albemarle, nc

Month: September 2016

Chestnuts!

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They’re big this year!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with fresh chestnuts!  I had a couple pounds last week then I think they fell all at once. I have 8 gallons, yikes! I hope my peeps are hungry for chestnuts (you know you are my peeps). They were falling like crazy while I was picking them up. Chestnuts kept fallin’ on my head!

Radishes, turmeric leaves (for cooking fish – see last week’s post for the most delicious recipe!), fresh hibiscus roselles for tea, sweet potatoes, baby ginger, sweet peppers & jalepenos, 3 kinds of eggplant, garlic, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini, red & yellow onions; wheat berries.

I’ll have our grass fed, grass finished Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, filets, sirloins, skirt,  ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, oso bucco  short ribs, brisket, soup bones, liver, sirloin tip roasts, eye of round and bologna, pastrami, corned beef, hot dogs made from 100% grass fed beef without any nitrates/nitrites.

Specials: Soup bones – BOGO 50% and ground beef –   Buy 5 pounds, get 1 pound free!

Roasted Chestnuts: hold with a towel (for safety, says the girl who is covered in knife scars) and cut an “X” into the flat side with a sharp knife. Single layer on baking sheet at 350 for 35ish minutes. Pop them out as soon as you can handle them before they cool. Ready to eat! OR here’s a video on chestnuts. It’s Martha, skip to 5:56 to get to the chestnut info, but you know how she is (her chestnuts are from Italy and she has a chestnut scorer). Your beautiful chestnuts are from trees planted by Shane and gathered by yours truly 🙂

In fact – I have an Italian customer that used to have them imported until he tried ours. TRUE. FACT. He says they are better and you can ask him if  you come super early.

They can be frozen (roasted and peeled first) for holidays but will be softer so use them for cooking (hello super impressive actual chestnut stuffing), and I’ve also made creamy chestnut bisque with them. Martha Stewart has some recipes that look completely BOMB.

It must have rained a LOT while we were out of town because radishes are splitsville. I kept those to pickle and am bringing you the pretty ones, as always 🙂

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Fresh hibiscus again! I picked 3 gallons today.  I hope you who tried it last week loved it like I do!

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Tinyfrog holding down the jalepeno. He’s got it under control.

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Oh Abigail! Why do you have to be so melodramatic?

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See you guys tomorrow! (bring chestnut money)

 

 

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It’s a Mocktail!

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Hell has officially frozen over.

I think this is my first ever mocktail because…tequila. Just saying the word MOCKTAIL makes me feel sort of frowny.  And what is the difference between a mocktail and iced hibiscus tea with sparkly water & lime? Maybe just that you didn’t put liquor in it when you wanted to. Then after I already drank my refreshing hibiscus and lime mocktails (2) I saw a recipe for adding fresh ginger to it! Can’t wait to try that.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with some actual new things! A few radishes, turmeric leaves, hibiscus roselles for tea and sweet potatoes! Baby ginger, sweet peppers & jalepenos, 3 kinds of eggplant, garlic, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini, red & yellow onions; wheat berries.

I’ll have our grass fed, grass finished Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, filets, sirloins, skirt,  ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, oso bucco  short ribs, brisket, soup bones, liver, sirloin tip roasts, eye of round and bologna, pastrami, corned beef, hot dogs made from 100% grass fed beef without any nitrates/nitrites.

Specials: Soup bones – BOGO 50% and ground beef –   Buy 5 pounds, get 1 pound free!

Hibiscus. I picked 4 gallons of roselles this week alone. That’s insane! I’ll bring a gallon of fresh roselles tomorrow. Just slice off the bottom stem end and pop out the seed pod. For a quart of iced hibiscus tea, use about 10-15 fresh roselles in a pint of water, boil for 3 or so minutes then let steep 15 minutes or longer. Strain, add another pint of cold water and chill. I mixed mine with Gerolsteiner sparkly mineral water, lime juice and sugar. It has a tart/tangy fruit punch flavor. So pretty!

In fact, typing “hibiscus tea” in the search bar on Pinterest opens up a whole new world of hibiscus possibilities.  Modern Mai Tai with Hibiscus and Thyme? Whaaaaat.

Turmeric leaves. For cooking fish! OMG. I told Shane, I’m ruined for fish now. Wendy gave me this recipe. It uses fresh ginger, lime, garlic. BATHE the fish in the sauce, wrap in a turmeric leaf and steam for 10 minutes. The leaf actually held the fish in the sauce and it was out of this world. Used flounder from Rodney (Lucky Fish Seafood, beside me). The leaf gives the fish a mild herbal flavor. Wow.

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In the deep end!!

See you guys tomorrow!

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Market Stuff for 9/10.

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Milo (grain sorghum).

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with: baby ginger, sweet peppers & jalepenos, 3 kinds of eggplant, okra, garlic, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini, red & yellow onions; wheat berries.

I’ll have our grass fed, grass finished Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, filets, sirloins, skirt,  ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, oso bucco  short ribs, brisket, soup bones,  liver, sirloin tip roasts, eye of round and bone-in chuck roasts, and bologna, pastrami, corned beef, hot dogs made from 100% grass fed beef without any nitrates/nitrites.

Specials: Soup bones – BOGO 50% and ground beef –   Buy 5 pounds, get 1 pound free!

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Nothing beats rolling them in butter and garlic 🙂

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Baby arugula just coming up! Can’t wait.

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I made this super delicious lentil and potato soup yesterday, loaded with amazing fragrant and healthy spices because I woke up with a little bit of a sore throat. *soup emergency*

I haven’t had a cold since February 2009. I remember because that was the week I quit my real job, the one that paid many times more than this one, and had actual benefits and retirement, sigh. If I’m going to complain I should just go back right? Anyway, now it’s like I can’t break the streak! I can’t get sick because now  it’s the principal of it or something.  I mean it would be one thing to break the 7 1/2 year cold-free streak with  a germ you pick up on an All Expenses Paid 7 Night Luxury Vacation in a Tropical Paradise – bring on the Kleenex!!!  But it’s another thing to break the streak with some random germ from the wine aisle at Harris Teeter, know what I mean? Not happening.

So I loaded up my soup with all the things that fight off colds. Finely chopped a large onion, 5 cloves of garlic, a chunk of ginger, a jalepeno and sauteed all that with 1/2 t turmeric, 2 t ground coriander, 1 t smoked paprika, lots of salt and pepper. Cook all those amazing flavors until your socks start to roll up and down. Then I added 2 1/2 c green lentils, water, and let that simmer for 45 minutes. Added about 1 1/2 pounds potatoes diced small, and one sweet potato finely chopped. At the end, stir in juice from half a lemon and adjust seasoning. Top it off with some pickled jalepenos.  Shane said so many times that it was so good, finally I was like have you been drinking? Why you freaking out about the soup? No, he just really liked the soup. I guess it was souper, wonk wonk. I had it for brunch and dinner today 🙂

 

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I have sweet potatoes curing for a week now but they’re just barely sweet. Need another week.  I made sweet potato pancakes because I had to test out the curing process 🙂

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My sister’s horse has to have some cracked molars pulled. Not a small deal. And oooh just about a grand. He’s been having some issues and turns out the molars are split! yikes. Could it have something to do with the way he eats spiny pigweed??

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I interrupted nursing (this baby was born in June).  So cute.

See you tomorrow!

 

 

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A Labor Day Special!

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Bug finally decided it’s just too hot. They have always refused to go in past their knees (if they had knees) but I think she just had enough of this heat, like the rest of us. After about a 2 mile run she was ready to take the plunge. Now she can’t get enough. Swimmy Bug 🙂 I sit on a flat rock and put my feet in and watch her swim around. So cute!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market tomorrow with:

A ground beef special for your Labor Day cookouts! Buy 5 pounds, get one pound free. While supplies last.

baby ginger, sweet peppers & jalepenos, 3 kinds of eggplant, okra, garlic, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini, red & yellow onions; wheat berries.

What’s that you say? You want the secret to amazing potato salad? Potato salad that has SO MUCH FLAVOR that you can’t bear to drown it in globs of mayo? OK: the secret (aside from starting with potatoes that taste awesome – I like to mix all my varieties) is to soak the drained, steaming hot potatoes with wine vinegar (red or white are both good!) Just a few tablespoons, toss a few times while they soak it all up. When cooled, dress with:  2 Tb whole grain mustard, just 2 TB mayo, and herbs and spices: thyme, dill, smoked paprika, fresh ground pepper and roasted garlic sea salt! ALL OF THOSE. I also like ground coriander or celery seed.  Of course lots of red onion and sweet peppers.

I’ll have our grass fed, grass finished Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, filets, sirloins, skirt,  ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, oso bucco  short ribs, brisket, soup bones (BOGO 50% off), liver, sirloin tip roasts, eye of round and bone-in chuck roasts, and bologna, pastrami, corned beef, hot dogs made from 100% grass fed beef without any nitrates/nitrites.

I’m pretty disappointed in the ginger this year, instead of growing big roots it’s grown lots of bushy tops, they say that’s caused by excessive temps. Shrimpy ginger it is. That won’t stop us from making Strawberry Ginger Margaritas! Just about a nickel size piece of ginger, 5 frozen organic strawberries, juice of 1 lime, 1.5 oz silver tequila, agave or simple syrup to taste (dep on how sweet the strawberries are, maybe .75 oz) in the blender. I also add a shot of water. My blender has a single serving size mini blender that works perfect.

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I’m calling it. A) It’s time to take up sweet potatoes AND B) I just made meatloaf, so it is officially FALL as far as I’m concerned. Nevermind that it’s going back to the 90s next week, I’m not going outside on those days.

Ok lies – I’ll be digging sweet potatoes every day. I have peanuts to get to work on too.

When I make meatloaf I very finely chop a half pound of mushrooms and saute them with onion, garlic, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper and smoked paprika and add that to my ground beef. I don’t use egg or breadcrumbs.

The mushrooms soak up all those flavors that they’re sauteed with and keep the meatloaf moist and so flavorful. You have to cook the ‘shroom mixture down until all the moisture is gone before adding it to the beef. If I had spinach I’d be adding that too, don’t tell anyone. So I like to veg it up! Sue me.

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The cows just discovered the hay we threw out.

The alfalfa square bales got rained on last week or last weekend, or this week? I DON”T KNOW. One of the days when they said NO RAIN TODAY and he’d just finished baling but didn’t have it all picked up and in the barn yet. Anyway Shane loaded the ruined bales up on a truck and we drove around the pasture throwing them to the cows. Oh they were so excited! Alfalfa snacks.

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Everyone else found them too.

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The bulls came to watch, they got a few bales too.

See you tomorrow!

 

 

 

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