For those of you trying to get to our website, we're undergoing some changes and it will be back up soon. We're trying to make it so you can buy our soaps and hot sauces through our website. In the meantime, you can always contact us at pcfarm@gmail.com. Thanks for your patience! We hope to be up and running again by the new year.
Enjoy the holidays and happy 2010!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
New product comming soon.
Check out our new line of hot sauces, and become a fan on FB. We hope to soon have a way to sell these online, but for now you can just email us if you are interested.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Fire-Fly-Hot-Sauce/187770479711?ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Fire-Fly-Hot-Sauce/187770479711?ref=ts
Monday, November 23, 2009
First pumpkin
Thanks to the Morrows for giving Elliot his first pumpkin. He still likes to play with it.
Friday, October 23, 2009
HELPING OUT
Elliot has learned to help out around the house. This is good, considering most of the laundry is his now.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Great Kale and Winter Squash recipe
Here's something I dug up on the old www this week, Kale and Squash Risotto. It takes about a half a bunch of kale and a small winter squash. Kabocha, butternut or acorn would work well. Note: It could serve 4 as a main or 6 as a side, so you can halve the recipe if you want. And though Risotto is usually made with arborio rice, I would be tempted to try it with regular short grain white. Who can afford that arborio stuff anyway? Enjoy!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Fall Share Week 6 (I think)
Apologies for not getting a newsletter in your bags today. My (Katherine's) computer was having issues and I couldn't write one. It seems to have been some sort of poltergeist rather than standard technical difficulties. Anyway, all is fixed now, so I thought I'd jump straight to the blog to tell you about this week's bag.
What's in it (*Full share only):
Kale
Kohlrabi
Salad mix (with baby lettuce, spinach, tat soi and arugula)
Hakurei turnips
Kabocha squash
Carmen sweet peppers
*Beets (baby size)
*Bok choi
What to do with it:
Most of these things are familiar to you all by now. The beets are new, and they seem to be a specific variety for tall greens, which is nice if you like beet greens, but you might not know how to use them. Since they are in the same family as spinach and chard, you can pretty much treat them the same way - steaming, stir-frying, gently sauteing. We've put spinach and chard on pizza before with excellent results. The beets themselves can be roasted or boiled, but roasting seems to allow for optimum sweetness while boiling lets some of the good stuff get away (in our humble opinions). You can peel beets before roasting, but you don't have to. Just drizzle some olive oil on, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or so. Use the fork test (piercing easily) to be sure.
The Carmen sweet peppers are still rolling in, red as can be. If you can't use them immediately, slice them and freeze them (no blanching required). We like them in everything lately, including salads and stir-fries and dirty rice. Since they're quite sweet, you can just eat them as a snack as well. Try it with your kids and see what they think. Elliot is rather a fan.
If you're into cole slaw, try a recipe substituting grated kohlrabi and turnips for the cabbage. If you have carrots handy, grate them, too. We are currently very enamored with the flavor of raw kohlrabi, though we've also had great success mashing it with potatoes and stir-frying it. It retains a nice crunch when cooked.
And, as it turns out (if you were paying attention last week), kale does make a nice frittata. Ours turned out to be a high ratio of greens (like almost a whole bunch of kale that we had to use) to about 6 eggs, and we didn't use any cheese, though you certainly could. Imagine what you could create with a little Swiss or Gorgonzola. Yummy. Anyway, we were able to get breakfast and lunch out of a one-pan meal, which is always a bonus.
I stretched some lentil soup last week by putting some mashed kabocha squash in it. It sounds crazy, but it was really good. Even though the flesh is sweet, it's okay to pair it with something savory. Experiment for yourselves and see what you think.
Hope to be back to paper next week. Enjoy!
What's in it (*Full share only):
Kale
Kohlrabi
Salad mix (with baby lettuce, spinach, tat soi and arugula)
Hakurei turnips
Kabocha squash
Carmen sweet peppers
*Beets (baby size)
*Bok choi
What to do with it:
Most of these things are familiar to you all by now. The beets are new, and they seem to be a specific variety for tall greens, which is nice if you like beet greens, but you might not know how to use them. Since they are in the same family as spinach and chard, you can pretty much treat them the same way - steaming, stir-frying, gently sauteing. We've put spinach and chard on pizza before with excellent results. The beets themselves can be roasted or boiled, but roasting seems to allow for optimum sweetness while boiling lets some of the good stuff get away (in our humble opinions). You can peel beets before roasting, but you don't have to. Just drizzle some olive oil on, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or so. Use the fork test (piercing easily) to be sure.
The Carmen sweet peppers are still rolling in, red as can be. If you can't use them immediately, slice them and freeze them (no blanching required). We like them in everything lately, including salads and stir-fries and dirty rice. Since they're quite sweet, you can just eat them as a snack as well. Try it with your kids and see what they think. Elliot is rather a fan.
If you're into cole slaw, try a recipe substituting grated kohlrabi and turnips for the cabbage. If you have carrots handy, grate them, too. We are currently very enamored with the flavor of raw kohlrabi, though we've also had great success mashing it with potatoes and stir-frying it. It retains a nice crunch when cooked.
And, as it turns out (if you were paying attention last week), kale does make a nice frittata. Ours turned out to be a high ratio of greens (like almost a whole bunch of kale that we had to use) to about 6 eggs, and we didn't use any cheese, though you certainly could. Imagine what you could create with a little Swiss or Gorgonzola. Yummy. Anyway, we were able to get breakfast and lunch out of a one-pan meal, which is always a bonus.
I stretched some lentil soup last week by putting some mashed kabocha squash in it. It sounds crazy, but it was really good. Even though the flesh is sweet, it's okay to pair it with something savory. Experiment for yourselves and see what you think.
Hope to be back to paper next week. Enjoy!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Fall Share Week 1
Welcome to the first week of the Fall share! We’re very excited to bring you greens and root vegetables, as well as the end of the summer veggies. Okra, basil and peppers will be petering out soon, so enjoy them while you can. We’re sorry to say that the tomatoes are done. The last two years we’ve had them later into the fall, at least into October, but this was a very bad tomato season. A combination of wet weather and cool temperatures meant they never really had a chance. We’re lucky we got as many as we did.
As an added freakish-weather bonus, we haven’t had decent rain for about a month now, which means the moisture and coolness that would favor the greens has abandoned us. We’re irrigating when needed, but if the remnants of a hurricane happened to skirt by the Shenandoah Valley, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. We’re lamenting the lack of a decent summer this year, and hoping for better weather next year.
This Week (*full share only):
Basil
Kale
Carrots
Carmen sweet peppers
Okra
Potatoes
*Bell Peppers
*Hungarian Hot Wax peppers
*Radishes
*Spaghetti Squash
What to do with it:
For those of you new to the CSA, this recipe bears repeating: Todd makes excellent potato fries by slicing potatoes into fry-size pieces (no peeling) and parboiling them for two to three minutes. Then he brushes them with olive oil and adds a little Old Bay spice and bakes them for thirty minutes at 375. He says if they’re not crispy at that point, he puts them under the broiler for a minute or two. But they’re easy to over-crisp, so be careful. The potatoes this week are a russet variety, so you can bake them, or even grill them, for delicious results.
People need more guidance with okra than anything else. You can steam it whole for 4-6 minutes and spritz it with a little lemon juice. You can fry it sliced, dusted with cornmeal (okra’s natural gooiness makes the cornmeal stick), in olive oil in a hot skillet. You can also make the stir-fry mélange that we frequently enjoy: sautéed onions, garlic, peppers, sliced okra, and whatever else you have handy (tomatoes, mushrooms, etc) and serve it over rice, quinoa or grits. We like to throw in an herb, like basil or parsley, when we have it. You can throw on some soy sauce or hot sauce, too.
The spaghetti squash is kind of a weirdo, but we promise you will love it. The easiest way to cook it is to slice it in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, brush the cut side with olive oil, and place it cut-side-down on a baking dish. You can add a tiny bit of water to the dish if you want. Bake it at 350 until easily pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes (but the size of the squash varies – you can start checking with a fork at 20 minutes if you’re not sure). Once cooked, you scoop out the spaghetti-like strands and add some butter, salt and grated cheese (we like parmesan), or whatever else you want. You can actually treat it like spaghetti and add tomato sauce. It’s bland tasting like pasta, but with a more vegetable-like texture.
The radishes are mild enough to eat raw, as in salad, or you can stir-fry them. They’re small right now, but their taste is milder than it will be when they get larger. These red and white radishes are called French breakfast radishes. The classic red ones will be in a little later. Enjoy!
As an added freakish-weather bonus, we haven’t had decent rain for about a month now, which means the moisture and coolness that would favor the greens has abandoned us. We’re irrigating when needed, but if the remnants of a hurricane happened to skirt by the Shenandoah Valley, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. We’re lamenting the lack of a decent summer this year, and hoping for better weather next year.
This Week (*full share only):
Basil
Kale
Carrots
Carmen sweet peppers
Okra
Potatoes
*Bell Peppers
*Hungarian Hot Wax peppers
*Radishes
*Spaghetti Squash
What to do with it:
For those of you new to the CSA, this recipe bears repeating: Todd makes excellent potato fries by slicing potatoes into fry-size pieces (no peeling) and parboiling them for two to three minutes. Then he brushes them with olive oil and adds a little Old Bay spice and bakes them for thirty minutes at 375. He says if they’re not crispy at that point, he puts them under the broiler for a minute or two. But they’re easy to over-crisp, so be careful. The potatoes this week are a russet variety, so you can bake them, or even grill them, for delicious results.
People need more guidance with okra than anything else. You can steam it whole for 4-6 minutes and spritz it with a little lemon juice. You can fry it sliced, dusted with cornmeal (okra’s natural gooiness makes the cornmeal stick), in olive oil in a hot skillet. You can also make the stir-fry mélange that we frequently enjoy: sautéed onions, garlic, peppers, sliced okra, and whatever else you have handy (tomatoes, mushrooms, etc) and serve it over rice, quinoa or grits. We like to throw in an herb, like basil or parsley, when we have it. You can throw on some soy sauce or hot sauce, too.
The spaghetti squash is kind of a weirdo, but we promise you will love it. The easiest way to cook it is to slice it in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, brush the cut side with olive oil, and place it cut-side-down on a baking dish. You can add a tiny bit of water to the dish if you want. Bake it at 350 until easily pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes (but the size of the squash varies – you can start checking with a fork at 20 minutes if you’re not sure). Once cooked, you scoop out the spaghetti-like strands and add some butter, salt and grated cheese (we like parmesan), or whatever else you want. You can actually treat it like spaghetti and add tomato sauce. It’s bland tasting like pasta, but with a more vegetable-like texture.
The radishes are mild enough to eat raw, as in salad, or you can stir-fry them. They’re small right now, but their taste is milder than it will be when they get larger. These red and white radishes are called French breakfast radishes. The classic red ones will be in a little later. Enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
