Month: September 2015

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers’ Market tomorrow with fresh chestnuts, raw peanuts, eggplant, hard red winter wheat, 3 kinds of potatoes, red & white onions, some greens.

The chestnut trees are so beautiful.

We’re all stocked up on beef cuts for the last time this year. We don’t have any more market size steers so this is it for 2015:

Beef Andouille sausage,  sliced pastrami, hot dogs, and corned beef all made from our Angus beef with no added nitrates or nitrites.  Ground beef, stew meat, philly steak, cube steak, oso bucco, short ribs, brisket, liver, soup bones, bone-in chuck, sirloin tip roast, eye of round, sirloin steaks, NY Strips, ribeyes, filets, skirt, flank, flat irons.

I’m super excited about the peanuts! They were planted in May – take forever to grow! I think these are Spanish peanuts, my uncle gave me the seed from his crop. They are supposed to have the best peanutty flavor, and make the best peanut butter. The whole plants are pulled up and stacked on the tables in the greenhouse to dry. We pulled them on Wednesday and Thursday so I think technically they’re still green. So these are RAW peanuts and I like to eat them raw but they’re a little hard to digest. Most folks are used to roasted or boiled peanuts, I don’t think I’ve ever seen raw peanuts for sale.  Raw peanuts can be frozen and used later.

These aren’t washed so they need to be washed well.

I followed my Uncle’s instructions for boiled green peanuts: very salty water for 1 1/2 hours or so, then leave them overnight. Eat and/or freeze for later.

Dried peanuts (after this weekend they will be considered raw dried) they will need to soak overnight before following above instructions.

Roasted peanuts –  single layer on a sheet pan, 350 for around 20 minutes. You’ll be able to smell them when they’re done. Underdone is much better than overdone, take it from me.

Peanut butter – roast, then process in food processor with salt and a little coconut oil, for 8000 years until smooth. A little honey in there is super yummy too. You’ll need to keep scraping the sides down until eternity. Maybe your food processor is better than mine. My advice, boil and/or roast your peanuts but just buy the peanut butter.

See you tomorrow!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers’ Market tomorrow, here’s what I’ll have:

Veggies: Yellow Hawaiian baby ginger, Carlos muscadine grapes (yay), the first few pounds of chestnuts! Hard red winter wheat berries; Carola, German Butterball & Rose Finn Apple fingerling potatoes, red onions, white onions & the last couple pounds of sweet onions; eggplant; jalepenos, garlic.

Our Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Grassfed Angus beef – Beef Andouille sausage, sliced pastrami, hot dogs and corned beef,  all made from our Angus beef with no added nitrates or nitrites.  Ground beef, stew meat,  cube steak, oso bucco, liver, soup bones, bone-in chuck, sirloin tip roast, eye of round, sirloin steaks, NY Strips, ribeyes.

Muscadines. These must be the grapes they eat in heaven.

This week I, like all the farmers, have been busy planting food for the coming season. We also went to Raleigh to pick up hard white winter wheat to plant next month. That will be ready to harvest in OHHHH, nine months. I read it bakes a lighter loaf of bread than hard red, although I’m loving my red wheat too. I made healthy whole wheat brownies, with homemade applesauce instead of oil and grated apples instead of sugar. They tasted like they needed sugar and fat  so I soaked them in whiskey. For breakfast.

Shane weaned the calves this week as calving season is approaching! He does fence-line weaning so they can be right beside mom if they want to. They seem to be extra pretty this year, and big. We got a chocolate and a butterscotch color this time, I love those! There was some Simmental way down the line and every now and then it pops up.  These calves were born in 2014 and will be market size in 2016.

He loaded up the feeder with four round bales of alfalfa and they don’t even care that mom’s on the other side of the fence.

Ahhhh. Finally, a getaway with my hubby. Only two nights.  Much thanks to Shane’s Aunt Kathy for staying with Mrs. P and to my sister and Shane’s helper David for taking care of the animals and plants.

On vacay I had my share of fried fish, hushpuppies, ice cream and pina coladas, and now I suffer the consequences. It’s amazing how fast inflammation sets in, just a couple days of an unhealthy diet and all my joints and muscles are hurting and creaky and I feel a million years old with no energy so I’m sorta glad I didn’t have much to pick today.  Thank goodness our bodies are able to heal themselves so quickly if we give them what they need to do it, and I’ll be good as new in a couple days.

So now back to reality, I just spent the past two hours sitting with one of the horses that was choking. With 5 horses in their mid 20s, it happens. Still scary though. He went back to grazing but I’m suspicious that he’s just chewing it up and letting it fall out because he’s hungry and tired of just standing there while everybody else eats. Sigh.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers’ Market on Saturday —

Veggies: Baby yellow ginger; German Butterball, Carola and fingerling potatoes; red onions & the last of the sweet onions (will start bringing white onions next week) ; garlic; wheat berries; sweet peppers & jalepenos; eggplant.

The chef from Heirloom has been buying the wheat berries and I asked him what he’s making, he said a take on risotto! Chefs are so creative.

And our Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Grassfed Angus beef – Beef Andouille sausage, sliced pastrami, hot dogs, corned beef and bologna all made from our Angus beef with no added nitrates or nitrites.  Ground beef, stew meat,   cube steak, oso bucco, liver, soup bones, bone-in chuck, sirloin tip roast, eye of round, sirloin steaks, NY Strips, ribeyes.

Peanuts soon! Maybe we can take some up next week, or the next. It’s a bit early but I’m impatient.