FARM TO TABLE.
It was a big day for us today as we started putting the first of our tomato plants in the ground, tempting fate a little with the weather but feeling confident they'll be happier there. Afterwards, we took a minute to look over the rows and enjoy how the garden continues to fill up with potential: hundreds of ounces of seed will soon render thousands of pounds of food. We received most of our seeds in February, started planting them in March and by May we'll be devouring their efforts, amazed that what will come to make numerous dinners for us and shareholders often started out no bigger than the letters of this text. It would be like one blog post turning into wikipedia in 100 days. Of course, these few weeks before the harvesting begins might not be the most exciting time in the kitchen but they're a great time in the dirt, massaging our future meals into fruition, watching seeds perform miracles.- Jesse.
FRIENDS & CORNBREAD.
Slowly but surely, we are starting to make friends! Going to the farmer’s market and visiting some local-food-type places around town has helped us to meet like-minded folks around Danville…even some young farmers! We were invited by these new friends to an AG LEGACY pot luck tomorrow….meeting with other farmers, young and old, to talk about what we do, sharing ideas and information, and connecting. Exciting! We are taking a bottle of Jesse’s wine and some cornbread muffins that I am currently baking. They are smelling prettydelicious, and so I thought I’d share the recipe. I know it is quick and easy to buy that Jiffy cornbread box, but it is truly SO simple to make it yourself….and way better for you. Promise.And as a BONUS, last year at Bugtussle, Jesse fermented garlic scapes and some habeneros early in the season. The result was a sort of spicy, garlicy, hot sauce wine that we have been using to flavor our food. I mixed some of that in with the cornbread and it is DELICIOUS – a very slight kick. Obviously, if you want to make some of the garlic scape stuff, it is going to take a couple weeks or so for it to get really good and fermented. But adding spice to cornbread is always a good idea in my book..
HANNAH’S SPICY CORNBREAD(makes about 25 corn muffins, or 2 pans of cornbread)ingredients:
- 2 ¼ cups corn meal
- 2 ¼ cups flour
- 5 tbsp honey (or sugar, if that floats your boat)
- 3 tbsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 ½ cups sour milk or yogurt (SOUR MILK MAKES AWESOME BAKED GOODS)
- 10 oz butter or lard (I used half butter and half lard), melted
- 2 eggs, slightly beaten
- 1 cup garlic scape hot stuff (optional, just add another cup of milk if you don’t want to use hot sauce)
Mix all your dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the butter, eggs and milk as you stir. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees.
JESSE’S FERMENTED GARLIC SCAPE SALSA(makes half a gallon)ingredients:
- 1 lb garlic scapes, chopped
- ½ cup salt
- ½ gallon water (or enough to cover the scapes)
Stir the salt into the water. Put the scapes in a glass jar. Pour the water into the jar until they are completely covered, leaving a few inches of space between top of the jar.Let sit for three days in a cool, dark space, making sure the scapes stay submerged. Bubbling and ocassional foam is a GOOD thing! Put lid on jar losely and over the next few days, make sure and unscrew lid enough to relieve pressure in jar. Let sit for a couple weeks in fridge or cellar, until fresh hot peppers are available. Add several hot peppers—at least 5, but as many as you want––and let sit for additional week. Blend together and put in clean jar, still making sure solids are submerged. Serve and ENJOY!
A MARKET HEAD START.
We have found ourselves really on top of things this week. The garden looks great, we've got tons of germinating seeds and blooming berries and lovely weather....so we had some extra time to start getting our market display ready, even if it's still a ways away. It was exciting to think about setting up our little table and finally having our own food to sell! On top of chalkboard signs, a fabric banner for our tent, and our (MISSPELLED) business cards, I also started making some TOTE BAGS for the shareholders! We thought these would be a fun way for you guys to pick up your veggies each week. At first we were going to have them made all professional-like, but that was seriously going to cost THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Ya'll. That's crazy. So of course we did some DIY, and they look pretty good, if I do say so myself. Looks like that art degree wasn't a waste after all!- Hannah.
CHICKENSTEAD.
Another epic scrap project is complete, taking the form of the all new (from all old) Rough Draft Farmstead Chickenstead. We utilized scrap barn wood for the walls, an old cabinet for nest boxes, millions of spare screws and nails, some chicken wire we had leftover and all sorts of random odds and ends we collected from around the farm to piece this thing together! All in all it cost us about about $12, and that was for the paint. Will it last?! That remains to be seen, but we feel pretty good about the stability thus far. All we have left to do now is find a few feathered inhabitants...(Coop pictured without the finished roof, so imagine it looking just a little cooler. As if it could look any cooler.)- Jesse.
