Kitchen Garden Journal

Summer Share #19

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Published on Wednesday, October 10, 2012, 05:46

Written by Tim Wilcox

This Week's Share

Harvest Festival Season

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Published on Wednesday, October 03, 2012, 03:27

Written by Caroline Pam

The fall bounty is rolling in from the fields and it's thrilling to imagine the feasts we'll be enjoying for months to come with everything we're harvesting now. Foremost in our minds are the sweet potatoes, cabbages, collard greens, grinding corn, beets and beans we'll be cooking up at our Pig Roast and Cider Harvest Supper with Carr's Ciderhouse this Sunday, October 7 from 5-8pm at our Hadley farm at 81 Rocky Hill Road.

We're excited to announce that Todd Lynch's gorgeous oil paintings of Kitchen Garden Vegetable Portraits and farm fields will be hanging on the barn walls for one day only during the Pig Roast this Sunday. Todd spent a full season as a farmshare member working on this series and wonderfully captured the vibrant beauty of our vegetables and farm landscape. There are still a few seats available for the Pig Roast and you can view the full menu and register here.

Also on Sunday, October 7 our friends at Clarkdale Fruit Farms in Deerfield are having their annual Apple Harvest Festival from 10am-4pm. We'll be stopping by their farmstand to check out their incredible selection of vintage apple and pear varieties for eating and baking, and to pick up a few gallons of their freshly pressed delicious apple and pear ciders. Save the date also for Cider Days, November 3-4, for a full weekend of hard and sweet cider tastings, workshops and farm tours.

We're also going to be sure to make it to Valley Malt's Barleyfest on Sunday, October 21 from 1-6pm for a celebration of local grain, local beer and community. We grew an acre and a half of barley this year for Valley Malt to transform into malt for beer and it's so thrilling to particpate in this renaissance of local farmhouse beer. Barleyfest will feature 7 different craft beers made with Hadley grown and malted grain, plus beer making demos, malthouse tours and wood fired pizza made with local wheat crust! 

 See you there!

Summer Share #18

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Published on Wednesday, October 03, 2012, 01:52

Written by Tim Wilcox

This Week's Share

• Butternut Squash
• Onions
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Radishes
• Cooking Greens
• Salad Greens

Fruit Share

Apple Cider (Pine Hill Orchards, Colrain)

Honeycrisp Apples (Apex Orchards, Shelburne)

Chilifest Winners!

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Published on Monday, September 24, 2012, 06:54

Written by Caroline Pam

Thank you to everyone who came out for CHILIFEST! last weekend! Almost 600 people joined us at the Hadley farm on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon to taste 8 chili cook-off entries, learn how to make hot hot hot sauce, spicy cocktails and fiery Thai food, and to share great music, local beer, our pork and bean tacos and Grub's green chile stew and bahn mi. Kids young and old had a blast getting chili and veggie tattoos and taking shots at the pinata filled with spicy candies. 

Homegrown bands Rusty Belle, Primate Fiasco and Ephemeral String Band set the mood for the party under a crystal clear blue sky while the line for the chili tasting snaked around the blue barn for hours.

Everyone queued up to sample smoky, spicy, hearty chilies and cast their votes for the People's Choice Award. Thanks are due to all of our Chili Cook-Off Contestants, to Russell Braen of Park Hill Orchard for helping serve the chili, and to Stephen Cary of Velma's Wicked Delicious Kettle Corn for offering popcorn to the hungry masses as they waited. Special thanks to our esteemed judges - Bob Heiss, Lisa Ekus and David Moskin - who gave each chili careful consideration and ultimately crowned the winners. And the drum roll please...

1st Prize

Chili #2, "Maggie's Chicken Chili, Maggie Miklovich, Shutesbury

2nd Prize TIED!

Chili #5, "Love Chili", Jason, Zoe and Sydney Tor, Amherst

Chili #8, "Texas Style Chili", JD Hairston of The Brass Buckle, Greenfield

3rd Prize

Chili #6, "Mercy", Matthew Skelly and Kyle Spooner, Hadley

People's Choice Award

Chili #8, "Texas Style Chili", JD Hairston of the Brass Buckle, Greenfield

Another champion earned a prize at the Chili Pepper Eating Contest, where our winner was brought to tears (of joy and pain!) after successfully tasting each of 20 varieties in our chili gallery - and then topping it off with two whole habaneros just for the hell of it. 

The beer from Wormtown Brewery in Worcestor was incredible, especially the Mass Whole HefeWeizen and #2 Hop Session made from Hadley grown and malted wheat and barley and local hops from Four Star Farms in Northfield. Thanks to Andrea from Valley Malt, Ben from Wormtown and Sean from Four Seasons Wine & Liquors for pouring the beer and for running out for more after we kicked three kegs!

Turn-out for the cooking demos was terrific. Enzo's Hot Sauce is the hands-down favorite condiment here at the Kitchen Garden so we were psyched to have Stephen Viarengo show us how to make his sauce with homegrown Jamaican, Fatali and Habanero peppers. Jim Zaccara of Hope & Olive and Magpie drew a crowd for his killer cocktails, including this Hot and Dirty Martini.

Our own Tim Wilcox whipped up a Thai meal of Laab Gai (Northeast Thai chicken salad) and Stir-Fried Pork with Holy Basil (recipes below).

The whole day was so much fun we think we'll do it again. See you at Chilifest 2013!

Stir-Fried Pork with Holy Basil

1 lb ground pork, or hand minced pork shoulder
5 cloves garlic, minced
5-10 Thai bird chilies, chopped
1 bunch Holy Basil (or substitute Thai sweet basil)
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp palm sugar (or regular sugar)

Brown the pork in a skillet. Once the fat renders out and the pork is beginning to brown add the garlic. When the garlic starts to brown, add the rest of the ingredients and stir until the sauce is absorbed and serve.

Laab Gai

1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breast
2 Tbsp raw, uncooked sticky rice
5 dried Thai chilies
5-10 fresh Thai bird chilies, chopped
5 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp palm sugar (or regular sugar)
2 Tbsp fish sauce
2 limes, juiced
1-2 shallots or red onion, sliced
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 bunch mint, chopped

In a heavy skillet, dry toast the rice over medium high heat until lightly browned all over and starting to smell roasted. Remove rice to a bowl and add dried chilies to the skillet and roast until blackened on all sides. Try to not to breathe. Set chilies aside.

Take the chicken breast and hand mince it with a large knife - first make long slices then chop vigorously until finely diced. (You can also use ground chicken instead). Add the chicken to a saute pan with a little water and cook on medium, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until all pink color is gone, around 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a heavy stone mortar and pestle, grind the rice into a fine powder. (You could also use a coffee grinder instead.) Remove rice powder to your serving bowl and add dried, toasted chilies to the mortar and pestle and pulverize. Add this to the serving bowl. Now add garlic and fresh chilies to the mortar and grind to a paste (or do this in a mini food processor), then add palm sugar and blend with garlic and chilies, and add fish sauce and lime to mortar and blend to form sauce. Combine chicken, rice, chilies, sauce, shallots and herbs in serving bowl and toss well. The flavor should be very spicy, sour, roasty and herbaceous. For a vegetarian version use blanched, chopped mushrooms. You can also use any other type of meat in place of the chicken with good results. Laab Gai is traditionally served with sticky rice and eaten with your hands.

Thanks to our Chilifest sponsors: Farm Credit East and Farm Start, Farm Family Insurance, Greenfield Farmers' Cooperative Exchange, Collective Copies and the Artisans of Western Mass. Thanks also to Ecuador Andino Store in Hadley for donating the fabulous butterfly pinata and to Maple Valley Creamery for donating their Dark Chocolate Ghost Chili Ice Cream. Thank you Kathryn Collier and Toni Young for sharing their terrific photos.