ORGANIC FARM NOTES: WEEK 8: August 18 – 23, 2014
CONTACT INFORMATION: Coordinator: Mike Rabinowitz
Farm/House Phone. ( 895-2884) Call before 5:15. Leave a message.
During Pick-Up from 6 – 6:30 p.m. Cell Phone: 749-2884 (not answered at other times.) .
Last Wednesday went perfectly. Mike and I went in separate cars so I could go to Folk Night at the Ship afterward. I arrived a little before six and by the time Mike arrived with veggies a little after, people were lined up like kindergarten children waiting to get out the door. The one person who seemed to be late, really wasn’t. Just as we were looking up the phone number to call, he zipped around the corner. But, then again, on Monday, Mike brought three bags back to the farm chill room. Too bad, so sad for those veggies that had to ride to St. John’s and back and spend the night away from home!
Help us keep your veggies fresh! Call us early and we will leave them in the farm chill room! Check off your name. It will be written on the chalk board on the chill room door.
EXTRA GOODIES! BE SURE TO E-MAIL MIKE if you want something in addition to what will be in the bag. He will make arrangements to get it to you.
Fresh, local mushrooms.
Mike will have some available for Tail Gate Sales this week, as long as “quantities last.” They were picked by Louis, our son and Fumiko, his partner. They are not allowed to sell wild mushrooms at the Farmers Market.
Bernadette, thanks for the sample of Lemon Zucchini Bread and the Lime Shortbread. It was delicious. Very light! Mike and I had a piece and left the rest on kitchen table for staff. They know anything they find on the table is for sharing because I usually have tea buns and home made snack cookies there. The rest of the loaf was gone by lunch time. I hope to get the recipes posted soon.
Wanda. The 54 pages of past farm notes and recipes you scanned to help me reconstruct the Recipes file and collection of farm stories is definitely an inspiration. I’m getting there, slowly, but surely.
Heather, thanks for the pictures you have been taking of the contents of your Veggie Coop bags over the years. It seems redundant to say, a picture is worth a thousand words. These and other pictures will be central to bringing our Website up to date.
Underwater Tour of Bell Island!
See Kelsey’s pictures on Organic Farm Website. On Sunday, Kelsey, a WOOFER from Winnipeg joined a local tour company for an underwater experience in and around Bell Island. In addition to seeing some underwater creatures, she was also able to visit the caves and waterfalls on the Island, which are not common knowledge to most tourists. Sounds Awesome.
WHAT’S IN THE BAG?
The new lettuce heads are coming in strong and salad mix is back again this week. The tomatoes are struggling and the zucchini and cucumbers are at a stand still until we get more sun. In fact, Mike says this may be the last week for zucchini until somebody turns up the heat!
Garlic Scape Wasabi: Using Garlic Scape Blooms/Seeds
Last week I wrote about how spicy the garlic scape pesto is, using not only the garlic scape stems but also the blooms/ seeds. The Wednesday folks got a sample of garlic scape pesto, using these seeds/ blooms two weeks ago; the Monday group is only getting theirs now. If you remember, when you joined the Veggie Coop, we said “You pay your money and take your chances.” Well, this is the taking your chances part, but your sampler is free. The Monday group has one of three different batches. They are marked with a B, W or W2. The first has a basil base, the second only scapes, blooms as base along with cashews and Parmesan. I found this too soft and oily, so added a bunch of parsley to third batch and used pine nuts instead of cashews. This improved colour, taste and consistency. Hope you can find the dob of pesto in your sampler interesting, if not perfect. This part of the garlic scapes has been going into the compost for years. However, this year, trying to incorporate them into my cooking is definitely worth pursuing. Stay Tuned!
WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE ORGANIC FARM?
The Bees Are Busy Working The Hive!
From the field to your plate the same day! We take that pledge seriously but sometimes it is a challenge, especially today/ Monday because Diane, our most senior employee and supervisor of picking and packing for the Veggie Coop had to leave early for an afternoon appointment. We were already short-staffed because Paulette had the day off. But never fear, Diane had a plan! She was at the farm around seven, along with Michelle who is also from the Island. Last night I got a call from Jayne the third picker, who asked if she could also come in early to help Diane. We got everything done in spite of the rain. I say, we, because Adrienne, Toby and I were picking and packing gooseberries. While the women were doing their thing, Mike was picking tomatoes and squash and supervising Chris who was harvesting garlic in the rain. Ryan and Johnny were tying up tomatoes and picking beans in their respective jobs. So tonight, when you pick up your salad forks to dig into that freshly picked salad, lift them high in honour of the amazing and dedicated Organic Farm crew! Oh Yeah!
Harvesting Garlic.
We harvested our first few garlic bulbs a little over two weeks ago, then, we got a streak of cold, rainy weather which pretty much shut the operation down. We did get a young man willing to come in over the week-end because the garlic needs to come out. Mike planted a half dozen varieties in different little patches around the farm and/or rows next to each other. He plans to compare them in terms of all the qualities one can think of. This complicates things. We can’t just sent someone out to pull garlic like we have done other years. Each shelf must be marked and labeled to keep a well intentioned employee from going into garlic drying shed to help and mixing everything up. Does Mike make things complicated? Yes, you bet he does, but this is why he is one of the leading consultants around organic farming and crop varieties for our Newfoundland climate. This year, it is garlic, but the same is true with dozen varieties and dozens of years – tomatoes or peppers and winter squash; he grows three or four varieties of peas, comparing taste and growth needs, a half dozen varieties of beans, kale, beets and other crops.
Gooseberry Picking
Melba and Adrienne – a volunteer – started picking on Friday morning and various people took turns over the week-end. We started on the side garden where the berries were greener and finished today with berries that are much riper. All in all, there were six people on the Gooseberry Brigade, which amounted to over 20 hours of picking. We finally finished the quota for Monday’s group – 40 quarts, which Jayne put in the top of the Veggie Coop bags before she left for the day. As they pick each bucket came to me in the kitchen to be cleaned of leaves and baby snails, and the crushed, mushy berries. Yes, the last ten or so quarts were picked in the rain and may be wet and need to be laid out on a paper towel to dry. People who emigrated from England seemed to be familiar with and enjoy gooseberries and like Fava Bean, seek them out. If you don’t, the swap box is the place for yours. Restaurants are also asking for them, but we cover off the Veggie Coop members first. Although we have a pretty good crop this year, they are not likely to appear in the bag again – so, if you do like them, LIVE IT UP!
Gooseberry Soup, Gooseberry Fool, Gooseberry Sorbet and Gooseberry Cake.
All of these recipes and more are already in the Organic Farm Recipe file. They come from our members as well as Dave Thoms, a friend and former Chef/ Sheraton. As I was cleaning and pulling out the mushy ones today, I remembered that I also heat them with a bit of sugar, cool and put through ricer, making gooseberry syrup. I freeze this, maybe for gooseberry fool, or to fold into apples to make an apple gooseberry pie.
More than You Want to Know About Baby Slugs.
Several years ago, when our pickers picked from the bush, into the quarts, we often found baby slugs lounging comfortable on the top of the berries after they sat a few hours in the cooler. Like many creatures of nature who are able to be camouflaged in their surroundings, so it is with baby slugs and gooseberries. Same colour, same shape! The pickers hold up the branches and gather several berries at a time, usually a handful. Without their knowing, in falls a baby slug, unnoticed, holding onto the berry that just went into container. On occasion, when the little slug didn’t make their appearance early enough to be removed to the compost, they got a free ride to the counter of a high end restaurant. Now, you and I might not take offense to seeing an innocent, little slug on top of our fresh organic gooseberries, but, we soon learned we had to be more careful with our commercial markets. This is when Melba and other Inspectors were pressed into providing oversight for the gooseberries!
Veggie Coop Gallery
We are reviewing pictures to develop a collage for the Veggie Coop front page to replace the several pages we lost when the Website crashed a few years ago. This was inspired by the recent picture of three year old Alison at pick-up; also recent pictures from Cathy of the tasty looking dishes she made with farm veggies. I put out a call and pictures are coming in, mostly visuals of weekly Veggie bags, displayed in wonderful presentations. Keep checking! Hopefully, you will find new pictures each time!
Writer’s Guild Workshop Took Place Sunday – More Salad Action!
This week most of the action at the Organic Farm has involved recipes and cooking because it is the time of the year the Organic Farm hosts an all day workshop for the Newfoundland and Labrador Writers’ Guild. I have been a tag-a-long member for almost forty years, since I joined the Guild as a member of Helen Porter’s Writing Class offered by Memorial University Extension Service. The Guild sponsors evening workshops most months during the year, week-end outings the first week of June and September and all day workshops in July and August.
What? No Salad Mix?
Each year, it is tradition for the Organic Farm to provide lunch of soup, a robust lettuce salad mix of various herbs, spices and edible flowers, along with home made bread and dessert. In the evening, there is a potluck. On Friday, when I discovered we were completely out of salad mix – not even one bag to toss in a bowl and garnish with extra flowers, we started making salads with other organic farm veggies. You guessed it! We had a smorgasbord of salads – the fennel, apple and orange salad, tabouli, bean salad and a single recipe of a new one, black bean salsa which is a can of organic black beans, drained, tossed with finely chopped green peppers, tomatoes, avocado and onions with a shave of hot pepper. Someone brought a ham. Joan brought a fresh raspberry flam and Jo brought a partridge berry pound cake! It was a very satisfying day. Not only for the Guild, but also for family who are still finishing off left overs.
Mustards in Lasagne?
We have meatless lasagna a lot, using organic farm vegetables. I make them in several different ways but usually with kale or spinach as first layer and a second layer made of zucchini, or peppers or both. When I looked in the chill room for the type of green I usually layer into the lasagne, I couldn’t find any. I spied a bag of Mustards on the “house” shelf. I opened the bag, took a double hand full of mustard, rinsed and cut into thin strips. After 40 seconds in the micro-wave covered by a damp paper towel to wilt them, I had already spread over the first layer of lasagna noodles over a thin layer of pasta sauce on the bottom of the pan. Over this, I added the cottage cheese, along with a sprinkling of the mustard strips, as lightly as I could. As I built the casserole, I used thinly sliced zucchini for the next layer. The mustards gave everything a little zing. Without know the ingredient, Mike said, it was the best vegetarian lasagne of the season. When I explained about the mustards, he said, he didn’t have to add the hot pepper flakes that he and some family add to half the dishes they eat.
Sauteed Arugula?
When I learned Kelsey likes eggs, I thought about Eggs in A Nest, which is also in farm recipe file. I brought a couple of bags of green from the chill room. I knew one had beets and kohlrabi with the greens still on, which is how we pack most veggies for the Veggie Coop. You may remember, Eggs in a Nest starts with slowly heating the first layer of onions, garlic and thinly sliced carrots in a few drops of oil. Then greens are spread over these tid bits, almost like making a plate in the bottom of the skillet. When I opened the bag, I discovered it was very large leaves of arugula, not spinach. WOOPS. The burner is on and the pan is ready for the greens. I scrambled through the bags, pulling out anything that was green. There were a few beet greens and three of four leaves from the kohlrabi. Still not enough. Finally, I carefully spread the arugula leaves over the bottom of the pan, in several layers make a nest for the eggs. I cracked the eggs, dropping each one into their nest, replacing the lid on the skillet, letting them to eggs cook to over light (sunny side up). Each nest and egg was picked up carefully with a spatula and placed on a bed of brown rice on individual plates. The presentation was beautiful. I didn’t say anything about the arugula but found it slightly bitter. I quietly brought out some balsamic and put it in a small pitcher on the table, dripping some on my own portion. That worked for me. When I was growing up in Tennessee, my mother often served greens surrounded by boil eggs, cut in half on a platter. The table at my house and most restaurants had a shaker of vinegar like we find in fish/ chips places here. I wouldn’t use arugula again unless I was in a pinch. However, someone asked for the extra serving that was still in the pan on the stove.
That’s It folks! I need to try to get this posted tonight and I still have some gooseberries to inspect and package. Don’t forget to look for the Kelsey’s pictures of Cape St. Mary’s and Bell island!!
