Green Fence Farm

Tales from the Expoland Poultry Sale

2010-08-21T13:41:00.004-04:00

As many of you may know, Nick and I have decided to cut back on our commercial farming and concentrate on homesteading. We discovered what everyone else already knows: we are too old to run a vegetable packing and hauling operation. As esteemed a career longshoreman is, it is not what I envisioned when getting into farming.

We also had an “ah ha!” moment (actually, more of a “duh!” moment) when doing our books midseason (hey, at least we do them). Now, we always knew the farm lost money. We have, for every year we have farmed, been in that year before the year we make a profit. But what we didn’t realize is that, even keeping our current number of employees, we lose LESS money when we sell absolutely nothing than when we run our (on paper) wildly successful and oversubscribed DC CSA and restaurant sales business.

So, starting next season, we are growing for ourselves and anyone who is really nice to us. We’ll probably still sell some meat, mainly by pre-order. We’ll have more time to enjoy our weekend guests, and we’ll take vacations in the summer, so I can stop bitterly mumbling through August as I watch Facebook status update after status update: “Perfect weather on the Vineyard again!” “Another beautiful day at the beach!” “Clam bake time!” Mine: “Still at the farm. Still hot. Pigs smell.”

And with our change in gears, the blog will change too. Though I will keep posting recipes and ideas for the CSA vegetables, I want to start using more to write about life on the farm. For years, people who get the farm’s rambling emails about sale items or the CSA have told me I ought to write a book (and I DO know they probably meant: “you ought to write a book instead of bothering me with all this claptrap”). I agree (with both sentiments), but I also have found I freeze right up when sitting down, plop, to WRITE A BOOK. So I thought I would ease into it one blog post at a time (and yes, two hours to put my head under in a cold pool).

That’s a long introduction for today’s dissertation on the Expoland poultry auction, my morning’s activity, and where I am sitting right now, on the back of the trailer in one of the few poop free spots available, marveling at the fast internet connection here in the middle of a gravel parking lot in the middle of a field in the middle of an industrial parks in the middle of the mountains.

Every third Saturday, outside of Staunton VA, in Expoland, Augusta Feed sponsors a tailgate sale. $5 to get in for sellers, mostly poultry and rabbits though today I‘ve seen potbelly pigs, miniature goats, turkeys, ducks, and a ratty dog.

This is only the second time I’ve been to Expoland. The other time was the Augusta County fair a few years ago. I remember it being really hot, really dusty, and really full of things you don’t want to see or smell on a hot dusty day in a gravel parking lot: Fried Oreo stands, people standing in line at the fried Oreo stands wearing halter tops (and clearly not on the first fried Oreo of their lives), nervous sheep (or perhaps not nervous but suffering from irritable bowel syndrome sheep), fat, sweaty crying toddlers set in the dirt while their caretakers tried to toss rings over soda bottles to win the highly flammable large pink stuffed snake(with bead eyes perfect for the fat, sweaty, crying babies to stuff up their noses later) that I swear I saw for sale the day before sitting for sale on a piece of plastic outside the gas station.

“ExpoLAND” suggests an all encompassing expo experience, in the way that DisneyLAND is an overload, all senses Disney extravaganza. But this is no land. Maybe Expoarea. Or Expogravelparkinglot.

The tailgate sale doesn’t even get to use the Expoland building – a cement floored, corrugated steel barn with bathrooms, a fact I would have resented more had there been anywhere to buy coffee at the sale. But live poultry was pretty much it, which surprised me. When we were all scared of bird flu, before the year of the swine refocused our paranoia, I remember all sorts of warnings about “open air poultry markets.” I also remember thinking at the time, since we don’t live in Vietnam, what are the chances I’ll run into someone who has been to an open air poultry market. Turns out, I am now someone who goes to open air poultry markets. I’ll put “flu vaccine” on this year’s to do list.

We brought a bunch of our older layers to sell, thinning the flock in anticipation of our downsizing. They sold in the first 30 minutes, with Nick inexplicitly haggling the price of the first lot down to the great confusion of the buyers, a group of Arab men, only one of whom spoke English, and none of whom understood why Nick, in a bad Arab accent (his way of helping bridge the language gap), kept insisting on a price lower than the sign said. “Bird flu,” I thought of adding to help make Nick’s case, but didn’t because my fake Arab accent is even worse than his.

It smells like fermenting corn here. Corn and chicken poop.

Heard often as the crowd walks back and forth: “Them’s good eatin’.”

Heard only once: “I don’t eat nuthin’ that comes in my house. Do you eat your family??”

Constantly in the background: Crowing, all sorts, some pathetic, some triumphant. The banty roosters are the triumphant ones, I believe, because they are too small to eat. I do not understand the sheer number of banties on sale here today. We have a few, but they were given to us. They are amusing running around the barn, but I cannot see paying for one, even less moving the volume of banties that seem to be moving today. I think they are the beanie babies of the poultry world.

Seen: Two big men, in their thirties, in baseball caps and sleeveless t-shirts, coffee in one hand, chicken leg (attached to the rest of the chickens, nice Buff Orringtons) in the other. Years ago, I would have thought, “What’s with the chickens?” Today, I thought, “where’d they get the coffee?”

The king of the poultry tailgate sales: He is about 6’ 4”, tanned, with flowing silver hair, and a ravaged face in the manner of Keith Richards. He wears low, loose jeans that probably were new in Haight Ashbury circa ’68 and a vest, no shirt. He is legendary in the world of poultry arbitrage. He churns chickens like butter, picking up boxes at this sale, selling them at a profit at the next sale down the road. He makes his living this way, tailgate sales only, and he is alive so I guess it is working for him.

Two of the largest roosters I’ve ever seen, in a cage, the sole item for sale in the back of a sad looking man’s pick-up. “Just don’t have the heart to kill ‘em anymore,” he said as I admired the birds.

By 10 AM, we had sold all the bird we brought, including the Barred Rock that escaped and was chased around the parking lot by a Mexican in a red shiny shirt, two women with matching John Deere t-shirts, and a chubby preteen in a glittery tube top and high heeled cowboy boots. We loaded up our tables and empty cages in order to get back to the farm quickly so we could work outside in the hottest part of the day. As we drove off, I heard the king of the tailgate sales making one last deal for a cage full of banty roosters. All is as it should be in the Land of Expos.

Pesto

2010-08-11T23:00:00.004-04:00

Summer means basil and basil means pesto (though you can use all sorts of non-basily things to make pesto. In fact, the only thing you REALLY need in pesto, in my opinion is garlic and olive oil. And salt. You always need salt).

I make pesto in the Cuisinart, and I can’t imagine doing it any other way (blender, maybe – mortar and pestle, you’ve got to be kidding). You start with garlic. I like pesto really garlicy, so I put in maybe 8-10 peeled cloves. Then I add some more because I am already getting the Cuisinart dirty, so why not use it to chop garlic for whatever else you are making for dinner – or use it in a batch of salad dressing.

After the garlic is done, throw in a small handful of nuts. Pine nuts are traditional, but they are so expensive, and if they are just one day older than they should be they make your mouth taste bitter for a month (I am not exaggerating, this happened to me, and apologies to the Pine Nut Promotion board). I use whatever nut is on sale – walnuts usually -- and sometimes don’t use nuts at all, like when I make spring garlic pesto.

Chop the nuts with the garlic. Then jam a passel of basil leaves in the Cuisinart – fill it up – and chop that. Salt. Then, with the motor running, pour in a stream of olive oil (I should say “good quality olive oil” because recipes always say that, as if, without that, you would just go out and buy motor-grade olive oil. And why don’t we get that on every ingredient? I assume “good quality” butter milk is better than the regular sort – same with “good quality” flour or nuts or chocolate, but with olive oil, we have to be reminded to buy the decent stuff).

When the mixture gets to be the consistency of melted ice cream (with basil sprinkles), taste and salt more if needed. If you are freezing the pesto, do it now before you add parmesan cheese. You can also use it pre-cheese as an oil in which to sauté vegetables, like some of that squash you have all over the place. If you are eating it right away, add parmesan cheese (good quality, please), enough to get the pesto to the consistency of onion dip.

Now use it for everything – combined with tomato sauce on homemade pizza, spread on old bread or pita and toasted for garlic bread, tossed with mayonnaise and used as a dressing for pasta salad with veggies or for (good quality Green Fence Farm) chicken salad, on a cracker or slice of bread with a slice of tomato and brie or blue cheese.

And, as I alluded to before, you can substitute any number of things for basil (or combine with basil) in this recipe – spring garlic (in which case, obviously, cut out the garlic cloves), green onions (in which case, cut down the garlic cloves), parsley, red pepper, olives.

Caveat Emptor

2010-08-02T11:48:00.002-04:00

Check out this succinct explanation of what we were all afraid was true. All of the meats and eggs from Green Fence Farm are pastured. Though, as the article explains, all are not wholly grass fed – chickens and pigs can’t get enough protein and energy from a diet of only grass. Our pigs, for example, have a diet of grass, natural feed, and slop from our and the Staunton Grocery kitchen; the latter means, of course, they eat better than me. And the chickens get day old bread from Newtown Bakery – or they get the day old bread that Nick and I don’t pull out of the bag and eat ourselves.

Squash

2010-07-26T10:00:00.002-04:00

We finally got some rain, and so, as the Capitol Hill CSA members are well aware, we are awash in squash. Like basil and tomatoes, they love the hot weather as long as they get a drink once in a while (not unlike me, though the drinks need to come more frequently).

The recipe and picture below were in the Washington Post last Wednesday. My mother made the recipe for a family and friends dinner this weekend. But of course, coming from a long line of people who do not take instruction well, she made several modifications – the squash was blanched, not grilled. The cheese was not pepper jack, because several members of the eating team don’t like it – I think she used a regular jack, or maybe a mix of a mild cheddar and jack. No pimentos, because Nick refuses to eat any cooked peppers. No cilantro because she had already veered away from the Mexican version. More sour cream than the recipe called for because it was in her fridge and needed to get used up. Some mayonnaise too because this is a SOUTHERN summer recipe, and all southern summer recipes, including cake, include mayonnaise.

Summary:

Every Southern Junior League cookbook includes a version of squash casserole, which always makes an appearance in the summer as soon as squash becomes abundant. Pepper Jack cheese and cilantro give this one a Southwestern edge.

MAKE AHEAD: The casserole can be assembled and refrigerated a day in advance. Bring it to room temperature before baking it on the grill.

4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds medium yellow squash and zucchini, trimmed and cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch planks
• Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
• 4 scallions, white and light-green parts, chopped (1/3 cup)
• 3/4 cup grated pepper Jack cheese
• 2 tablespoons pimentos, drained
• Leaves and tender stems from 8 sprigs cilantro, chopped (2 tablespoons)
• 1/3 cup panko (Japanese-style) bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon salted butter, cut into small cubes
• 1/4 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika
Directions:

Prepare the grill for direct heat: If using a gas grill, preheat to medium-high (450 degrees). If using a charcoal grill, light the briquettes in a chimney starter and let them burn until the flames subside and a light layer of ash covers the briquettes (about 20 to 25 minutes). Dump the briquettes in a mound (or, preferably, into 2 half-moon-shaped briquette baskets) in the center of the grill. For a medium-hot fire, you should be able to hold your hand about 6 inches above the coals for 6 to 8 seconds. Spray the grill rack with nonstick cooking oil spray, then place it on the grill.

Lightly spray the squash slices on both sides with olive oil cooking spray. Season generously with salt and pepper. Cook the squash for about 6 minutes, turning frequently, until the slices are well browned on both sides and soft but still slightly firm. Transfer to a bowl and cool completely. The yield should be about 3 cups.

Blot the cooled squash slices on paper towels, then cut them it into 1/2-inch chunks, placing them in a large bowl. Add the creme fraiche or sour cream, scallions, cheese, pimento and cilantro; mix well and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Lightly spray a 2-quart casserole with nonstick cooking oil spray, then spread the squash mixture in the dish. Scatter the bread crumbs and butter cubes evenly over the top, then sprinkle with smoked paprika.

Meanwhile, prepare the grill for indirect grilling: If using charcoal, light the charcoal in a chimney starter and let the briquettes burn until the flames subside and a light layer of ash covers the briquettes (about 20 to 25 minutes). Open the grill's bottom vents. Dump the lighted coals into 2 mounds (or, preferably, into 2 half-moon-shaped briquette baskets) on opposite sides of the grill. (If using gas, with a two-burner grill, set one burner to medium-low and leave the other unlit; with three or more burners, set the outside or front and rear burners to medium-low and leave the center burners unlit.)

Place the casserole on the area of the grill that is not directly above the briquettes or a lit burner. Cover the grill, vents open, and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, until the casserole is lightly browned and bubbling. (The internal temperature of the grill should hover around 350 degrees.) Serve hot.

Quail Eschabeche

2010-07-17T09:14:00.002-04:00

Below is my favorite quail recipe ever – from a 2008 Gourmet (sob, I miss it) article on global cooking in Paris. Of course, you could just wrap the little suckers in bacon and roast or grill (what would a recipe from me be without some bacon component), but, surprisingly, I like this better.
A globe's worth of influences go into this tender quail, but the result is a very subtle dish with a classic French balance.

Active Time: 25 min
Total Time: 2 1/2 hr (includes cooling)

4 whole quail (1 1/2 pounds)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus additional for drizzling
2 fennel bulbs (1 pound total), stalks discarded and bulbs chopped
3 medium shallots, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 lemongrass stalk, 1 or 2 outer layers discarded and lower 4 inches of stalk minced
1/2 cup raisins
1 (2-inch) cinnamon stick (preferably Mexican/Ceylon canela)
1 cup dry white wine

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

Pat quail dry and season all over with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper (total). Heat oil in an ovenproof 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Sear quail, breast side down, until golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Add fennel, shallots, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper to skillet and sauté until fennel is pale golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in lemongrass, raisins, cinnamon stick, and wine. Bring to a boil, then cover pot and braise in oven 30 minutes. Nestle quail, breast side up, in vegetables, then cover and braise until thighs pull easily from joints, about 20 minutes. Cool completely, uncovered. Serve at room temperature, drizzled with olive oil.

Cooks' note:
Quail can be made 1 day ahead and chilled.

Finally, the beet recipes!

2010-07-08T11:40:00.002-04:00

As part of our continuing “day late and a dollar short” series, we finally get around to telling you what to do with those beets we keep giving you (but probably will stop doing so until the Fall – we just replanted and hope to see the second crop by September, or so).

First, some basic beet information – they are a storage crop, so you can keep them for a while, up to a month, in the refrigerator. Just TWIST off the tops (which can be eaten like any green – prepare as you would spinach or kale), and put the beets, skin, tap root, and an inch or so of green stem, into a plastic bag in your refrigerator.

The Basic cooking of beets is simple. Wash (but do not peel) them and drop them into a pot of boiling water; boil until they are potato consistency – that will take about 35 minutes for large beets, 30 for medium, and 20 for small. Just poke them with a fork to check if they are done. Drain and let cool off. The skins will slip off when they are cool. Take off the top stem and the tap root, and do what you will with them.

Or you can bake them, which I prefer, though I can’t say why. Prepare as above, and let them stay damp after washing. Cover a pan with tin foil (why, you ask? – just do it, and you’ll thank me. There is a lot of sugar in beets that cooks off and caramelizes…). Put the beets in the pan and cover it tightly with tin foil. Cook in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes. Then treat as above (cool, peel, process).

From this point, you can make my favorite, very easy dish – beet salad. Just slice or chop your beets (I like to slice the chiogga’s (the red beets we had out at the CSA) because they have a neat bulls eye design inside. Make your favorite balsamic dressing (or use mine: 1 part walnut oil, one part balsamic vinegar, one part soy sauce). Sprinkle the dressing lightly over the beets, add blue cheese crumbles, and toasted walnuts.

I love serving this on a tray next to a salad of cold green beans with bacon crumbles (had to work bacon in here somewhere) and chopped egg, and a lightly dressed (or slathered in pesto mayonnaise – my choice) potato salad.
If you boil 3 medium beets, also as above, you can make the famous Harvard beets (I believe you need to use RED beets for this recipe to stay true to the crimson tradition): Reserve ½ cup of your boiling liquid when the beets are done. In a medium saucepan, combine two tablespoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, and ¼ of a teaspoon salt. Stir in the reserved beet cooking liquid, ¼ cup of vinegar, and 2 tablespoons of butter. Heat and stir until mixture thickens. Peel and slice your beets then add them to the mixture and heat through.

From CSA member Karla Ramsey, a beet recipe for those of you who are deciding you really don’t like beets (this is really pretty too):

Beet Hummus

3 medium beets, cleaned, roasted, peeled then cut into chunks (stick whole beets in oven at 375* then roast until a knife inserts easily)
2 Tbsp tahini (sesame seed paste)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
salt to taste

Process all ingredients in a food processor. Blend until smooth. Tasted and adjust seasoning. Serve with a hefty drizzle of olive oil.

Finally! The turnip recipes….

2010-06-12T22:18:00.003-04:00

Isn’t it lucky that turnips save? And that we will see them again in the autumn, so you will get a chance to use these recipes soon.

I’ll start out with a recipe I put in the blog last year, but since no one read it then, I can repeat it here (and since no one is reading the blog NOW, I can both admit to repeating it and repeat it again next year). This is simple: Peel your turnip and dice it. Dice some bacon and fry it up until starts to render its fat. Toss the turnip dice in the fat and fry until crispy and brown. If you want, add chopped onions (green or otherwise) about half way through the browning of the turnips. If you have tender greens, turnip or otherwise, toss them in about three-quarters of the way through the dicing. Salt and eat with a hearty meat (or pungent vegetable, if you are a vegetarian).

And from one CSA member (Kate’s comment – this will make a great fall dish as well, and luckily, you’ll have turnips in the fall): here's a great turnip recipe from Farm Journal's Country Cookbook of 1959! It is delicious!

TURNIP STEW: The Czechoslovakian way....

3 T butter
3 C diced cooked turnips
1/2 C whole kernel corn
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium apple, sliced
nutmeg
sour cream
horse-radish

+Melt butter, add turnips, corn, onion, apple and seasonings. Simmer until apple and onion are soft...about 15 minutes.
+Add sour cream, heat through; add horse-radish and service.

And another member sent in a whole pile of recipes, including some for beets, which might be a hint for next week’s delivery:

Turnip and Beet Recipes
(nabbed from Live Earth CSA’s website)

Honey-Peppered Turnips
from Greene on Greens
Serves 4 to 6

1 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. honey
1 lb. turnips, peeled, cut into 1/4" cubes
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Salt
Chopped fresh parsley

Melt the butter with the honey in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in the turnips and pepper. Cook, covered, until tender, about 12 minutes. Add salt to taste and sprinkle with parsley.

Miscellaneous turnip preparation ideas
<> Many cookbooks suggest they are good mashed like potatoes, or with potatoes. So pull out your favorite mashed potatoes recipe and make it with half turnips, half potatoes.

<> Try them raw! Slice or sliver them in salads or vegetable platters. Serve with a favorite dip.

<> Add turnips to stir-fries for a nice crunch and a perky flavor.

<> Bake 'em! Scrub and remove tops/tails from baby turnips and put in a baking pan with chunks of carrots, onions and potatoes, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees Funtil tender, about 45 minutes.

<> [from "The New Joy of Cooking"] Turnip greens are especially good cooked with other greens, like collards, in water flavored with salt pork or a ham bone. They are traditionally seasoned with sprinklings of oil, vinegar, hot sauce or ground red pepper, and sugar.

Simple Skillet Turnips and Apples
from the Rolling Prairie Cookbook
serves 4

1 tbsp. canola oil
1/2 C chopped onion
1 medium apple, copped (approx. 3/4C)
3 C chopped turnips (1/2" cubes)
1/2 C fresh apple cider or juice
1 small cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp. salt

Heat oil in a large skillet over med. heat. Add onion and sauté for 3 to 5 minutes. Add apple and sauté 2 more minutes. Add turnips and rest of ingredients. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir occasionally, and add more liquid if necessary to prevent sticking. Simmer until turnips are tender, approx. 20 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick before serving.

Roasted Root Vegetables scented with Apple and Mustard
from Your Organic Kitchen (modified slightly)
Serves 8 (but you could halve it to serve 4)

3 C apple cider or juice
1 C fruity white wine (like Gewürztraminer)
2 tbsp. smooth Dijon mustard
3 tbsp. butter
4 -5 lbs. root vegetables, cut into bite-sized pieces, both sweet (like carrots and chiogga beets) and savory (like turnips and potatoes)
Salt and freshly ground pepper

In a saucepan, reduce the cider/juice, wine, and mustard over high heat to 1 1/2 C. Whisk in the butter and pour over the vegetables, tossing to coat. Season with salt and pepper and place in a single layer in a large roasting pan in a preheated 375 degree oven. Roast for 1 hour or so, or until the vegetables are lightly browned and tender. Stir 3 or 4 times while roasting to promote even browning.

Grated Turnip (or Rutabaga) and Apple Salad
from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant
serves 4 to 6

1 C peeled and grated raw turnips or rutabaga
1 C peeled and grated tart apples
½ C chopped fresh parsley
juice of one large lemon
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Combine everything, toss, cover, and chill.

Chilled Beet and Buttermilk Soup
serves 4 to 6 (can be increased/decreased proportionally without problem)
4 C chopped cooked beets*
1 C unsweetened apple juice [Billy Bob’s!]
2 C buttermilk
1 tbsp. minced fresh dill
¼ C minced scallions or chives
salt to taste
finely chopped cucumber (for garnish)
*about 4-5 medium beets, more if smaller.
In a blender or food processor, combine the beets, apple juice, and buttermilk and purée until smooth. Transfer to a bowl or storage container and stir in the dill and scallions or chives. Refrigerate at least 2 hours. Add salt to taste and serve topped with finely chopped cucumber.

Beet and Gorgonzola Potato Salad
6 to 8 medium thin-skinned potatoes (such as Yukon Gold or Yellow Finn)
4 medium to large beets
1/3 lb. gorgonzola or feta cheese
1 small red onion, fine dice

Dressing:
1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1-2 tbsp. horseradish
Dried thyme to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Roast potatoes and beets in oven at 425 degrees for 50-60 minutes (until soft when pierced). Let cool. Dice to bite size and mix with diced onion and cheese. Some people like to skin the beets (which you should only do after the roasting), which is quite messy, but has a nicer presentation. Prepare dressing, and toss. Can be served immediately, but flavors blend better if refrigerated overnight.

What to do with all that bok choy?

2010-05-27T17:31:00.002-04:00

This week, Green Fence Farm made its first delivery, on Capitol Hill, and both the full and half share members got what had to be the biggest bok choy ever grown. I have to admit, in handing these out, I broke one the rules my daughter, Viv, wrote when she was six years old (in a treatise called “Rules for the City”): “Never eat anything bigger than your head (sensible advice, almost as good as the rule that said “don’t spread tacks around where people are going to drive”).” But, unless our poor CSA members want to try to keep the heads alive and enter them in county fairs come August, eat it we must. To that end, here are some ideas on what to do with it. The first is from a NW CSA member, and it is what I’ll be cooking tonight:

I love bok choy. So far I've had no luck growing it so I'm excited to hear
we'll be getting some. Here is one of my favorite recipes for it. It's
straight from "A Taste of China" by Ken Hom.

1 lb bok choy
1 T. peanut oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 t. salt
1 T. water

- Prep bok choy by quartering (if big) or halving (if small) and removing core.
Cut leaves from stem.

- Heat oil over high, add garlic, stir fry for about 30 sec.

- Add salt and bok choy stem, stir fry about 1 min.

- Add bok choy leaves, stir fry for till all is cooked. If the mix gets dry,
add water.

This next recipe is what I WAS going to cook tonight, but it is too hot, plus I have no milk or cheese in the house:

Bok Choy Gratin Gourmet | February 2003

The most commonly found Chinese vegetable is also one of the oldest — bok choy has been cultivated in China since the fifth century a.d. You can find many kinds of bok choy at Asian markets, all differing in shape and size; this recipe works well with any mature variety.

Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 1 hr

Yield: Makes 6 side-dish servings

Active Time: 40 min

Total Time: 1 hr

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fine dry bread crumbs
2 1/2 lb bok choy (not baby), tough stem ends trimmed
1 shallot, finely chopped
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 oz Gruyère, coarsely grated (1/2 cup)
1/2 oz finely grated parmesan (1/4 cup)

Preheat oven to 425°F. Lightly butter a 2-quart gratin dish and dust with 2 tablespoons bread crumbs.

Cut bok choy stems and center ribs into 1/2-inch pieces and coarsely chop leaves. Cook stems and ribs in a large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, about 5 minutes, then add leaves and cook 30 seconds. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold water until cool enough to handle. Squeeze out excess water by handfuls.

Cook shallot in 1 tablespoon butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, about 2 minutes. Add bok choy and cook, stirring, until greens are coated with butter and shallot, 1 to 2 minutes. Spread bok choy in baking dish.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then add flour and cook roux, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add milk in a slow stream, whisking constantly, and bring to a boil, whisking. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring, 5 minutes. Add nutmeg, salt, and pepper, then stir in Gruyère and 2 tablespoons parmesan and pour evenly over bok choy.
Toss remaining 1/4 cup bread crumbs with remaining 2 tablespoons parmesan in a small bowl and blend in remaining 2 tablespoons butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle mixture evenly over gratin and bake in upper third of oven until bubbly and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Kate again – there were several comments on this recipe, but this one summed them all up:

I've made this recipe a few more times w/ minor changes and it's now become one of my favorites. I mix half of the mornay sauce in with the greens and spread the remainder on top. This melds veggies and sauce together and makes the whole thing taste delightfully cheesy. I also double the breadcrumb topping, for extra crispy contrast. I've used swiss chard, kale, chinese mustard and bok choy. I also like to add thinly sliced potatoes and/or turnips into the boiling water before adding the stems from the greens. The potato/greens combo is fantastic and will make anyone love leafy greens. Doing the shallot step in the pan you used for the greens will eliminate one extra pan. Still, this makes a lot of dishes.

And finally, a recipe I would have made (since it is so hot, I don’t even want to stir fry), but we already have salad greens out our ears, and my traditionalist family would balk at more than one salad on the table:

ORIENTAL BOK CHOY SALAD
1/2 c. butter
2 tbsp. white sugar
1 bottle of sesame seeds (1 oz.)
2 pkgs. Ramen noodles (broken up), do not use flavor packet
1 sm. pkg. slivered almonds
2 lbs. bok choy lettuce (chopped coarsely)
5 to 6 green onions, tops and all chopped
In large skillet melt butter over medium heat. Add sesame seed, noodles, almonds and sugar. Stir all the time until lightly browned. Set aside to cool to room temperature. Toss bok choy and onions together, mix and chill until ready to serve. Just before serving, break up the crunchy mixture, add to bok choy, pour dressing over, mix and serve.

DRESSING:
3/4 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
1/2 c. white sugar
2 tbsp. soy sauce
Mix well and chill until ready to use.

Rhubarb Crisp

2010-05-20T22:57:00.003-04:00

Thank to Capitol Hill CSA member Jean Flemma for pointing this out.

So easy – and I have to agree with Mark Bittman: better rhubarb alone than with strawberries. CSA members, take note. You should have enough rhubarb for this, and for the rhubarb bread I am making later this week (recipe to come)…

The only thing I disagree with is the whole peeling off the fibrous outer strings “as you would with celery.” I’ve never peeled celery OR rhubarb.

Rhubarb Crisp That Stands Up to Pie
By MARK BITTMAN
WHEN you think of rhubarb you probably think of strawberry-rhubarb pie, a quintessential spring dessert, especially if it’s made by someone who makes good pies. I usually manage around one pie crust annually, so I need alternatives. Thus, when the spring’s first rhubarb showed up, I adjusted the execution and produced a crisp.
Perhaps equally intriguing is that I ditched the strawberries. Not that I don’t like them, or the combination, but good rhubarb arrives much earlier than good strawberries do (they don’t really show up in the Northeast until June). Besides, with each passing year I appreciate rhubarb solo more.
If rhubarb is young and fresh, you can trim it in seconds. If it has fibrous outer strings, peel them off as you would those of celery. Just slide a paring knife under the topmost layer, grab the outer skin of the stalk with your thumb, and pull. This might take a minute.
Toss the rhubarb with orange or lemon juice and zest, and only a little sugar. I use a quarter cup or so — it seems to be enough — though you won’t go awry by adding another couple of tablespoons. (You can also substitute strawberries for some of the rhubarb if you want the classic combination.)
Blend the ingredients for the crisp topping in a food processor, but be sure to add the oats and pecans last so that you retain some crispness in your crisp. Crumble the topping over the rhubarb mixture, and bake — it is nearly effortless and as good or better than a pie.

Rhubarb CrispTime: About 1 hour, largely unattended

6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces, plus more for greasing pan

2 1/2 to 3 pounds rhubarb, trimmed, tough strings removed, and cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces (about 5 to 6 cups)

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon orange or lemon juice

1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, or to taste

Pinch salt

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup pecans.

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square baking or gratin dish with a little butter. Toss rhubarb with white sugar, orange or lemon juice and zest, and spread in baking dish.

2. Put the 6 tablespoons butter in a food processor along with brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt, and pulse for about 20 or 30 seconds, until it looks like small peas and just begins to clump together. Add oats and pecans and pulse just a few times to combine.

3. Crumble the topping over rhubarb and bake until golden and beginning to brown, 45 to 50 minutes.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Happy Belated Mother's Day

2010-05-15T15:26:00.003-04:00

I actually wrote this post last week, but the original picture I had of Mary the lamb was on one of my many emergency back-up cameras, the one with the battery that works, but with the picture storage thing that doesn't seem to fit into my computer or any of the other 319 cords I have for transfering pictures from one place to another. So this week, I took another picture on the right camera, then took it again after recharging the batteries, and only today got it uploaded. In any case, this is what I wrote last week, when it was timely, and to go with a completely different picture:

Our first (and thus far, only) lamb arrived last week, but I thought I would save her (yes, a she) for today. She is a week and a half early, but not premature, her birth coming around 143 days after our stud jumped the fence (143 days being the gestation period of the Icelandic sheep, give or take a couple of minutes).

Her mom is from our Bambi breeding family, a long line of horned, hardy sluts – a compliment in the sheep world. She is the first non-white sheep we’ve had from this line (the white gene is super dominant, and the moorit (that’s sheep for brown) is recessive. The mother’s father was a moorit, and the father this year was a moorit, so there was a 50-50 chance we’d get one).

The rest of the sheep are ready to pop any minute. Get ready for more pictures!

DC Kids to Get Good Food in School

2010-05-03T09:13:00.002-04:00

I am so proud of the District!

This article makes me happy – I’ve stopped drinking soda, but I might just go out and buy a crate full just to support this program.

If you are a District resident, please contact your councilmember and let them know how much you appreciate their support for this (I think it is important to contact politicians when they do something you like, not just when your angry – the chai latte antidote to the Tea Party). You can find their email and phone numbers here; the vote is supposedly tomorrow. Post if you call!

The picture, by the way, is Alice Waters – THAT Alice Waters – who has endorsed the DC program.

Duck, Duck, Egg

2010-04-23T22:42:00.001-04:00

If they weren’t loud, stupid, smelly, and dirty, ducks would be the perfect farm animal. They don’t mind the cold, we didn’t lose a one during the snows this winter, and the ducks don’t even have to have a house. The chickens, with their insulated gypsy wagons, still managed to die in astounding numbers, but the ducks weren’t put off their daily routine of quacking wildly at every single thing that came near their pen and pooping.

And now that it’s Spring, we are getting 21 duck eggs a day (with only 20 female ducks – someone is overachieving). There is a small, but fiercely loyal, group of regular duck egg customers. These are either folks who are allergic to chicken eggs (and most are NOT allergic to duck eggs) or fanatics like Nick who think chicken eggs are pale imitations of the bigger, yolkier, robuster duck egg. The latter treat the arrival of duck eggs like white truffles straight off the plane from Italy. The other group of customers is the curious and culinary adventurous. And it was from one of these, a new CSA member, I got a good duck egg tip.

I had passed on to him my baking rule for duck eggs – 1 duck egg = 1.5 chicken eggs. He tested that on soft boiling, cooking a chicken egg for 4 minutes and a duck egg for 6. Perfect in both cases!

OK, I know this is not really a recipe, but as we get into the season of fresh everything, I realize that recipes are oh so not important. Really, you want to cook that fabulous 1 day out of the ground asparagus INTO something – to what? Mask its flavor with cheese (normally something I applaud, by the way)? Why cook it at all? Eat it raw and on the way home from buying it. Come to the farm and eat it out of the ground. No, this is the time of year when you don’t need a cooking channel. You need a “eat everything as fresh and unprocessed as possible channel.

Green Farm at WIS in NW SUNDAY, 11-3

2010-04-14T21:52:00.004-04:00

That’s right, Kate and Nick will be hawking eggs, greens (including ASPARAGUS), gourd bowls, sought-after Green Fence Farm T-shirts, guinea fowl, ground beef, and other assorted goodies 11 AM – 3 PM, Sunday, April 18 at the WIS bazaar. If you missed out on the greens at our last DC drop, come on over this time -- we should have more to sell.

Also, bad news for our CSA and Buying Club friends, contrary to what I told you earlier, this is our LAST DC delivery until the season starts on May 26 on Capitol Hill, so you may want to lay some eggs in now. We had planned to come back 2 more times before that, but massive confusion (our normal state) over when it was our oldest daughter was graduating and a date for our pigs to go to the butcher messed everything up. So come to WIS on Sunday and don't complain later that I didn't warn you.

WIS is located in NW DC very close to our NW pick-up point (see directions below). The bazaar is an annual fund raising event that includes an incredible international lunch buffet (the reason you won’t see much of Nick at our stand), kid’s games, REAL high tea, arts and crafts booths, and, of course, US.

We should have a good load of vegetables at this showing – for those of you who came to the drop off last week only to find the first three people took all the greens. And eggs, lots of eggs.

We’re not taking pre-orders this time, but mention you are a CSA or Buying Club member and get 10% off.

Come for the discount, come for the cool kid games, come for the great food, or just come to keep us company! Hope to see you there.

Directions to WIS Bazaar at the Tregaron Campus From Washington DC (downtown): From Connecticut Avenue, Macomb Street is located between the National Zoo and the Uptown Theatre. Take Connecticut north and turn left on Macomb Street two blocks past the Zoo. Entrance gates for the school are on your left marked by signs.

Metro: Cleveland Park Metro is about four blocks from the school – South on Connecticut, right on Macomb, the school driveway will be on your left.

Parking: Available on Macomb before you enter the school, along the driveway of the school, in a lot to your right as you go down the Hill leaving the school, and on Klingle after you exit the school.

Green Fence Farm Offering On Farm Pastured Poultry Seminars this Summer

2010-04-08T10:22:00.006-04:00

Sign up now for Green Fence Farm’s pastured poultry seminars this summer. All day, on-farm experience for the hobby farmer or small farm wanting to get into the lucrative pasture raised egg and meat business. Covers everything from the economics of feed, housing, equipment, and sales to butchering to specialty fowl and rabbits. Seminars run from 10 AM – 4 PM several Saturdays and Sundays through the summer. Read more in the document I really hope I attached here.

And you urbanites, you don’t have to want to raise chickens to enjoy this day on the farm. You’ll get an up close (or as up close as you want – you don’t have to attend the butchering segment) look at how we raise our meat and eggs. And you get lunch!

Asparagus and other signs of Spring...

2010-04-07T22:32:00.010-04:00

As a lucky few of our Buying Club members know, the first asparagus is in – a full two weeks before we saw any last year. On the right, a picture of the way asparagus grows – right out of the ground like some greens-fairy has come along and planted them there. We hope to have lots of asparagus to sell at the WIS market, April 18.

Another sign of Spring is the first Mennonite market. I was so happy to be back in the (now expanded) barn this last Tuesday, filled with the most amazing array of bedding plants. We bought enough started broccoli to feed Napoleon’s army (see our car) thoughI did not get any of the hanging baskets I came for (for me!) – by the time they got down to a price I liked -- Nick had filled the car with the aforementioned broccoli plants. He also got some rhubarb plants from 70 year old cuttings.

And though I don’t really like to take pictures at the auction – these may be the last unspoiled plain folk in the US -- I fell in love with the girls in these pictures, and I am sharing them only in the hope and expectation (in the words of former Majority Leader Mitchell) that none of you will see this incredible time warp place as an opportunity to introduce a shoe outlet mall or multi-media “life of the Mennonites” event (I never recovered from my one trip out to see the Pennsylvanian Dutch)

Washington Post, Hamming it Up

2010-04-01T10:46:00.002-04:00

The Washington Post had a great article of fresh ham yesterday – which makes sense since Sunday is Easter. Green Fence Farm will have fresh ham (and the rest of the pig) in about a month (in keeping with our motto, “always a day late and a dollar short”) in time to be well clear of any pork eating holiday. And though I have not tried the recipe listed here, we have brined and smoked fresh ham, and it is even better than the author says (and this author does go on and on). Read it here.

California, farmers markets, and one very cool link

2010-03-29T21:55:00.004-04:00

Sorry about the fact that you all had to look at Nick’s mug for a solid week, but Viv and I were in California looking at colleges (for Viv – she is trying to figure out the maximum distance she can get from the farm without actually leaving the country). Low point: Disneyland’ California Adventure, where the “Farmer’s Market” eatery celebrating “California’s farm fresh tradition” featured “hamburgers, hot dogs, and fries.” Not even a pre-packaged salad. High point: San Francisco, where you can’t walk five feet without tripping over a farmers’ market.

In any case, we’re home and ready to start the Green Fence Farm buying season. If you are a reader of this page, in the DC metro area, and NOT a member of our buyers’ club, email me RIGHT NOW and get on our list. We’ll be sending out a pathetically short list of products tomorrow evening to buying club members, so make sure you get a chance to order now (and even more so in the future when we have lots to sell).

And for all of you CSA and Buying Club members anticipating the part of year when we actually get some green stuff, check out this link sent to me by Liz, ersatz family member and Austin’s girlfriend/roommate. It answers far better than I can the question, when can I expect produce and what am I supposed to do with it. Click here to play…

Green Fence Farm and Nick in 3/17 WaPo!

2010-03-18T17:33:00.003-04:00

Media hound, Nick Auclair, got Green Fence Farm a mention in yet another press piece, this one a Washington Post story on local slaughter houses written by Sam Fromatz, one of our Capitol Hill customers. We quite enjoy the reference to Nick selling "out of the back of his truck" -- it gives us that edgy tinge we like to cultivate.

Read the story here: Local slaughterhouses come back to life

And Sam's blog post on writing the article here: Where Animals Become Local Meat: A Virginian Slaughterhouse

Tops and Bottoms

2010-03-14T10:13:00.002-04:00

I spend a lot of February and March shifting through emails signing up (or resigning up) old and new members for our DC CSA (just a few shares left, check here for details). This is preceded by a January that I spend arguing with Nick that there has to be a better way to process orders. Other businesses have automatic web sign-ups with little shopping carts to click and, I assume, wonderful reports generated with everyone’s email, phone number, and payments all itemized. I answer email queries, try to write a personal note to everyone who joins, and read whatever information they want to share with me.

I know this is inefficient, but I think it makes me a better farmer. I don’t want to give a ratty box of strawberries to someone I feel like I know. And I think it gives my customers a little more connection to their food; there’s a human they know handing them that box of strawberries. The last Senator Willaim Proxmire was convinced that the only campaigning he needed to do was shake as many hands as he could across Wisconsin. “A man who shakes your hand will never vote against you.” My archaic ordering system is like that.

Which leads me to the book linked above: Tops and Bottoms. We’ve always had families with kids as customers, but this year it seems like we picked up several more. Tops and Bottoms is a great way to introduce kids(up to about second grade) to farm produce, in a fun, non-hectoring way. It is a classic trickster story of a family of rabbits who trick a lazy farmer. The rabbits offer to farm his land for him and split the crop. First they give him the top half (and grow root crops, like beets, and carrots). Then they give him the bottom half (and grow veggies like lettuce and squash). Finally, they give him the tops and bottoms saving the middles for themselves (corn). Our CSA members will see a lot of the vegetables in this story as our year goes on, and Tops and Bottoms is a fun way to make those veggies less strange to the more suspicious members of the family (not that they’ll eat them; I don’t promise miracles).

Sugar Snap Peas, St. Patrick's Day, and the Slow Food Movement

2010-03-12T17:32:00.005-05:00

I’m doing two things to get ready for St. Patrick’s Day – ordering sugar snap peas to plant (since it is good luck to do so on St. Patrick’s day) and corning my own beef (following this Cooks Illustrated recipe – the picture to the left is the beef right after it got it’s salt rub (ala the finer spa treatments)). Doing both of these has led me to an epiphany about slow food (that is, local seasonal food you process yourself).

Food is better if you have to plan for it, wait for it, and work a little for it.

I can get sugar snap peas right now at Whole Foods. They are from Chile, and while not as sweet or crunchy as the ones we’ll start picking in May, I could have them immediately without any intervening period of crawling in the frozen mud or fretting over vines that come off the trellis during rains or picking for hours in one spot without making any dent in the pea population.

But during all that crawling, fretting, and picking, I’m also anticipating that first crunch and spurt of sweet. I’m thinking about the way the farm will be when I eat those first peas – warm, green, noisy with baby animals. The Chilean peas are easy and available, vegetable sluts, really. But they also come without sensory baggage, the good kind. They aren’t special; they are just food.

I could also buy corn beef – and the cabbage and potatoes I’ll serve with it (instead of using the cabbage and potatoes from last Fall I have stored). But I wouldn’t do that, mostly because I don’t really like corned beef, or I didn’t think I did.

The recipe for making corned beef came to my email this morning, and I decided to use the sirloin tip roast I was going to braise for this instead (not the cut the recipe calls for, but I bet the Irish didn’t just use the brisket, since, like flank steak, there just isn’t that much of it in a cow). While getting the beef ready, I thought about St. Patrick’s Day when I was a kid. We always had corned beef, cabbage, and boiled potatoes – the only time we ever had it. I remember not really liking it, but appreciating the shot at potatoes with butter, a rarity in my house where my mother practiced a strict anti-starch religion.

And I can see my Dad tucking into it, relishing it like a memory of the Old Country, claiming he loved it and why didn’t we have it more often. My father was not Irish, though he did resemble a happy Leprechaun. And he did enjoy a good holiday designed around food and drink. Opera night he was Italian, tears running down his face at arias he didn’t understand and plates of spaghetti washed down with Bolla Valpolicella at Chicago’s Italian Village. Oktoberfest it was beer and brats at the local Kicker’s Club. His birthday, he became a good ol’ boy, eating my Texan grandmothers lard fried chicken with Pinot Grigio (which my grandmother pronounced “pee-nee-oo gree-gee-oo” In an “ee-i-ee-i-o” rythmn).

And St, Patrick’s Day, beer and corned beef cabbage, a meal I am, to my surprise, eagerly anticipating next Wednesday. The more we slow our food down, the more it gives us in taste, context, and pleasure.

Northwest Current Article featuring Green Fence Farm

2010-03-10T14:58:00.006-05:00

Click here to read the article, which also appeared in the Dupont Current, the Georgetown Current, and the Foggy Bottom Current.

The article appeared a few weeks back, but I only now figured out how to load it on the website. We really loved the write-up, nice to see in print an accurate report of exactly how much money we are losing doing this. They picked my favorite pictures too – especially the one of Viv aggressively NOT picking beans….

Yesterday Soup: Best Soup Ever

2010-03-08T21:49:00.007-05:00

Remember that stock we made last week. Here’s how to use it to make the best soup ever.

By the end of the week, I have a refrigerator full of odds and ends. In the freezer, there are always a few containers of frozen one or two serving dinners that just hadn’t made it back to the table.

These are the building blocks of Leftover Soup – a fabulous and fabulously easy recipe that lets you revisit favorite meals, costs nothing, and is probably good for you.

The result is a soup that has hints of everything you ate the week before – a little Chinese spice from the leftover General Tsao’s, a beef flavor from the Tuesday meat loaf, some crunch from fried chicken Friday.

In its most basic form, leftover soup is made by saving all the leftovers from a week’s meals – leftover bread or other starches included, taking them on (for me, usually) Monday, dumping them in the crock pot, adding stock and water (if your stock is reduced down), cooking on low all day, and eating when you get home. Do take meat off the bones, but no other prep is needed. If you want Cream of Yesterday soup, use an immersion blender on the brew before serving.

OK, that is the no frill, no work version of Leftover Soup. But to make the Best Soup Ever takes a little more thought.

I discovered this Saturday, a day I was in the city, but without plans, child, or husband. I also had a refrigerator full of bits and pieces of leftovers that I I had hoped to eat during the week, but were still there come Saturday.

I started a sauté pan with some butter and added green onion (grown from one of our onions that had gone old and started to grow – you can do that you know), garlic, three whole dried cayenne peppers (from our garden, dried in the bathtub in the basement). I added some leftover harissa from the Capitol Hill restaurant Cava (harissa is a hot pepper and oil dip, I believe of African origins, but made by Cava, a greek mezza restaurant on Capitol Hill, and available at Whole foods). I also blended in Curry powder, garam masala, and ground fenugreek seeds.

I let this concoction sauté for a while, mostly to enjoy how great it made the house smell. Before the garlic burned, I added a couple cups of stock and some water (since my stock was quite reduced down and gelatinous). I covered the mixture and let it bubble away for a while – maybe an hour. If your lid is not tight and the liquid reduces down, add more back as you notice the level falling.

About 30 minute before I wanted to eat (maybe less), I first pulled out the dried chili pods. Then I threw in the low simmering pot the leftovers I had gleaned from the fridge – a bowl of Asian noodles in peanut sauce, a bowl of spicy chicken tikki masala (off the bone), a bowls of lightly cooked mixed veggies.

That’s it – the final result was incredibly spicy – which I wanted – probably the result of the harissa. But I loved it – and it was a one bowl meal, with a selection of veggies, tasty chicken, and Asian noodles.

The beauty of Leftover Soup is that you can choose the flavors from the last few weeks you want to revisit, you can add any herbs or other flavors you just want in any dish (for me, garlic and hot peppers), and you can use your own delicious stock.

Guinea Hens, mmmmmm

2010-03-06T10:16:00.006-05:00

OK, I know I promised to post Guinea fowl/hen recipes here soon, but I was waiting to fix my favorite recipe and remember not to eat it before I took pictures. For the record here’s the recipe,

Roasted Guinea Hen with Whole Grain Mustard and Herbs.

And the reason I haven’t made it yet to photograph is that all my potatoes are at the farm and I am in DC. One of the best things about this recipe is the potatoes roasted along with the Guinea, crispy and tasting of hen and butter. I sometimes take the birds out of the pan to sit and settle a bit and put the potatoes back in the oven for a little more crisping.

In any case, I knew it was time to post this recipe when I got a call from Nick this morning saying he had “looked through the blog and couldn’t find the guinea hen recipes.” This is unprecedented – Nick does not cook or read recipes (or follow instructions of any kind), and Nick does not read our blog or website (his comments: “that looks like OUR Thanksgiving turkey on there”). He had, however, promised a couple of potential buyers that, if they took our hens, he could tell them, in a nice way, what to do with them. So here you go, potential buyers – get your checkbooks out!

And in searching for a picture of a cooked yet uneaten Guinea hen, I found this post on Principia Gastronomica that describes the care of taste of these birds much more succinctly than I.

I know some of our Buying Club members have bought Guinea fowl, and if you have done something with them besides curse the space they are taking up in your freezer, please post your ideas here – or email them to me with pictures.

My choice for the Oscars: Food Inc.

2010-03-05T22:47:00.002-05:00

(You have to watch this trailer -- if for no other reason than it took me about three hours to figure out how to make it appear here).

I know, even with 10 movies on the “Best Picture” list this year (I haven’t even seen 10 movies this year, and that includes counting Food Inc. twice), my favorite isn’t on that list, but is nominated for best full length documentary. And it should walk away with the prize (not that I have seen, or even know of, any of the others. In fact, I don’t like documentaries, and I don’t think I’ve watched one in the theater since I was a kid and The Ra Expedition was the only movie playing in our one-horse, one-theater town for three whole weeks).

And it is not just that this movie is a two hour infomercial (a good one! Not the creepy type for hair removal products with Cher) for the kind of food we produce. Not just that our mentor and neighbor, Joel Salatin, is the good guy in the movie (they show him slaughtering chickens in a facility that could be ours). And not just because I have a crush on Michael Pollan (he is my old lady version of Davy Jones) who is featured throughout the movie speaking in his smooth, slightly amused voice sounding all smart and reasonable but with a tinge of passion.

More than all that, Food Inc. changed the way I think about what I eat, the way I eat, and, as a result, the way I live. And this is from someone who had, well before I saw the movie, decided to grow most of my own food, and what I couldn’t, to source locally.

I know what you are thinking – I know because several of you have already told me -- you don’t need to see a movie that puts you off your hamburger with gruesome slaughterhouse scenes. But even though Nick calls this movie a modern-day Sinclair Lewis-s “The Jungle,” its yuckiness factor is quite low. I’ve watched episodes of Law and Order that were much worse.

It is not the pictures that are disturbing in this movie (though it is often visually stunning); it is how it lays bare how big agri-business and food processors have enriched themselves by selling us food that has made us one of the sickest, fattest nations on earth. And I don’t believe we are a country of dolts. But Food Inc. shows that we have been lied to, injured, even killed in great numbers for money.

Yeah, that’s heavy stuff, But Food Inc. -- with cool but creepy music, crisp editing, the complete absence of a lecturing tone, real, charming characters (the aforementioned Pollan and Salatin to name two), and a positive ending – is not a heavy movie. Believe it or not, it’s fun to watch.

At its end, Food Inc. gives you realistic ways to escape the unhealthy, dishonest food we’ve all lived (and died) on for too long – and not horrible, unrealistic ideas like becoming a vegan (no offense to you already there) or never having another Ho Ho. In fact, if you are reading this blog, you probably are already removing yourself from the polluted food mainstream, buying from us or other local producers, demanding to know where you food comes from and who produces it before you feed it to your family.

So see the movie (or at least watch the trailer above), validate choices you already made, and let me know what you think.

Food Inc. is out on DVD and available to rent on Netflix and to buy at Amazon.

Leah

2010-03-04T14:29:00.002-05:00

Mostly, this blog is about food, specifically the food I and you make from Green Fence Farm products. But sometimes the blog is about the farm and the souls that make it work. Leah, on the right with her sister, Lily, to the left, was one of those; today Nick pays tribute to her:

Leah, our Great Pyrenees sheep/goat guardian dog, died recently. She was an amazing dog—a gentle giant with an old soul. Despite a long history of hip dysplasia, she performed her duties wonderfully, without complaint. She asked for nothing—except for a bear hug or to sit on your feet. Several ewes were her friends—sitting together. Leah, during lambing time, would always find a ewe giving birth in the woods and lay protecting her in a most vulnerable moment.

Her greatest joy was for a person to sit on the ground so she could lie on top of them. She would have made a lousy pet—a big hairy, slobbery, ottoman sized dog—but as guard dog with hundreds of years of breeding she was well suited for her work. As we laid her to rest near a burial spot for past sheep and goats—so she could continue to perform the work she loved-- a flock of geese flew by in a seemingly memorial fly over. I’d like to think that her nemeses, the pack of coyotes that prowl the woods nearby, stood in silence for a moment to honor a fallen adversary. It will be hard to find another Leah—but her sister Lily will need another partner. I found more coyote tracks outside the perimeter fence and possibly a mountain lion track. The fight goes on—Leah would want that.

Nick

Taking Stock, Making Stock

2010-03-03T20:11:00.002-05:00

When we started to farm for a living, the way I cooked changed – more than changed, turned inside out. I used to start with the recipe and searched down the ingredients, clutching my Gourmet, hunting that spice only found in “specialty Asian markets.” Now I start with ingredients – what’s in the freezer, garden, cold storage, and what can I do with it.

I wish that I made the change because I had become a cook who had advanced beyond the cookbooks – hardly. It is much more because that “making a living farming” comment above is really a joke. There is no room in the budget for pheasant from France when I have three chest freezers full of Guinea hen from my backyard.

And I don’t have to be a very good cook to work in this “ingredients first” way – because when the produce is straight from the garden and the proteins are pasture raised and processed well, it is hard to wreck a meal – and even harder to justify doing much more than sautéing in butter (or bacon fat!) or roasting over potatoes.

Which brings me to stock – if you are cooking by following ingredients rather than recipes (or, the technical term, “winging it with what you have”) you have to have good, homemade stock around – for instant soups, sauces, braising liquids.

My favorite sort of stock falls into the category of Ghosts of Dinners Past – stocks made from the leftovers of a roasted bird, most deliciously, turkey (though I am becoming partial to roasted Guinea Hen stock too).

We had a 19 pound turkey on Sunday for an open house. As Nick carved it for the platter, he tossed the carcass into my stock pot. Later as we cleaned up, the extra garnishes from the turkey platter went in as well, as did the carrots and celery from a veggie platter (on Thanksgiving, we throw the leftover potatoes and brussel sprouts in too, sometimes broccoli, cauliflower, rolls – Nick swears he can taste Thanksgiving in the soups made from that broth, like a wine connoisseur tasting the Burgundy spring air in his plonk ).

The stock pot can sit quietly on the stove, carcass covered, during dinner or the party. At night, we tie the lid on and set it outside (if it is going to be freezing, might as well treat the world as your own walk in freezer). In the morning, it goes on the stove, filled with water, and covered. Do not salt – later you will want to reduce the stock down – and even later when you use it for who knows what, you may reduce it down more. Salt doesn’t reduce down, and your stock will be nasty salty if you start salting at the beginning.

At night, back outside to cool. The next day, I scoop out as much of the bones and other junk as I can and boil the remaining liquid down to at least on half, and often more than that. . Cool, strain, freeze. The next day (or when you use it), scrape the fat off the top.

And what to use it for – oh come on, EVERYTHING, but stay tuned. Saturday, I think I’ll use some of this batch to make one of my favorites, leftover soup.

Chuck Roast with Orange and Cinnamon ala Mike Davis

2010-03-02T22:21:00.002-05:00

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to update this blog more often, or at all. Another one of my New Year’s resolutions was to carry through on at least ONE of my New Year’s Resolutions sometime around New Year’s itself.

Oh well, Happy Chinese New Year, and here we go. I am going to update this sucker every day, or at least more than once a week. We have all sorts of new Buying Club and CSA members who I am sure will be happy to see I am typing my thoughts on food rather than cashing their checks or ordering seeds so that there is something in their baskets come June.

But here is the thought I was having about food yesterday: There are a lot of roasts in a cow. There is a lot of hamburger too (and only a teeeeeny bit of good stuff like filet and flank stead), but I can easily think of things to do with hamburger (like, say, make hamburgers). The roasts mostly need braising -- which would be fine if I didn’t live with Nick who won’t eat anything that can be described as “stew.”

So that leaves me with pot roasts that don’t fall off the bone or involve mushy potatoes or carrots (the latter, Viv’s demand).

Last night I tried a version of this unstewy, uncarroty braised meat dish sent to me by CSA member Mike Davis. I used a top blade chuck roast, though I imagine this could work on the tougher pieces of meat (it better, because we are out of top blade and the cow we had hoped to take to the butcher this month just isn’t the right size yet). I also got to use some oranges and fresh tomatoes I picked up on the way home from Florida last week. And this was the perfect dish for my very favorite big ol’ (yes, that is the official size) cast iron pot with a lid.

Brown the roast on both sides in some olive oil in the big ol’ pot on top of the stove. Remove the meat from the pan. Add to the hot and brown crunchy oil a couple rough chopped onions, maybe 3-8 (I like 8) whole, peeled garlic cloves, and a whole cinnamon stick. Cooks those until the onions are translucent, 5-10 minutes.

Turn off the heat, add a couple of peeled and halved oranges and a large rough cut tomato. Pour 2-4 cups of homemade chicken or turkey stock (I had stock going on the stove from turkey the day before, so yay me!). Salt and pepper to taste, and braise (covered with the big ol’ lid) in a preheated 300 degree oven for 3-4 hours (Mike used 275 degrees, but I was running behind and needed it to be done more in the 3 hour range).

When it’s done braising, remove the meat and keep it warm. Throw out the cinnamon stick and as much as the orange as you can recover (mine mostly disintegrated). Puree the remaining muck and boil it down to about 2-3 cups for sauce. Mike serves it over egg noodles – I used rice. It was great.

The picture above is of the meat right before it went in the oven. There was supposed to be a fabulous “here it is done” picture but we ate it too quickly – which I guess is a good thing.

Kate

Chief of Staff by Day/Chef by Night

2009-12-18T19:42:00.009-05:00

Great GFF friend, Phil Karsting was recently profiled in Politico on his cooking prowess. He is quite a food photographer, too. He recently sent the following recipes and pictures of his preparation of GFF rabbit and turnips (actually, he sent them a month ago and I am just now posting them).

Braised GFF Rabbit with Mustard Greens and Homemade Bacon

Saute lardons of bacon on pretty low heat, and at the same time carmelize onion halves in the same pan. While that's happening cut the rabbit - I had no idea it was basically like taking apart a chicken - piece 'o cake.. rinse, dry, season rabbit parts. Remove lardons and onions from pan and brown rabbit.

Once brown, remove from pan and deglaze with some sweet vermouth....that's the only sweet booze i had handy, though others would work well too.

Then add mustard green, put rabbit on the bed of greens, return onions to pan and throw in some lardons of bacon, if you haven't snacked your way through all of them already.

Add some water and braise in 300 degree oven for a couple hours.

GFF turnip soup

This recipe was in the Washington Post and is very good (and some of my turnips were stored less than perfectly and had gotten a tad limp....didn't matter).

Nothing too unusual: sweat onions in butter, add a bunch of turnips and a small potato, then chicken stock/water. Puree and add some nutmeg. The recipe calls for a little basil as garnish but our end of year basil was looking tough and tasted kind of dodge.

Beautiful!

The Best Thanksgiving Turkey Anywhere

2009-11-30T19:20:00.007-05:00

Here is Kate's write-up for how she cooks her Thanksgiving turkey. This year, she cooked her own pasture-raised heritage turkey, which was pretty fantastic.

The turkey is really an amalgamation of Julia Child and my take on it. The best write up she does of turkey is in From Julia Child's Kitchen and NOT in any of the later books where she takes to deboning and reconstructing the whole dang bird, way more work than they require. So here is what I do:

Take the neck and whatever innards you have out and brown in hot but not burning oil until brown. Remove them and add in about 2 cups each of chopped carrots and onions and cooked those in the pan, covered, about 5-10 minutes until tender. Take out half of the vegetables to use to flavor the turkey cavity (put the bones and giblets back in the post with the other half of the veggies, season with a little salt, some sage, a bay leaf, cover with stock and about a cup of white wine, and simmer partially covered for three or so hours, then reduce down to use as a base for your gravy).

For the turkey, make sure it is defrosted thoroughly, rinse and pat really dry, then smear all over with at least one stick of softened butter. Make sure you toss some in the cavity as well. Stuff the cavity with parsley springs, celery tops, dried thyme and sage (about 1/2 tsp each), a little salt and the half of the cooked carrots and onions you took out of the gravy starter. Tie him up (I don't try to do it too fancy, just get the wings secured to the body and the cavity closed up best you can, salt lightly, and place on a rack in a roasting pan breast down. Cook in a preheated 325 oven according to the time table below. Baste every 30 minutes. When it is about 90 minutes before the turkey is done, flip it on its back (make sure you do this no later than an hour before the earliest finish time for your turkey so the breast has time to get done). Cooking it this way ensures that the breast meat is moist and the skin is crispy all round. Do not forget to let the turkey rest before carving; it will fall apart -- much better to be done too early than to late -- you can always tent the turkey in tin foil until you are ready to carve.

Timetable for a moderately chilled, unstuffed turkey:

Pounds: 6-8

Hours roasting at 325: 2 3/4 - 3 1/2

Buffer: 20 min

Rest Before Carving: 20 min

Estimated Safe Total: 4 1/4

Pounds:8-12

Hours roasting at 325: 3 1/4-4

Buffer: 20 min

Rest Before Carving: 20 min

Estimated Safe Total: 4 1/2-4 3/4

Pounds:12-16

Hours roasting at 325: 3 1/2 - 4 1/2

Buffer: 30

Rest Before Carving: 30

Estimated Safe Total: 5 1/2

Pounds: 16-20

Hours roasting at 325: 4-6

Buffer: 30

Rest Before Carving: 30

Estimated Safe Total: 5 1/2 - 7

Pounds: 20-26

Hours roasting at 325: 5 1/2- 7 1/2

Buffer: 30

Rest Before Carving: 30

Estimated Safe Total: 7-8 1/2

Thanksgiving on Green Fence Farm

2009-11-29T09:41:00.007-05:00

Reviewing my annual list of things in my life for which I am thankful, Green Fence Farm sits near the top. While I love the farm, this has more to do with our friendly proprietors. Some of us are lucky enough to be born into strong and wonderful families. Some of us aren't. In either case, family is what we make of it. Kate and Nick are builders. They have built this farm, but it is really so much more than a farm. Starting with a strong foundation, they have built a huge extended family; we are blessed to be members.

Don and I have spent all but one of the last fifteen Thanksgivings with Kate and her family (maybe more but I have lost count). This is the third Thanksgiving on the farm and it reminds us of our many blessings. One cannot help but feel fortunate when taking in the beauty of the land and the warmth of the friendship. While my list of blessings is too long for this blog, here are some we might share:

I am thankful for Kate's health this year and her boundless energy to make this family and farm work.
I am thankful that Kate and Nick have brought the farm to us in the city, making us healthier and happier (if not a little guilty when I can't figure out what to do with everything in our share).
I am thankful for the pasture raised turkey. (Rumor has it that many of you could be thankful for this next year. Start your lobbying now, because it is pretty wonderful.)
I am thankful for fresh brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, straight from the garden.
I am thankful for shearing day and the celebration! (your loss if you missed it; it was great.)

I am thankful as well for the three people who have asked Kate, "what has happened to your blog?" I have been a little busy this fall, but I have a few things I will be posting soon. If you are worried, please send your recipes to keep the blog alive.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Aubergine

2009-10-18T11:45:00.008-04:00

I love eggplant.

I love the color, the texture, the taste. I especially like the french name for it, aubergine. Much better than the english, yes?

I didn't even know that eggplant existed until I was in my twenties, living in Seattle, and frequenting the Pike Place Market (the ultimate of farmers' markets). It is such an unusual vegetable; or is it?

Did you know that eggplant is actually more similar to a fruit, from the same family as tomatoes?

Did you know that the first person to cultivate eggplant in the United States was Nick's favorite farmer, the great Thomas Jefferson? Word is that he really didn't know what to do with them and that it wasn't until immigrants from southern Europe and the Middle East came to the United States that its popularity increased.

A brief history of eggplant can be found at this Village Voice article from last year.

We have lots of eggplants in our share this week, so please send your favorite eggplant recipes to Kate or to me, to share here. Pictures would be great but not required.

One of my favorite recipes is from the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (the first one), Roasted Eggplant Spread. This is so simple--cubed eggplant, red bell peppers, red onion, and garlic, tossed in olive oil, salt and paper, and roasted until they are lightly brown and soft. Blended in a food processor, it makes the best spread. It is luscious. This recipe makes a lot, which is pretty great for leftovers (although it doesn't last very long in our house).

Moving to Spanish influence, José Andrés (Jaleo, Zatanyia's, Oyamel) combines similar ingredients into a wonderful tapas dish, Roasted Eggplant, Pepper, Onion, and Tomatoes, Catalan-style. There is also a wonderful looking Rack of Lamb with Honey Allioli on the same page.

In August, I had posted a couple eggplant recipes from Ottolenghi. I tried the marinated eggplant with oregano and tahini but without the tahini and it was really fantastic. A bit spicy but a nice combination of flavors and very easy to prepare.

Tomatoes

2009-09-06T19:45:00.010-04:00

What to do with all those tomatoes?

We had neighbors over this evening for a glass of wine and appetizers. It seemed like an opportunity to try out a few things with the our GFF tomatoes. The most important thing about these heirloom tomatoes is to let their flavor take center stage. The ones I have now are showing their age a bit, so I thought something along the bruschetta line made sense.

I used as my starting point a recipe for Cherry Tomato Crostini with Ricotta from my newest cookbook "A Platter of Figs and other recipes" by David Tanis (who could resist a cookbook entitled a platter of figs). However, I did take great liberties with it. Here is my adapted recipe using GFF heirloom tomatoes and local goat cheese:

3 large heirloom tomatoes, seeded, chopped, and drained

1 large shallot, finely minced

2 Tbs red wine vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

2 garlic cloves, crushed, plus a couple more cloves for rubbing toast

1 loaf ciabatta

1/4 - 1/3 lb fresh goat cheese (I used the chevre from Cherry Glen, Boyds, Md)

basil leaves, chopped

Mix shallot and red wine vinegar together and allow to sit for a few minutes

Heat 1/2 cup olive oil in a small saute pan. Add 2 crushed cloves of garlic and saute for a couple minutes. Remove garlic and add the olive oil to the shallots. Add tomatoes, some salt and pepper to taste. Allow to sit for a few minutes.

Slice the ciabatta into 1/2 inch slices. Arrange on a baking sheet and toast on both sides under broiler until lightly toasted. Rub toast with with peeled garlic clove.

Spread goat cheese on toast and arrange on a platter. Use slotted spoon to put a heaping tablespoon of the tomato mixture on each toast. Sprinkle basil leaves over crostini.

Enjoy!

Send in your tomato recipes to the blog (either to Kate or to me at donb.sarahd@gmail.com and I will post them here).

More CSA E-mails: Shephard's Pie

2009-09-04T18:33:00.010-04:00

One CSA member, Selena Rebleto e-mailed Kate a while back with several recipes that are perfect for this past week's CSA. Wondering what to do with those beautiful quail eggs? Selena sent this picture of her deviled quail eggs which, I must say, are just lovely.

She also sent a link to a Shepherd's Pie recipe. This recipe, from Rachel Ray, looks quick and easy and perfect for a week-night dinner. Here is the finished product and it looks great (better than the Rachel Ray picture!). I think that the hamburger and the potatoes from last week's CSA will make this quite something. Selena used fresh shelled peas and carrots with the ground beef for the filling and topped with the potatoes.

An aside, if you haven't tried the beef from Green Fence Farm, you are crazy (unless, of course, you don't eat meat and, then, I will not call you crazy). I made my regular enchilada recipe with the ground beef and, wow, it was fantastic.

Potatoes

2009-09-02T08:13:00.002-04:00

My morning routine is to stumble downstairs, make lots of coffee, check my e-mail (yes, I am obsessive), and then go on-line to read the Post and the Times. Don likes to read the paper newspaper. But I like to read the newspaper on-line because I never know where it will take me.

This morning a link from Tom Sietsema's discussion on over-hyped food trends led me to Regina Schrambling's blog on Epicurious. One recent post discusses how to preserve basil (she claims to keep basil a week by putting stems/roots in a jar with water and covering with a grocery bag). Another post discusses her take on Creamy Potato Salad, Light on the Mayo.

So, what are you doing with your potatoes?

Posts from CSA Members

2009-08-31T22:16:00.018-04:00

What a great CSA share we got today. I took one of the heirloom tomatoes, seeded, chopped it up (kind of chunky), added some salt, pepper, a little olive oil and sprinkled goat cheese and a few olives over it. It was yummy.

Now I have one less tomato but I still have a huge box of them. So, please let send in what you are doing with all of the ones you got, as well as the other wonderful produce we received today. Send them to me, donb.sarahd@gmail.com, if you want them posted before winter. Kate just sent me your great pictures and ideas from previous shares and they look great. Here are a few.

Alden O'Brien made a salade composée with bed of lettuce, beets, hard boiled eggs, herbs, all from the farm. The one pictured at the right includes some cuke dice from Cemmy Peterson’s farm.

Alden also sent a picture of swiss chard and broccolini. She blanched them and then stir fried them with a little olive oil and those scallion or "whatever flower things and some slices of that stem."

Beautiful, Alden! Thanks for sharing!

CSA member, Lynne Becker, sent an e-mail to Kate on "CSA: This is how I used our beans last night." She linked to a recipe from Gourmet, August 2004, Poached Chicken with Tomatoes, Olives, and Green Beans. This looks ideal for what we got in today's basket. Lynne's comments on the recipe: "I can't imagine liking many recipes without onions and garlic, so I added diced red onion to the tomato mixture and subbed basil for oregano since that's what we've got in the garden."

Ed Zakreski sent some links to Kate for red cabbage and for duck!

"I’m going to use a little bit of my red cabbage to create a sourdough starter. Here’s the link from Michael Ruhlman – one of my favorite food writers - that inspired me: http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2009/07/simple-sourdough-starter.html

"I’m also sending along the “How To Roast A Duck” link from Amateur Gourmet in case you can use it to inspire more duck purchases. It does show that roasting a duck is not as intimidating as it sounds. http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2009/05/how_to_roast_a.html

Ed also shared a picture of his dinner from GFF produce. Wow! Looks fabulous.

More tomorrow. Remember to send your ideas, recipes, and pictures.

What to Do with This Week's CSA?

2009-08-16T12:31:00.006-04:00

Just in time for our CSA delivery this week, chow.com has chosen its August Cookbook of the Month and it is seems perfect for what we are getting this week. "Ottolenghi: The Cookbook," has caused a lot of chatter on the chow website and, from what I can see, the book looks terrific with some very creative recipes. In particular, there appear to be some pretty terrific recipes for this week's CSA.

The book appears a bit hard to get (not available on amazon). But discussion group has provided many, many links to on-line recipes. These include:

Peaches and speck with orange blossom (This looks awesome, pictured above. Speck is a dry-cured smoked Italian ham--if you find it tell me!)

Marinated aubergine with tahini and oregano

Roasted aubergine with saffron yoghurt

French beans and mangetout with hazelnuts and orange (mangetout are snow peas)

There are also some terrific chicken and duck recipes discussed on the site, including roast chicken with sumac, za'atar, and lemon, seared duck breast with blood orange and star anise, and barbecued quail with mograbiah salad.

I can't wait for my Monday delivery!

Week-end on the Farm... continued

2009-08-16T09:52:00.038-04:00

Some day, Mike Davis will part with his guidance on the wonderful things to do with the GFF birds (I heard that he was pretty busy in Maine, roasting a pig and grilling a paella over an open fire). When he is back from his culinary adventures and sends me his notes, I will post them right here. Until then, I can only tempt you with pictures of the main courses and the menus from our week-end at Green Fence Farm.

Menu for Friday Night's Dinner

Pan-Roasted Quail with Port Reduction Sauce

Mahogany Rice

Sauteed Haricots Vert with Shallots

Green Salad with Peaches, Blackberries, and Roasted Walnuts

Plum Tarte Tatin

Menu for Saturday's Dinner:

Roast Duck with Plums

Pan-Roasted Partridge with Bacon

Grilled Quail and Chicken

Roasted Beet Salad with Fried Chickpeas and Goat Cheese

Corn on the Cob

Cornmeal Shortcakes with Peaches, Blackberries, and Mint

Plum Sorbet

On Friday, Mike prepared Pan-Roasted Quail in a Port Reduction Sauce. On the side, he served Mahogany Rice, which is a black, flavorful rice (it is unmilled so cooks for 45 to 50 minutes and is very good for you). I did a quick saute of shallots and Kate's thin green beans. I made a green salad, using GFF lettuce, peaches from the nearby orchard, blackberries that we had picked that day, toasted walnuts, and a balsamic vinaigrette.

If you are nervous about the port-reduction sauce, you can try simply grilling the quail, which is what we did on Saturday night, along with grilled chicken. It was a mystery to me what we seasoned the chicken and the quail with--I think that I saw Mike walk out to the herbs and take his pick. He was particularly enamored with the lemon thyme. Here is the thing with the GFF poultry--because it is so good, you don't really need to do much with it. Salt and pepper and grilling works just fine. Add a few herbs of your choice (rosemary under the skin is always good or thyme or whatever you have that is fresh). Just remember for the quail, Because of their size, grilling does not take very long.

Saturday night's dinner was a display of the GFF bounty. In addition to the grilled quail and chicken, Mike prepared a Roast Duck with plums (pictured below) and Pan-Roasted Partridge with Bacon. I can only post the pictures and attest to how wonderful they both were. The Roasted Duck was so delicious that it made Nick admit that they were almost worth all the work that goes into raising them.

I made two vegetable side dishes on Saturday, both of which were based on the Sunday Suppers at Lucques (which I discussed below). One for lunch, first of the season succotash salad, I will post separately. Below is the beet salad.

Roasted Beet Salad with Fried Chickpeas and Goat Cheese

First, if you are ever wondering what to do with the beautiful beets that you get in your CSA, just roast them. They are so sweet and delicious all by themselves. Cut off the tops, clean well, and toss with olive oil and salt (Suzanne Goin uses 2T of extra virgin olive oil and 1 tsp salt for 3 bunches of beets). Place in roasting pan with a bit of water and roast at 400 degrees until tender (around 40 minutes, depending on the size). After cooling, remove the skins and quarter. Look at those beets--aren't they beautiful. We should just stop here.

I loosely followed the rest of the recipe. First of all, the fried chickpeas were okay--I don't think that I cooked them long enough and I don't think that they were completely necessary here since everything else was so great. Just remember, if you are doing this recipe to start the chickpeas first, since they have to cook for quite a while (originally this was going to be a side dish for Thursday, but I didn't start the chickpeas until late).

Using what we had, I made a vinaigrette of 2+ T red wine vinegar, 1 T lemon juice, pinch of cumin, salt, pepper, and 1/2 c (maybe less) of extra virgin olive oil. I used some of the GFF lettuce, tossing it in a bit of vinaigrette, and using it to line the plate. I tossed the beets and 1/4 c thinly sliced shallots in some of the vinaigrette. Added to the plate.

Then, crumbled goat cheese, the fried chickpeas, and flat leaf parsley over the salad to finish it up. As you can see, it was quite a beautiful display and a wonderful tasting salad. The goat cheese combination with the beets was terrific. The recipe calls for roasted cumin seeds and I can see that it would add an additional depth to the salad. Using what we had in the pantry seemed to go well here.

Plum Tarte Tatin with Creme Fraiche

2009-08-01T18:00:00.007-04:00

Friday night dessert: Another creation from Suzanne Goin, Plum Tarte Tatin. I did not improvise on this and worked straight from her recipe with a couple of unintentional deviations.

In looking around the internet, I saw that some people had trouble with this dessert. Maybe it was beginner's luck, but I found this very simple. I also think that the plums were just right for this recipe. They were ripe but still firm enough to keep their shape.

Since I have linked the recipe, I won't go into every single detail. Most of the work was halving and pitting 3 pounds of plums. After adding sugar (1/4 c) and letting them sit for 30 minutes, it was time to make the caramel coating. Kate has a great big cast iron skillet which was perfect for making the tarte. Heated the pan over medium heat and added 1 stick of butter. When it foamed, I added 3/4 cup sugar and cooked for 6 minutes until it was a brown caramel color.

While it cooled, I drained the plums. I think that this step is critical, because too much juice result in a pretty soggy tarte. Goin suggests making a cocktail from the sugared-plum juice, but I am not imaginative to think what would go well with it. I am open to suggestions.

When the caramel had cooled for about 20 minutes, I placed the plums, skin side up in the skillet, in lovely, concentric circles.

I put the skillet in the fridge here and missed the step of cooking the plums and caramel on the stove. After refrigerating for a couple hours, I realized my mistake and put the skillet on the stove, cooking the plums--without touching--for 20 minutes over medium-low heat. Then, after cooling the plums and caramel again for about an hour or so, I topped it with store-bought puff pastery (sorry purests, but I like pepperidge farm for this). Brushed with beaten egg (from GFF, of course) and sprinkled with sugar. Baked at 375 degrees for 45 to 55 minutes.

After cooling for 30 minutes, it was time to flip the tarte. This is time when it is nice to have someone strong around, since flipping a cast iron skillet with plate on it is a little challenging. Cutting around the edges helps, but flipping it in one motion seems to be important too. Then, letting it just drop out of the skillet from its own weight.

Served with creme fraiche on the side, we ate this all up and left none for Don who arrived late from DC on Friday night.

Cornmeal Shortcakes with Peaches, Blackberries and Mint accompanied by Plum Sorbet

2009-08-01T11:54:00.015-04:00

Here is my suggestion for the plums and peaches in your CSA basket next week. Although this looks like a lot of work, it was surprisingly easy. We had the amazing plums and peaches that Kate and Nick had found for us, blackberries that we picked from at Orchardside Farm, Kate's mint, and from Staunton's farmers' market, honey from the Honey man and fromage blanc from the cheese lady.

The shortcake recipe is based on Suzanne Goin's Cornmeal Shortcakes with Peaches, Mint, and Soured Cream. The shortcakes are very simple and quick. Since I have the link, I won't go into detail on it. But they were so easy and delicious. If you have a food processor, the shortcakes won't take you longer than 30 minutes to make. The challenge is to keep from eating them before finishing the dessert.

I added the freshly picked blackberries to the peaches and followed the recipe for adding the simple sugar syrup (I can imagine a number of combinations working here and look forward to seeing what other fruit Kate and Nick find for us this season). The recipe calls for pureeing a portion of the peaches, which I did before we added the blackberries.

For the soured cream, I brought mascarpone from DC, but not enough. So I added some fromage blanc that we found at the Farmers' Market and added syrup to sweeten and lemon to sour. This worked wonderfully. I can see going more local here and using different combinations of local fresh cheeses. This was a breeze and tasted like summer.

We could have stopped there, but my daughter Josie insisted that we make Plum Sorbet.

We dug out our ice cream maker, which someone gave to Don and I as a wedding present seventeen years ago and which we have never used! Since it made the trip to the farm, it only made sense to give it a try. This recipe is also from the Suzanne Goin, but I think it is the fruit that makes it so wonderful. I took about a pound of the plums, cored and pitted them (Josie was not a great deal of help here). I then added sugar (1/2 cup) and 2T of honey and let it sit for a while. Puree (keeping the skin on makes some wonderful flecks in the sorbet) and add some lemon juice to taste (a tablespoon or so) and leave in the fridge to chill. Then, we dusted off that ice cream maker (ours is a little Donvier) and Josie took charge of freezing. It didn't take long and, well, you can see the results for yourselves. It was pretty fabulous. So dig out those ice cream freezers and give it a whirl.

Week-end on the Farm

2009-08-01T09:32:00.016-04:00

Who knows what Kate and Nick were thinking when they agreed to host an invasion from NW DC last week-end. I am certain that I could not work the hours that they work--and as hard as they work--and still be such wonderful hosts to a bunch of city folk. On the other hand, a more enthusiastic group of city folk would be hard to find.

Hi, Green Fence Farm fans. I am Sarah, Kate's old friend (and be nice, I only feel old). Some of you know me as Kate's lobbyist friend or as the NW DC CSA drop-off host or as ... well, just don't tell me. But this week, I am Sarah, Green Fence Farm's guest blogger. This is not because of my writing--no one can write as well as Kate. But I have a high-speed internet connection and she doesn't!

Kate asked me to blog about our visit to the farm last week-end and share what we made from the farm's offerings. This was not a spur of the moment visit. For several months, we planned our farm invasion. The chief instigator was Mike Davis, fabulous cook and premier GFF customer. Mike is passionate about the local farm movement. His wish was to recreate the feel of the french farm kitchen. Our test: how quickly can we get it from the field to the table? The winner was Mike, with child-like glee, grabbling a fresh laid egg, running down the hill, up the stairs, into the kitchen, cooking it in a soft-boil, and eating it right there. That is our Mike Davis.

So, we joined forces to invade the farm and dedicate ourselves to food and the farm: Mike, Kris, Maggie, and Everett, along with my family (my husband, Don Blanchon, our daughter Josie, and my father, John Ducich--minus our older daughter who was at girls lacrosse goalie camp down the road in Salem, VA).

Mike took charge of any course involving poultry--quail, duck, chicken, and partridge. I took the side dishes and, most importantly, the desserts.

Mike is a far more creative cook than I am--he has mastered technique and now works directly with what is available to him. I am waiting for him to give me his descriptions of his pan-roasted quail in port-reduction sauce and roasted duck with plums so that I can post them here.

I am a recipe-driven cook, although my confidence is growing and I am doing more experimenting. This past week-end, I used Suzanne Goin's fabulous "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" as my base and worked with what Kate and Nick and the wonderful Shenandoah Valley provided us.

Over the next few days, I will be posting our creations. I will start backwards, with desserts, since I know those the best (and those are the prettiest pictures). Next post, Cornmeal Shortcakes with Peaches, Blackberries, and Mint, accompanied by Plum Sorbet. Yum!

What did you do with Your July 7th CSA?

2009-07-13T18:25:00.003-04:00

Ah yes, I am tres late in posting this question, but maybeI'll get some answers -- and you all better do something with your share soon because another one is just around the corner!

As a reminder -- and an incentive for any readers who mioght want to share recipes but aren't in the cSA -- here's what you got last week and what I said about it then:

· A bag of lettuce – not the really sweet stuff of spring. It is actually a bit late for it to be hanging in there, but we have had a lot of rain and cool nights, so it is here for this last appearance until fall. Unlike earlier greens, which needed the lightest of dressings – you can feel free to slather it on for these tougher leaves. Or just use them as a garnish like bed for your beet salad.
· A bag of spinach – almost the same story as above, though the spinach holds it together a little better (especially the variety I grow, after much experimentation – Bloomsdale Longstanding, really resistant to bolt).
· Swiss chard bundle with a chive blossom (or scape). I love Swiss chard – there is a recipe in the quail egg section of the blog that is my standard Swiss chard fare. You can use quail or chicken or no egg in it. Chard is in the beet family, and the different colors do taste differently – the closer to red the chard is, the more you will know it is a member of the beet family. The stem and the leaves are edible, but you will want to separate them to cook them because the stem takes longer to cook. Do check out the blog recipe for chard with eggs as well as using chard in the stuffed chicken. The shallot scape is an edible flower that you can use as you would an onion. Taste a little before you chop it up and put it in something; it packs a wallop. I added it because it can be used instead of onion in the stuffed chicken recipe.
· An herb bunch – mostly basil, but a small amount of oregano and tarragon included. I added this this week because of that darn chicken recipe. You could use this bunch, chopped, as the herbs called for (I did). If you aren’t succumbing to the immense pressure to make that chicken, you could just leave the bunch sitting around to make things smell like summer (and don’t worry about wasting basil – you are getting a lot more).
· A bunch of beets – they are beautiful this week – you get a selection of yellow, Detroit (dark red) and Chioggia (red and white).
· John’s broccoli. I haven’t seen it yet, but he assures me it is professional. John can grow cabbage and broccoli. When I plant either of these, I get cabbage and broccoli bugs the size of a Toyota. So let’s all just take a minute to thank our lucky stars for John (who is baking your bread as I write this).
· Beans – Fin de Bangol to be exact. John may be able to grow a cabbage, but I am the Queen of Beans. These are the thin French variety. Do not put these in a casserole with mushroom soup. Do not boil them all day with bacon (we may have some beans for that later in the season). Steam or boil them lightly – 2-3 minutes. Then throw them back in a pan with a little butter, maybe some lemon (though I like just butter). Or rinse them in cold water and use them in a salad compose -- dress them lightly in a vinaigrette and top with crumbled bacon (you know I would work it in) and hard boiled egg. Put your beet salad (see the blog for the recipe) next to it.
· 1/2 pint of black raspberries: these are incredible. Just eat them. Do not cook them, do not share them. These are why you are in a CSA – you cannot find them anywhere else.

CSA Chicken Supper

2009-07-05T15:39:00.012-04:00

Take a Green Fence Farm Chicken, a couple of our eggs, and, if you are lucky enough to be one of our CSA members, your Swiss chard, beets, herbs, and shallot scape – and you too can have the delicious dinner pictured above (OK, I am no Phil Karsting in my food photography abilities – and you’ll have to make the Olive bread on your own).

The nice thing about this dinner, which consists of chicken stuffed under the skin, garlic greens done in the Jaleo way (see the recipe in an earlier post that Lynn submitted), and beets in sour cream and mustard sauce (which consists of sour cream and some Dijon like mustard – not exactly a Culinary Institute of America level endeavor) is that it can all be done ahead of time – the chicken can be prepared all the way through stuffing, then refrigerated until you are ready to cook; the beets can be cooked and dressed, then refrigerated, anytime; and the spinach can be cooked then just left on the stove until you warm it before dinner. Perfect dinner party fare: Pop the chickens in when your guests arrive (or are supposed to) then 90 minutes later, you have dinner all ready to go, 90 minutes you can sit be out of the kitchen with your guests making sure you get your share of the decent wine they brought or, depending on the quality of your friends, making sure they don’t steal stuff.

To make the chicken you need:
· One 3-4 lb GREEN FENCE FARM chicken (I do not guarantee the results unless you use our chickens. With other, inferior chicken, it could well taste like dried up old chicken McNuggets)
· One finely chopped red onion
· Olive oil to coat your sauté pan
· Two or three largish Swiss Chard leaves, green part removed from stem and used in something else (I just added it to the spinach in the Jaleo Spinach recipe to turn it into a Jaleo Greens recipe), dice the stems.
· 4 cloves of garlic – or garlic and minced shallot scape (flower, for those of you in our CSA lucky enough to be getting one of these this week).
· Whatever fresh herbs you have on hand – though I am partial to oregano and basil (and again, Green Fence Farm CSA members will be receiving a little of each). If you don’t have fresh herbs, just use some dried oregano.
· 1 GREEN FENCE FARM egg and one GREEN FENCE FARM egg yolk.
· 12 oz. cream cheese or cream cheese like goat cheese.
· ½ cup dry cheese, grate (like Parmesan or Asiago)

The steps to making the chicken:

At least two hours before cooking (but actually, you could do this part even 24 hours in advance):

1. Sauté onions in heated olive oil until translucent (about 5 minutes). Add chopped chard stem, garlic, and shallot scape. Continue sautéing over medium high heat, stirring often, until the the stem is soft but not too damp, another five minutes. Turn down the heat, add the fresh herbs and season, sautéing just until the herbs are wilted.
2. In your cuisnart, mix the cream cheese, egg and egg yolk, and dried cheese. Add the sauté mix and pulse 4-5 times – enough to mix and further dice the sauted veggies but not enough to make a bizarrely colored paste. You want to continue to see the dots of color the chard stem adds. Refrigerate for a minimum of one hour.
3. Anytime after the hour is up, prep the chicken. Cut out its backbone and reserve with the neck for stock (and yes, I do have 3000 back and neck bone baggies in my freezer). Turn the chicken on what used to be its back (breast up) and press down with your hand on the breastbone between the wings to break the bone. Loosen the skin by slipping your hand between the skin and breast – be careful not to tear it.
4. Put the refrigerated cream cheese mix in a pastry tube with the biggest tip you can find (or else it will get jammed up with Swiss chard bits and, when you impatiently keep trying to squeeze the tube anyway, even though you know it is jammed, it will blow up in a royal cream cheese, chard disaster. Don’t ask me how I know).Place the point under the skin and pipe the mixture in. You can work it around to go evenly over the breast and into the thighs, even a bit of the leg. Place in a baking or roasting pan skin side up (and though I didn’t make it this way when I was testing this, you could brush butter on the breast to give you an even more golden finished product – I’ll probably do that next time). At this point you can cover the chicken and refrigerate until you are ready to pop it in the oven, Doris Day like, and sashay into your guests who will marvel at how calm you are.
2 hours before dinner:
1. Preheat the oven to 375. Put the chicken in, uncovered, from 75-95 minutes depending on the size. Let sit at least five minutes and cut into quarters for four servings.

To make the beets, boil until fork tender (15-30 minutes depending on size) or roast, and peel. Chop into bite sized pieces if they didn’t already come that way. Mix sour cream or crème fraiche with a teaspoon or two of grainy French mustard and mix that with the beets.

To make the Jaleo greens, follow the Jaleo recipe posted last month, but add your chard and beet greens to the spinach (you may have to remove the beet greens from the stems if the stems are large enough to look chewy).

Beet Greens Beet Salad

2009-06-27T15:47:00.003-04:00

I received a question from a CSA member this week about what to do with the various greens atop the various root vegetables you received this week. She also asked me for “my” beet salad recipe, which I am embarrassed to admit is really pretty much everyone’s beet salad recipe and not all that interesting. But in an attempt to get members – or anyone really – to participate in the blog, I’ll answer both questions here.

But first, a plea: send in your ideas for using our basket of vegetables. Ask other people to send in their ideas on how to use our basket of vegetables. Send people from other CSAs to our blog so we can get their ideas (and you can make them jealous with what a cool and caring CSA you belong to – one that is working so hard to see that you use every item to its utmost).

I especially need your help because, though I love to cook and love to try new recipes, at the time we are harvesting these vegetables, I am so busy, and we work so late into the evening (to avoid the 2 million degree heat during the day that I am avoiding right now) that most of the recipes I use sound like the ones below: “Just cook it in some bacon-fat and you’ve got a meal.” Let me know what those of you who have air-conditioning and the occasional summer evening free to cook are doing!

That said, the answer to the question is: Yes you can use beet greens and cook them like you would turnip greens or any of the other tougher greens (kale, collards, older spinach). If you are feeling healthy, cook them in some chicken broth for a really long time. If not, go with the old standby – chicken broth with bacon for a really long time. Or steam them in a little chicken broth (or just water), drain, chop, and sauté in bacon fat rendered when you cook up some bacon pieces. When they are done, sprinkle the bacon pieces back on. For a really nice pairing, throw in some blue cheese crumbles at the last minute (right before the bacon, so they melt a little, but not much). Yum.

As for carrot greens, I’ve never cooked them. Some claim you can; others claim they’re toxic – I’m waiting until the jury gets back in on that one.

And finally the beet salad, which is pictured above on the left in the medley of salads (spinach and filet bean salads being the other two). Twist off the beet greens (they will bleed less if you twist, not chop, them off, though they will still bleed some and stain the white shirt you accidently wore). Boil the beets (or roast them, but you’ll have to look up how to do this yourself) until fork tender (I find beets take about the same amount of time a potato takes to get to fork tender, and that obviously depends on size). Drain and cool (if you are in a hurry, you can run cool water on them to cool them). When you can handle them, slip the skinss off (another prime opportunity to stain hands and clothes) and trim the top and bottom. Cut into a large dice, or if they are small enough, as the ones in the picture are, leave them whole. Dress lightly with your favorite balsamic vinegar recipe – or use 1 part olive oil, 1 part walnut or other nut oil, one part balsamic vinegar, on part soy sauce. Plate atop a bed of salad greens (since you have them anyway) if you want, or leave just beet. Sprinkle with walnut halves and blue cheese crumbles.

June 22 CSA basket: What are you doing with yours?

2009-06-23T18:15:00.002-04:00

So, what are you doing with your vegetable share this week? just as a reminder, we had:

English peas
Sugar snap peas
Spinach
Loose lettuce
Carrots
Beets and turnips
Quail eggs
I am entering my fourth consecutive week of “a spinach salad a day.” My favorite, pictured on the left, is spinach, onion, blue cheese , and apple with a balsamic vinegar dressing.

I’m also making “Bertha’s Carrot Cake” from the Silver Palate cook books (I almost said from the “new” Silver Palate cookbook, but since I just noticed that “new” book had its 25 year anniversary printing, I guess I better come up with a better name). In any case you can view the recipe on Epicurious here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mother-Bertas-Carrot-Cake-107118

I hope Phil will write in with the recipe for pickled quail eggs with beets. I heard him giving this out to someone at the Capitol Hill pick-up yesterday, but didn’t catch it all.

As we eat through what is definitely our last week of peas (both kinds – and remember, the ones with the green twist ties are ENGLISH and must be shelled and the ones with white or no ties are sugar snaps and must never be shelled) and could be our last week of spinach (until fall), I am reminded how local eating is a series of visits from favorite friends that end too soon (forgive the lapse into Hallmark sentiment). Good-bye sweet peas, hello blueberries. It slays me that I won’t get another handful of that crunchy sweetness until 2010 – but then again, I am looking forward to drowning my sorrow in a big face full of blueberry pie. Eat seasonally and experience (or re-experience) the emotional drama of a junior high girl.

Sarah's Fabulous Grilled Quail

2009-06-18T13:36:00.003-04:00

Finally, here's a picture of the gorgeous quail CSA member Sarah Ducich made with Green Fence Farm Quail and our spinach. She writes:

This picture was taken on my blackberry, so it is a little blurry.It is Grilled Quail with Pancetta, Ricotta Pudding and Sicilian Breadcrumbs. The green is GFF spinach-yum! The recipe is from a cookbook Kate gave me for christmas a few years back, "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" by Suzanne Goin.

I found a link to an LA Times story that included this recipe, though I warn you it is full of annoying adds. I have a hard copy from another blog posting, but it is long and I didn't want to put it here, lest it take up all the space and you never get to the quail egg post next. The link is:

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/02/food/fo-goin2

What to do with Quail Eggs

2009-06-18T13:10:00.006-04:00

This is soon to become a burning issue for our CSA members, as they are getting quail eggs in their basket this week. The eggs, as you can see from the picture, are about 1/5th the size of a regular chicken egg. They can be used in any way you use a regular chicken egg, but smaller. They are fun simply hard boiled and peeled (and possibly halved) in a salad – I’ve seen them soft boiled on fancy chef salads as well.

[To hard boil: Bring a pan of water to a light boil. Drop the eggs in for four minutes, then drain and transfer immediately to an ice water bath for at least five minutes. Peel when cold. The shell is surprisingly hard, so be ready for that.]

You can also use them in creative mini egg dishes like those pictured here in photos by CSA member and extraordinary chef, Phil Karsting.

One of my favorite quail egg recipes involves the use of the sort of greens we have around in early summer (also CSA staples): Spinach, Swiss chard (baby or not), beet, and turnip greens. This is modified from an egg and Swiss chard recipe from Barbara Kingsolver’s wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (linked above) – this book chronicles novelist Kingsolver’s family’s experiment with eating almost exclusively local for a year (they cheated on coffee, as would I). Since Kingsolver is from southern Virginia, many of the recipes and ideas in the book are perfect for our CSA members as well as anyone in the Mid-Atlantic area trying to eat seasonally and locally.

Quail Eggs in a Green Nest:

Makes a side dish sized portion
Count on one quail egg and one heaping handful of greens per person. Use any seasonal greens like Spinach, mizuna mustard, beet or turnip greens, and Swiss chard. In the fall you can substitute kale and collard greens with the same results.
If you are using Swiss Chard, remove the leafy part from the stem. Do the same if you beet or turnip greens are large enough to have a thick central stem. Throw away the beet and turnip stems, but keep the chard ones. Wash the greens but don’t dry them (the same as in the Jaleo spinach recipe). Place them in a covered large pot over medium heat and let them cook down, stirring occasionally to get them to cook evenly). When fully wilted and cooked, drain and chop.
While the greens are cooking down, add a tablespoon of olive oil (notice how all recipes call for “good quality olive oil” – well, I am sure this would be better with that, but I used crappy sale brand, and it worked just fine) per serving. Heat over a medium flame then, if you want, add some chopped garlic and/or finely chopped onion. For those of you in the CSA, you may want to chop your shallot flower and use it here. Sauté until the onions are translucent and the garlic smells good but is not crispy.
If you saved chard stems, chop them now and add to the onions and garlic for about the last 5 minutes of their cooking.
Add your pre-cooked and drained greens, season to taste, and continue sautéing for just a few minutes until the greens are warmed through and infused with the garlic and onions.
Divide the green in the skillet into little piles (like nests), one for each serving. Turn the heat up a bit, make a hole in the nest and crack a quail egg in it. Let the egg fry for as long as it takes to get it the way you like fried eggs (we like the yolk runny so it mixes with the greens). Serve each little nest as side to quail, chicken, or any other fine Green Fence Farm meat product.
[To make a full vegetarian meal out of this recipe, add cooked brown rice at the same time you add the chard stems. Divide into nests, but bigger nests than above. Use a chicken egg or several quail eggs as the center].

Happy 50th Birthday Nick!!

2009-06-16T11:09:00.002-04:00

Today Nick finally reaches the age where he can, with some credibility, utter the phrase I hear from him every day on the farm, “I am way too old for this.” And even though he is, there would be no Green Fence Farm without him – he is its vision and the backbone, and it is his hard work and commitment to selling only the best quality products that is making this collection of broken down equipment and difficult to manage, allegedly domesticated animals into a model sustainable farm. He also doesn’t suck as a husband, dad, and friend. And though we love him for his poultry and produce, we mostly love him (or I do) for his loyalty, bombastic embrace of life, booming voice, and huge heart. Happy Birthday!

THE Spinach recipe from Jaleo

2009-06-11T09:14:00.005-04:00

CSA member Lynn used her spinach this week to recreate my personal favorite tapas at Jaleos. The recipe is (I hope) linked above. I plan on making this when I get back to the farm tomorrow, but I am not sure about the status of the spinach beds. The farm is currently in the care of Nick and our son, Austin (who many of you know from the Shakespeare Theater). I tried to ask them to go and check out the spinach for me, but they are both very cranky and not taking phone requests. Seems our house roosters -- the ones we let run around the farm to eat bugs (and we "harvest" when they start trying to eat children instead) -- have taken up residence under our cabin, more specifically, under Austin's room. They start crowing at 3:30 AM. I find this very, very funny, which is why no one is checking my spinach for me.

What did you do with your CSA share this week

2009-06-09T19:12:00.003-04:00

By the way, here's what your lettuce looked like before it came out of the ground -- the shadow is mine, and just above it, you can see one of my slug beer traps which, as you probably have realized by now, did not work nearly as well as one would have hoped.

This week, June 8th delivery, you got: spinach, loose lettuce, a head of lettuce, green onions, mizuna mustard, baby turnips, and sugar snap peas. Some of you also got Cornish game hens, quail, eggs, and John's bread.

I got most of the same things, and I mostly plan to eat salads (having consumed my share of sugar snap peas while picking -- and I still argue they are best raw, maybe with a little dip of some kind, but since mine never make it in the house, I can't vouch for that last statement). My favorite salad in the world is spinach, green onion, blue cheese, an apple, an avacado and a garlicy vinegrette or Paul Newman's balsamic dressing. When I run out of spinach, I go to the greens and do the same thing. I sure hope some of you have better ideas.

Here's my suggestions for the scary looking turnips and their greens again -- anyone try this?

Peel the turnips best you can and dice into about ½” squares. Chop some bacon and fry it until crisp. Remove the bacon and use the far to fry up the turnip dice. While it is cooking, wash (gotta wash everything from our farm – this will be obvious) the turnip greens and chop the top third or half. Throw these greens in with the turnips and sauté until the greens are tender. Serve warm with the bacon bits mixed back in. This is really good with steak on the barbeque ( a healthy alternative – except the bacon part – to potatoes).

You can also use the turnips and greens as part of a stir fry – replace the bacon with a mix of sesame and vegetable oil. Fry the turnips and greens in the oil as above. Add the mizuna mustard a minute or so after you add the turnip greens. Throw some spinach in if it looks skimpy. Then add whatever cooked meat you want in your stir fry along with a little soy sauce.

And if you got bread and eggs, a great breakfast, one my mom used to make, is called "spit in the eye" (and for those of you who know my mom, this is an odd recipe title for her to have grown fond of -- must have come from my saltier grandmother). Make a one inch or so hole in the middle of a slice of bread (and eat it to tide you over until you are done cooking), melt a slice of butter in a frying pan and heat to egg frying temp. Fry the bread for a bit (personal preference here -- I like the bread soft; Nick likes it crunchier). Break an egg into the hole, fry for a while (again, personal preference -- fry until the yolk is as hard as you like it in a fried egg). Flip the bread over and fry a minute longer.

So what are you doing with your loot? And please, even if you are not a CSA member, feel free to comment on how you used your Green Fence Farm produce, eggs, or meat (I am less interested in what you did with your Safeway purchases from Chile).

Welcome to the Green Fence Farm Blog

2009-06-09T18:55:00.003-04:00

Yes, that's right -- I have bowed to technological peer group pressure and started a blog. This is mostly selfish. It turns out that our customers (and employees, and parents, and friends, and siblings) all have better ideas about how we should run the farm and what we (or others) should do with all this stuff (food, primarily) we churn out. I'm hoping to have a discussion chain (or whatever they are called) for every CSA delivery on what you did with the contents of your share (unless, of course, "composted it" is your answer -- that would just hurt my feelings, and it is MY blog) or to ask others what you should do with it. I also want to post recipes using our products and allow you all to comment on them-- just like epicurious.com, except without the huge readership, incredible budget for traveling the world to find new foods, and Ruth Reichl. So, if you have a recipe you've used and liked, email it to me, and I will post it as it's own "post." Send a picture too, if you have it (hint hint, Sarah -- I saw your beautiful barbecued quail on Facebook).

I'll also use this to keep you up to date on any exciting happenings on the farm -- like our fabulous new refrigerated room (formerly a rabbit house) -- but I will be sure to label these posts something like "dull farm news" so you don't have to dig through them to get to the chicken recipes.