on delicata

New in the CSA box this week are delicata squash.  They actually go by the name Sweet Dumpling Squash because the are rounder than actual delicata.  Yet their characteristics are the same.  Both have a sweet a nutty flavor, and the skin after cooking can be eaten as well.  The usual cooking method for delicata squash is halving and de-seeding them, then dry roasting them.  They can also be sauteed, battered and fried, and cooked into soups.

Being able to cook winter squash without the having to peel the skin makes the process that much easier, and adds wonderful color to the orange flesh.

Here is a simple recipe using your new delicata

1 delicata squash

1 half yellow onion

1 cloves garlic

1 can chickpeas

1 pkg your favorite rogue creamery blue cheese

1/4 cup dried cherries.

1/2 cup port wine

frying oil

Cut delicata in half, remove seeds.  toss in oil, salt, pepper.  Bake at 400 till tender to the touch.  Remove from oven and cool

Remove chick peas from the can, rinse, dry.  Then fry in hot oil till crisp.  remove from oil, cool, and dry oil off.

Plump cherries in port wine by heating the wine up and pouring over the cherries.  Then cover bowl with plastic and let rest.

After cherries are plumped, strain out port wine and reduce using the same method as balsamic reduction.

Sautee diced onions till translucent.  Then sweat minced garlic.

In bowl mix cherries, onions, garlic and chickpeas.

Fill cooked, halved delicata with mixture and crumble blue cheese over the top.

Place in broiler till cheese is slightly melted

Before serving drizzle port wine reduction over the top.

Bon Apetite!

Mud Puddle Farm

Nature Runs Riot

I know I have the excuse of having had a baby a few months ago, so no one blames me for the little amount of time I spent in the field from the beginning of June until now. But I have a confession to make. I kind of didn’t LIKE being in the field in the height of growing season. At first, I thought maybe it was weird post-birth hormones, or the fact that I didn’t want Sadie in the dirt and pollen, but today I read something that totally clicked for me. It suddenly made sense why I was reluctant to be as hardy of a farm-hand as I was in the beginning of the year.

I am just now reading Botany of Desire. I know, I know; I talk about Michael Pollan like he is my best friend, and I have read everything else he has written, but I somehow skipped the one that made him famous. Well, now I am reading it (and if you are like me and have managed to get through the past few years without reading it, do yourselves a favor and don’t let another year go by–READ THIS BOOK. It is fantastic!). I am almost done with it, in fact. I sped through the beginning section on apples, made particularly poignant by the fact that it is apple season around here and when we go on our morning walks, Chad and I are sampling fruit off all the trees in the neighborhood. The second section is on tulips, which was interesting to think about why we find some flowers more beautiful than others. The third section is on marijuana, and was fascinating in its discussion of why animals of all types search out consciousness altering substances. And now I am reading about potatoes.

Potatoes were one of my favorite crops here at Mud Puddle Farm this year. They were fun to plant, they were exciting to watch grow, the flowers are beautiful, and the crop was delicious. We planted 4 different types of spud, all funky heirloom varieties, all gone now (they were all smaller sizes, so harvested quicker than big potatoes, and we didn’t plant any storage varieties. We know what to do for next year, but it is depressing to have to buy boring grocery store potatoes until next July…). So it is cool to be reading about how the potato has changed and co-mingled with humans since the beginning of its cultivation. Pollan also discusses Monsanto’s genetically altered potatoes that are pest resistant. But his musings than struck closest to home with me were right at the beginning of the section when he talks about our attempts to reign in Nature. He says,

“It is only the suspension of disbelief that allows him to plant again every spring, to wade out in the season’s uncertainties. Before long, the pests will come, the storms and droughts and blights, as if to remind him just how imperfect the human power implied by those pristine rows really is.”

Before Sadie’s birth, my rows were, well, not pristine, but not overrun, either. And the plants were still “cute”–that is, they were on the small size and still needed nurturing in the hope that they would produce for us. And then I disappeared from the garden for 6 weeks. Yes, I would walk through to see what was going on, but I was more focused on the perfection I held in my arms than I was on the state of the rows. And then, when I could be back on the team, I found I really didn’t want to be.

These giant plants bore little resemblance to my “cute” plants which I started from seed. Yes, they were producing, but they were producing quantities I had no idea what to do with (even after we gave away a ton to our CSA), and the weeds and the bugs and the sun were unlike anything I had dealt with in the cooler spring weather. So, I did as little as I needed to to get by for the rest of the season. I knew I was dragging my feet, but I had this great little excuse.

Now that the weather is cooling off, and the season’s end is in sight, I find myself wanting to be out there again. And next year, I plan to be out there every step of the way, so it won’t ever feel like I am stepping back on to foreign territory. There will once again come a time when the weeds and bugs and heat will over-power us, but next year, the rows (even in their non-pristine state) will be mine.

The Promised CSA Recipes

So the past couple weeks we have been slackers for our CSA members and haven’t included recipes with our CSA boxes, and we have said we would put them on the website. So, here are a few for you to try:

Salsa Verde

Put your oven on broil. Dehusk your tomatillos, rough chop a quantity of onion (about 1/2 the quantity of your tomatillos), and enough hot peppers to make your salsa as spicy as you want. Toss them in some oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put under the broiler.

Keep it in the oven until it starts to blacken–but just barely. Take out and blend with a few cloves of garlic.

Chilaquiles

This is a traditional Mexican dish that a co-worker of Chad and Gabe’s in Chicago taught them to make. It is delicious as breakfast, but can be eaten any time of day. GREAT hangover food! Here is a picture of the version we made last week.

Chilaquiles

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 zucchini, chopped

2 large handfuls of tortilla chips, preferably on the stale side

1/2-3/4 c salsa verde (or your favorite brand)

4 eggs, scrambled

1/2 c grated cheese

Preheat a pan on your stove top–it helps if this is a pan that can go straight into the oven. Saute onions, bell pepper, zucchini. Add tortilla chips, then salsa verde. If you want it really spicy, add lots of salsa, if not, cut your salsa with water. Cook until chips are almost completely soggy.

In a seperate pan, make scrambled eggs. When they are more underdone than you usually eat them, put in same pan as chips, and top with cheese. Put in your oven (if you are eating immediately, just broil. If you need to wait a few minutes; 350) and let all bake together. We topped ours with sour cream, and this really yummy pickled pepper relish we made.

Pear Galette–great served with vanilla ice cream!

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter–5 tablespoons cut into small pieces and chilled, 2 tablespoons melted
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon milk
• 2 tablespoons apricot preserves, strained
• 2 large Bosc pears
• 1/2 teaspoon very hot water

1. Preheat the oven to 425°. In a medium bowl, toss the flour with 1 teaspoon of the sugar and the salt. Cut in the cold butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
2. In a small bowl, beat the egg with the milk. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the beaten egg over the flour mixture and stir. Working quickly, gather the dough into a smooth mass, squeezing it gently. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and pat it into a 5-inch disk. Wrap in wax paper and refrigerate until firm but not hard, about 30 minutes.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a 9 1/2 -inch round, turning it clockwise an inch or two each time you roll to maintain an even shape. Transfer the dough to a heavy flat baking sheet. Fold up 1/4 inch of the edge of the dough to form a neat rim. Using a knife, score the rim in a decorative pattern. Brush the rim with a little of the remaining beaten egg. Brush 1 tablespoon of the apricot preserves over the bottom of the dough and refrigerate while you prepare the pears.
4. Peel, quarter and core the pears. Slice each quarter lengthwise into 5 thin wedges. Arrange all but 6 of the pear wedges on the dough in a spoke pattern, overlapping them slightly. Cut the remaining pear wedges and arrange them in the center of the tart to form a decorative rose. Brush the pear slices with the melted butter and sprinkle with the remaining 2 teaspoons of sugar.
5. Bake the galette in the middle of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the pears are tender and the pastry is crisp and golden. Carefully slide the galette onto a rack to cool slightly.
6. Stir the hot water into the remaining 1 tablespoon of apricot preserves and brush on the pears. Serve the galette at room temperature.

Barterfaire

Today, Ben, Gabe, Sadie, and I went to Hope Mountain Barterfaire in Takilma. http://www.hopemountainbarterfaire.org/ They picked me at work, and took one hour to get there.
Takilma is in the middle of nowhere and Bartefaire is a really small weekend festival. There was live music that was lame but the atmosphere was lax. Basically it was a hippie fest. (Gabe note–There is no basically about this. It was a HUGE hippie fest)
It is a weekend long trading fair as well. Whatever you got to trade, you could set up tent and barter your wears. It is a good concept for a small economy with a party like atmosphere,
The were a couple small farms there. It could be a good place to vend our products and philosophies. As always, next year is the motto.

There our some photos here.   And here are some others

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Gabe eating a California Roll with our friends Matt and Fanta behind us.

This is a general overview of the hippiosity.

Mordecai and Abraham are bringing Olde Testament back

Omnipotent Sadie controls gravity with her jowls

Fall beginning

We have come a long way in this new farming experience/experiment.  We are now in the 14th week out of 20 of our CSA program.   We have become stewards of land here at Mud Puddle Farm, acting responsibly in  manipulating the biodiversity we have so kindly been bestowed.  We produced, what has been (in our eyes) a bounty of vegetables this season.  For first time farmers, we are proud of our work which brought nutritious, locally grown fruits and vegetables to your tables.

This story on Gristmill describes what brought us out to Oregon in the first place. We can only hope to expand our current successes in the coming years, adding on more responsibility for ourselves and learning situations for Sadie as she grows. With any luck, we can convince a few of you to come join us in similar ventures. With a little more luck, we will have learned enough to advise against some of our mistakes.

Thanks for keeping track of things with us. We appreciate your support!

Love,

Gabe, Chad, Ben, and Sadie

an iphone has got my soul.

Although sad but true, I recieved an iphone for my birthday.  Since then, liberation through advanced communication came at a cost of a new appendage.   The functionality of this Star Trek communicator is beyond my comprehension.  I suppose that is its most tractor-beaming feature, luring me in, and rendering it impossible to focus on anything else.

Yet this is totally untrue.  Not all of it of course.  The soul stealing effects of iphone courses in my veins.  Luckily, I have Sadie, a glimpse of light beyond the iphone.  She has my heart as well as my soul, totally devoted to  her.  Figuratively speaking, Sadie stomps the iphone, like Godzilla did the japs (Gabrielle told me to write Japs because racial insensitivity is completely hilarious)

Nonetheless, there comes a crossroads.  And the iphone is the devil, and Sadie is my soul, a deal has to be made.  That deal of course is fuzzyshot.

http://fuzzyshot.com/mudpuddlefarm

This link can now be accessed from our blogroll.  Now you have another way to big brother us, if you want.

Cheers,

Chad

Ours for the Gleaning

When you’re a farm just starting out, you drool over other people’s more established gardens. You network and bargain as best you can to get your hands on their fruit extras. Usually it’s pretty easy and people beg you to get their stuff before it goes to waste.

Hopefully you all can remember that we do actually have an orchard planted. To date probably the most sustainable investment we’ve made in our future. We planted a huge variety of fruit but of course, the only problem is, it’s hard to share it with our CSA members when for this year we have to pick the blossoms off the trees so they can turn their focus elsewhere and make some deep roots. What a fitting metaphor.

But what we have been doing this week, is gleaning! (from wikipedia:)

“Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.”

We have three friends (not farmers) who’ve basically begged us to gather their fruit. So we got some pears, green grapes, plums, and melons. We should point out that none of these are at all certified organic, like us. We’ll get into that later, but in the meantime the really old fruit trees and vines have adapted and are contiually adapting in ways that continue to overwhelm their landowners with fruit.

So we picked from them on Chad’s Birthday.

Speaking of birthdays… We’ve had a slew of them recently! Starting with Kirby’s then a week later Gabrielle’s. The pictures of Sadie with Grandpa and Great Aunt Maureen are from that one. Then Dr. Calvert’s and Chad’s. Gabe got Chad a sweet iphone for his birthday so now we’ll finally be able to blog from the field! Just what farming should be like.

Enjoy the photos and stay tuned for more!

Aunt Maureen’s Clean Oven

Grandpa Barry & Sadie

Two Friends

Just enough for us…