Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make.

John Ruskin

Madge:  Meet Madge.  Madge likes food and companionship.  Madge likes grain, apples, carrots, grass, hay, or anything else a mule would like to eat. Madge likes lazy, cool days with lots to eat.  Madge mainly likes FOOD.

Mack. Meet Mack.  Mack has anger issues.  He is angry because Madge never pulls her weight.  He is angry because she always steals his food.  He is angry because he is old.  Mack is angry.

Farm News:  OK – back to the quote: cursing.  As most of you know, I’ve committed to horse power this year.  Well – one thing to remember – you can’t be in a rush with horses (or mules).  We had a rough week cultivating  – or actually hilling potatoes.  I did a lot of cursing, (oops I mean swearing) – loud swearing- and I am hoping the neighbors did not hear me!!  In my defense, a LOT of potatoes lost their lives!

Furniture of the week:  Again – not a great picture.  But – one of my favorite pieces. Price:  $500.  If you are interested, I can send more pictures.

What’s in the bucket:  Lots of lettuce!!  Green and red lettuce, french breakfast radishes, spring onions, kale, turnip greens, marjoram or rosemary and beet greens.

Main Street Market Items Available:  Lettuce, french breakfast radishes, spring onions, kale, turnip greens, Circle S ground beef.  Special:  lotta lettuce 2 for one special.

French Breakfast Radish Sandwich

This is a simple pleasure, dressed up with an herb compound butter and lettuce greens. If pale pink French breakfast radishes are unavailable, substitute red globe radishes.

Kara Newman for NPR

Makes 4 sandwiches

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 tablespoon chopped marjoram or rosemary

2 bunches French breakfast radishes, sliced into thin rounds (about 1/8-inch think)

1 1/2 cups lettuce torn into pieces

8 slices brown bread , such as pumpernickel or rye

Allow butter to soften, and stir in herbs. Spread a layer of herb butter on one side of each piece of bread. Lay out four pieces of bread, butter side up, and arrange a layer of radish rounds on top of the butter, followed by a layer of torn lettuce on top of that. Top with a second piece of bread, butter side down. Slice diagonally into two triangles and serve.

It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.
Lewis Grizzard

Yep folks, that’s right, this is the last week.  We are finishing up early so Curtis and I can work on our new property – fencing and building a cabin for us to stay in.

So, we’ll keep this short and sweet.  Much like last week, there will be an assortment things in the bucket – and each bucket will be a little different.  I can promise you this:  Tomatoes (lots of ripe heirloom and roma tomatoes – and cherry tomatoes), basil – a lovely companion for your tomatoes!!  berries and winter squash (spaghetti, butternut, Georgia candy roaster, acorn and combination of these.)

A friend gave me a subscription to Garden and Gun this year.  This recipe is a delicious version of a tomato sandwich.
Tomato Grilled Cheese with Beer and Bacon Marmalade
Serves 1

Ingredients

Tomato Grilled Cheese2 tbsp. softened unsalted butter, divided
2 slices white bread, preferably thick
¼ cup Beer and Bacon Marmalade (recipe follows)
2 slices American cheese
3 slices heirloom tomato

Preparation

Spread butter onto one side of each piece of bread. Place a cast-iron skillet over medium heat and toast the buttered bread.Remove the bread from the skillet and place it on a cutting board, toasted side up. Slather the marmalade over the toast, and then stack the cheese and tomato on top. Put the sandwich together, and spread the soft outside with the remaining butter. Return it to the skillet and toast until golden and cheese is gooey. Serve with beer.

Beer and Bacon Marmalade
Makes 1 cup, or enough for 4 sandwiches

Ingredients

12 oz. smoked bacon
¼ cup minced shallot
1 tbsp. minced garlic
3½ tbsp. dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. honey
3 tbsp. sherry vinegar
3 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 cup brewed coffee
1 cup beer, preferably a porter or stout
1 tsp. kosher salt
¼–½ tsp. crushed red pepper

Preparation

Cook bacon slices in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat until crispy (about 5–6 minutes), and then remove them to a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Reserve 2 tbsp. of bacon fat in the pan, and add the shallots. Cook them over medium heat until they begin to brown (about 3–5 minutes), and then add garlic and cook for about 30 seconds before adding brown sugar, honey, and vinegars. Simmer until reduced by half, and then add coffee and beer and continue to simmer until the mixture is reduced to a syrup-like consistency (about 10–12 minutes). Remove from the stove, season with salt and red pepper, and allow to cool. Crush or chop bacon into small pieces and fold them into coffee-beer mixture. Store in an airtight container, refrigerated, for up to 3 days.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
― Barack Obama

Farm news:  2 more weeks and our season will be over.  If you are a half share, please remember to leave your bucket out or bring it to market.  I will give you bags this week.

What’s in the bucket:  It will be a mix and match for the last two weeks.  Things you can count on:  green tomatoes, red tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, black or blueberries, winter squash, sweet corn from the food hub.  You will also get other things – some old and some new:)  A surprise is always fun!

If you need something to try with green tomatoes other than frying them, try the following recipe.  You can use the winter squash you have, don’t feel limited to butternut.

MAKES 4 TO 5 SERVINGS

My neighbor gave this to me after watching us work.  Her father farmed, and we have leased their property for a number of years.  I think she thought it was fitting.

I read it when I get tired or frustrated and it makes me laugh and remember why we keep trying.

Farm News:  3 more weeks of CSA.  The rain is wreaking havoc on my tomato crop, which was looking promising.  Also the raspberries -which mold with even a drop of rain (guess that’s why they grow well in dryer climates.)  Tomatoes need heat, sun and no wet leaves to turn ripe and delicious.  I haven’t given up hope.

I will be buying some things from the local food hub to supplement my buckets the next few weeks.  I had a few crops fail – sweet corn, carrots and my peppers aren’t looking great.  Hub didn’t have carrots, but plenty of sweet corn.  I love sweet corn – and hate for anyone to miss out (including me) …and it feels good to support our new food hub.  They have bought some things from me, so now I’ll buy something from them.

What’s in the bucket this week?  Sweet corn from the food hub!!  squash, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, red and blue potatoes, perhaps a jalapeño pepper, black or blueberries.

Following – a recipe from Martha Schulman for Tomato, cucumber and corn salad.  Good for dipping, to serve on top of grains or fish.

INGREDIENTS
1 to 1 ¼ pounds ripe tomatoes, cut in small dice
½ European cucumber, 2 Persian cucumbers or 1 regular cucumber, peeled if waxy, seeded if the seeds are large, and cut in small dice
2 ears corn, steamed for 4 minutes and kernels removed from the cob
1 to 2 serranos or jalapeño pepper, minced (seeded for a milder salad), or 1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
Salt to taste
¼ cup chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice or lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Optional: 1 ounce feta, crumbled (about 1/4 cup)
Nutritional Information
PREPARATION
Mix together all of the ingredients. Let sit in or out of the refrigerator for 15 minutes before serving, then toss again.
Advance preparation: This will hold for a few hours in the refrigerator.

6 servings

“From every mountain side
Let Freedom ring.”
— Samuel F. Smith

Every July 4 it seems I am digging potatoes.  I usually plant red, white and blue potatoes, which makes it really appropriate that I am digging them the first week in July.  This year, I only planted red and blue potatoes.

I have a potato plow for my cultivator, so Mack and Madge helped me dig this year.  Curtis also helped, and filmed the process – showing you what a newbie I am to the farming with horses deal.  Madge squarshed some squarsh in the process…it is so hard to drive and operate putting the plow down at the same time.  I am getting the hang of it slowly.  There were also some cabbage casualties.

I tried to load the video – but it was too large.  A picture will have to do!

This week’s bucket:  Red and blue potatoes, red or savoy cabbage, sweet onions, squash, fennel, beets, and berries and/or cherry tomatoes

The squash tend to get ahead of me – even picking three times a week.  If you are the recipient of a giant squash, don’t despair.  Zucchini or yellow squash noodles are the new hippest thing.  All the paleo people are doing it!!  Just grab a julienne peeler, or regular peeler and go to work.  Plenty of you tube videos out there to show you how if you don’t want to wing it.  Basically, you just peel until you reach the seeds – leave them out.  You can use a knife to make the noodles smaller if you don’t have a julienne peeler.  Then steam them and add sauce, pesto or anything you might put on a regular noodle.

I know everyone is getting tired of cabbage.  I’m hoping a change of variety will help a little.  Every year I have something that grows great guns – this year it is cabbage.

Beet and Fennel Salad

INGREDIENTS
4 beets, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch wedges (1 1/2 pounds)
2 thyme sprigs
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large fennel bulb with fronds—bulb cut into 1/2-inch wedges, 1 tablespoon chopped fronds
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
Preheat the oven to 400°. In a medium baking dish, toss the beets with the thyme, the water and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with foil and cook for about 40 minutes, or until tender. Let cool slightly. Discard the thyme.
In a small baking dish, drizzle the fennel wedges with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake for 15 minutes longer, or until tender and lightly browned.
Pour the beet juices into a bowl and whisk in the vinegar. Add the beets, fennel wedges and fronds and season with salt and pepper. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Thanks for buying local food from our farm.

Letty

“How Beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

-“Rain in Summer”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I woke up to rain this morning and cool temps.  Quite a relief from the rest of the week.  Looks like another hot week this week.

This picture is from our new property (we have had it a few years, but finally got the cows moved this spring).  I thought the clouds were beautiful that day.

The flies have been terrible on the animals – and I feel so for them fighting flies in the hot, hot weather.  The cows have scabby, bloody spots on the backs of their front legs from all the fly bites.  They stand in the pond trying to keep them off.  I’m amazed at their ability to eat and live despite such harassment.  I would be in the loony bin.

We are halfway through our short season this year.  The garden has not done as well as last year.   I’m hoping for a good crop of tomatoes, but my peppers are pitiful and my carrots, despite my faithful planting of 6 successions – never came up.  They did beautifully last year in the same garden space – sometimes there are just no explanations!!

Farm News:  Hot!!  Feel like I’m moving in slow motion.  It’s only June – I’m hoping for an early fall.  Our cows will start calving in mid-August.  It will be a tough calving season if it doesn’t cool off and the flies don’t get better.

What’s in the bucket?  Fennel, green cabbage, broccoli, onions, squash, kohlrabi, cucumbers, berries or cherry tomatoes.

LINGUINI WITH FENNEL AND ONIONS

INGREDIENTS:

DIRECTIONS:

Happy eating and thanks for buying local food from our farm.

Letty

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. ~Erich Fromm

I have been lucky to have good help over the years (10 years of CSA!!)  Three stand out; well, four counting Curtis – but he never really signed up, and is not hired help.

It seems I get along with and work well with….women who are older than me, but are tougher and work harder than me!!  First in line is my mother-in-law.  I told her years ago, when you quit, I quit!!  Well, this year has been dreadfully hard without her.   She is 80 and could still outwork me.

Second was Bertha – who quit 2 years ago only because she felt like her body was suffering from the years of physical work.  We both cried when she left.

And last, is Twyla – who took Bertha’s place.  She is an old friend, and if anyone could fill Bertha’s shoes, it was Twyla.  Curtis and I have nicknamed her the overachiever.

Well, Twyla got married today, so this blog is a tribute to her and wishing her well.  Of course, she will be on her honeymoon this week, so I will be doing double duty.  And she will be leaving at the end of this season as she is moving to Cleveland.

What’s in the bucket this week:  broccoli, green cabbage, kohlrabi, beets, summer squash, cucumbers, lettuce.

I know everyone is tired of lettuce – but it is such a delicious treat in the hot weather to have a cool salad – and this is probably the last week.  It doesn’t grow in hot weather.

There are three things that pretty much all veggies can go in – salad, pizza and an omelet.

I had an omelet today with broccoli, onions and summer squash.  The Farmer’s Daughter had a quiche listed with Napa cabbage  – so the sky is the limit.

A recipe this week, from the NY times:

INGREDIENTS
3 ½ cups mixed shredded broccoli stems, green cabbage and kohlrabi (peel broccoli stems and kohlrabi before shredding) (about 3/4 pound)
Salt to taste
½ cup cooked quinoa
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
½ teaspoons nigella seeds (optional)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil
¼ cup plain low-fat yogurt
Freshly ground pepper
½ cup low-fat cottage cheese (optional)
Nutritional Information
PREPARATION
Toss the shredded vegetables with salt to taste and place in a strainer set over a bowl. Refrigerate and let sit for 45 minutes to an hour. Discard the water that accumulates in the bowl and squeeze the shredded vegetables to extract more water. (Note: If you are on a no-sodium diet, omit this step). Transfer to a bowl and toss with the quinoa, dill and nigella seeds.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix together the lemon juice, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, Dijon mustard, oil and yogurt. Toss with the shredded vegetables. Add the cottage cheese to the salad and toss, or serve with the cottage cheese spooned on top. Refrigerate in a bowl or in containers until ready to take to work.
Advance preparation: This will keep for 4 days in the refrigerator.

Happy Eating – stay cool- and thanks for buying local food from our farm.

Letty

“Hitch your wagon to a star.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

We had a great time with Logan this weekend.  He graduated with flying colors and we had a wonderful visit.  Hoping he will be able to travel this direction this summer.

Farm News:  All the animals and vegetables survived our absence.  My late garden is struggling for some reason.  I seeded carrots 5 times starting in March in my high tunnel and still no luck.  Sometimes it is just that way!  I will try again today.

What’s in the bucket this week?:  summer squash and/or green beans, Napa cabbage, multi colored beets, kohlrabi, lettuce, greens (kale and collard), snow peas or sugar snap peas, radishes.

Napa cabbage and snow pea slaw

Ingredients
1/2 pound snow peas, trimmed and strings discarded
1 1/2 pounds Napa cabbage, cut into thin shreds (about 9 cups)
2 medium carrots, shredded
1 tablespoon ginger juice
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Directions
In a large saucepan of boiling water blanch snow peas 15 seconds and transfer with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice and cold water to stop cooking. Drain snow peas well and slice thin diagonally. In large bowl toss snow peas with remaining ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.

recipe courtesy of Gourmet Magazine

Happy Eating and thanks for buying local food from our farm.

Letty

“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip…

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfumed

I love Tom Robbins, and just had to put in this quote.  This week is all about roots!!

Farm News:  Potatoes hilled successfully, thanks to friend Georgia who came and helped me hook up the mules.  They are not quite ready yet (the potatoes, that is) but will be soon.

Curtis and I are leaving Thursday to go to Logan’s graduation.  Can’t believe he is graduating from high school.  He has grown up to be such a special person, we are so proud of him.  So remember, if you are a Thursday delivery, it will be Wednesday instead this week.

What’s in the bucket?   roots!! onions, turnips, beets.  Also, Napa cabbage, red and green leaf lettuce, snow or sugar snap peas, mesclun greens mix, basil, and strawberries.

I did a roots mix for dinner the other night.  I cut the beets in wedges and left the sprig of green on the top to be fancy.  I roasted the beets separate from the onions and turnips so they wouldn’t bleed all over everything.  I cut the small onions in half, and cut the turnips in wedges. tossed everything in olive oil, salt and pepper.   Roasted until golden and crispy, and then squeezed a lemon wedge over the top when they came out of the oven.  Delish!!

Following – a simple recipe for a Napa cabbage saute.

Serves 4

Napa cabbage, also known as Chinese cabbage, has crunchy leaves that pair well with a light sauce. Similar to bok choy, but more delicate (use either in this recipe), Napa cabbage is more elegant than regular firm-headed green cabbage. Slice the head of Napa lengthwise in half and remove the core. Roughly chop into 2-inch pieces. Then cook the cabbage in a searing hot skillet – high heat is essential – to caramelize the leaves. Saute in two batches so overcrowding doesn’t steam the vegetables. It’s fast and good for you.

3 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 small head (about 1 pound) Napa cabbage, cut into 2-inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 piece fresh ginger ( 1/2 inch), cut into matchsticks
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
1. In a large skillet or wok, heat 1 teaspoon of the vegetable oil . When it is very hot, add half the cabbage. Cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes or until leaves begin to brown. Remove them from pan. Use 1 teaspoon of the remaining vegetable oil to cook the remaining cabbage in the same way; remove from the pan.

2. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon vegetable oil to pan. Cook the garlic and ginger, stirring constantly, for 1 minute.

3. In a small bowl, stir together the water and cornstarch. Stir the soy sauce into the pan. Add the cornstarch mixture and bring to a boil.

4. Return all the cabbage to pan, stirring well to coat it all over. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until the cabbage is tender.

5.Remove from the heat. Stir in the scallions and vinegar.

Thanks for buying local food from Circle S.