Greens for Breakfast

The second share is nearly as heavy on the leafy greens as the first was, but this one includes fewer salad fixings and more substantial greens that can withstand some light cooking. The share includes leaf lettuce, kale, mizuna, pac choi, braising mix, green onions, kohlrabi or beets, broccoli (it's tiny - see why here), radishes, sorrel, bean sprouts, and fresh herbs.

The two new things that are most likely to raise questions are the pac choi and the braising mix. I will add them to the Who's Who post ASAP (Wednesday seems likely) but until then I will give you some ideas.

Baby Pac Choi

The pac choi (also spelled bok choy and various other ways) is a loosely headed Chinese cabbage with very fleshy stems. We grow a baby variety which is small when mature. Each head is about one third of the size of pac choi you might find at a grocery store. Also, we think this variety has a better flavor than most of what you find at the grocery store. While it is nice raw, pac choi is best cooked, as in this basic stir fry recipe.

The braising mix greens are also best cooked. In fact, braising mix is basically just a blend of greens that are meant to be cooked, rather than added to a salad. They can contain any number of different types of greens, but ours (at least this week) includes: mustard, purple orach, dandelion, senposai, beet greens, chard, and arugula. You might have noticed that a few of these greens showed up last week as salad greens. They are a week bigger (and tougher) now, so we are recommending that you cook them.

Purple Orach

You might also have noticed that some of the braising mix greens have really crazy names. Purple orach? Senposai? Don't worry, I'll try to explain everything when I update the Who's Who post. For now just know that purple orach is a spinach relative and senposai is another type of Chinese cabbage.

You have limitless options as far as using your braising mix. You can stir fry them as suggested above for the pac choi. You can also braise them (as their name suggests) by following a recipe such as this. Yum.

Or, you can eat them for breakfast.

Cheesy Grits and Greens

This is standard breakfast fare at our house, especially this time of year when our fridge is constantly full of greens too ugly to sell but too edible to throw into the compost pile. It is loosely based on a common Italian dish of polenta topped with braised greens. This is the speedy morning version. It also makes a great lunch or side dish at dinner. The cheese is actually optional, but it's in the name I made up for the recipe, so you might as well use it.

• Four cups water, divided
• 1/2 Teaspoon salt
• One cup corn meal
• Two ounces grated cheese of your choosing (cheddar and parmesan are both good)
• Braising greens, chopped roughly - as much as you like
• Butter (optional)

1. Pour three cups of water into a medium saucepan. Add the salt. Bring to a boil.
2. In the meantime, combine the cornmeal and the remaining cup of water.
3. When the water is boiling, whisk the cornmeal "slurry" into the boiling water until you see no lumps. Reduce the heat to medium.
4. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until the grits are soft, about ten minutes. Turn the heat to low.
5. Stir in the grated cheese and chopped greens. You can use just a handful of greens, a half pound, or more. It really just depends on your taste.
6. Continue stirring until the cheese is melted and the greens are wilted.
7. Remove from the heat and stir in butter if you choose. Sometimes, when we are feeling especially health conscious, we stir in flax seed oil rather than butter.

Successes and Failures So Far

The week two share includes leaf lettuce, broccoli, green onions, kohlrabi or beets, mizuna, kale, sorrel, pac choi, radishes, braising mix, bean sprouts, and fresh herbs. It looks like members will be enjoying fewer salads and more stir fries than they did last week.

Now that we are in the second week of things, I've decided it is time to share some successes and failures of the 2011 growing season thus far.

When I told Scott that I was going to write this post he said "You don't think we should try to convince the members we're infallible?" We've known CSA farmers who tried to go that route, to never let their members see their failings. Man were they stressed out.

Farming is unpredictable, ever changing, and involves a lot of trial and error. It's pretty much like the rest of life but with conniving deer that occasionally stop by to eat one single bite out of 47 heads of lettuce.

So, before I get going on a post describing this week's share, here are a few photos of our best and worst.

Failure: Tiny Broccoli Heads

The picture at the top looks pretty good. This is the same head with my thumb included for scale. We've always started our own broccoli transplants, but generally we get them in the ground later in the season than we did this year. We thought we got a jump on things and we'd get nice big broccoli heads early (but not this early) in the season. Turns out we made our broccoli heads "button" or grow early and small by exposing them to cold temperatures after transplant. Lesson learned. Enjoy your mini broccoli everyone!

Success: Hoophouse Kohlrabi 

This year we are experimenting with various early crops. We want to expand our early season selection so that members have more than leaves (don't get me wrong though, we LOVE our leafy greens) to munch on this time of year. The hoophouse kohlrabi has been a whopping success. Plus, they're just so pretty!

Failure: Deer Attack!

Our perimeter was breached. Again. It happens every year but this time they are going a little too far. They took one bite out of about 1/4 of our tom thumb lettuce. Why not finish off a few instead of destroying several? Our conclusion: deer are gluttonous, or simply mean hearted.

Success: Radicchio in the making

As far as we can tell, deer don't like radicchio. Take that! Plus, we have many other varieties of head lettuce on the way so we should probably be optimistic and consider our deer attack to be a setback, rather than a total failure.

There are many many more of these I could share (so many green tomatoes in the hoophouse! not so many green peppers...) but I've got to get going on the share description. At least now you all know why your getting munchkin broccoli this week.

A Who's Who of CSA Greens

The following photo list of greens is a work in progress. I will start with the spring/early summer greens (makes sense, seeing as it is early summer) and add later season greens as they come ready for harvest.

I hope the pictures are attractive, but I've tried to resist the urge to select only the most perfect samples of each green to photograph. That's because the greens we harvest are never entirely perfect. They grew in a field outside, exposed to sun, rain, wind, and insects. They lived good lives and it shows.

I'm going to keep the list alphabetical, rather than seasonal because some greens span the entire growing season.

Hopefully this will help members answer questions such as: "Which one's mizuna again?" and "What was that weird spicy lettuce in my share last week?"

Arugula

Arugula harvest starts in the spring, takes a break in the hot summer (assuming the summer actually gets hot) and resumes in the fall. The flavor of arugula is the most complex of all the greens we grow. It tastes, sweet, spicy, nutty, bitter, and musky (for lack of a better term) all at once. Arugula tastes slightly different with each cutting. We never know which flavor will shine the brightest, but it always tastes distinctively arugula-y. It is a wonderful salad green, though some people find its raw flavor an acquired taste. If you aren't into it raw, try it cooked (arugula quiche is very good) or tuck a few leaves into a sandwich and sort
of ease into it.

Beet Thinnings

These greens are the tops of immature beets. Beet seeds are unusual because each seed is actually a cluster of fruits that produces more than one plant. This means that no matter how thinly you plant your beets you are going to have to thin out some seedlings if you want the roots to be able to mature. The results of thinning all of those beets is a brimming bucket of tender beet greens. They are yummy as both a salad or cooked green, with the same earthy, slightly salty, flavor as chard (which is the same species as the beet). We like to include them in our braising mix.

Braising Mix

This blend of cooking greens varies depending on what is available at harvest time, and its flavor will vary accordingly. Recognize it as braising mix, rather than a salad blend, by the large, relatively tough, strong flavored leaves it contains. It might include any or all of the following greens: kale, chard, beet greens, mizuna, mustard, arugula, dandelion, purple orach, senposai, turnip greens, and probably some others I haven't thought of. It can be used in any recipe calling for cooked greens. If you are not sure what to do with it, try this: Heat 1 Tbs olive oil in a large frying pan with a generous pinch of salt and some fresh ground pepper, chop your greens roughly, stir the greens into the olive oil until they wilt, add half a cup water and 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, cover and simmer for about twenty minutes. Do that, and your greens are braised. You can eat it as is, cook it in a quiche, serve it over rice, or mound it on top of a grilled t-bone.

Chard

We grow rainbow chard. When full sized the leaves are large like kale. The baby leaf in the picture is from a batch of braising mix. Recognize chard by the shiny leaf, brightly colored stems, and earthy beet like flavor. Chard is actually the same plant as the beet, just bred for leaf rather than root growth. It is best cooked. It can be braised, sauteed, seared, or cooked however you see fit. In the fall we love to add strips of chard to creamy squash soup right at the end of cooking. Also, please don't discard your stems! Many recipes call for discarding the stems of chard but we find that chopping them up small and cooking them for a few minutes before adding the leaves adds color, crunch, and all around goodness to the finished dish.

Dandelion

This intensely bitter green looks exactly like the dandelion leaves that are growing in your yard, except that it has a dark red mid-rib. That being said, cultivated dandelion greens are not actually dandelion at all. This dandelion is a chicory. The one we grow is called Italiko Rosso Chicory, which I have to admit does sound much more gourmet than dandelion. This year we grew only a small patch of dandelion, for adding to our braising mix. We like its bitter bite and tender texture. For now, cook it up with the rest of the braising mix. Next year we might grow enough to include it as a salad green as well.

Kale

Sorry, I couldn't resist a bit of fanciness with the kale photo. One of the most striking things about kale is the silver cast it takes on under water. That's what you see in this picture. Kale harvest starts early and continues through the entire CSA season, though we don't necessarily harvest it every week. We grow a few different varieties of kale, some with purple stems, some with ruffled leaf margins. Though it might look different from week to week, kale is always recognizable as a large dark grey green relatively tough leaf. The flavor is of a slightly sweet and spicy (clove spice, not jalapeno spice) cabbage. It is best cooked, we like to chop it up and toss it into all sorts of dishes (spaghetti sauce, scrambled eggs, soup...) towards the end of cooking.

Head Lettuce

Lettuce prefers cool weather so it is generally an early and late season green. We are experimenting with several different varieties of head lettuce this year, along with our favorite leaf lettuces, to try to provide members with as many weeks of lettuce as possible. The one in this photo is called Tom Thumb, because of its small size. I imagine most of you will have no trouble recognizing the lettuce in your share, just keep in mind that it might look a little different from week to week.

Leaf Lettuce

This combination of two varieties of leaf lettuce (tango - the green, and merlot - the red) is our go to lettuce. It grows well for us, isn't unpredictable like head lettuce can be, stands up to all but the driest heat, and the deer don't covet it the way they do the head lettuce. You will see it more than once throughout the CSA season. Happy salad!

Mizuna

Mizuna grows quickly and holds well in the field all season long. When we cut it, it grows back for us. It is a mild green that is equally good cooked or raw. All of these things mean it is a CSA staple. Growers love it, but members have trouble remembering what it is called and figuring out what to do the it. If you are at a loss here is my suggestion: Chop the mizuna up small (half inch or so), boil some pasta in well salted water, heat a generous portion of good olive oil in a frying pan, add some minced garlic to the olive oil and stir till it's golden, coat the pasta with the garlic/oil then stir in the mizuna. Now that you have enjoyed your first mizuna meal, experiment from there. Remember, it's the spiky green.

Mustard

Many of the greens we grow are mustards of one sort or another, but this one is the standard. Mustard grows quickly in the early season, then keeps on growing quickly until it flowers and its leaves become inedibly tough. We include it in our shares as long as it is tasty. Sweet, spicy (this time I mean like jalapenos) and delicate, mustard is good in salad and delicious cooked but it does cook down a lot. It is heavenly atop a grilled burger.

Purple Orach

It feels a little silly to call this intensely purple leaf a green, but I guess it would be even worse to call it a purple. Its flavor is slightly astringent, like strong spinach. It is, in fact, a relative of spinach that's often grown as a late season spinach "replacement" by gardeners who wish it was spinach season all year long (don't we all...). We're experimenting with orach this year, and only have a small trial patch so expect to see it in mixes such as the braising mix. It's tender enough to use as a salad green but, so far, we like its flavor best cooked. Please let us know how you like it. 

Baby Pac Choi

Pac choi (or bok choy) is probably the most familiar of the Asian greens we grow. We favor a baby variety called shuko, which is quite a bit smaller than most varieties of pac choi. It makes a delicious stir fry and is tender enough to enjoy raw. If you're not sure which one is the pac choi, look for paddle shaped leaves that are mostly fleshy stems. If its new to you, remember, this green is really all about the stems so don't discard any part of it.

Radicchio

Radicchio is impressively bitter. Its bitterness by far out bites the other bitter greens we grow. You may, then, wonder I would suggest that you add it to a salad. It's a matter of balance. A big bowl of plain radicchio is not all that appetizing, even to those of us who appreciate bitter. A simple salad of radicchio with a pinch of sea salt, a drizzling of good balsamic vinegar, and maybe some freshly grated pepper and Parmesan cheese is, on the other hand, appetizing to pretty much everyone who eats salad. It goes well in any salad that includes powerful flavors, such as blue cheese, berries, or sorrel. Radicchio is also often braised (see the braising mix above for the technique). Braised radicchio combined with garlic and Parmesan cheese is wonderful served over pasta.

Senposai

Senposai is also an Asian mustard green. The varieties are truly endless. This one is mild and sturdy, but still tender. To me it is a cross between kale and pac choi. The leaves are large and look somewhat like kale, but they are tender like pac choi and don't have kale's strong cabbage flavor. This is the first year we have grown this particular green and so far we have included it in the braising mix - it is fantastic cooked - but it will likely show up as a bunched green as well later in the season. Use it in a stir fry or a salad. It will serve you well cooked or raw.

Sorrel

This is probably the most uncommon green we grow, which is surprising because it is by far the easiest. We planted a patch years ago and have been harvesting it ever since. It starts growing in the spring, almost as soon as the snow melts, and, as long as we keep picking it, produces all summer long. Sorrel is bright green, sometimes with a touch of hot pink, and brightly flavored. It is tart. Kids tend to gobble it up raw but I prefer to temper its flavor by cooking it. Sauteed in a bit of olive oil, it sort of melts into a thick sauce which is the world's most perfect omelet filling, especially when paired with goat cheese.

Spinach

Spinach, like lettuce, probably needs no explanation. It is an early green that simply does not grow well once summer has gotten underway. We celebrate its brief appearance in the beginning of the season with a much appreciated salad, then await its return the following year.

Macaroni and Cheese, and Sorrel

The first distribution of 2011 is upon us!

The share includes head lettuce, kohlrabi, radishes, kale, arugula, mizuna, spinach, mustard, parsley, sorrel, sprouts, and one of the following fresh cut herbs: oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, or garlic scapes.

The first share in 2011

We are excited about this share, which contains veggies from our old garden, our new expanded field, and the hoophouse. This is a very busy time for us, as we are still transplanting some of the tender crops, like melon and eggplant, into the ground even as we begin to harvest. Pairing the hectic time of year with the fact that this is the first season neither of us has an off farm job to ensure a steady pay check means the stress level at our house is high these days. We're ready for the sigh of relief that's sure to come with the successful completion of the first week of distribution.

Bring it on!

As usual, the early season share is heavy on the greens. That's to be expected because the leafy stuff is shorter season than the roots and fruits that come later in the summer (except of course for radishes, which are inexplicably fast growers).

Members faced with a CSA bag brimming with greens are probably going to wonder just what to do with them. Do not fret, I have suggestions.

Start with the obvious, a salad. The lettuce, spinach, arugula, sorrel (if you're not into the mac and cheese recipe below), mustard, sprouts, parsley, kohlrabi (peeled and sliced thinly), and radishes (greens too)  all work well in salad.

The other easy solution to a bounty of greens is a stir fry. The mustard, sprouts, kohlrabi (again peeled and chopped), mizuna, radishes (don't forget those greens!) and kale are all good stir fried. Chop them up with some garlic, ginger, and dried chilies. Cook them briefly in peanut or vegetable oil and serve with rice and soy sauce. Add mushrooms or chicken if you need more substance - remember greens cook down a lot!

If you are in the mood for some more elaborate recipes, keep reading.

The first is a recipe I came up with the other day when we had a lot of sorrel to use up. Sorrel is a perennial green that starts producing even before the grass gets green. If it isn't picked frequently it sends out a flower stalk and the leaves start getting tough. In early May it is a coveted treat, but by mid-June we start forget to pick it and we end up harvesting a ton at once to make sure it is still tender when the CSA starts. If you aren't sure which one is sorrel, taste your greens until you find the sour one. That is the sorrel.

Macaroni and Cheese and Sorrel

Homemade macaroni and cheese is so simple, I don't understand why anyone would make it from a box. You can get fancier than this by making a more traditional bechamel with a roux and adding some different spices, but this easy version is yummy as is. It was a hit with the one year old as well as the elders.

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 clove garlic (or more to taste), crushed or minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 ounces sorrel, cut into thin strips (chiffonade) 
• One 14 ounce box of pasta: macaroni, shells, penne, or similar

• 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 6 ounces cheddar or colby cheese, cut into small cubes

1. In a small saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. 
2. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for about a minute.
3. Add the sorrel, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sorrel "melts" and becomes a greyish green sauce. This will take about five minutes.
4. In the meantime, get a pan of water boiling for the pasta, following the directions on the pasta package to cook the pasta.
5. Set the cooked sorrel aside.
6. Put the cold milk into a medium saucepan, add the cornstarch, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper, and stir until combined. Do not heat the milk until the cornstarch is mixed in or your sauce will be lumpy.
7. Put the pan of milk over medium/high heat and stir (I like to use a heat proof rubber spatula) until the sauce begins to steam.
8. When the sauce is steaming hot, stir in the cheese. Continue stirring until the sauce just starts to boil.
9. Turn the heat to low and stir in the cooked sorrel.
10. Combine the sauce with the hot cooked pasta and serve.

If you still need more ideas, these recipes all look good to me but I haven't tried any of them. They should give you a place to start if you are still wondering how to use up your share.

Arugula: One of my favorite things is arugula with a simple blood orange juice and olive oil dressing, so this looks pretty great to me.

Kohlrabi: The internet is full of kohlrabi recipes. Check out: A Collection of Recipes and this Kohlrabi Stew recipe. If you want to try a recipe that calls for more kohlrabi than is included in your share, stretch it with some broccoli and/or potatoes.

Kale: Pretty soon the kale is going to take off and we are going to have more of it than we know what to do with. When that happens, I will make this salad first thing. 

Mizuna: This Whole Foods recipe looks like a great stir fry. I don't think there is a full pound of mizuna in the share, but you could combine it with the kale to make a substantial meal.

As soon as my camera is ready for the task, I plan to create a post that offers a who's who of greens in case you are wondering which is which. Hopefully that will come soon!

Attack of the Flea Beetles

Flea Beetle on Rainbow Kale

Tiny hopping beetles in shades of metallic green or decorated with orange flame stripes, they would be cute. Would be, were it not for their evil streak.

I know that they are just doing what comes naturally to them (See the holes in that kale leaf. That is the nature of the flea beetle.) but I still choose to think ill of them.

As pesticide free farmers we are faced with an annual dilemma when it comes to the flea beetles. Flea beetles eat small holes in brassica plants, also known as crucifers or members of the cabbage family.

Because brassicas tend to do well in cool, short season climates like the Upper Peninsula, we grow about 15 different crops that flea beetles like to dine on.  As long as the plant being fed on is established the flea beetles don't really hurt it, they just cause cosmetic damage.

Like this:

Or this:

Seedlings are a different story. Hungry flea beetles can munch a radish seedling into oblivion if given the opportunity. 

So here is our dilemma. What do we do about this insatiable insect? 

We have a few tricks up our sleeves. Garlic oil sort of kind of helps a little. Row cover (see the photo below) helps even more by literally hiding the tasty brassicas from the beetles.  

Kale, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower in the foreground.
Two rows of mustard and radish seedlings hiding under row cover in the center.
Peas and Favas in the back.

So, we use row covers when we direct seed brassicas, to protect the seedlings. Sometimes we apply garlic oil to the row covers if the beetles find their way under. I'm not convinced that the garlic oil does anything but make us feel better though.

Our seedlings almost always survive with this treatment, but not unscathed. Our mustard and radish greens are always a bit holey.

And what about the kale, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels? They are just left in the open to fend for themselves against the flea beetles.

We start those crops in the greenhouse, then transplant them into the field. By the time we plant them they are too big to hide under row cover, and they would have to come out sooner or later even if we could cover them at first.

There is a chemical option for treating the flea beetles. It's even allowed under many organic certification programs. Pyrethrin. It comes from flowers (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium) that look like oxeye daisies. It has been used for 100 years and is generally considered the safest insecticide to use on vegetables. Organic growers use it. It's probably okay, right?


Well...it is a neurotoxin to all insects, not just flea beetles. It is also toxic to fish. It can cause symptoms such as drooling, seizures, and death in humans (granted, only if consumed in large quantities - in small quantities it is completely non-toxic to mammals). 


Every year when the flea beetles attack we say to ourselves "We could use pyrethrin. It would work." And we decide not to.


We don't want to spray poisons on our food. We just don't. So the co-ops don't pay us as much for our arugula, our farmers market customers baulk at the holes in our kale, and we worry that the CSA members won't understand. That's the price we pay for our decision. We think it is the right one.

Hoophouse Work Day

Our first member work day was a blast. We met some of our new members, fed worms to chickens, and accomplished a lot!

These are the plants we put in the ground last Sunday.

Seda hanging out with the pepper, tomato, and basil plants that are waiting to be
planted. We didn't put those eggplants in the center of the photo in yet because
they didn't appreciate the chill. They will be planted soon.

We finally met our goal of getting hoophouse tomato plants planted on May 1st! If the sun cooperates we could theoretically have our first cherry tomatoes by the Fourth of July. (For those readers that are not from the Upper Peninsula that would be more or less miraculous) I'm betting that it will take a bit longer than that, but we have a fighting chance.

Lots of members working away with Scott in the background yapping.
He saw the photos I took of the workday and asked "Did I do any work at all?"
He did. He turned all the beds we planted. I guess doing the hardest
work means taking more breaks.

We plant our tomatoes around two foot wide cages. We plant five plants around each cage, then tie the plants to the cages as they get taller (we use old T-shirts as ties). The cages are filled with straw and compost as the plants grow. The compost provides a slow fertilizer and the plants will root in the cages, making them very sturdy. Then, when we pull the plants, we get to knock all the compost into the beds. The initial cost of the fencing to make the cages is a little hefty, but it's a great system and the cages last many years.

All tucked into their cozy beds.

The nights following our work day dipped just below freezing - putting our newly transplanted starts in danger. Scott came up with the clever solution of laying the cages sideways in the paths and spreading row cover over the beds. We ran a propane heater (you can see the tank to the left) under the row cover for a bit of extra heat. After three freezing nights the plants still look great. In fact, they have put on a bit of size, especially the peppers.


Thanks again to everyone who made it to the farm. What a perfect way to kick off the season!

The Season Starts

We have started the earliest of the early transplants for the 2011 growing season.

It felt good to get my hands in some unfrozen soil. Ah...

We have to sift everything that goes into the soil blocks so there's no lumps.

We used a new method to start our seeds, soil blocks, and we our growing them in a brand new wood heated greenhouse that Scott built.

The plastic curtain keeps the side with the starts extra warm.

This is good stuff.

The soil blocks are a wonderful time and money saver because they eliminate the need for us to order and store a million peat pots and to spend time filling said peat pots with soil.

First we make mini blocks from a mixture of peat, worm castings (aka worm poop) and perlite with a bit of wood ash, bone meal, and kelp meal to balance the pH and add nutrients.

We start one seed per block.

When the seeds germinate the mini blocks are potted up into larger blocks, where they grow until they are ready to be transplanted into the ground.

The act of seed starting is now somewhere between playing with playdough and building a sugar cube castle. In other words, it is awesome. An excellent way to start the season.

We've started around 1500 seeds so far. Mostly tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants but also basil and parsley as well as sorrel.

Most of the starts are destined for the hoophouse. They will be transplanted into the house early May so that we can maximize our season for these heat loving vegetables. We'll also grow some of the shorter season varieties outside but, with our unpredictable summer weather, the only way to be sure of harvesting tomatoes in the U.P. is to grow them under plastic (or glass if you're fancy)

The hoophouse in winter.

Views in the hoophouse during the growing season. Soon.

The plants that won't be going in the hoophouse are the sorrel, which can go out in the field in the very early spring, and the parsley, which we start early because it will take forever to germinate and can also handle chilly spring soil.

Life is good!

The Days are Dark Indeed - It's time for more Soup

I hope that no one thinks the title of this post means that I find soup dreary. Just the opposite! A nice pot of soup brightens the darkest winter evening, which is why this is my third Dark Days post featuring soup.

Plus, this is an especially exciting soup because it features one of the beans grown by my friend Marty Heller. You may remember him from the post I wrote about his beans back in early December.

I used two cups of his lovely peregion beans.

Do you think beans can be serene? These look serene to me.

Last time I made a bean soup for the blog I used (and photographed) a quick soak method on the hutterite soup beans my husband and I grew. This time I did a long soak. A long soak is so easy. All it requires is a minuscule amount of thinking ahead. (I know, sometimes thinking ahead is actually very hard.)

A long soak is simply an overnight soaking of your beans. If you want to make a bean soup tomorrow, cover some beans with water and pop them in the refrigerator while you're making dinner tonight.

Here is what will happen:

2 cups beans + 3 cups water.
This is what they look like going in.



A few hours later I decided the soup also needed wheat berries.

Into the fridge they went. 1 cup wheat berries + about 2 cups water.

 Notice the beans have already plumped a bit.





This is about 24 hours after the first picture. The beans are huge!
The wheat berries aren't too much bigger, but they've obviously done something.
Look how golden their water is. Time to make soup!



I started the soup by caramelizing some onions (grown on our very own farm) with garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. To the onion I added the wheat berries and beans, both of which had been drained, and about two quarts of turkey stock made from turkeys we raised. Once I had that boiling, I added three sliced carrots, grown by our neighbors the Peterson's. Thanks Peterson's! The soup simmered for about an hour, and it was done. That's it. The long soak made it that simple.



I inherited the Navy spoons from my grandparents, who uh...borrowed them
when my grandpa was on a submarine in WWII.



In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that the wheat berries are not in any way local. I am using them for the Dark Days Challenge anyway for two reasons. First, it would be silly (and not at all sustainable) to buy new wheat berries just to fit the challenge. Second, I have tracked down a local source for them which I will use once I have finished the wheat berries I have on hand.

I also have to say that I loved the wheat berry and bean combination in this soup. It was something I had never tried before and I found that I really enjoyed the nutty pop of the wheat along side the creamy beans. Just look how lovely they were together.

I was amazed by how well the peregions held their color.
These beans are beautiful and delicious.

Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's pie is not a staple at my house. I knew what the components should be - a lovely lamb stew and mashed potatoes. Those things are staples in my house so I was able to put them together without consulting any sort of recipe. My ingredients and methods are below if you would like a consultation.


The finished dish. I could not have asked for a better winter meal.
The brown flecks are potato peel. I like peely mashed potato, proceed
as you prefer.

However, while the potatoes were boiling and my family was getting hungrier, my husband asked me how long it would have to bake. That I did not know (you can tell I always plan ahead in the kitchen), so I waded into the trusty internet to retrieve an answer. I found, to my surprise, a roaring debate about the proper components for a shepherd's pie. Mostly it was a lamb vs. beef issue. There is also a lot of contention about cheese.

It's all semantics and personal taste; things not worth actually arguing over. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to weigh in. My thought is: of course shepherd's pie is made with lamb. It's called shepherd's pie. Shepherds are people who raise sheep. Therefore their pie is likely to contain lamb. Right?

Debate on about the cheese though. I didn't use any (apparently this is the English way that purists tout) but I am sure it would be delicious with some grated Parmesan or cheddar on top (we Americans do like to cover everything with cheese).

Authentic or not, it was very good. I think this will become a staple at out house. Also, it was local. We raised the lamb, and the turkey in the stock. The potatoes came from nearby in Wisconsin, the carrots from our neighbor, and the dairy was all from the U.P. I even managed to use up some garden kohlrabi that I had lost in the freezer two years ago. Winter vegetables you have on hand, such as rutabaga, parsnips or celeriac, can be substituted for the carrots and kohlrabi.

Shepherd's Pie

Stew Ingredients:

1. Two teaspoons olive oil
2. One pound lamb, cut into one inch pieces
3. Salt and pepper
4. Two cloves garlic, minced or pressed
5. 4 or 5 whole allspice berries, ground (or about an 1/8 tsp ground allspice)
6. One cup stock (I used turkey, any good meat stock will do)
7. Three carrots, sliced into half to one inch pieces
8. Two kohlrabi, cut into one and a half inch chunks
9.  One tablespoon whole wheat flour



The stew, ready for a topping of mashed potatoes. Don't worry if the lamb
isn't quite tender at this point. It will finish cooking in the oven.



Mashed Potato Ingredients:

1. 2 pounds of potatoes (four to six potatoes), each cut into 6 to 8 pieces
2. Butter
3. Milk
4. Salt

Preheat the oven to 400 F

• In a pot large enough to hold all of the stew ingredients, heat the olive oil over medium/high heat.
• Add the lamb, salt and pepper (to taste), garlic, and allspice.
• Stir and turn occasionally until the lamb is browned on all sides.
• Add the stock, vegetables, and flour to the pan, stir well.
• Allow the stock to come to a boil, turn the heat to simmer, cover the pot.
• Place the potatoes in a pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil.
• Boil until the potatoes are very tender, about 10 or 15 minutes, drain, and return the potatoes to the pot.
• Mash the potatoes with a potato masher, adding milk, butter, and salt to taste.
• Spoon the stew into a deep nine inch pie plate, leaving most of the liquid behind in the pot.
• Spread the mashed potatoes evenly over the stew.
• Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.
• While the pie is baking, simmer the remaining stew liquid, uncovered, to make a gravy. Add a bit of cornstarch if it needs some help to thicken up. Serve this gravy with the shepherd's pie.



This was all I could rescue for lunch the next day.



Fast and Local

A lot has happened since my last post. It has been kind of a crazy, non-stop week. A few of the highlights include:

Slaughtering five turkeys that hadn't quite made it up to size at thanksgiving time.

Grinding said turkey meat with our new kitchenaid grinder attachment (best Christmas present ever!).

Negotiating with my boss to go down to part time at the day job - and getting a pretty hefty raise out of the deal. I'm one step closer to the goal of full time farming.

Then Saturday I wrapped the week up with a day long grocery shopping trip to the "big city" of Houghton. That is how we small towners roll. We don't run to the store. We have huge grocery shopping marathons once or twice a month, braving white out conditions (seriously) to stock up on toilet paper and organic potatoes.

So, when I got home Saturday I was tired and a little bristled that my husband hadn't made dinner. Clearly it was an omelet night. My first thought was cheese, but all the cheese had been eaten in my absence. So I poked in the fridge and came out with seven eggs from Byler Family Farms in Pelkie, Michigan, butter from Jilbert Dairy in Marquette, Michigan and two jars containing remnants of the ginger scallion sauce I made last fall.

I had the omelet almost done before I even realized I could use it for a Dark Days post. The picture shows it just after folding but before the flip - a few minutes before it was fully cooked.

Since deciding to participate in Dark Days, I have been paying more attention to how many of our meals come from completely local sources. I've been pleasantly surprised by how often it turns out that those quick "grab whatever is on hand and make something tasty" types of meals turn out to be 100% local. I think that means we are doing something seriously right.

We finished off the meal with some homemade applesauce made with apples grown in our front yard.

Lamb, Eggplant, and Becoming a Real Farmer

A lot of farmers, the kind with 100's of acres of a single crop each year or thousands of beef cattle, don't consider us CSA farmers to be "real farmers". While I don't agree with them, I can totally understand where they are coming from.

CSA farmers are different from other types of farmers. We fill a different role for our customers, we have a totally different business model, and even the daily work we do can be dissimilar from that of other farmers. I usually describe CSA farming as tending a giant garden. 600 acres of soybeans can hardly be described as a garden. Many of us are new to farming, and we often start out with unrealistic ideas of what we can accomplish. Also, unfortunately, many CSA farmers seem to place a higher value on the the CSA model of farming and forget how much we can learn from other farmers.

All that being said however, we are real farmers. We grow nourishing food for our communities, tend our land lovingly, and plan our lives around the needs of our animals and crops.

But even real farmers face challenges. Though those with thousands of beef cattle probably faced and overcame the particular challenge I am going to mention here long before I had to.

I find it difficult to raise animals for food. It isn't a huge surprise. I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. I was very removed from the sources of my food. As a teenager I was a vegetarian and even went vegan for a year or so because it was the thing to do among the crowd I hung out with. I had some issues eating meat.

When I was twenty I went to culinary school and the first class I took was butchery. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle it but instead found that it helped connect me to the idea that it is natural for humans to rely on animals for food.

But raising them myself does add a whole new dimension to things. Sheep, and even roosters, have personalities. They don't want to die any more than anything else does. And, for most of their lives, I don't want them to die either. What is especially embarrassing about it is that it's harder for me to eat cute animals.
I was sad back in September on sheep slaughtering day. Really sad. I was thinking that maybe deep down I am not a real farmer.

Then I ate some. And it was seriously good. We raised two sheep last summer and, not only did they help us clear out some unwanted plants and fertilize our fields while they were alive, they helped us fill our freezer with flavourful, tender, healthy meat.

So, while I'm torn by some aspects of it, I love being a real farmer. But I will still be sad on sheep slaughtering day 2011 - though maybe not really sad.

And of course, the meat our sheep provided us is the perfect thing to cook during the dark days challenge. So, here it is, a dark days dinner featuring lamb we raised, eggplant we grew and pickled, and kale given to us by a neighbor that we dried for the winter.



From sheep, to lamb, to cast iron pan.



Eggplant, pickled according to the method in
The Joy of Pickling.



Kale, dried in our electric dehydrator.


There is no recipe to share because unless you have pickled eggplant on hand you really can't duplicate the dish. I sauteed about a pound of cubed lamb in some of the oil from the pickled eggplant, then allowed it to simmer until it was tender, adding a bit of eggplant and a cup of crumbled kale to the meat towards the end of the cooking time. We ate it with some entirely non-local rice because my lack of planning left me without a local starch option and this dinner needed a starch.