albemarle, nc

Month: October 2016

Market Stuff for October 29.

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Shane is partly done seeding the pastures with cool season forage. It looked so pretty and green through the trees with everything else turning brown.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with baby turmeric, arugula, Red Russian kale, rainbow chard, eggplant, sweet peppers, jalepenos, sweet potatoes, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini onions; wheat berries.

SPECIALS: Ground Beef  – Buy 5, Get 1 FREE and Cube Steak is 20% off.

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

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This is less than half of the sweet potatoes. They’re so huge! I’m out of crates until the white potatoes are gone 🙁  Anyone have plastic crates in need of a fine and loving home?

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The great thing about eye of round roast in the crock pot is that if you don’t cook it until it completely falls apart, you can make nice, round, beautiful, fork-tender slices to serve on a bed of mashies or cheese grits. So professional looking 🙂 I made this Venezuelan Asada Negro.

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Tilling under the millet cover crop to plant clover for the winter. This field is heavy clay; we decided to just cover crop it this year to add organic matter and I’ll grow food crops here next year. It’s super dusty now, red dirt was falling off my clothes when I got off the tractor.

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The garlic is planted.  This is my favorite, Tuscan. After many deep thoughts 😉 I’ve decided to bring the rest of the Tuscan to the market because it’s so nice and keep the other for us.

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Bahaha! I’ve always wanted to do that. It’s so  supportive yet yielding hahaha. I could barely climb out for sinking in, it was pretty hilarious. Also there were LOTS of grasshopper parts in there. I so need a bean bed! Forget you fancy organic latex mattress that lost any whisper of support after only 3 years so out of desperation we pulled it onto the floor like 8 months ago hoping that would make it even remotely sleep-able.  Boo. Totally filling the air mattress with beans and grasshopper legs, probably be the best sleep of my life.

Ok – see you tomorrow!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Market Stuff for October 22.

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My guard at his post 🙂

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with baby turmeric and ginger, napa cabbage, arugula, Red Russian kale, rainbow chard, sweet potatoes, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini onions; wheat berries.

Cube steak is 20% off this week!

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

Specials: Cube Steak 20% off  and ground beef – Buy 5 pounds, get 1 pound free!

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Yay for pelleted carrot and lettuce seed. I’ve been planting in the hoop houses every day – butter lettuce, purple and yellow and orange carrots, golden beets, spinach, my favorite curly kale and red radishes. Finally got the sweet potatoes all out of the ground and now it’s time to get the garlic in, and winter cover crops.

Cool weather always has me craving root veggies and pot roasts. These are grounding foods, and for me it’s important to maintain a balance or I can start to feel tired. Fresh green salads are energizing and pairing them or lightly sauteed greens with hearty soups, braising cuts of meat and potatoes a million ways (yum) is so perfect and vital to keeping energy balanced. Kind of like when your husband wants to go through the Krispy Kreme drive-thru but first must concede to a whole day of salads tomorrow to right all the wrongs haha.  Balance.

We had this Garlicky Kale Salad with Crispy Chickpeas tonight (except with arugula). We really liked the chickpeas on a salad!!

See you guys tomorrow 🙂

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Heeeeey!

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I’m waving at you with my cute baby turmeric hands!!!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with baby turmeric, napa cabbage, and turmeric leaves (for cooking fish) arugula, Red Russian kale, swiss chard, fresh hibiscus roselles for tea, sweet potatoes, baby ginger, sweet peppers, eggplant, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini & yellow onions; wheat berries.

I’ll have our grass fed, grass finished Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins, skirt,  ground beef, stew beef, cube steak, oso bucco  short ribs, brisket, soup bones, liver,  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% off and ground beef – Buy 5 pounds, get 1 pound free!

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Two rows/varieties of arugula with a drip line in between.

The top variety of arugula was ready 2 full cuttings before the bottom kind and the bottom kind is already starting to bolt. The bottom one is related to a wild strain and the top one is domesticated salad arugula. Oh what’s that you say? Oh snore? Fine. But when society collapses after November you’re going to need to know which kind is ready way faster and is more productive and lasts longer 🙂

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Lemon Ginger dressing for your arugula salad!

I know lots of people don’t like arugula because it’s bitter/spicy. But bitter and pungent foods are something we all need, because they help our liver detoxify our bodies and regulate our hormones. Very important for peaceful households. Don’t want any excess/mutated hormones loitering around in our bodies, putting their 2 cents in where it doesn’t belong,  just because a liver is too exhausted to try. Help a liver out!!

This dressing really cuts the bite of arugula and is super healthy – juice of 1 & 1/2  to 2 lemons, mounded tsp of grated ginger, salt to taste, 2 Tb honey and 2 Tb olive oil. I use this dressing do-dad it actually emulsifies it and then you just pop it in the fridge. Handy.

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Nice big napa cabbages. From one cabbage I made a 3-day size pot of cabbage and potato soup, and still have cabbage left to add to our arugula salads every day.

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Still working on beans.  The header (the front part there that’s so wide, that cuts the beans) is too wide to go down the road so it has to be taken off and put on a trailer and moved that way to the bean fields, and home again. He cuts til after dark then I need to go get him and take him back and forth so he can move all these trucks loaded with beans back to the house. Then in the  morning while it’s still too wet to cut, the beans get put up in the bin.

I will leave you wishing you were eating these Crispy Baked Garlic Fries. Or is that just me? Can’t be. They’re finished with a drizzle of fresh garlic sauteed in olive oil.

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I’ll see you tomorrow!!

 

 

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Sweater Weather :)

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Woohoo!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with whole plant baby turmeric, arugula, Red Russian kale, swiss chard, fresh hibiscus roselles for tea, sweet potatoes, baby ginger, sweet peppers, eggplant, garlic, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers;  cipollini & yellow onions; wheat berries.

I’ll have our grass fed, grass finished Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins, skirt,  ground beef, stew beef, 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% off and ground beef – Buy 5 pounds, get 1 pound free!

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turmeric plants in the hoop house

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Baby turmeric tastes kind of similar to baby ginger, not bitter like dried turmeric. It can be frozen like ginger, and there are lots of turmeric recipes on Pinterest!

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This week I was in a big rush to finish the sweet potatoes since rain was coming. It had just finally dried out enough to get back in the field. Shane sets the chisel plow up high so it barely skims the dirt, to drag all the vines off. Vines always have to be dealt with before digging; they’re long and heavy and all tangled up together.

I didn’t finish- and leaving them in the ground even longer means more bug damage and all that stuff. Army worms are horrible right now.

It’s my own fault, I was…

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when I should have been…

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Shane always likes to celebrate when hay season is over, it’s such a huge relief.  So when he says let’s go I can’t say no. Physically impossible. I mean just look at the pictures: one is like  Aaaaahhhh (smiley dreamy I’m staying here forever face) and the other is like AAARRGGHH (sweaty weary wish I was at the beach face).

This one is the actual size of my brain!

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Keep the jokes inside.

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Pretend this photo of Abigail gumming a giant sweet potato (did you know the don’t have any front teeth on the top?)  is a picture of the first baby calf and also of Shane cutting his beans. I did ask him to take some pictures…help a girl out!!

He spent a whole day getting the combine ready. Changing filters, greasing fittings and all that. He’s been bush hogging the pastures and planting cool weather forages and loading boatloads of hay for customers.

I still don’t have both hoop houses completely planted.  Seems like there should be extra time somehow since the main season is over, but there’s all the catching up to do and lots of stuff to get ready for the winter season; if crops get started too late they won’t mature as the days get shorter and colder.

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Got the parsley and sage in that’ve been sitting in their pots since July. We might be getting somewhere.

Ok – don’t let the rain keep you away tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Involtini.

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The reason you cannot be tired of eggplant yet!

Yeah yeah it looks like a frozen dinner – you know how bad my food stying is. Eggplant roll-ups stuffed with herby cheese! Tender and creamy and you won’t believe how easy: mix some herbs, salt & pepper, bread crumbs and egg with 8 oz ricotta or goat cheese. Slice eggplants the long way about 1/4″ thick. Brush with a little oil and broil appx 4 minutes on each side (til browned) then spread some cheese filling on one side and roll up. I used an 8×8″ dish, spread a little marinara in the bottom first then lay your awesome eggplant rolls in there. Cover it all with marinara and bake at 350 for 20-30.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with chestnuts (yay I thought last week was it), a little arugula, radishes, turmeric leaves for cooking fish, 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 & 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, 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!

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Hens eating radish greens and rooster pretending to. Seriously he pretends to take bites and then fake chews. Such a weirdo. I found a home for him where they like rooster soup.

Since it was so hot this summer I had the chickens in the woods for shade. They had tons of worms and bugs in there, but no greens. I watched them chowing on wee critters all the time, but their yolks got super pale like grocery store eggs even though I was feeding them the same organic feed mixed with my grains, and they had tons of free range proteins. They had a ball scratching down under the leaves into the soft dirt and finding worms. I moved them back onto grass 3 weeks ago and now the yolks are going back to intense yellow color. Proof that it’s the beta-carotene they get from the grass that makes the yellow color. Nothing changed except green grass. Sciencey.

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Chestnuts fresh out of the oven! So sweet and creamy. Into the freezer for holiday recipes.

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The red kale needed thinning so we have a lovely mix of arugula and baby kale. I’ve been loving it with just a squeeze of lime, pinch of salt and a drizzle of my latest salad obsession, fig balsamic. The really thick kind, it’s like a reduction.

My fancy commercial grade salad spinner is one of the best things in life. It’s  electric! and stainless steel, with this inner basket that holds like 10 heads of lettuce. Yeah. Farm nerds know what I’m talkin’ bout.

Ok, I’m boring. I’ll see you tomorrow. This can be your bedtime reading…snore. Unless you’re a lifetime insomniac like me? Then do you lie awake with these burning questions that need immediate answers at any hour of the night? And you’re like…Pssst Bubby. Are you awake? Bubby… BUBBY.  Are you awake? Because you have these urgent questions such as, “What is the difference between a raven and a crow?”  or “Where is the space station?” or, “How much does my head weigh??” bahahaha. Maybe that’s just me.

I’ll get my solid 2 hours in and see you bright and early 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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