Small Wonder Farm

Just in Time

smallwonderfarm — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:14:51 +0000

The organizers of the Dark Days eating local blog challenge have given us some challenges. The first was the One Pot Meal challenge that I filled with pot roast, but this next challenge was A LOT harder. I thought about it off and on for weeks. The challenge—make a sweet treat for your Valentine using all or nearly all local ingredients. That coupled with my little Valentine’s allergies to corn, soy, dairy, gluten (and those are just the pertinent ones to sweets), made this seem like a challenge deadline I might just have to let slide by. A few days ago, stopped at a red light, it came to me–meringues. Finally, I was saved.

I beat 4 egg whites (ours) stiff, added a pinch of cream of tartar, about a 1/2 cup of Longhouse Farm maple syrup, and a few drops of red food color (I could not help myself). It worked like a dream. Pink heart shaped meringues that melt on your tongue. I did it! The cream of tartar and food color were not local of course, but they were minor additions. As I type this, it occurs to me that I could have thawed some frozen raspberries and used a bit of those for color and flavor.

My seven year old Valentine was very impressed.

Sometimes, I hit it out of the park

smallwonderfarm — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:55:14 +0000

Well, if you really know me, you know that I cannot hit or catch anything, let alone out of the park. But, in a culinary way, our Dark Days meal this week was a home run. I am not a very good recipe follower. If I do use one, I usually follow it loosely. This week I decided the spare ribs from the hog we got in the fall were ready to come out of the freezer. Since I taught this day an would no be home in the afternoon, I prepped this meal in advance and set the oven to come on later and a low temp and slowly cook our ribs and sweet potatoes.

I wanted BBQ sauce–Small Wonder Farm style, so I took a jar of my canned ketchup which has 2 times the flavor of regular ketchup, added a 1/4 cup of local maple syrup and a 1/4 of yellow mustard. After salting and peppering the ribs, I covered them in this. We came home to the best pork ribs imaginable with sweet potatoes and fresh spinach salad (picked from our own high tunnel). Definitely a hit.

This was the first year I made ketchup and it will definitely become a staple for our pantry. More flavorful and so versatile. It can easily become BBQ sauce, cocktail sauce, or an addition in dishes like meatloaf and cabbage rolls.

Small Wonder Farm: Spinach

Markle Farm: Sweet Potatoes

This Old Farm: Pork Ribs

Longhouse Farm: Maple Syrup

Outside inputs: Yellow Mustard, Salt, Pepper

A Really Good Day

smallwonderfarm — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:15:11 +0000

50′s outside meant 70′s in the high tunnel and plenty to harvest. What a wondrous day for the last day of January. Once I got done with my have-to’s in the AM, I made an executive decision to ignore my need-to’s in the house and spend a few hours working in the high tunnel and the garden. I was richly rewarded. Salad greens, edible flowers, and Jerusalem artichokes will be heading to the restaurant with the chef tomorrow. The weekend’s Jerusalem artichoke chowder was a sell-out hit. It was great to get my hands into the earth and go treasure hunting for them. Mother Nature does a great job of keeping them crisp and fresh for whenever we need them. The “candy carrots” are sweet and crisp. In addition to the harvest, I loved seeing a dandelion in the high tunnel and some beautiful magenta kales.

Super Juice

smallwonderfarm — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:44:45 +0000

It is sick season and my little girl is sick. She was home sick last Thursday and since has sort of roller-coastered between sick and not sick and last night just plummeted. No fever (often her M.O.), but rashy (not a real word), nauseous, and generally terrible looking.

Having homemade juice for her makes me feel like I can do something 100% good for her as her little body goes to battle. I steam juiced our own grapes, blackberries, and raspberries to make this years vintage of juice. I don’t sweeten or dilute it prior to canning so each quart actually makes a half gallon. I put half into another quart jar, add water to double each, and then sweeten to taste with liquid stevia. This vitamin boost has to do her body good.

Dark Days Times Two

smallwonderfarm — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:22:31 +0000

Just when I was pondering what our next meal would be for the Dark Days local eating challenge, 2 meals happened back to back without really planning. Click to view slideshow.

The first is a meal of lamb burgers with home-canned ketchup, German potato salad, home-canned applesauce, and a cold beet salad. Meal number 2 was a beef pot roast with carrots, potatoes, onions, and garlic. We had this with some home-canned peaches. Our pot roast meal qualifies as they One-pot Meal mini challenge within the Dark Days Challenge. The only item not in the pot was the peaches and we ate those right out of the canning jar!

You will notice that our lamb burgers were served without a bun. We often have bread-less meals due to our daughter’s numerous food allergies. Makes Dark Days easier too!

The German Potato salad is not a regular offering around here. A few weeks ago, we visited Shapiro’s Deli in Indianapolis and I had their German potato salad and I have been craving it ever since. Shapiro’s is a 100+ year old deli and a bit of a local legend. Hard to believe we had never been their before. The potato salad, served warm, was the perfect combination of strong mustard, vinegar tang, and just enough sweetness to make it perfect. I love vinegar, mustard, and the like. This salad had celery (sauteed), but no bacon (most recipes call for it), and came across as elusively simple—the kind of recipe that you might never peg. My version was not bad, but not as good either. To make the dressing, I used mustard, apple vinegar (our daughter can’t have white vinegar due to corn allergy) and honey. I boiled the potatoes, sauteed the celery in lard, and then tossed it altogether in the mustard dressing and added fresh parsley. I doubted husband and daughter would even like it (not big mustard fans), but we all loved it. If anyone out there has more insight into Shapiro’s German Potato Salad, I would love to know.

Here is the score:

Meal One (Lamb Burgers):

Lamb and Lard—Thistle Byre Farm

Applesauce—canned from Butera Orchard apples

Honey (on beets and in potato salad)–Wabash and Reilly Honey

Beets, Potatoes, Ketchup, Onions, Parsley, Garlic, Parsley, Celery–from our own Small Wonder Farm

Outside Inputs: Yellow Mustard, Salt, Pepper, Apple Cider Vinegar, 1 TB orange juice (on beets)

Meal Two (Pot Roast):

Chuck Roast–This Old Farm processing and Glenn Hoover Beef

Onions, Potatoes, Garlic, Carrots—from our own Small Wonder Farm

Home-canned peaches—peaches from Thistle Byre Farm

Outside inputs: Salt, Pepper, Mixed Dry Herbs, White Wine

Butternut, Apple, and Cranberry Gratin

smallwonderfarm — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:41:50 +0000

Our local meal pick of the week was a butternut squash, apple, and cranberry gratin and local sausage. The inspiration came from an online recipe from Organic Gardening Magazine. http://www.organicgardening.com/cook/butternut-squash-apple-and-cranberry-gratin

I modified the recipe to accommodate our dairy and gluten free household. I substituted my GF flour blend for the flour and Spectrum shortening for the butter. I also used fresh cranberries for the dried ones and added 2 tablespoons of local honey to accommodate the lack of sweetness. We had this with some local grass-fed sausages from Thistle Byre Farm. This was a first time making this and we all really liked it. It would also make a great holiday side dish.

Here’s the rundown:

Thistle Byre Farm:
Grass-fed pork sausage
Fuji apples

Markle Farm:
Butternut Squash

Wabash and Reily Local Honey

Our own Small Wonder Farm:
Parsley
Thyme

Outside inputs:
GF flour blend
Spectrum shortening
Cranberries
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne

The Year in Review

smallwonderfarm — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:12:06 +0000

It’s been a memorable and mostly good year here at Small Wonder Farm. Here are some of the highlights (click on the links throughout and you will see all the posts on that topic):

It was our first spring and summer growing in the high tunnel. Verdict–those poor souls growing in flat open ground are to be pitied. Raised beds are a must and many crops love the high tunnel. Especially with our always extreme man-made weather.

We lost our dear Pepita in March. I still think of her everyday and she was a true lesson in perseverance, dedication, and loyalty. I hate that we live in a world where animals are thought of as less than when they are often more than.

We quadrupled our produce output going to the restaurant. There were a number of factors at play:

I am a better garden planner
I have learned much more about soil and we layer on the compost
We no longer till–Using only hand-tools and lots of organic matter
I am better at companion planting and organic problem-solving
We added the high tunnel
I am better at fulfilling restaurant needs through crop choices and timing
I had a part-time employee (aka The Chef)

This was the year of extreme heat. It was near 100 for the entire month of July. Despite being more careful than normal, I became dehydrated enough to have hallucinations. The heat was awful. I hate extreme heat. Still, I would rather be sweating and picking than trapped inside. Extreme conditions also made my pain worse. A lot of the picking was of currant tomatoes, which were a big hit at the restaurant. With over an hour of picking time per plant however, we will not grow them this coming year (ok, maybe 1).

It was a year of big birthdays. Lily turned 7, I turned 40, and the Chef just turned 45. My birthday wish was a trip to the Mother Earth News Fair. It was everything I wished for and then some. It was a great recharge for the turning point of 40. I am very lucky and wise to be already doing the things in my life that bring me joy, knowledge, and fulfillment.

It was the year of many firsts. I strive to try and make many things new each year. I know the meaning of life is loving and learning, so I do my best to fill my life with both. Some firsts:

New Crops:

Claytonia
Jerusalem Artichokes
Currant Tomatoes
Celery
Mushrooms
Our first big crop of grapes
Violets (foraged)
Heirloom Flint Corns
Egyptian Walking Onions and Potato Onions
Dandelion Greens

New Skills:

Jelly from Violets
Sharing my passion with kids and others (constantly improving this as I am in the trenches)
Making Chorizo, Ketchup, Kale Chips
Making jams and marmalade without commercial pectin
Making cornmeal and baked with it
Making Tomato Sauce without seeding or peeling tomatoes and I will never turn back!

I finished my first school year of volunteer teaching at NCS and started my second. Year one included three K and K/1 classrooms and I now work with 6 classrooms-ranging from K to 2nd grade kids. It is an honor to teach these kids about gardening, the environment, and nutrition. I’ve learned a great deal and have a long way to go, but I love my kids and feel what I am teaching them is of utmost importance. We have a lot of fun. It was so great to start this second year and and see how much last years kids retained from year 1.

The 2 major stories that round out the year-end are our non-winter and our new puppy. So far, winter has not come. Temps have been mild and we have had only 2 short-lived snows. In a way, I am relieved since the cold is hard on my fibro, but some winter would be nice. Knowing that the source of our always strange weather is man-made has me wishing for a normal season.

Frida, a 7 month old Boston Terrier, came home on December 22. I knew I would eventually want another lap dog after loosing Pepita, but it took awhile. I searched for rescued pups on Petfinder for about a month before Frida and I found each other. I have always wanted a Boston Terrier and Frida is the pup for us. At 7 months, she is a preschooler. She loves to cuddle in bed more than anything in the world. She is the last to get up and is always up for a nap.

Here are some of my favorite pics from the year.

"Tom Pepper" tomatoes--tomatoes as big as your head and a canning marvelRed Floriani Flint Corn as compared to a 7 year old

Roast Beast

smallwonderfarm — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:05:57 +0000

Just like the Whos in Whoville, Our Christmas feast included roast beast, in this case–leg of lamb. We also had roasted carrots glazed with cider molasses (a thicker version of our cider syrup) and mashed potatoes. This meal came mostly from our own backyard with the addition of a beautiful grassed leg of lamb from Thistle Byre Farm. I marinated the lamb with olive oil, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, white wine, garlic, salt, and pepper. The carrots are Napoli carrots from our high tunnel. These are Eliot Coleman’s much lauded “candy carrots” that are sweetened by some heavy frosts and freezes. I harvested them along with some beautiful Jerusalem artichokes on Christmas Eve. The artichokes are heaped with compost in their outdoor bed. Our mild winter made it quite easy to harvest them. The carrots were amazingly sweet and lovely. These holiday gifts from our own farm were a beautiful celebration of the day.

Here’s the official breakdown for the Dark Days Challenge:

Our own farm:
Carrots
Potatoes
Thyme
Rosemary
Garlic
Chicken broth (for mashed potatoes)
Parsley
Apple cider molasses (home canned from Markle Farm cider)

Thistle Byre Farm:

Leg of lamb

Non-local Ingredients:

White wine
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Click to view slideshow.

Feliz Navidad

smallwonderfarm — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:31:05 +0000

Click to view slideshow.

Click for slideshow soundtrack: 01 Santa Claus Llego a la Ciudad (Sa

We celebrated a wonderful Christmas here at the farm. Cookie Chomper (our cat) chomped cookies, our new puppy Frida came home from the animal shelter for her first Christmas and stole our hearts, we snuggled in jammies, and were serenaded by Lily and her karaoke microphone. A very Happy Holiday from us to you.

A Brand New Harvest

smallwonderfarm — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:30:15 +0000

As of this week, Small Wonder Farm now produces some of it’s own mushrooms. My Back to the Roots oyster mushroom kit has started producing. It took a lot longer than I expected. but it is amazing to see how fast they grow. one of our nephews is a very accomplished mushroom farmer and he inspired me to give it a whirl. I want to grow mushrooms with my 1st graders at school as our winter harvest project and now I know it works. Lily, although wowed by the growth, continues to be a staunch anti-mushroom eater. More for me and Paco.