Category Archives: The Recipes

Edible, Favorite Techniques, How-To, salads, side dishes, The Recipes

Winter Garden Salad: A Template Recipe for Greens + Roots

2 Comments

If we didn’t have 150 pounds of pork in the freezer, I could eat a warm salad of winter greens and roasted veggies every night. (Roy, not so much.) This is one of those recipe/techniques that I unapologetically come back to again and again—Warm Winter Salad of Roasted Root Fries (The Fresh and Green Table), Warm Bistro Salad with Tiny Roasted Root Vegetables and Bacon Dressing (Fast, Fresh & Green), and Quick-Roasted Butternut Squash and Pear Salad with Ginger Lime Vinaigrette (coming in Fresh from the Farm), to name a few. (Hmmm, it appears I’m not averse to sneaking pork into these things, so you could certainly have your salad, and your bacon, too.)

The appeal of a warm salad with crispy, yummy roasted veggies served atop deep, dark greens with a bracing vinaigrette is the interplay between fresh and comforting. I also like the textural contrast, and to be honest, the visual appeal. These days, I don’t compose the salads so much as scatter-and-platter them. It’s a looser, more rustic look, and served family-style, more casual. But you can always arrange the salads on individual serving plates if you like.

It occurred to me this week that I should back up, look at the architecture of these salads, and come up with a template you could use, depending on whatever greens and winter veggies you’ve got hanging around.

Plus, I needed an excuse to show off my greens that are still alive in the market garden. (Ahem, again, unapologetic…) So this morning after my chicken chores (no frozen water—yay!), I took a bowl and scissors and collected a nice combo of mizuna, Ruby Streaks mustard, Russian kale, arugula, tat soi, parsley, a few baby bok choy leaves, and even a few carrot tops. It’s amazing what lives through freezing temperatures and unfortunate ice formations; the arugula is particularly hearty, and one of my lettuces, Winter Marvel, acts like it doesn’t even know its December. (Alas, soon enough, nothing will be growing, even if it stays alive, since we’re now down below the critical mark of 10 hours of daylight. I’ve got lots of lettuce and greens down in the hoop house which I am just hoping to keep alive and harvest sparingly until early February, when 10+hours returns and they’ll start growing again.)

Realistically, most of us will be harvesting greens for our winter salads from the grocery store, so here’s your chance to buy baby kale, escarole and frisee, sturdy spinach, and anything that’s got some backbone or body. Make your own custom mix, and try to steer away from bagged mixes of salad greens, which tend to be less fresh than heads or bunches and also contain filler lettuces which don’t hold up to warm vinaigrettes too well.

For your veggie mix, choose from sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, beets, or butternut squash. Dice them quite small so that they’ll roast quickly; most won’t need peeling—but for the butternut. (For a pretty all squash-salad, you could use thinly sliced acorn and/or Delicata rings, which don’t need peeling and will also cook quickly.) Add diced pears or apples to the veggie mix if you want, and customize your salad with whatever toasted nuts and good quality cheeses you like. Use your favorite vinegar in the warm vinaigrette, and don’t be shy with a squeeze of lemon or lime to juice it up.

Here’s my template—I hope it will make a nice starting point for you. If you come up with a really delicious combo, I’d love to hear about it!

Warm Salad of Roasted Root Veggies and Winter Greens

Be sure to cut your veggies into evenly small pieces so they’ll all cook at the same rate. Don’t be tempted to crowd them on one pan, either—a little room around them will brown them up better. (Unless, of course, you want to cut this recipe in half, which is perfectly doable.) If you decide to include beets in your veggie mix, toss them with a little oil and salt separately from the rest or they’ll tend to color everything else.

___________________________

For the salad:

1½ to 1¾ pounds combination sweet potatoes (unpeeled), potatoes (unpeeled), carrots (peeled), parsnips (peeled), turnips (unpeeled), beets (unpeeled), butternut squash (peeled), firm-ripe pears (peeled), or Golden Delicious apples (unpeeled), cut into small dice (about 3/8-inch in diameter) (about 5 to 6 cups)

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

6 to 7 cups combination sturdy mixed winter greens (such as baby kale, escarole, frisee, arugula, mustard, or tat soi)

¼ cup chopped toasted pecans, walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts

½ to 2/3 cup crumbled good quality blue cheese, feta cheese, goat cheese or 1/3 cup coarsely grated aged gouda or Parmigianno

3 tablespoons coarsely chopped dried cherries, cranberries, raisins, figs, pitted dates, or other dried fruit (optional)

For the vinaigrette:

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 large shallot, sliced thinly

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, balsamic vinegar, white balsamic vinegar, or cider vinegar

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon fresh lemon or lime juice (more to taste)

½ teaspoons lemon or lime zest

1 teaspoon coarsely chopped fresh thyme leaves (or other herb of choice)

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

___________________________________

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line two large rimmed heavy-duty baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large, wide mixing bowl, combine the veggies, the 4 tablespoons olive oil, and a scant teaspoon kosher salt. Toss well and spread in one layer on the two baking sheets. Roast, rotating the sheet pans once (and flipping the veg with a spatula if you like), until the veggies are nicely browned and tender, about 28 to 30 minutes. Let cool for a couple minutes on the sheet pans and then combine in a mixing bowl.

While the vegetables are roasting, put the greens in a wide heat-proof mixing bowl. Set out a serving platter or four serving plates.

Make the warm vinaigrette: Heat the 1/3 cup olive oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced shallots and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are browned and crisp, about 6 to 8 minutes. Take the skillet off the heat and remove the shallot rings with a fork, transferring them to a paper-towel lined plate. Let the oil cool for 3 to 5 minutes. Add the vinegar, the maple syrup, the Dijon, the juice, the zest, the herbs, ¼ teaspoon salt, and several grinds of fresh pepper. Whisk vigorously until the dressing is mostly emulsified. (Alternatively, first transfer the shallot-infused oil to a heat-proof Pyrex liquid measure, add the other ingredients and whisk well. This is a slightly less awkward way of making the dressing). Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more lemon or lime juice, salt or pepper as needed.

Season the greens with a sprinkling of kosher salt and drizzle over them a few tablespoons of the warm vinaigrette. (Be sparing at this point). Toss well, taste, and add a little more dressing if necessary. Arrange most of the greens on your platter or serving plates. Sprinkle with half of the nuts, cheese, and fruit.

Season the roasted veggies with a pinch more salt, and dress them lightly with 1 to 2 tablespoons of the vinaigrette. Toss well and scatter over the greens. Garnish with remaining nuts, cheese, fruit, greens, and reserved shallots. Serve right away, passing the remaining dressing if desired.

Serves 4

P.S. Farmer enjoyed harvesting greens this morning, too!

 

Edible, side dishes, The Recipes

A Potato Gratin with Gruyère, Thyme & Horseradish

6 Comments

My obsession with gratins knows no limits. I once wrote a cookbook proposal called “Golden Brown and Bubbly: The Book of Gratins.” Honestly I don’t know why anyone didn’t pick that up. (Couldn’t have been the title.)

Now that golden-brown-and-bubbly season is back upon us, I figured I’d make it Gratin Week over on my Facebook page, Susie Middleton Cooks. Why not? If there can be a National Cupcake Day, then why not Gratin Week, I say. (A gratin is really just a vegetable and cheese casserole, after all.)

So I have been (and will be) posting a link to a different gratin recipe over there every day. Many of these recipes exist here at Sixburnersue.com or over on FineCooking.com, where my 11-year tenure (plus five years and counting as editor-at-large…okay I realize that makes me seem really old) has earned me multiple recipe listings. So linking to them is easy. (Try this favorite next summer.)

But today I thought I’d actually like to eat a gratin, rather than just talk about one. We’re having roast pork loin (yay, more pork—only 175 pounds left in the freezer!) for dinner, so I thought a classic creamy potato gratin would be nice. Of course I didn’t get around to making it until this afternoon so taking photos for the blog in the dying sunlight was a little tricky.

To do this recipe, I turned to the handy dandy “foundation recipe for baking gratins” in that fabulous cookbook, Fast, Fresh & Green. The recipe gives you a bunch of options, so I chose gruyère cheese, thyme, and horseradish as my flavor components. But then I also decided that I wanted to make a bigger gratin—just in case any of you need a pinch hitter for the Thanksgiving table. So I scaled the quantities up, and voilà, here you go. Yum. Happy Gratin Week.   

EasyRecipe

Potato Gratin with Gruyère, Thyme & Horseradish

Thinly sliced potatoes are key here, but there’s no need for a mandolin. Just cut your potato in half lengthwise first, lay it cut side-down on the cutting board (to stabilize) and then slice it crosswise with a sharp knife. A Santoku or ceramic knife works great.

Serves 6

1 teaspoon unsalted butter

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons roughly chopped thyme leaves

3 tablespoons coarsely grated Parmigiano

Kosher salt

1 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup low sodium chicken broth

2 teaspoons prepared horseradish

1½ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes (about 6 medium-small)

Freshly ground pepper

1 cup coarsely grated gruyère

 

Heat the oven to 350°F. Rub a 2-quart shallow gratin dish with the butter.

In a small bowl, combine the breadcrumbs with the olive oil, a big pinch of salt, ½ teaspoon of the thyme, and the Parmigiano.

In a liquid measure, combine the cream, the broth, and the horseradish. Mix well.

Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise and turn the halves cut-side down on a cutting board. With a sharp knife, slice the halves across as thinly as you can so that you have thin half-moon-shaped pieces.

Put the potatoes in a mixing bowl. Add 1 teaspoon salt, several grinds of fresh pepper, the cheese, the remaining thyme, and the cream mixture. Mix well. Transfer all to the prepared gratin dish.

Scooch the potatoes around until they are as evenly dispersed as possible. Using your palms, press down on the potatoes to bring the liquids up and around them as much as possible. (It won’t necessarily completely cover them.) Cover the top with the breadcrumb mixture. Bake until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork (check the middle of the dish as well as the sides), the breadcrumbs are brown, and the juices around the edges of the gratin have bubbled down and formed a dark brown rim around the edge, 65 to 70 minutes. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

 

 

Edible, side dishes

Cranking it Out of the Kitchen On a Snow Day

5 Comments

Nothing like pushing your culinary limits. It’s easy for me to get lazy with cooking—doing the same things I’ve always done, especially if I can do them blindfolded when I’m in a tired or harried state. But God and circumstances and magazine editors are constantly presenting me with nifty challenges that keep me from getting too complacent. That’s a good thing. Lately I’ve been pushing on a couple fronts.

Yesterday it snowed here. A flurry or two wouldn’t be such a crazy thing in November, but the fact that two inches stuck to the ground, and was still hanging around here this morning, is a little strange. I took some photos of snowy nasturtiums to post on my Facebook page; they seemed so pretty in an incongruous kind of way.

I like snow days, because they force me to stay inside and do my house-y, kitchen-y (and okay, computer-y) stuff. In the case of yesterday, it was a very good thing, as I was right on top of my deadline to develop six recipes for Vegetarian Times. I mentioned this assignment a few weeks ago, but I bring it up again, because the topic definitely fell squarely into the culinary challenge (culinarily challenging?) department. My charge was to develop recipes featuring (or at least including) the often discarded parts of veggies, including carrot tops, broccoli leaves, radish greens, celery leaves, chard stems, and beet greens. As it happens, I’ve developed recipes with chard stems and beet greens in the past, but around here, most of the rest of these goodies go straight to the chickens. When a farmstand customer offers to remove her carrot tops and leave them for the hens, I am only too happy. The more green stuff the chickens eat, the better their eggs.

But now that I’ve made carrot top pesto (really delicious), stir-fried broccoli leaves (the new kale?), and lemon-ginger-ized radish greens, I’m all excited. Those broccoli leaves, I’m telling you, are delicious. I did have a brief setback, though, which got me thinking about food waste: Many of these veggies are not available in the grocery store in their “natural” state. In other words, the greens are removed. (On the Island, the extras are likely composted or donated to pig farmers, but I hate to think about how much of this stuff goes into landfill in some circumstances, just because the leaves are wilted.) Broccoli is especially denuded these days. You can hardly get it with the stalk still attached (and the stalk is delicious, too), much less with anything more than a few leaves on it. (Farm stands, farmers’ markets, and any natural grocery offering local produce will be a different story.) And if you’ve ever seen broccoli growing in a field, you know that it’s kind of all about the leaves.

Yesterday I went down to Morning Glory Farm and they ever so kindly sent someone out from the farm store to the (snowy) field across the street to cut two large broccoli heads—with stalk and lots ‘o leaves—for me to play with. They were so beautiful that I didn’t want to cut them up. In the end I only used a small amount of the leaves in my recipe (which I then tried to photograph in the snow—here’s an outtake!!), but I saved a whole bag of leaves from just one head to put in soups and stir-fries over the next week.

However, I’m not sure we’ll be having a soup or a stir-fry any time soon. In Part Two of my current culinary challenge, I am trying to make my way through at least one piece of pork from the freezer every week. (For those who don’t know, we raised two pigs this summer, which we unfortunately named. So now when we have pork chops for dinner, the question always comes up: Is this a Dozer chop or a Wilbur chop? Yikes.)

This week I’ve gone overboard. I made meatloaf with ground pork first, then finally got a huge pork butt (that’s actually shoulder meat) defrosted enough to cut it into pieces and concoct a chili-ish stew in the slow-cooker. Wouldn’t you know it, though, I’m not too crazy about how it came out—my spice mix wasn’t quite right. But we are eating it anyway—last night in burritos, and tonight in, who knows?

But the really good news is that I had enough sense to reserve some of the pork butt meat and pork fat to make breakfast sausage—and it turned out absolutely delicious. This is probably our best effort so far with the pork. Not that making our first-ever homemade bacon from the belly wasn’t very cool and fun (did that a few weeks ago), but it came out a bit salty, so there’s room for improvement there. But today I used Bruce Aidell’s Brown Sugar and Sage Breakfast Pattie recipe from his Complete Book of Pork, and it was perfect. I made the mistake earlier in the fall of trying to make sausage from already ground pork, but the grind and the ratio of fat to meat is all wrong for sausage. You have to start with some pork meat (preferably butt) and some (actually a little more than some) pork fat. You don’t need a grinder though; I chilled the meat and fat and chopped in the food processor as instructed.

Roy was pretty excited about the sausage, too. In fact, we’re both kind of surprised and delighted by how much of our own food we’re eating. Roy said to me last night that next year is canning and preserving year. Okey dokey, Roy. Now, all we need is the cow for milk, and we’ll never have to go to the grocery store again. (The cow and a whole lot more time.)

In the meantime, I’m reading more and more about the benefits of fermented food, so I may have to try making kimchi. But I think next up is something I can wrap my head around a little more easily—roasted pumpkin pie. The only problem is that the only ripe Sugar Pie pumpkins we have left are the ones from Libby’s garden. I’ll have to ask her if she’ll loan me one. Should be okay—Libby likes a good experiment in the kitchen!

 

 

Edible, Farm life, Sustain, The Garden, The Recipes

Capturing Time in a Basket of Blue Eggs

6 Comments

Just like that, the frost came, the leaves fell, the days shortened, and the blue eggs appeared. Sometimes, there isn’t a logic to what happens on the farm, and since change is constant around here, it’s easy to miss the subtle shifts. But then you walk outside one morning and it hits you—another season on the farm has gone by and while you’re already busy planning for the next one, there’s one right here, right now. A spectacular moment in time, one that can’t necessarily be defined or pinned down, just marveled at.

There’s really no corollary between golden leaves and blue eggs; it just happens that the Aracaunas (who grew big and beautiful over the summer) started to lay in earnest this week and we finally have a whole clutch of blue and green eggs to ogle. We’ve been wondering if all the eggs would be the color of Sugar’s—a paler shade of Robin’s egg blue. So far there’s a murky tidal green, a Sugary blue, and one true teal.

The Aracaunas themselves match the leaves that are falling by the zillions, Roy raking them up in bursts of energy while I avoid that least favorite task as best I can. I do haul a cart or two into the garden every now and then, as I am ripping out dead veggie plants, adding compost to garden beds and covering them up with leaves and mulch for the winter. I am weighing down the leaves with spent sunflower and zinnia stalks, which are as stiff as bamboo.

I am also nursing the hoop house back to life, filling beds with transplants and seeds, harvesting arugula and kale, discouraging mice. We are curing pumpkins and winter squash for the first time in the green house, too. I’m especially excited about the Japanese kabocha squash we grew in the back field, though I hope we didn’t harvest it too soon. The vines weren’t quite dry, but they needed to come out for Roy to finish prepping the new field, which is looking spiffy.

And wouldn’t you know it, just ahead of the freezing weather, Roy reached water with the well pipe he’s been driving, driving, driving down into the ground. The new well will provide a closer water source for the 500 chickens and will also irrigate the new field next summer.

Overnight, the summer veggies disappeared from the farm stand. I decided not to foist any more green tomatoes or free jalapenos off on anyone, though we’re still harvesting greens and packing them up for egg customers to discover in the fridge.

The skies darkened and the first rains came over the weekend, happily driving us inside to play board games with Libby. Or I should say, to lose to Libby while playing board games. The marathon Gardenopoly tournament ended like this: Libby—$8,000 and every single property; Dad—bankrupt; Susie—$1. Watching her squirm with delight is one of those moments in time that I really wish I could pin down. As she barrels (or more accurately, skips and runs) towards 12 years old, I want to stay here in 11-year-old world with her just a little longer.

One thing I know for sure: While my memory isn’t so great any more, and some of these moments are going to get fuzzy for me down the road, Libby won’t forget. She’s got a whole lifetime to carry happy farm memories forward. Blue eggs and crazy colorful chickens. Leaf piles and fairy houses. Blustery days, board games, beach walks. Arrowheads, deer antlers, sharks teeth, starfish. Turtles, garden snakes, baby skunks. Owl spotting, sheep watching, pig petting. And hanging out with her best furry friend—Farmer, of course.

Edible, The Recipes

Warm Wheatberries + Roasted Brussels Sprouts + Cranberry Balsamic Butter = Happy Vegetarians at Thanksgiving

2 Comments

Farmer has gained 7 pounds since last year. We went to the vet for our annual check-up and rabies shot this morning and discovered this truth. He is bordering on fat, thanks in part to the treats (donuts, potato chips) he and Dad share on the couch every night, watching American Pickers. (Dad is skinny as a rail, so what does he care?) Honestly there is not much I can do about this, other than to take Farmer for longer walks, which would be good for both of us!

While I was at the vet, though, I had my usual conversation about food and cooking with Tara Larsen, who takes good care of us every time we visit Animal Health Care. This was a conversation about fresh food and vegetables, mind you, not about donuts and potato chips. She told me about a shrimp and saffron risotto she’d just had at a friend’s house and about the pies she bakes every Sunday for her husband that feature a combination of Fuji, Braeburn, and Gala apples (what a great sounding combo!). And then she told me about what a fabulous cook her mom is, and how over the years, with three vegetarian daughters, her mom has mastered a tableful of interesting vegetable dishes for Thanksgiving.

So I told her about a recipe that happened to be top-of-mind. I recently got a new assignment from Vegetarian Times magazine that is going to challenge me to do some interesting things with little-used parts of vegetables—like beet greens, carrot tops, and celery leaves. So the other day I started my brainstorming by surrounding myself with books and magazines (yay!) and of course, paging through my own cookbooks to see what flavor partners and techniques I’ve used for some of these veggies in the past. Not only was this a very relaxing activity, but I wound up stumbling across recipes that I love but that I’ve forgotten to make in a while. (Pretty silly when you consider they’re my own recipes!). One that leapt out at me was the Warm Wheat Berries with Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Toasted Walnuts, Dried Cranberries & Balsamic Butter Sauce in The Fresh & Green Table. Oh, my, is this a delicious, filling, and pretty dish. And—I realized while describing it to Tara—a perfect addition to a Thanksgiving table with lots of vegetarian guests.

 

Probably the best thing about this dish for Thanksgiving planners is the make-ahead component (though there will be a little last-minute assembling.) Wheat berries (shown raw, above), like a lot of grains, can be cooked ahead and refrigerated or frozen. Then for a dish like this, you can microwave them briefly to warm them back up. You can also toast and chop the nuts, chop the cranberries, and cut up the Brussels sprouts ahead. And though the Brussels sprouts will have to go in the oven, that can happen after the turkey comes out (not everyone at the table is vegetarian, presumably), since the sprouts roast for only 20 minutes at 475°. The quick little stove-top butter sauce is so good, too, that you could double the sprouts and the sauce and put two dishes on the table—one with grains and one without!

I hope you enjoy this, Thanksgiving or not. (It also makes a great veggie supper on its own or a lovely side for roast pork.) Just don’t feed any to the dog, please. He’s on a diet.

Warm Wheat Berries with Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Toasted Walnuts, Dried Cranberries & Balsamic Butter Sauce

Recipe copyright Susie Middleton, The Fresh & Green Table, (Chronicle Books, 2012)

Nutty roasted Brussels sprouts have a fabulous destination to head for in this warm wheat berry dish that also features dried cranberries, toasted walnuts, and a tangy butter sauce. Cook the wheat berries a day ahead if you like and reheat in the microwave. If you do decide to make the whole recipe in one stretch, just wait to cook the Brussels sprouts until the wheat berries have been cooking for at least 50 minutes. (Hard wheat berries range in cooking time from 65 to 90 minutes. Be sure not to buy wheat berries that say they’ve been parboiled.) Both the sprouts and the wheat berries will stay warm, covered, out of the oven for several minutes, so if timing isn’t exact, it’s not a problem.

3/4 cup (winter or hard red) wheat berries

Kosher salt

1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in quarters lengthwise

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 8 pieces

1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries

2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

In a pasta pot, Dutch oven, or other large sauce pot, combine the wheat berries, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 10 to 12 cups of water (enough to cover the wheat berries by a few inches). Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer (it can be a rapid simmer or a low boil), and cook, partially covered, until the wheat berries are tender. Begin checking after 50 minutes, although this may take up to 90 minutes. (Most are usually done between 60 and 70 minutes. The berries should be pleasantly chewy. If you taste early and often, you’ll get a sense of what “done” feels like.) Drain the berries very well in a colander. Shake the colander and tip it around to remove as much excess water as possible. Return the wheat berries to the pot, off the heat, and cover. They will stay warm for 10 to 15 minutes this way. (Or if making ahead, spread on a sheet pan, cool completely, and then refrigerate in a bowl, covered.)

Preheat the oven to 475°F. In a mixing bowl, toss the Brussels sprouts with the oil and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Arrange the sprouts in one layer in a 9×13 baking dish (they will be snug). Roast until brown and tender, about 18 to 22 minutes, stirring once if you like. If the sprouts finish ahead of the wheat berries, keep them in the pan, loosely covered with foil.

Combine the orange juice, the balsamic, the maple syrup, and the lemon zest in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat and reduce to a simmer. Cook, stirring, just for about 15 seconds. Take the pan off the heat and add the cold butter, one or two pieces at a time, whisking after each addition until the butter is melted and creamy. (Don’t reheat the mixture or the butter will break and the sauce will not be creamy.) Combine the wheat berries, the Brussels sprouts, and the cranberries in a mixing bowl, season with 1/2 teaspoon more salt, and pour the sauce over them. Stir gently but thoroughly. Add half of the walnuts, half of the parsley and stir well again.

Serve warm, garnished with the remaining walnuts and parsley.

Serves 3 to 4 as a main dish, 6 as a side dish

 

 

 

Edible, The Recipes

In Between Sun Drops, Finding Time for Fall

3 Comments

It hasn’t rained here in any significant way for weeks, maybe months. The effect is sort of Eternal Summer. It’s warm, dry, sunny, and blue-sky beautiful every day. Not beautiful in a traditionally stunning foliage-peeping-tour kind of New England way. It’s more of a languorous, dreamy, golden-grasses-waving mirage-like across-the-cornfield kind of way. Time feels suspended.

And yet it’s not. The tautness of summer has loosened a notch or two with every passing weekend, leaving just a little more room for us to breathe and stretch.

We still have a zillion eggs to gather and wash every day. There are greens to harvest every morning and seedlings in the hoophouse to transplant. The new field needs prepping for winter, and there are seemingly miles of chicken fences that need mending.

But there are pockets of time. Time we’re making the most of with some cool activities.

One Saturday we shot a video. Our friends Chris Hufstader and Katie Hutchison came to the farm and spent all day filming and recording us, the chickens, Farmer, and some delicious food, of course. They’ll edit all that into a short spot I’ll be able to post online to help promote the new book.

Last Thursday night, we took part in the Martha’s Vineyard Food and Wine Festival. The opening event was a tasting of farm food (and wine) across the street at the Ag Hall. Our charge was to make something to showcase our eggs, so I spent a couple days shopping, prepping, and cooking 12 frittatas to cut into 250 pieces. It was a fun evening and a nice off-farm outing for Green Island Farm!

I took some time to make bacon (literally) last Monday. When we got the meat from our last pig back from the butcher, I kept a pork belly (these things are huge!) out of the freezer, and then when I had a minute started reading up on how to make bacon. That led me to knocking on my neighbor Katherine Long’s door for some advice and supplies. I came home with 12 books about pigs and pork and charcuterie (among other things.) Katherine is both a former librarian and an amazing, adventuresome cook. Hence the books. The pork belly is now curing in the fridge.

The best thing, though, about shaking off our intense summer schedule, is time for walks and play. When Libby came out a few weekends back, we all took a long walk on our favorite beach on the South Shore. Then we raked piles of leaves for Libby and Farmer to roll in. And carved the little pumpkin that conveniently came right out of Libby’s garden. We made chocolate zucchini muffins at Libby’s request and ate a lot of corn on and off the cob. Libby dressed Farmer in his early Halloween costume (a cape) and chased him round and round our tiny house.

 

 

Yesterday we had Roy’s Mom and Dad and sister Nancy out to the farm for a relaxing visit. Farmer and I showed Peg and Bob the walk down to the creek and the Square Field. I made Compost Soup for lunch. (This is Libby’s name for veggie minestrone, which she actually likes, despite the epithet. She just think it looks like the contents of our little kitchen compost pail—actually the one that usually goes to the chickens, not onto the pile, since it is mostly veggie trimmings.)

Even the sun setting earlier is a bit of a relief for us. In the heat of summer, we get our best farm work done in the cool evenings, and often we are outside until 9 pm. Now we are forced inside at 6 o’clock; soon it will be 5. That means we can’t work quite as many hours in the day (though there is all that accounting to do inside!). Endless summer is nice for a while (and I’m certainly not in any rush for winter), but the solid comfort of a fine autumn day is particularly sweet.

 

 

 

Edible, The Recipes

The Compost Chronicles: Black Gold Comes to the Farm

3 Comments

Lest you think this whole farming thing is all beauty and glamour (yeah, right), I will tell you that the most exciting thing on the farm this week was well, manure, and the most exciting activity was a trip off-island (for about 5 hours total) to pick up a tractor part. Whee! We know how to live. This was our first off-Island escape together in about four months, and what did we do but shop for farm stuff. I didn’t even get my promised visit to Target to look at kitchen goodies. We ran out of time. Oh, well, we did get to stop and visit with Roy’s parents for like ten minutes, which was the highlight of the trip, as far as I was concerned.

But I could tell Roy was pretty excited by the new purchase from The Tractor Supply store. (Who knew there was such a thing—it’s a big box store just like all the rest of them, only full of farm(ish) stuff. Some fun things, like Muck boots and dog toys, but mostly manly items like well pumps, chain saws, fence posts, and livestock gates. Good to know you can pick up a collar for your goat here, or a block of salt for your cow.) The purchase was a rock rake attachment for the tractor (see photos). Roy is prepping a big new vegetable field on our back four (not forty) for next year and the soil is full of rocks. A piece of equipment like this that will drag the surface rocks off and smooth the soil at the same time is a real time-saver. (The soil has already been tilled once.)

And about that other excitement (photo at top): Roy has been helping a friend build a cart for his horses. Not just any horses, but two beautiful draft horses—Clydesdales in fact. You know, big horses generate a lot of well, crap. So our friends call their horse manure CC, for Clydesdale Crap. (Excuse my language.) But the really amazing thing about their CC is that they age it (turning it over as it heats up and “cooks”) for a year before doing anything with it. The end result is crumbly black gold (below), the finest composted manure you could hope to add to a brand new field. And they gave us a whole truckload of it in exchange for Roy’s help.

We also finally have our own first batch of aged chicken manure. (We’re calling ours CP for Coop Poop. All the manure is mixed with straw or shavings when it comes out of the coops. It looks like the photo at right in the beginning.) It’s been a year since we got the first big batch of hens (the 200 arrived last November and the 300 this spring), and 7 or 8 months since we stopped adding to the first pile. Our piles also heat up and Roy turns them with the tractor, so this stuff is breaking down nicely (photo below).

Chicken manure is particularly high in nitrogren, but it, like horse or cow or pigeon or any other kind of manure, should be well-aged (and preferably hot-composted, too) before using in a veggie garden. Roy is going to combine a little of the CP with the CC to lay down on the new field.

Three years we’ve been building the farm and this is the first year we will really be adding significant amounts of fertility to the soil. Up until now we’ve had to purchase most of our organic fertilizer (augmented by small amounts of leaf/household compost), and while we could pull that off with the market garden, it wouldn’t be a good (or affordable) strategy for a bigger farm field.

So there you have it. Not the sexiest side of farming, but maybe one of the most important. So I didn’t exactly get a Susie shopping trip this week, but I did get a happy farm boy, a fun ride in the truck (with Farmer, too), and a good investment for our future. I can’t complain, but I do feel like we’re starting to resemble the Clampetts (of Beverly Hillbillies fame) more every day.

After soil fertility (and sunlight), the next most important thing for a new field is irrigation. So Roy’s working on digging a well (in his spare time, yeah. The well will provide water for the 500 chickens, too.) Then there’s the deer fencing…which might involve another trip to the tractor store. Oh boy.

 

 

Edible, The Garden, The Recipes

Field to Freezer: Sweet Corn for Christmas

1 Comment

You can have your Santa with his big sack of toys, any old day. Our Santa leaves something much more delicious—bushel bags of sweet corn. Instead of showing up only one night a year, he drops by every other day. And he doesn’t come down the chimney. At least I don’t think he does, because the sack of corn is always down by the northernmost farm gate. (And we don’t have a chimney). But I never see Santa. He and his elves alight in the cornfield and disappear among the tall rows of corn stalks. On my way down to do my chicken chores, I’ll glance at the gate, but nothing’s there. Half an hour later, about the time the sun is just high enough for me to peel off a layer, I circle around the pine grove and, look, there it is! A big bag of fresh-picked corn.

With Roy gone to work, I’m left to find something with wheels to haul the bag up to the farm stand. I don’t mind the effort, because I always start smiling when I see that corn. What could be better than having oodles of fresh sweet corn around! This week we’re getting a variety called Sparkle—last week one called Providence, and my favorite, old-fashioned all-white Silver Queen.

Okay, truth is, Santa is really Morning Glory Farm farmer Simon Athearn, and the elves are his corn-picking farm crew. (But I really don’t see them.) We get to sell their delicious corn at the farm stand this time of year, as their late varieties are growing right next door to us.

Inevitably, an ear or two or three meanders off the farm stand and into our refrigerator. (You know, you can’t sell an ear that someone’s ripped the leaves off of, or that maybe fell on the um, ground, or something.) So we are having this totally lovely corn-every-night-in-October experience. (Try this.)

The corn is so good and there’s so much of it right here, that we decided to “reappropriate” a dozen (or so) ears today and get them processed for the freezer.

Blanching and freezing corn is not rocket science. (See easy direx here.) But I remember doing it a few years back and not being so happy about the results after a few months in the freezer. So I took extra care today not to overcook or waterlog the corn and to spread it out on sheet pans to freeze before packing. (I wish you didn’t have to blanch it at all, but you must or an enzyme will hasten the deterioration of the corn).

To my great relief, we now have sweet corn in the freezer for the cold months. We could even have it for Christmas, no Santa needed.

Edible, The Recipes

A Tale of Two Rooster-ettes

13 Comments

Way back in May, we got 26 baby chicks: Twenty-five Aracaunas, who are about to drop blue eggs any day now, and one “bonus” exotic mystery breed chick, which turned out to be a Silver Polish Crested.

Now that the girls are four months old, we have to face the reality that not all of the girls are, well, girls. Though they don’t seem to actually know that.

Polly, our Polish Crested, didn’t get along with anyone right from the start, so she had to be separated. She had her own special dog crate in Roy’s shop for the first couple months. When it was time for her to graduate, Roy fashioned her a special little coop-within-a-coop that opens out onto her own little pasture-pen. It’s no wonder Polly is fond of Roy. Only problem is, Polly is really Pauley. She crows. (Or tries to crow—it sounds painful.) And she doesn’t cock-a-doodle-doo at the usual rooster-crowing times, like sunrise. She crows when Roy gets home from off-farm work in the early afternoon. And she crows at sunset. (See, I still refer to her as She.)

She also stays happily in her outdoor pen until dusk. Then she decides to roost on top of the deer fencing between her pen and her neighbors until Roy comes along, plucks her off, and tucks her into her little coop for the night. She could fly out and wander around (any time of the day), but she doesn’t. Okay, I mean he doesn’t. It doesn’t look like a terribly comfortable spot to hang out, but apparently it appeals to him.

Over at the Aracaunas’ coop, we have Henzilla (above). We started calling her that when clearly she was growing twice as fast as the rest of the girls. Honestly, we knew she wasn’t a hen, but the name kind of stuck. And the funny thing is, though Henzilla wanders around the pen towering over all the other girls, she doesn’t seem to be very aggressive and she hasn’t learned to crow yet. She’s pretty mellow in fact. (If you can describe an Aracauna as mellow—they’re all pretty skittish. If you want docile, go for a Buff Orpington like Martha.) Anyway, I feel sorry for Henzilla, because she just seems like a really awkward teenager to me (handsome though she is!). And plus, once she  does get her Superman cape on and transform into a real rooster, she (he) might not be around for long. Roy has always said, “no roosters.” Except Polly/Pauley, who he thinks is special just because she looks exotic. Which he does. If you like feathers.

Well, who knows what will happen. With 550 chickens, 9 coops, and several large chicken pastures (not to mention 450 eggs a day) to manage, Roy is always fine-tuning the chicken operation. If I were a rooster, I might try and impress Roy, too. Considering it’s all about the eggs around here, just being exotic might not cut it.