Published on July 5th, 2008
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How exactly does one make a vegetable farm less carnivorous than it already is? The practice of veganic - or “stock-free” - farming is beginning to take hold among some small-scale farmers in the United States and Canada. It has been a common method in Europe for years.
Veganic farmers practice organic farming by eschewing synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, but take it a step further by eliminating animal-derived farming products as well. Most organic farmers use bone meal, blood meal and animal waste fertilizer to make their plants productive, but veganic farmers and their customers see a number of problems with using animal biproducts around the plants. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 2nd, 2008
Posted in
Eat.Drink.Better,
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Uncategorized,
agriculture,
business,
food crisis,
local food,
nutrition and health,
organics,
recipes,
vegetarian
Landi Simone the ‘Bee Lady’ of Gooserock Farm in Montville, New Jersey goes all out every year to help raise awareness about honey bees and their importance to our agriculture and eco-systems.
Landi, pictured here in her ‘bee bikini’, got together with fellow, bee buddy, Joe Treimel to show off their live bee apparel and accessories. Joe sported a bee beard. This all took place last weekend at the Essex County Environmental Center.
Read more about Landi and what is happening to honey bees in one of my earlier posts. Here’s a crazy story I saw yesterday morning on CNN.com about 12 MILLION honey bees that swarmed a Canadian highway after a truck carrying them flipped over!
My favorite honey & herb sauce . . . Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 1st, 2008
Happy Holiday Weekend coming up! This week, I want to share with you some of the words from our weekly CSA letter (we do both a CSA and I shop the market). This letter is from our family farm supplier and keeps us up-to-date with all that is happening at the farm. The paragraph sums up so much about why farmers pursue a difficult livlihood, often working a second job just so they can continue farming.
“I have been thinking a lot this week about growing things and how lucky we are to live in a place where it is possible to see nature in all its forms. As pissed off as I get about the deer eating produce, it still takes my breath away to see a doe and her baby standing by the side of the road. I love to watch the dragon flies dive boming over the plants in the field and just have to search for the nest of a quail who is frantically trying to call me in the opposite direction. It never ceases to amaze me that a seed no bigger than a pinhead can create a plant that is over 12 feet tall and will produce a two-pound tomato. What a wondrous world we live in.
Post for this week follow the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 26th, 2008
Opah! The Greek God of Spanakopita smiled down favorably this week here in Wisconsin, providing tender green spin
ach along with the first of our dill — which means it’s spinach pie time. The Greeks sure know how to pack in the healthy, iron punch with an abundance of greens alongside poignant feta cheese. And while spinach pie can be made just fine with frozen spinach, you just can’t beat the tender flavor of fresh.
Like other mainstay international dishes, this Greek dish has various versions — and spellings: “Spanakopita” for “spinach pie” and “spanakotyropita” for the more detailed “spinach and cheese pie.” But the short gist is an abundant bowl of cooked spinach and herbs mixed with feta and eggs, nestled in between buttered layers of phyllo. By accident once, we bought puff pastry sheets instead of phylo dough which worked surprisingly well. Combinations of spinach and Swiss chard work equally well.
Harvest those local greens and enjoy!
Recipe after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 24th, 2008
If you are shopping your farmers market, this time of year you will likely be seeing the last of the strawberries, lettuces and greens. Longer growing cole crops are showing up; a bit of kale and chard and broccoli arriving (some part of the US are a bit behind with all the rain), and the slower growing berries like blackberries and blueberries. It’s a good time to look for a local u-pick farm. And finally, the first of the summer’s stone fruits like peaches and cherries are arriving.
Peach recipe and Market Fare post links after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 20th, 2008
What is your favorite summer kale recipe?
Here’s one of mine . . .
Kale is not one of my favorite veggies, but somehow Green Diva Jen, (AKA Jenifer O’Neill) has been slowly converting me. She contributed this recipe as well as the actual dish for our wonderful staff picnic last year (photo was taken on my back deck!). She seems to find great ways to get more kale into the mix!
Ingredients
1/2 head kale (any variety)
1/2 head green cabbage
1/2 head red cabbage
4 large carrots
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar or umeboshi plum vinegar
1 cup your favorite mayonnaise
1 tablespoon honey
Freshly ground pepper
Splash of water
Instructions
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 17th, 2008
We’re into early summer, now, and I know this, not by the rise in temperature, but because we’ve gotten the last bit of asparagus for the year and the first of the summer squash. Summer squash is one of the most prolific of vegetables, always seems like there are more squash each week than I have recipes for them. Here’s a creative way to use that abundant basil, the first tomatoes and your burgeoning crop of summer squash:
Squaghetti
1 large, long-shaped zucchini, leave peel on, prepare as above
1/2 pound spaghetti noodles
1/3 cup basil pesto (recipe)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 cup roasted tomatoes (recipe)
Prepare zucchini strands and place in a colander. Boil water for pasta. Before you place the spaghetti in the water, put the colander in and blanch the squash for 1-2 minutes. Remove from the water, set aside to cool. Cook pasta.
When the pasta is cooked, Drain and add the hot pasta and pesto in a large bowl. Gently fold in the squash strands as they will be more delicate. Top with the tomatoes and the parmesan. Now, let’s see ‘em pick the green vegetable out of that dish! Actually, they won’t bother. The strands mix well with the other flavors
More seasonal recipes in this week’s carnival after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 13th, 2008
The fresh berry season seems so short to me. I really try to eat more seasonally and regionally, but I must admit that I buy frozen organic berries to use mostly in fruit smoothies (see below) during the sad non-berry season.
Growing fresh berries may be the most exciting - especially if you have a local bear that becomes familiar with your crop! Until our current house, I’ve always had some berry bushes and enjoyed the picked-off-the-bush freshness of berries for breakfast AND dessert! I tried container strawberries on the deck in the last couple of years, but it was such an unbelievable chore to keep them from the critters, that I gave up, surrendered my succulent beauties to some very happy chipmunks and whoever else was enjoying them.
I love to buy fresh local berries or even pick them myself from some of the U-Pick farms in my area (Northern New Jersey). Knowing that berries often get the worst kind of pesticides sprayed on them, I’m kind of careful of how they’ve been grown. I almost never buy them non-organic out of season in the grocery store as they often come from South America, where they are allowed to use more pesticides. (not sure about current trade laws, but it used to be that we (US) weren’t allowed to use DDT on our own crops, but we still produced the stuff, sent it down to Mexico and S. America, where THEY used it on various crops, and turned around and sent it back to us - this may not be the case any more, but it is so emblazoned in my little mind, that it is very difficult for me to buy any berries from the supermarket that are NOT organic).
Wow. There’s a berry rant for you! Click on to see my favorite ways to eat berries!
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 12th, 2008
Since I will not have the ability to do a serious vegetable garden or have chickens and/or goats and cows at my suburban New Jersey home . . . YET . . . I am very committed to finding locally produced food. For so many reasons I’m a local foodie. Here are a couple of them:
- the lower carbon impact of supporting food that isn’t ‘big Ag’ produced and shipped across the country
- I personally enjoy meeting the farmers (whenever possible) and supporting their efforts
- the food is so much fresher and tastes better to me
- I simply get great satisfaction in knowing that I’m helping to move towards a more sustainable agriculture system by eating/buying locally
The following list of various ways to find and buy local food is an excerpt from a story we did last May/June in Relevant Times, by Tamara Jean Scully, who is a freelance writer, specializing in agricultural issues. She is a local foods advocate, working with the Foodshed Alliance to support local, sustainable family farming. Tammy is also a part-time farmer, growing perennials, raspberries and minor fruits. tamarajeanscully.com
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 9th, 2008
Spring finally exploded here, and my market haul took two trips to the car. For a mere $40.00 I came home with peaches, two bunches of asparagus, 2 lbs. of collard greens, 2 heads of lettuce, a huge head of Savoy cabbage, cilantro, amaranth leaves, spring onions, kohlrabi, strawberries and blueberries, 2 bulbs of garlic, and 2 lb. green beans. I don’t even want to guess what the same stuff grown “no spray” at the market would have cost me in the “organic” produce section of the store. Many of the farmers I know are not certified organic, but practice sustainable methods, so I look for people I trust, not USDA logos. I like it that way.
The two “experiments” in my haul are, of course, kohlrabi and amaranth. I heard more than one remark, “But what do you do with it?” over these items. I am determined to find out. For the kohlrabi, which is a combination word from German and German Swiss for “cabbage” and “turnip,” the mild radish-like flavor and crunch lends itself to a tangy kohlrabi slaw recipe.
For the rest of the carnival, entries from all of you include some great recipes and advice this week. Reader posts after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
