Hello folks,

As July draws to a close, we are enjoying some beautiful days even with the wet summer we have been having. Our apprentice program is now half over. Its hard to believe that Jodi, Ben, Oliver and Lucy have been with us for 3 months! We have really hit a nice rhythm on the farm and everyone is working hard and learning more about our grazing methods. We’ve all had lots of laughs together. Thanks guys!

Sundsay August 10th: HOEDOWN ON THE HILL at Maple Wind Farm. 4:30-sunset. Come listen to the bluegrass music of the Meatpackers and enjoy the company of friends and good food. Maple Wind meat tastes and lemonade provided. Please bring a dish or dessert to share and your own plate/fork (BYOB too). Rain or shine. Walk to the party site is about 5 min from parking. Carpooling recommended. See you here! 

ON THE FARM: Business as usual, the animals are doing well. We brought back our three bulls from the group of beeves at the Andrews Farm to keep Eliza Jane company in the pasture. She’s found one particular “friend” that she has been cozy with- so we expect to see a calf from her in the spring! Egg production is getting more and more each day so expect to see them in Beaudrys, Green Grocer and all our farmers markets locations…YUM! We took our sow that did not get pregnant to the butcher and the two other sows have been renegades in their pasture breaking out often so we put them in the pasture with the rest of the market pigs so hopefully they will stay put.

IN THE GARDEN: This week we put in the fall broccoli and some purple cauliflour as well as some new kinds of kale ready this fall. We seeded some turnips ready early September and are strategizing some of our final sowings of greens, spinach and herbs. Thankfully we have had no deer or woodchuck activity this summer, I hope we keep it that way.

THIS WEEKS HARVEST: Some new items to enjoy: fennel, red cabbage, lots of green beans and yes finally carrots!!! Also some more summer squash, cucumbers, onions, herbs. Sorry, we did not end up harvesting potatoes this week, we will get the horse team out next week and use the potato harvester.

FENNEL:………….Since this is the only fennel you will get all summer, I found some interesting information below.  Expand your horizons, enjoy the versatility of this unique vegetable.

From Cooking Light website: Don’t let an aversion to black jelly beans keep you away from fennel. Native to the Mediterranean region, this licorice-flavored member of the parsley family is one of Italy’s most popular vegetables.

Work with it, and you will find that the aromatic plant lends itself well to a wider variety of foods than you might have first suspected. Another benefit: one cup contains almost 20 percent of your recommended daily value of vitamin C. Most fennel available in American markets is grown in California. The type you’ll find—Florence, or bulb, fennel (sometimes labeled “fresh anise”)—has a bulbous base, stalks like celery, and feathery leaves that resemble Queen Anne’s lace. Like celery, the entire plant is edible. The crisp and slightly sweet bulb is especially delicious served raw in salads. Whether braised, sautéed, roasted, or grilled, the bulb mellows and softens with cooking.

Look for small, heavy, white bulbs that are firm and free of cracks, browning, or moist areas. The stalks should be crisp, with feathery, bright-green fronds. Wrapped in plastic, fennel keeps for just a few days in the refrigerator; the flavor fades as it dries out.

The Whole Fennel

• Fennel seeds don’t come from bulb fennel but from common, or wild, fennel. The seeds are slightly nutty, with the expected licorice flavor, and are widely used in sausages, stews, soups, and curries.

• Fennel stalks can take the place of celery in soups and stews, and can be used as a “bed” for roasted chicken and meats.

• Use fronds as a garnish, or chop them and use as you would other herbs, like dill or parsley. Chopped fennel works especially well in Italian tomato sauces, but add it late in the cooking process so the flavor isn’t diluted.

Bulb Basics

• Trim the stalks about an inch above the bulb.

• If you want pieces to stay together for grilling, keep the root end intact. Otherwise, trim about a half inch off the root end before cooking.

• To slice fennel, stand the bulb on the root end and cut vertically.

IN THE KITCHEN: Thanks to Jodi for these awesome ideas!! Tonight in fact, we did a test recipe for the squash casserole- yum!!!!! Im excited to try the carrot/fennel dish! 

Squash Custard Casserole

8-10 squash, trimmed and sliced into 1/2 inch thick rounds (2 lbs.)
2 large eggs
4 tblspns (1/2 stick) butter melted
1/2 cup milk
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tblspns finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
2 tblspns sugar
1 tspn salt
1/4 tspn black pepper
1 cup coarse bread crumbs
1 cup grated melting cheese such as cheddar or gruyere
2 strips bacon, sliced crosswise into 1 inch-wide sections, cooked crisp and crumbled

~Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 12 by 8 inch ovenproof casserole.
~Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the squash and cook over medium-high heat
until barely wilted, about 2 min. Drain and set aside.
~Combine the eggs, butter, milk, onion, parsley, sugar, salt, and pepper in a large
bowl. Add the squash and mix. Transfer the mixture to the casserole. Sprinkle the
bread crumbs, cheddar, and crumbled bacon over the top. Bake for 35 min. or until
the top is golden and crunchy.

Icy Cold Summer Soup

1 cup finely shredded cabbage
1/4 each yellow, red, and green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 celery rib, trimmed and sliced very thin
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
1 scallion, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 radishes, trimmed and sliced into thin rounds
1 medium tomato, cut into 1/4 inch dice
8 cups vegetable juice
Sour cream or plain yogurt for topping

`Combine all the ingredients except the sour cream in a large bowl. Stir to mix,
cover and refrigerate for several hours.
~serve chilled, with a bowl or sour cream on the side if desired.

Carrots Braised with Fennel

1 tblspn butter
1 tblspn olive oil
4 medium carrots, trimmed and julienned
1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and cut to same thickness as carrots
1/2 cup broth
1/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup chopped fennel fronds

~Heat the butter and oil together in a large saute pan until the butter melts. Add
the carrots and fennel and stir to coat. Cover the pan and cook over low heat for 10
min, or until wilted.
~Add the broth and wine, raise the heat to medium, and cook, uncovered for 10 min
more or until the liquid has evaporated and the vegetables are fork tender.
~Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with the chopped fronds and serve right away.

Eat well, eat local.

Regards, Beth

Hello folks…

Reminder of the LOCALVORE MARKET at Jubilee Farm in Huntington Center for the next four Thursdays. Come buy from your neighbors who raise, grow or make local food and plants. 4-7pm. Important: Huntington CSA pickup folks, this is your pick up location NOT our farm for 4 weeks. We will have meat for sale and I might bring our grill for hamburgers!

ON THE FARM:The animals are doing well. We just got our 125 turkey chicks and they are doing nicely. These will be organic pastured birds for Thanksgiving. If you would like to place an order for one, let us know. Good news, our pullets layer hens are slowly starting to lay their eggs, Ben found four today! On the egg front, we are collecting about 100 a day now so we are proud to be able to provide Beaudrys and the Green Grocer again with our delicious pastured organic eggs. (Also found at farmers markets and our CSA pickups).

We moved the lamb flock back into the field with the ewes who should be all dried off now. Thats a relief to only move one group of sheep each day instead of two. They are settling in fine though some of the large lambs still think nursing would be great and are trying to find some milk.

IN THE GARDEN: We had the crew out on Tuesday do a huge number on the weeds and the garden looks great! We had weekwackers, mantis tiller, “Troy” the tiller, hand weeders galore and it really helped get a handle on the wet weather weeds for sure. Thanks gang! Peas are gone now for the season but the beans are looking fabulous. We did a huge preharvest on Wednesday in anticipation of the huge rains on Thursday. I just hope we dont have too much standing water in the garden by the end of tomorrows expected rains.

THIS WEEKS HARVEST: MMM…more maple syrup! enjoy! Wet weather makes for large vegetables! You’ll notice some larger than normal cucumbers and some of the summer squash are large too. Still delicious though! Our harvest also includes beets, mesculin, cauliflour, broccoli, french beans, kale and flowers. I promise, soon we’ll have carrots and potatoes. Next week: Red cabbage.

IN THE KITCHEN:  A few ideas… Id like to hear what you are doing with the harvest. Email me at beth@otloose.com and I’ll publish your ideas.

Try a nice cool summer salad of cucumbers and tomatoes or blend up a cucumber with dill and yogurt for a nice dressing on your green salad.

Zucchini: try a stuffed baked squash with sausage, and cut up veggies and parmesean cheese.

Beets are great grated on your summer salad raw or boil them untill you can stick a fork in them. Make sure to cut the tops 1″ from the beet and then after they are boiled, you can just peel the skin right off and slice and eat. My kids love them!

Kale is nice steamed into scrambled eggs in the morning. One of the best sources of vit. A!

As always, enjoy the harvest and eat well.

Beth

Hello folks, here’s this weeks news. I hope your are enjoying the musings…

CSA members: PLEASE try to remember your pint jar returnables for the maple syrup. We’ll refill next week! YUM!

NOTE!!! Huntington CSA members: Next week July 24 and the following 3 weeks we will have the veggie share pickups at Jubilee Farm in Huntington Center. Sara Jane Williamson owner of Jubiliee is hosting a LOCALVORE MARKET for 4 weeks with many wonderful local goods for sale (baked goods, syrup, Maple Wind meats, veggies, jams etc. )  ALL WELCOME!!!! spread the word about this mini farmers market to all your friends.

ON THE FARM: Finally we have completed the water systems at Teal Farm for the lower fields. Bruce and the crew are very relieved to have that behind us and the water pressure is fantastic! Ben Cooley says “the cows will love it and we are ready to move them on Friday or Saturday”. They’ve been vacationing for 8-9 days up on high ground on an old air landing strip. To get them water, we’ve had to fill two water tanks using a pump from ponds on Melissa’s property. Every 24 hours 80 cows with their calves drink about 700 gallons!!!! We are still cutting and bailing hay- its been great weather this week for it!

IN THE GARDEN: Grow garden grow! All is well and we are hitting a nice period of harvest. We hope you are enjoying the fresh vegetables. I will say that soon we will enter into a slower “greens” period. I had a huge number of head lettuce bolt and also a nice patch of buttercrunch get bottom rot (from the wet soils from all this rain) so I had to compost them all. Head lettuce will not be very prevelent in the upcoming few weeks, my apologies. We’ll keep trying for loose lettuce until then. We got all the tomatoes trellised this week finally and they are loving the air and stretching in the sun! We can see many fruits but the ripe ones are still aways off.

THIS WEEKS HARVEST: Cucumbers (salad and pickling), Summer Squash, Basil, Cabbage, Chard, Scallions, Arugula (the swiss cheese kind with flea beetle marks but still tastes fine), and some cut red lettuce. There may be more surprises…

IN THE KITCHEN: We have great dill heads in the pick your own herb gardens so take some home and make a jar of pickles! Easy and fun! For many pickling recipies I highly recommend “Putting Food By” by Janet Greene. Very comprehensive on freezing, canning, and preserving all vegetables, fruits and meats. It is quite the bible of food preservation. Its put out by Plume Press. I think I got this used on Amazon.com.

Quick Pickles

10 pickles, 1/4 c. sugar, 1/4 c. pickling salt, 1/3 Quart vinegar and 1/3 Quart water, fresh dill heads.  Optional: garlic cloves or whole picking spices.

Mix together sugar, salt, vinegar, and water to a boil. Scrub cucumbers, remove stems and blossom ends; cut lengthwise in halves or quarters (not longer than the jar) Put a dill head in each clean hot jar. Pack the jars with cut cucumbers upright, then tuck in garlic clove if you like. Pour in boiling vinegar mixture, leave 1/2 inch headroom. Adjust lids. Process in 185F/85 C water bath for 10 min. Remove jars and complete seals if necessary.

Steamed Chard with Candied Ginger

3/4 lb chard leaves, salt and pepper to taste, 1 TB olive oil, grated lemon or orange zest or lemon juice to taste, chopped candied ginger to taste

Wash chard then chop coarsely. Steam leaves 5-10 min. Toss chard with remaining ingredients and serve warm.

I welcome any great tasty dishes you may want to share with the other members, Email me and I can add it to a newsletter.

Have a great week.

Beth

Summer is in full swing! I hope you all are enjoying splashes in a nearby river or waterhole on these hot days!

Reminders: Please bring your pint jars back tomorrow for a refill of maple syrup soon! Thank you! Any extras would be appreciated. Dont forget your bags and some folks are reusing their produce bags- way to go!

Kudos to the Williston families who carpool their veggies…4 families share Maple Wind CSAs and they each rotate a week to pick up for each other. Maybe you have a neighbor in our CSA to do the same thing and save some gas or time.

ON THE FARM: We are still finishing the work at the Teal Farm with water systems as our next project. By the way, the Teal Farm is having a open to the public free tour this Saturday July 12 at 10:00am. Bruce and Nate spent a good bit of last week on an excavator installing the spring and now this week our focus is fencing and running the ground water line. We are taking more steers to the butcher on Monday as well as a few pigs so expect more great product at Farmers Market. Its not too late to order custom meats!

IN THE GARDEN: Weeds.. We’ve enjoyed the rain but so have the weeds. We are tackling them with a vengence and just had a huge crew out there yesterday in the humid weather taking care of business. Are you looking down from route 2 to see the garden as you drive by? Its really taking on some beautiful colors. No sign of the wood chuck from last year thank goodness. The broccoli are coming along nicely as are the cauliflour. Our squash plants are at least 2 1/2 feet high and thriving! I can see some winter squash forming!

THIS WEEKS HARVEST: Colorful and flavorful. Summer is kicking in! ENJOY!!!! yum.

You’ll find summer squash, cucumbers, beets and kale. Also some mixed mesculin greens, garlic scapes and some more peas (PYO at Richmond again). The pickers in Richmond last week were troopers in the rain…out there with umbrellas and all!

IN THE KITCHEN: Thank you Jodi  from Maple Wind Farm for supplying these tasty zucchini recipies. Members are always welcome to email me a great recipe they know or would like to suggest to all of us and I will post it here.

FRIED ZUCCHINI

8 tblspn flour

9 tblspn water

salt

1lb zucchini

9 tblspn yogurt

1 tblspn olive oil

1/2 bunch of mint

1/4 tspn ground cumin

oil for frying

~In large bowl stir together flour, salt and water until smooth to make batter. Let stand for about 1 1/2 hours.

~Wash zucchini and slice about 1/2 inch thick.

~Put yogurt, mint and olive oil in food processor. Season with cumin.

~Lay zucchini slices in batter. Heat oil in wide pot or wok. Remove zucchini from batter, let drain a little. Carefully place slices in oil and fry about 5-8 minutes or until golden and crispy.

Serve with yogurt dip.

ZUCCHINI-POTATO FRITTERS

1/2 lb potatoes

1/3 lb zucchini

1/2 tspn corriander and cumin

2 heaping tblspn whole wheat flour

salt and fresh ground pepper

sweet paprika

3 tblspn oil for frying

~Peel and rinse potatoes and zucchini, then grate. In small bowl combine potatoes, zucchini and corriander ~Add cumin and flour. Season with salt, pepper and paprika. Mix well.

~Heat oil in pan. Form the mixture into six fritters. Then fry over medium heat until crispy brown.

Enjoy your week.

Thank you for eating locally and reducing your “miles per gallon quotients in your diet”.

Beth

Hello and Happy 4th of July weekend.

A bit of Housekeeping….

CSA members, please remember to contact me if you are not going to be picking up your share for the week. Also, call my cell phone if you know you will be late and we’ll put a bag together for you and leave it on the porch of the Andrews Farm or on the table in our barn. I hate to see a whole share go to waste. Id rather it stay in the field until next week. Beths # 233-3862 Don’t forget to bring your bags and some of you are reusing the produce bags, thanks!

Let us know if you would like some meat brought to the pickups for your weekend meals.

News of the Farm

On Monday, we had a HUGE day. We had an awesome crew of 12 that processed our first round of chickens…300 of them! Its not too late to pickup a fresh chicken, just come to the Andrews Farm from 3-6 Thurs or call us and we can bring one for you to a market on Saturday before they go in the freezer! All are between 3.5-5 pounds and look marvelous!  On Tuesday, Jodi, Lucy and Beth weaned our lamb flock from their mothers. The lambs seemed to be fine, enjoying frolicking in their new pasture by themselves. The ewes spent the first two days making a bunch of noise calling for their little ones. We do this so the mothers can dry up their milk production and the lambs can be more independent grass eaters for the summer. The crew making hay took 57 gorgeous bales of hay off of the southside pasture on the Teal Farm on Wednesday. When we get our next good weather window, we’ll cut the north side.

News in the Garden

We are happy with the growth of the garden. New varieties are soon to come ready for harvest. With all the rain we are trying to stay on top of weeds which is always a challenge. The plastic mulch is great under the plants, it the weeds in between the rows we have to stay on top of.  Many of the potatoes are flowering which means they are creating tubers. We should have some fingerlings soon!

This weeks harvest

Enjoy some early season cabbage, chard, head lettuce, leaf lettuce, and some summer squash. In Richmond, you will be invited to pick your own peas and boy o boy are they delicious…bursting with flavor! 

(Huntington, we’ll be picking for you) There will be herbs as always. 

The arugula (that I hoped you enjoyed last week) has bolted (gone to flowering stage) so we are going to pick the flowers. Jodi suggested that they are tasty on salads so give it a try!

As always, we welcome your feedback and comments. Please call or email.

Beth

In the kitchen

Did you know dill heads go well in potato salad and look nice too with great flavor. We hope you are enjoying all the great herbs.

Try this slaw recipe for your 4th of July picnic. Great with Maple Wind Farm ribs, pork chops or hamburgers.

SUPER SLAW

6 tablespoons rice vinegar

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

5 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

3 tablespoons soy sauce

3 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar

2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger

1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic

5 cups thinly sliced green cabbage

2 cups thinly sliced red cabbage

2 large red or yellow bell peppers, cut into matchstick-size strips

2 medium carrots, peeled, cut into matchstick-size strips

8 large green onions, cut into matchstick-size strips

 /2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Whisk first 7 ingredients in small bowl to blend. (Dressing can be made 1 day ahead.

Cover and chill. Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes before

continuing.)

Combine remaining ingredients in large bowl. Add dressing and toss to coat. Season

with salt and pepper and serve.

Bon Appetit

July 1998