Finally caught up

This week has been nonstop expected thunderstorms that end up being noting but scattered showers. This has made it difficult to go out to the farm, but here's the update.

Finally, the FIRST tomato!!!!!! The one on the bottom is the heirloom that was very very fleshy. It was amazing!!!



Tracey and I were trying to decide what to cook and this is what we came up with. Well tracey came up with the grilled mushrooms and onions with a pepper sauce for the tacos. I wanted to use the tomato in the guacamole. Here is our final work of art.



Over the weekend I completely disassembled and cleaned the found tandem. It took a lot of episodes of pushing daisies but I completed it. It took 3 chains!! Any how here is the awesome tandem! Being able to change gears has made this thing so fun. You can really cruise on the flats and on the hills just shift down so it's very easy.

7/11 - Sean's Birthday!

Sean's birthday was coming up and I was trying to decide what to make him for his birthday. I ultimately decided to make him breakfast which I decided on:

Vegan Frenchtoast with candied Pecans.



I got the blackberries from the farmer's market. Other than that nothing was local/from the farm, but his next surprise was. We have a lot of carrots at the garden, what's a better way to use carrots than to make a carrot cake! Here's how it turned out:



I wonder what he wished for. Anyways here are some pictures from the garden.

To brighten our day here is what decided to bloom:



Here's a great helper and so that you can get an idea how tall these guys are.



Here are the in progress blackberries, YUM!



These are SOOOOOOoooo close to being ready. I'm so impatient!



For sean's birthday derek did a bbq/ cook out. It was a lot of fun and a lot of peopel joined. But derek wanted to cook some of the chickens he butchered. I didn't take part in the butchering because I didn't know they were going to do it and I arrived to the farm later than I told derek. I was going to add a picture of the beer can chicken cooking but figured I'd skip it.

Sweet Find

So we've been doing lots of pickling. This turns out to be pretty rough since our kitchen is tiny with a short slanted ceiling, no vent fan, and no A/C. The vinegar fumes have been getting to our heads. Here's a few days later.

This trip's pick:



Here are some awesome/great tasting beans. They are called dragon tongues and I first had them from my parent's CSA last year with Dea Dia. They are great people so if you can get in on their CSA, it was great!



The cabbage is coming along.



First of the bell peppers developing.



The ground cherries forming.



These guys still haven't produced any eggs.



The HIGHLIGHT of the trip. We found a tandem that someone was throwing out. Oh man it's awesome. Now to rebuild/clean it up.



Time to use the pressure canner.



I realize I am keeping these short but I am trying to catch up.

Catching up

Here are some photos of a few days later after the nasty bug attacks. Luckily we didn't have to use DEET.

Before we headed out to the farm this is what came in the mail:



I'm excited to get to use this.

There isn't much to report as far as what the garden looks like but here is the days pick:



We picked lots and lots of cucumbers and beets. What's the best thing to do with cucumbers? Pickles!! Also a great opportunity to use my new mandolin that lisa & jim got me.



Here's what the pickled beets look like.



Now to wait 3 weeks to eat them...

Bugs!!

I'd like to say that I've been out at the farm so much that I haven't been able to blog, but that'd be a lie. I've just been busy with other school/work/personal stuff. Oh well, I'm back.

Here are some pictures from June 29th at the farm. The theme of the trip was that the bugs were TERRIBLE!



Here are some pictures of how everything looks:

Okra


Dill


Lettuce Seeds


Peppers!


lots of cukes


Ground cherries


Tomatoes


Apples are coming


That trip's harvest

beet the pizza

This one is quick. Since I used the beets on the pizza I figured I'd add the post. I bought the whole wheat pizza dough from the co op. That dough is really good. Homemade dough is great but I never think far enough ahead of time to make my own, though I'm going to shoot for it next time. It's just so easy to do. This pizza has onions sauteed in half a bottle of wine that was reduced to the point that it was a glaze, basil, sliced mushrooms, upton's chorizo, and sliced beets. I was hoping to get my mandelin so that the slices would be thin. I love grilled pizza so I put the stone out on the grill and preheated it. The crust is a little over done for my taste but next time I'll get it just right. Here's the "before" pizza:


The finished pizza:

2 more pounds

After we had pitted the 8 pounds of cherries there were still about 2-3 pounds of remaining cherries. I couldn't quite decide what to do with them. But I was at Farm and Fleet earlier getting some Ball jars and bought a dozen pint jars. This would be a great oppurtunity to use those if I made some cherry jam. The only issue I had with this was that the cherries are really tart. I figured I'd add a bunch of sugar and hope for the best. I always figure if I don't like them because they are too tart, I'm sure I have some friends that will enjoy the tartness. I wished that I had canned the batch of mulberry preserves so I canned these so that I can use them in the months to come. Here's the finished product:


A close up:

... and the fermenting begins

With all the cherries that we have I am getting sick of cherry pie, cobbler, crumble, etc. I figured I'd try to make some cherry wine. Fruits can be made in to wine but they aren't as ideal since grapes have the perfect balance the necessary ingredients. Anyways I've never fermented anything before so this continues to be a huge learning opportunity. To start Marion and I picked half of a 5 gallon bucket full of cherries. Picking the cherries is not the hard part, it's pitting them. The instructions I read online said to either pit and freeze or mash the fruits with the pits in them. I decided to do neither and I pitted and hand mashed the cherries. Well credit has to be given to Tracey, she sat with me and helped pit 8 pounds of cherries. Here are some pictures of the first few steps.


Me mashing up the cherries by hand. I was debating using my feet for authenticity but decided that there wasn't enough to mash for that to be reasonable.


Here you can see the mashed cherries, what's left of the bucket full, and all the pits.


Here's what the must (the in process wine that has the fruit pulp still) looks like just after adding the yeast.


Now to wait 5 days and see where it stands. Then I'll either adjust sugar levels or rack in to a secondary fermenter. So exciting!!