Kitchen Garden Journal

It's one of the ironies of our farming life that at a certain point in the season we have to leave the farm behind and drive far away in order to relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Of course we crammed as many veggies into a cooler as possible before heading off to Maine this weekend and the tomato tart pictured here is at the top of our priority list when we meet up with our friends on Isle au Haut.

Enjoy your week. We fully intend to...

P.S. Many many thanks to our fabulous crew for keeping the show going while we're gone!

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2 Heads Lettuce
1 lb Pickling Cucumbers
3 lbs Heirloom Tomatoes
1 lb Mixed Sweet Peppers
1 lb Walla Walla Onions
1 Fennel
1 bunch Cilantro
1/2 lb Braising Mix
 
Deluxe Item:
Two 1/2 pints raspberries (Warner Farm)

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Our kids love to eat vegetables - but no thanks to us. Here's the awful truth: we toil away all day producing beautiful vegetables and then come home for a family dinner of pizza or crackers and cheese with salami and fruit. We enjoy lovely farm lunches chock full of fresh veggies with our crew everyday but we're often too tired to cook anything serious at the end of a long day. 

Thankfully, we've never had to worry that Lily and Oliver weren't eating enough veggies because they love Celia and Barbara's soup. For two years Celia Riahi and Barbara Audley have been taking care of our children at their lovely Waldorf-inspired home day care in Amherst, The Cottage Garden. I remember marveling the first time I witnessed my son and daughter sitting around a teeny table with six of their friends happily shoveling spoonfuls of thick green soup into their mouths. Some days it's orange soup, sometimes with Israeli couscous or barley stirred in. Either way, the kids gobble it up and we feel like virtuous parents.

Celia and Barbara take the summer off and the kids just started camp at Amherst Montessori, so we started freaking out when we realized we'd have to start packing their lunch. We begged Celia and Barbara for the magic soup recipe and because it's been such a life saver for us we thought we'd share it with you.

Soup Base

• Rapunzel vegan soup bouillon (or just water)
• Olive oil
• Onions, 4 medium or 2 large
• Garlic to taste
• Potatoes 5 lbs
• Carrots 3 lbs

This is the base for both green and orange soup variations. Follow this method but add the ingredients below for either green or orange soup, depending on which one you're making.

Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil in a 5 quart saute pan until soft and translucent. Peel, chop and wash all the veggies. Boil 8 cups water and dissolve 4 cubes in it and set aside. When the onions are done add the soup boullion or water and add cut veggies. Add water to cover and simmer on low until everything is soft. Puree with an immersion blender. It should be thick but add water as necessary to blend. Put in containers to freeze until needed. 

To serve, thaw, heat and add a bit of water if needed. Cook a grain separately and add to the soup so it is sort of a thick veggie sauce with a grain - Israeli couscous, barley, quinoa, brown rice or even a small pasta shapes work well. Do not blend the grain, just stir it in. Be sure to leave the soup smooth but thick like a veggie sauce.  Add grated cheese on top or serve with some cheese on the side. Serve with carrot sticks and fruit for a great lunch.

Orange Soup

• The Base as above
• Sweet potatoes, 3 large
• or
• Large Butternut squash, bake separately and add before blending
• Optional: 2 apples

Green Soup

• The Base as above
• 2 bunches of either: spinach or kale
• 1 bunch cilantro
• Cumin to taste, salt to taste
• Optional: mustard greens, chard, bok choy, lentils

Note: Celia never adds tomatoes, mushrooms or celery to the children’s soup.

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This Week's Share

1 Red Leaf Lettuce

1 quart Romano Beans

1 bunch Cilantro

1 Tendersweet Cabbage

1 bunch Thai Basil

1 lb Pickling Cucumbers

1 lb Summer Squash

1 Fennel

1 bunch Walla Walla Onions

Deluxe Items:

1/2 pint Red Gooseberries (Nourse Farm)

1/2 pint Green Gooseberries (Nourse Farm)

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I have been making good use of this recent stretch of summer-like weather to do some serious grilling on my little hibachi. I’ve been making real wood fires and supplementing with natural hardwood charcoal. (Oliver likes to help.) I use regular cordwood to make the fire, splitting it with my boy scout axe into small sticks. You can make a pretty amazing grilling fire with a single chunk of wood. 

In the past year I have also learned to use my freezer as an important tool to stockpile fresh foods at their peak of seasonality and enjoy them whenever I want throughout the year. It’s awesome. You take something that’s only available once a year and turn it into convenience food. And it’s so easy. Everyone should do it. A chest freezer costs like $200. (Much, much more to come on this subject.)

For this recipe I combined our freshly picked green shallots with locally grown ginger from Casey and Missy of Old Friends Farm in Amherst that I bought in November of last year and Maine shrimp that I bought in quantity when they were on sale in January. It took all of 10 minutes to prepare (apart from the enjoyment I got out of stretching out the grilling process and knocking back a few cold ones).  Here’s the recipe (with a nod to David Chang).

½ lb raw shrimp

4 scallions, finely chopped

1 Tbsp fresh ginger, finely grated

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 ½ tsp vinegar of your choice

1 ½ tsp soy sauce

Peel shrimp and thread them onto skewers. (It helps to soak the skewers in water so they don’t ignite on the grill.) Set aside. Mix the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl. Brush the shrimp with oil (or spray ‘em with Pam) and grill them over a hot fire until just cooked through, 3-5 minutes tops. Take them off, pour the sauce over them, and consume them immediately. This makes a nice little snack before you break out the serious meat. 

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Spring has finally arrived and we are starting fresh here at the farm. This year it feels that we are really taking an active step forward to make the farm nicer; improving the appearance of the place, our work environment, and our productivity. We even finally managed to get a cheerful sign hung up on the barn that identifies us to passersby.

Three seasons have gone by since we bought this land and started building our farm here. In the beginning we were in a big rush to get the basic infrastructure in place: greenhouse, pack room, irrigation, etc. But it has taken us a few years to figure out exactly what the farm needs and we’re finally shaping things the way that works best for us.

The farm is simply abuzz with new energy and new projects. The new greenhouse is all sited and laid out, the compost is ready to be spread and we should be starting construction any day now.  There will be a new heated propagation house for seedlings and a huge heated high tunnel for year-round production of vegetables.

The packing shed is getting a makeover as well. Three large new windows across the back wall will provide natural light and westerly views while washing lettuce. We built a new packing line that will make filling the CSA boxes go much quicker and take up less space. A new walk-in cooler was installed today. It will double our capacity for cold storage as well as provide a place to keep potatoes and roots through the winter. We are also investing in an actual washing setup for potatoes. It’s kind of like a small touch-free carwash for potatoes with belts and sprayers and rolling brushes.

Early spring trials in the greenhouse are starting to bear fruit, and it’s a wonderful treat to dig into the first radishes, arugula, spinach and kale at crew lunch. We like the results of the new pinpoint seeder so much that we used it to sow the first plantings of radishes, spinach and salad mixes in the field as well. It is a high-density precision seeder that will allow us to harvest about three times as much per bed as we were getting before, freeing up some space for other things.

Another major goal we set when we started this farm 5 years ago is finally coming to fruition: we will be joining the Northampton Saturday Farmers' Market on Gothic Street this year! We are so excited at this opportunity to share our vegetables with our friends and neighbors in Noho. We will of course also be setting up our market tents in Springfield on Tuesdays and Greenfield on Saturdays starting around the middle of May. See you there!

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Small Farming For a Living

This Saturday, April 2 Tim and I will be discussing "Small Farming for a Living" and our strategy for building a successful small farm as part of the Westfield River Watershed Alliance's 17th annual symposium, "The Foodshed in Our Watershed." The symposium includes a full day of workshops on local food and farming in Scanlon Hall at Westfield State University. Our talk begins at 10:55 a.m. View the full program here.

Farm-Hers

On Monday, April 25 Caroline will participate in a panel of women farmers as part of a lecture series on food and farms sponsored by Greenfield Community College and the Conway School of Landscape Design. "Farm-Hers: Building a Healthy Food System...from the Ground Up" takes place at GCC Downtown Campus at 270 Main Street in Greenfield from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Caroline will be joined on the panel by farmers Deb Habib of Seeds of Solidarity in Orange and Sorrel Hatch of Upinngil Farm in Gill. This great series also includes a talk by Tom Stearns, President of High Mowing Organic Seeds and the Center for an Agricultural Economy in VT on April 13. See the flyer above.

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My recent batch: daikon radish with its greens, napa with carrots and pears

From watching Maangchi I’ve come to understand that kimchi is comprised of essentially two elements: a salted vegetable and a “sauce” of salt, sugar, hot pepper powder and aromatics like garlic, ginger, and scallions. It takes a little thinking ahead to salt the vegetables but it comes together very quickly and you can eat it for months.

For the salted cabbage:
1 head napa cabbage
Kosher salt or sea salt
For the kimchi sauce:
1 ½ cups water
¼ cup rice flour or AP flour
¼ cup sugar
½ cup fish sauce or 1 ½ Tbsp salt
½ daikon radish, cut into julienne strips
1 head garlic, minced
½ inch piece of ginger, minced
½ cup Korean hot pepper powder
3 scallions cut into 2” pieces

Method:
Wash the head of cabbage, carefully rinsing any dirt away from the base of the outer leaves. Pat dry and cut cabbage into 4 quarters. The leaves should be attached at the core. In a large bowl or wash basin sprinkle the cabbage quarters all over and between the leaves with the salt, massaging gently. Leave for approximately 1 hour. Turn the cabbage over and leave for another hour. You will see that the leaves have wilted considerably and a lot of liquid has accumulated. Rinse the cabbage in three changes of water, squeeze them gently to expel the water and set aside.

Meanwhile, assemble the ingredients for the sauce. Mix the water and flour in a small pan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  When the mixture thickens and begins to bubble, turn off the heat and allow to cool. Add the sugar and fish sauce or salt. Add the other ingredients and mix well. It should be a gravy-like texture and sticky, not watery. Taste it. It should taste like kimchi but sweeter. It should not be overly salty tasting. If it’s not spicy enough for your taste you can add more hot pepper. Same goes for the garlic, etc. In addition to the daikon, you can add other vegetables if you like, such as carrots.

Spread the sauce all over the cabbages and between the leaves and put them into a plastic container with any of the remaining sauce. Leave it out at room temperature for 1 day, then refrigerate. You can eat it right away or wait a while. The flavor will gradually go from sweet to sour as it ferments. It will keep indefinitely, but it is best if eaten within 2-3 months. To serve, cut cabbage with scissors into bite sized pieces.
Watch Maangchi make it here.

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• 1lb Broccoli
• 1lb Spinach
• 1lb Beets
•  1.5lbs Red Wethersfield Heirloom Onions
• 1 bunch Purple Top Turnips
• 2 Delicata Squash (Stone Soup Farm, Belchertown, MA)
• 1 bunch Thyme
• 1/2 lb Arugula
• 1 Red Romaine Lettuce

*Roast delicata squash by cutting in half, scooping out the seeds, drizzling with oil and sprinkling with thyme, salt and pepper. Bake at 450 degrees for 30 minutes until soft.

Deluxe Item:

1.5lbs Honeycrisp Apples (Apex Orchards, Shelburne, MA)

These are hands-down the best eating apple we know.

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Caroline and I are in Block Island this week with the family taking in the sea air and recharging our spirits with the natural scenery. We have turned over the operations of the farm to our amazing and wonderful crew while we're away. Regular blog posts will return next week. Until then please visit The Vegetable Pages to find recipes for our vegetables.

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