Getting stuff done!

Do you ever just wake up productive...I did!  On Sunday morning I woke up around 6:30am and after watching the beautiful sunrise (from bed) I slipped on my running shoes and ran almost 3 miles. When I got back to the house I made some eggs and hopped in the shower.  While showering I noticed how badly my tub needed to be cleaned...so I did that and when I got out I noticed how badly my house needed to be cleaned so I started to do that.  I washed all the windows (inside and out), and rearranged the living room, vacuumed behind the couches, tables and under beds.  In the middle of all the deep cleaning I also had a chance to make pumpkin puree and applesauce.  I have good intentions to do a lot of baking this winter and I love pumpkin anything.  I have never made pumpkin puree from scratch, I always buy the cans of it.  Now that I know how incredibly easy it is, I am going to do it every year.  I first made coffee...

I had 5 small pumpkins and it made a lot of puree.  Start by washing your pumpkins and preheating your oven to 350*.  I started cutting just the pumpkin tops and putting whole pumpkins in the oven, it was taking way to long to cook. So I started cutting tops and bottoms off and quartering the pumpkins, arranged them skin side down on the pan.  You also need to scrape off all the gunk; sometimes it is easier to cook the pumpkin for a little bit then scrape the gunk but you can do it before you bake it too.  Make sure to set the seeds aside, they make an awesome snack.  It takes at least a half hour, but more like 45 minutes to bake.  You can tell it is done because the pumpkin will be soft and the skin will peel off pretty easily.  The smell of pumpkin cooking is awesome and it kept me motivated to clean the house...maybe I will have to cook pumpkin once a week because cleaning is not fun.

 Then into the oven...

Started them skin side down...

Then flipped them

 Peeled the skin and into the food processor...

I bagged and froze most of it but set some aside to make some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  I will make sure to tell you how they turn out. 

Soon to be made into cookies.

 I love pumpkin seeds, and if you have ever had them you know how bland they are.  You can season them any way you want.  I chose to do a sweet batch and a savory batch.  I did cinnamon sugar which turned out awesome, I am going to make some pumpkin bread and sprinkle them on top.  I also made cajun pumpkin seeds, just used some seasoned salt, pepper, and a light sprinkle of sugar to tone it down a little, they also turned out great.  To roast pumpkin seeds you just rinse them let the drain in a strainer and season how ever you like, stick them in a 300* oven and cook for about a half hour.  Check them frequently because they will burn.

After I finished the pumpkins, I moved onto apples.  I have been wanting to do some experimenting using applesauce to replace oil in some recipes.  My step father just had heart surgery and I want to make sure the things I bake for the holidays he can also eat.  I made about gallon of  unsweetened applesauce, bagged it and froze that as well. 

This will be grape jelly.

I bagged that up, stuck it in the freezer and headed over to meet John in the garage where we made wine.  That's right, after all that I even squeezed wine making into my day.  This is such an interesting process and was fun to learn.  I set aside of grape juice which I will use to make grape jelly at someday.  We made three different batches of wine, we will try each to see which is the best way to do it next year.  The first batch was just juice (that was squeezed the night before), the second was juice and pulp, and the third was juice with pulp in a bag.  As far as time spent on each batch, the first was the most time consuming due to the squeezing all the juice.  If it turns out the best it will be well worth the time spent.  The first step is to organize yourself...must get all your ingredients and tools together as well as a copy of your recipe.  The grapes we grow are a cross between a concord and a Minnesota wild grape, so John chose a recipe that works well with wild grapes and also ordered a yeast that is used for wines made with wild grapes.

Once we had everything gathered and established a plan we added the water to the first batch. 
The next step is to test the acidity of the mixture.  We needed the acidity to be at .65 once we achieved the acidity we could add the sugar, yeast nutrient, and the pectic enzyme.  We put 2 pounds of sugar for every 1 gallon of liquid, each batch was about 5 gallons...that's 10 pounds of sugar, the yeast will have to eat something. 

Testing acidity

 After adding all the ingredients we then had to check the sugar density...

The last step is to add campden tablets; this kills any natural yeasts in the wine.  On Tuesday we will add our yeast to it and the first fermentation will start, but for now they will sit in the garage....

And as we were finishing up and getting ready for dinner, John let me sample the wine he made last year.  Can't wait to taste these batches...

Before and After

I have been lucky enough to experience all the changes on the farm during the summer and I wanted you to also see how amazing the changes have been.

This is the big garden, it was planted in the beginning of June and everything will be tilled under the first week of October.  The largest garden on the property grew beans, collards, kholrabi, peas, potatoes, summer squash, onions, fennel, broccoli and cauliflower; that is a pretty impressive pile of dirt.

The grapes were so fun to watch mature..."fun" may be exaggerating a bit but it was pretty cool seeing grapes grow in Minnesota.  Check back here for a post about my adventures in wine making.

Tomatoes!  This was a labor of love, from building the trellises, to planting the tomatoes, tying every one of them up and picking them; I had an opportunity to learn so much about them.  I am pretty sure I could grow tomatoes in the arctic or a desert. I will miss having "second breakfast" or "first lunch" in the tomato hoop.  What a treat to be able to eat cherry tomatoes right of the vine. 

One more week...

With the end of the season coming quickly, we have spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing the farm; taking down the trellises for the cucumbers and beans, deadheading the gardens digging glad bulbs to let dry out and then store for the winter, and so much more.  Apples are falling from the trees faster than we can pick them and the leaves are right behind them.  Grapes are super ripe and begging to be made into wine.  I am anxious to add wine making to the long list of things I learned on the farm this summer.  The other day John, Lissa, and I were reminiscing about the first couple of weeks I spent here, I was so excited and couldn't wait to get my hands dirty.  After 6 months, I still find myself anxious to be outside and play in the dirt.  The farm certainly looks beautiful when it is in full bloom and the vegetables are plenty but there is also beauty in decay.  Fall brings such awesome colors and piquant smells to the farm and even though most of the crops outside are dead or dying there is still life in the hoop houses.  Last week we planted a bunch of cold weather crops including mixed greens, radishes, and cabbage.

Mixed Greens just coming up...

Here are some shots of fall on the farm...

Pumpkins

Sunflower

Sunflower

Sunflower

Apple tree starting to lose its leaves

Ripe Grapes

Ready to pick

Spiders egg sac...will hatch in 90 days

Sandhill Cranes

CSA Dinner

Every year John, Lissa, Grant and Christy invite all of the CSA members to come over for dinner.  The dinner is an excellent way for the CSA to see the where and how their produce is grown as well as a chance to taste some unique ways to prepare the veggies they get.  Lissa is an incredible entertainer and she always puts on such nice events.
The farm was decorated in all the beautiful colors of fall; pumpkins, gourds and squash perfectly placed on bales of straw.
We have been talking about the menu for the last couple of weeks.  We wanted to make sure that our CSA had an opportunity to try some things they may have not had before....

Decorated tables

The menu:
Bacon, Jalapeno and Cheddar Dip: This was a great way to showcase the Jalapenos.  Do not fear the heat of a jalapeno, the pepper can add great flavor with out making the dish hard to eat. The bacon and cheddar make it a perfect partnership.
Golden Tomato Soup:  Using yellow tomatoes gave the soup a sweeter flavor, but satisfied like the classic red.  It was a little cool out so this was a great way to start the dinner.  Lissa added a swirl of home made basil oil.
Christy's Foccacia Bread: As far as bread goes...it doesn't really get any better. I have had the privilege to eat quite a bit of this bread this summer; it is perfectly seasoned and airy, seriously perfect.
Ratatouille: Christy used Julia Child's recipe and it was a great way to showcase lots of vegetables; she used eggplant, zucchini, onions, peppers, tomatoes, garlic and parsley were all from the garden.  Ratatouille can be made using any of your favorite vegetables so try it at home.
Antipasto:  An assortment of pickled vegetables including beans, peppers, carrots, radishes and cucumbers.  There were both spicy and sweet pickles, can't wait to start pickling things this fall.
Cucumber, Tomato, Pepper, and Bulgur Salad:  Bulgur is a great grain to try if you have not; it is very nutritious and will add a whole grain to your diet.
Patty Pan Squash:  If you have ever read my blog you know how much squash we had this year.  It seemed only right to make it the main course of the CSA dinner.  Lissa hollowed the patty pans and stuffed them with green and yellow summer squash, purple onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and cheese then topped with a tikka masala sauce.
Apple Pudding and Zucchini Cake:  Dessert, some would argue the most important part of the meal.  Dinner never really seems over until you have something sweet.  Lissa made a chocolate zucchini cake that was moist and chocolatey.  The apple pudding, kind of like apple crisp, was Lissa's mother recipe and tasted great.

Golden Tomato Soup

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

Antipasto Plate

The weather was a little cooler that evening but it was warm in the tent with all that great food.

An early frost...

We spent the better part of yesterday covering crops and planning for the worst.  We covered as many of the beans as we could, hauled all the potted plants under the gazebo, moved the herb pots into the the hoop house, put the sprinkler on the squash through the night.  Unfortunately the beans, squash, and the cucumbers did not make it.  It is nice to know I wont be picking beans anymore this summer but it is really sad to have to start ripping out the plants.  It only reminds me that the season is almost over. This will have some effect on our CSA but because we grow so much in the hoop houses we will still have food to supply our customers.  With a spring that just wouldn't get going and then July that was too hot and humid to handle, and an early frost this has been a very difficult growing season. 

Dead squash plants

Dead bean plants

Dead cucumber plants

On the bright side...I planted a few more rows of lettuce, some cabbage, chard and kale, as well as some radishes for fall.  These are all cold weather crops and should do well even as the days get colder.  I planted last Tuesday and they are already up...how exciting is that. 

Radishes

Plants have predators too...

This little woodchuck is wreaking havoc on the pepper garden. I walked out of my house and I caught the little guy in the act.  I can't believe how  calm he was, he let me take tons of pictures until I finally ran straight at him and chased him out of the garden.  We have set a live trap and baited it with some leaves from a pepper plant (his favorite); hopefully we can catch him and relocate the little guy.
The woodchuck eats all the leaves off of the pepper plants which stops photosynthesis, thus killing the plant.  I have done some research to find ways to discourage the woodchuck from coming around. One website suggested sprinkling human urine around (don't worry, we are not peeing on the vegetables); for obvious reasons, this is not really an option for us.  Another website suggested using a cayenne pepper and water mixture, but this was disproved by another website.  The last website I looked at said "use the business end of a shovel";  from what I have gathered, woodchucks are a true pest. 

He has been at this for a few weeks now and has done some pretty substantial damage...

I did learn that woodchucks are the same thing as groundhogs, they are also known as whistle-pigs and land beavers.

Squash Experiment

Christy and I finally got around to experimenting with squash.  We came up with some pretty great ways to use your excess.  This all started about a month ago when the squash started coming on.  we planted 115 hills of squash, each plant can have 4-6 squash on at a time and they will continue to produce until the first freeze; needless to say, we were going to have quite a few extra squash. I was trying to come up with   would make a really good dip/spread.  It does. 
We started by cutting the squash into chunks and putting it in a food processor.  This was a particularly large yellow squash so we took the skin off first.  

Processed yellow squash

 Then we squeezed most of the moisture out of it.

 Now, on to the green squash.  This was a much smaller squash and the skin was still really tender so we decided to leave the skin on.

We saved the juice from the squash and were surprised at how sweet it was.  We thought this would be excellent in a soup or stew...then we realized if we add a little tonic or soda water and some vodka/rum/gin and throw some orange slices on the rim it would make a hell of a summer cocktail.  It may not sound very appetizing, squash juice and vodka; but if you gave it a name like squash-a-colada...

 

 We tried a few different spice combinations, but all of the tests got salt.  The yellow squash had a distinct pumpkin flavor and the green was more earthy and raw tasting.  We played with the consistency by adding some olive oil or greek yogurt.

Christy and I will also be further expiermenting with cooked squash.  We are going to try frying, grilling and roasting it and then making it into a dip/salsa...stay tuned
After the squash experiment was cleaned up, Grant and I worked on making more of that famous hot sauce.  We are all getting dangerously low and it is time for a refill.  The process is a little different this time around because instead of using dried peppers we used fresh. 

That is going to make a lot of hot sauce...

We cut all the tops off and threw them in the food processor, added the right ratio of salt and will let it ferment until next week when we add the vinegar.  experiment