of food crops.
       

         So, what I realize is my enemies fall into three categories: money making decisions instead of people,  agricultural pests or disasters, and Alan Alda.
        I'll make peace with Alan. Maybe, some day, I'll get around to watching M*A*S*H and grow to love him through it.
        I can handle the pests. We have fence for the deer, traps for the gophers, and cutworms are much smaller than I am. I also practice "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and welcome snakes and coyotes. I support bears and mountain lions, at a great distance.
        As far as, money that makes decisions for people, I just don't expect I can abide.


Kellan's enemies list: Scissors on the floor, gophers, Nicholas Cage, and anyone who is mean to my mom, grandma, or sister. I'm sure I have more, but all of these should be self-explanatory.

I'd love to know the lists of anyone who reads this.

Wil.