An Under-the-Weather Thanksgiving Weekend

All of our plans after a family Thanksgiving on Thursday have been thwarted by illnesses. Bright and early Friday morning, we realized we'd have to cancel my family Thanksgiving, and by last night, it became clear any plans of Christmas-tree shopping or friendly gatherings at our place would have to be postponed. So much for our idealized four-day weekend.

So, now we're on a mission to get better by tomorrow's workday. I've personally been out-of-school for meetings and such so often that I can't justify a sick day tomorrow unless I am unable to physically move.

First up: a juicy concoction. Today, I juiced spinach, ginger, oranges, and Granny Smith apples. Not the prettiest juice, but full of the Vitamin C and other cold-fighting goodies that I need.

Next up: Deborah Madison's Sick Person's Soup. Here's the recipe: http://foodforearthlings.net/delicious-dieters-or-sick-persons-soup/
Deborah Madison's Soup Cookbook is wonderful, and I turn to this recipe at least once per fall/winter to help me or Andy out with preventing and/or conquering an illness. The ginger, cabbage, and spiciness are all so healthy in combination with the warm broth.

And throughout the weekend, we've been pushing Ginger Tea and Green Tea. Luckily, we usually have both ginger and Green Tea on hand.

What about all of you? How do you push through a cold? How do you prevent one in the first place?

Be well.

Spicy Pickled Carrots

When we first moved to Madison, we frequented Casa de Lara where we experienced spicy pickled carrots served in our chip bowl. Such delicious memories of those that my mouth actually started watering typing that last sentence. Our first year as Harmony Valley members we acquired enough carrots to can a few batches of our own. That was several years ago, so it's been a long time since jars of orange pickled goodness have graced our pantry shelves.

A few weeks ago, Harmony Valley Farm offered a produce plus box of 10 pounds of carrots to its members. That means that members can buy an item in bulk in addition to their regular vegetable boxes. Our intention with all of these carrots involved lots of juicing (and freezing that juice for later consumption) and canning spicy pickled carrots!

Tonight, we canned 5 quarts of these spicy treats for later and pickled 2 quarts for refrigerator storage. I wish we had found time earlier this month to get this work done. I'd have loved to share these along with some homemade tortilla chips and canned salsa over the holidays. Oh well! Easter, perhaps?

The recipe is here, on one of our favorite fellow foodie blogs, Hitchhiking to Heaven. If you haven't, check this blog out! It's ripe with recipes for anything you'd ever want to jam, jelly, and/or can.

The only adaptions we made were:
1) we cut ours into slices instead of spears to make it easy to add these sour-spicy-sweet snacks to our chip bowl.
2) we added one dried guajillo pepper to each jar for an extra kick!

Curious Fruits: Sunberries and Ground Cherries

We are always on a quest to grow new fruit. Since we live in a climate with such a short growing season, fruit growing feels challenging. This  year, we planted ground cherries for the second time, and sunberries for the first.

What are these, you may ask?

Probably the more popular of the two is the ground cherry (shown on the right). I remember eating these as a child at Grandpa Lapp's house, though I didn't recall this fruit until reading parts of This Organic Life. In this book, Joan Dye Gussow writes of the papery skin that encloses the fruit, making it perfect for longer storage. The papery-skin thing brought me back to my childhood, scrounging through close-to-the-ground bushes for citrusy treats. Ground cherries are very easy to grow - the plants take off, and the fruits are always in abundance. When the fruit is ripe, the husk becomes golden and drops to the ground (perhaps that is why they are called ground cherries?!). We have several rouge plants growing in what we affectionately call our "dump garden"  - the space where we grow extra vegetable plants, fruits and vegetable plants which we just want to try out, and some perennial herbs.

As for using ground cherries, we mostly eat them fresh (the chickens like them too!). But we also have substituted them for other fruits like cherries or berries in recipes. I've heard ground cherry pie is super yummy, but have yet to make it. Hopefully, I'll find time this summer.

So now, what are sunberries? They are left in the above photo. Leafing through the Seed Savers catalog is one of my favorite winter activities, and I've always been curious to order sunberry seeds. Seed Savers writes, "Sunberry’s fruits are blue, slightly sweet and slightly larger than a pea. Said by its admirers to rival and even surpass blueberries. Truly historic variety." 


We planted one seed this year. It took off! We put the plant in the dump garden, where it has grown exponentially. I picked a significant amount yesterday, and there were plenty more berries to ripen left on the vine. 


We decided to make Sunberry-Ade with the first harvest. It was sweet and slightly tart. The fruits didn't juice exceptionally well though, so I don't predict we'll use our next gathering in the same way. I'm thinking we may dry some for our winter oatmeal. Or perhaps we'll make a "blueberry" pie.


So, have any of you made any stellar recipes with either of the above fruits?

What other unique and exciting fruits have you tried growing? Please share!

Ground cherry plants spilling their fruit everywhere.

Naysayers Beware: Beets = Nutritional Goodness

Earlier in the week, we pulled our garden's first beets. Yesterday, we planted another row of them. Today, we juiced a few for a recovery drink after our 60-minute run. Beets are good to us.

Beets are one of those roots that many claim not to like. I (or rather we) challenge those naysayers to try new ways, other than the classic pickled beet, in order to consume this super food. These crimson roots contain loads of Vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, and C. They can be juiced, roasted, broiled, put into a cake, pickled, grilled, blended to be added to a vinaigrette, or shredded and eaten raw. And all methods equal pink, magenta, or crimson pee for nearly everyone. When it happens, don't be alarmed; it's only natural! :)

Our beverage today is a spin-off of the Willy Street Co-op's Juice Bar's Beetnik. We juiced carrots, oranges, and beets.

Beets from our garden, oranges from our fruit CSA, and carrots from our veggie CSA

 Ready to be juiced

All done...

My own version of the Beetnik! So sweet, so yummy, so nutritious!

Strawberry Days 2010!

Every summer, we attend Harmony Valley Farm's (HVF) Strawberry Days. As always, this year Strawberry Days fell on Father's Day, June 20.  HVF is right outside of Viroqua, a small Midwest city with a personality that coincides well with my and Andy's interests. So, we usually spend a night or two in Viroqua leading up to the festivities. This year was no different. We dined at two favorite Viroqua locations on Saturday: the Driftless Cafe for lunch and Chilito Lindo for dinner.

On Sunday, we made our way out to Harmony Valley Farm. As we pulled in, we heard Richard (our farmer) over the loudspeaker introducing the field workers. Simultaneously, people listened to the introductions and went through the potluck line. It is always a delight to contribute to and partake in the potlucks at our CSA parties. Like-minded people bring all sorts of local, organic, and in-season food. Plus, there are always vegetarian options. At this year's party, there was a magnificent veggie "meatloaf" for which I am desperately seeking the recipe.

After brunching, members and guests loaded onto three wagons to see our farm's progress this year. We stopped in the zucchini fields first.

Next were the pea fields. The kids were really excited for this stop! We drove around the tomato fields and pepper fields. We were happy to see that our home garden's vegetables were at about the same height as HVF's. That's always a good sign!

Finally, we made it to the strawberry fields.

Understandably, because of the early spring, strawberries were not as plentiful for picking as they were last year.

So, while we didn't pick enough for Strawberry-Ginger Jam, we did scrounge up four pounds, which we juiced once we got home. We used part of the juice for a tasty Strawberry Vinaigrette (recipe courtesy of Harmony Valley Farm). Excellent over a leafy green salad!

Strawberry Vinaigrette

1/2 cup of olive oil
1 Tbs of balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup strawberries (we've done this..which makes for a thicker, creamier dressing. Today, we're using strawberry juice because that's what we have!)
1 Tbs minced onion

Mix all ingredients together in a blender until smooth. Refrigerate.

_________________________
We will probably use the rest of the juice for Strawberry-Ade! In Andy's words, "Wow! This tastes like Strawberry Kool-aid!" He's right ~ the cool part of that statement/thought is that while it tastes like a childhood favorite, Strawberry-Ade contains absolutely zero artificial sweeteners and all of the ingredients we used are traceable.

 

Strawberry-Ade

2 cups of strawberry juice

6 cups of water

1/2 cup of sugar or other sweetener

Juice strawberries using a juicer. Or, if you don't have a juicer, blend strawberries in a food processor and then strain out the seeds using a colander or cheese cloth. Add sugar. Stir to dissolve. Add water. Serve cold.

The Asparagus to Zucchini Cookbook Rocks: Two Awesome Recipes in One Week

With our first CSA box being delivered last Saturday, we decided to try a few new recipes. Of course, the first resource that we grabbed was the From Asparagus to Zucchini Cookbook. Our first delicious surprise was a beverage - Rhubarbade. After an awesome five-mile run last week, this drink quenched every bit of my gigantic thirst. I also imagine that it would be great on a hot, sunny day with a little vodka and ice! :)

To make it:
1. Puree rhubarb in a food processor or use a juicer.
2. For every two cups of rhubarb liquid, add 3/4 cup (or more or less to taste) of a sweetener and 6 cups of water. We used sucanat (non-refined cane sugar).
3. Stir until sugar or other sweetener is dissolved.
4. Serve iced. Yum!

The other sweet surprise that we had was from the same cookbook. Meet Parsnip Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing! Check out the From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce for the full recipe. Let me just say: the addition of the dried cherries and chopped walnuts on top of the frosting was perfect!

Holiday Spirits

Each year, our contribution to the Christmas Eve dinner at the Poquettes is traditional Irish Cream. We usually double the recipe in order to have some left for our own Christmas Day feast with my parents, the Lapps.

The recipe for this creamy concoction was handed down to me from my mom. She used to bring it to the dreaded holiday party in Illinois! I remember soaking down a few glasses to take the "edge off" along with my dad way back when. Now, there's no need to "take the edge off" as both of our current family parties are enjoyable. Now, the drink is simply for added pleasure!


We buy the following ingredients as locally as we can. Obviously the milk and eggs are from local farmers. The rest is purchased from our co-op. Next year, we're hoping to provide our own eggs with the chickens we WILL get in 2010 (New Year's Resolution #276).

Ingredients:
3 eggs (from local, free-range chickens please!)
1 Tbs. chocolate syrup
1 tsp. instant coffee
1 tsp. coconut extract
1/2 pint whipping cream (from happy, small-farm Wisconsin cows!)
1.5 pints of milk (happy Wisco cows once again!)
14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk (organic versions of this exist)
2 cups (or to your liking) Irish whiskey

Instructions:
1. Mix eggs, chocolate syrup, instant coffee, and coconut extract together.
2. Stir in the rest of the ingredients.
3. Refrigerate and serve over ice.














Christmas Day wouldn't be complete without Mimosas. Luckily, our freezer is stocked with orange juice from oranges this past summer found in our CSA fruit box! Simply fill a glass three-quarters way with champagne or sparkling wine, and then fill up the flute with orange juice (or for fun, another juice of your liking!).