We started our garden about a month late – our moving date was not well timed with the Farmer’s Almanac this year. So now, we are harvesting veggies that everyone else in our area harvested 4-6 weeks ago. In some ways it makes us feel really behind in our gardening, but in another way it is actually good – having a second harvest! The first time around we bought these goodies from the farmer’s market – second time around from our garden!

Less than two weeks ago we got our biggest harvest yet – 5 beets, 10 carrots, fresh herbs and lots of beautiful edible flowers – nasturtium and borage.

FLOWER POWER!

Nasturtium flowers and leaves are edible and have a wonderful peppery flavor. Even the seeds can be pickled – they apparently taste like capers. The flowers are high in vitamin C, and have been used to treat colds. It can also be used topically for bacterial and fungal infections because of its mustard-oil content.

Borage flowers are perhaps one of the only truly found in nature blue foods, beyond blueberries. They have a very sweet taste. The flowers are also rich in minerals, most notably potassium. Medicinally the leaves are often used as support to the adrenal glands and for inflammation. Probably the most well-known use for borage is borage oil. Borage oil is very high in gamma-linolenic acid, GLA. GLA is an essential fatty acid, omega-6 oil. Borage oil supplements are most beneficial for arthritis and chronic dry skin, such as eczema.

We really planted both of these flowers in accordance with companion planting – plants that keep bugs and disease, as well as other garden pests away from the plants you are growing for food. So these plants have a dual purpose. Plus they are very pretty as an edible garnish. My stepdaughter Gwen had never had an edible flower until we served this salad for dinner recently. At first she didn’t want to try them, but after some coaxing, she did, and she really liked them!

I love roasting beets for salads, and pairing them with goat cheese. There is something so good , and not to mention aesthetically beautiful about the combination of goat cheese and beets. So I decided to roast the whole lot, and arrange them on top of fresh greens from the garden, also. As we have been harvesting plenty of those for months now.

This is a perfect dinner salad on a hot summer night, when your family is looking for something light. This would also be a wonderful first course to a summer harvest dinner. It is colorful, delicious and healthy on so many levels!

INGREDIENTS:

5 small beets, cut in half
10 baby carrots
2 TBS fresh rosemary
1 TBS fresh thyme
salt & pepper
olive oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp maple syrup
5 cups fresh greens – arugala, red leaf and green leaf lettuces, nasturtium leaves
olive oil to toss the greens in
salt & pepper to season greens
¼ cup goat cheese, crumbled
nasturtium flowers, as garnish
borage flowers, as garnish

METHOD:

Stir the veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper and herbs until well coated. Roast in a preheated 400 F oven for about 45 minutes, turning once halfway through.

In the same bowl, add mustard and maple, dump the roasted veggies in and stir to coat. Then toss the greens with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Crumble the goat cheese on top, arrange the roasted veggies and the edible flowers. Serves 4 as a main dish.

One of my favorite activities in the whole world is cooking with the people I love. For me there is no greater way to share the bounty we enjoy here in this part of the world. It is not just a way to share what is offered here, but  to also get creative with my favorite people. People hear me preach the act of eating locally, and cooking from scratch on my blog and in person, and when they come to visit us, we all have a great time together living out that vision. Mostly it is for fun, but it also shows people in a personal way why we decided to make our lives here, and how easy it can be to eat locally and healthfully in a place that really strives to make that ideal a reality.

I have had the best summer because we have had quite a few guests visiting the homestead, and since all of them love food in one way or another, we always, without fail end up spending time in the kitchen or out on the deck at the grill and then of course EATING what we have created together. Such a simple yet magical act that really brings people together in a fundamental way.

Here is our summer of eating so far – in mostly visual terms.

My mom was here earlier in the season, and we celebrated her visit with lots of al fresco dining. One evening we enjoyed mead sprizters – local mead, with a splash of Italian prosecco, garnished with muddled mint and currants from our garden. Sadly at the time of her visit we weren’t harvesting many veggies yet. But we still enjoyed many local meals out on the deck!

When my dad and stepmom came to visit, they both ended up cooking for us. My stepmom Kayzie made her mom’s famous crabcakes – and brought fresh blue crab with them all the way from Maryland! On another night my dad grilled some beautiful local steaks that we enjoyed with local sweet corn.

Roberto and I also got a duck as part of our meat CSA share from Applecheek Farm . I cooked duck once before with my friend Amber (who also came to visit us!!! ) but wanted to try a different method this time. So with the help of my dad, we grilled it on our rotisserie. It was lightly seasoned with herbs de provence and stuffed with orange wedges. I made a cherry sauce with red wine and oranges to accompany it. We also grilled some potato wedges under the duck letting the drippings season them.

Most recently my stepdaughter Gwen is visiting. She loves to cook, and whenever she comes to visit we end up making something yummy! This time we made the ultimate nachos – Tortilla chips covered in 3 kinds of cheese (cabot cheddar, maple smoked cheddar chunks and parmesan), homemade beef and bean chili, tomatoes and cilantro from the garden and green chilies.

Tonight she and her dad made me dinner – their specialty, spaghetti with tomato-cream sauce and garden fresh herbs with a delicious side salad – all veggies from the garden.

Thanks to everyone for your visits – and we look forward to many more wonderful meals with family and friends here on the homestead!

I love pickles and I love all kinds of pickles, from cucumbers and onions to turnips, and everything in between. Last year I made bread and butter refrigerator pickles, which we liked, but needed some improvement to the flavor. I meant to make more, and experiment with the methods, but didn’t get around to it, until a few weeks ago.

I had purchased a Master Vegetable Fermenter from Cultures for Health a few months ago, in hopes that I would have a lot of garden vegetables this year to culture into things like sauerkraut, pickles, curtido and gingered carrots. Since we are still a few weeks away from harvesting any of these goodies, because we got a late start, I thought I would buy some cucumbers at the Farmers Market and get practicing. During that same Farmers Market trip I also got some garlic scapes, and decided to throw some in the mix as well. Just for seasonal relativity, I made these pickles about a month ago, right as garlic scapes were beginning to show up at the markets.

The process to making lacto-fermented pickles is easy because there is no cooking and so canning process involved. This food preservation technique goes back to a time where there was no refrigeration. You use sea salt or whey brine to inhibit the growth of un-friendly bacteria, and mold, until enough lactic acid is produced to keep the vegetables preserved for many months. In the old days, people kept these stored in their cold root cellars along with other winter storage veggies. These days, most people store them in their refrigerator. There are added health benefits to preserving vegetables this way as well, since the lactobaccili which produce the lactic acid enhance digestibility through supporting the growth of healthy flora and enzymes in our gut.

As with any recipe, starting with the freshest ingredients possible is very important. I used a recipe for pickles from Nourishing Traditions, and enhanced it with the garlic scapes, fresh dill from the garden, pickling spices and added raw apple cider vinegar after fermentation, since we do like the vinegar flavor of store bought pickles. My next batch, I am going to try a bread and butter version. Remember it is important not to add these other components until after the fermentation process.

This original batch was a hit. We had friends over for dinner last week, and they brought with them raw milk and fermented pickles to contribute to the dinner (we love our friends!) and we had a pickle tasting. I am not sure if they were just being nice, but everyone agreed that my pickles were the best. Think I am going to make a batch for them the next time we visit them? You betcha!

INGREDIENTS:

6 cucumbers

6 garlic scapes, chopped

1 TBS of pickling spices

2 TBS of fresh dill

2 TBS sea salt (or 1 TBS of sea salt and 1 TBS of whey)

1 cup filtered water

water

¼ cup raw apple cider vinegar

METHOD:

Wash cucumbers and garlic scapes well and place in the vegetable fermenter (or a large, half gallon wide mouth mason jar). Combine remaining ingredients and pour over the cucumbers, adding more water if necessary to cover the vegetables. The top of the liquid should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for 3-7 days and transfer to cold storage. Once the culturing is complete, add the apple cider vinegar and mix.

I have not made this recipe using the mason jar method, preferring the master vegetable fermenter method, which has a glass jar that includes an airlock set up which facilitates gas escaping your fermented vegetables while keeping air out. This allows you to make pickles, sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables while greatly reducing and usually eliminating the threat of mold.

NOTES (paraphrased from Cultures for Health): Do not remove the lid from the jar during the culturing process. Removing the lid could introduce bacteria which can cause mold or scum. Check your vegetables through the glass every day to check for signs of scum or mold. If any is present just scrape it off the top, and obviously do not eat any vegetables that have mold on them.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, in a post about the ThinkFood project I am honored to be a part of, that I am a huge fan of eggs. They are a central part of our family’s diet, something we eat on a daily basis. One egg has 13 essential nutrients in varying amounts – including high-quality protein, choline, folate, iron and zinc. Eggs also play a role in brain function, muscle strength, healthy pregnancy, eye health and more. Eggs are an important part of a healthy diet, and do not have a link to high cholesterol, a common myth that has unfortunately been perpetuated through mis-information.

I love eggs not only for all all their amazing health properties, but because they are so versatile and delicious. I love them for breakfast, in omelets, crepes and pancakes. For lunch, hard-boiled on a salad, or made into egg salad. Sometimes even for dinner as a frittata, or the glue for a nice breaded, pan fried piece of meat or fish. They are perfect for dessert, be it clafoutis, creme brulee, pudding, ice cream, or custard. We probably could integrate eggs into every meal, and not even notice!

Living out in the country, we have access to many varieties of farm fresh eggs. White ones, brown ones, even green ones. You can also often times get eggs from other poultry, besides chicken as well. In our area, we have access to goose eggs, duck eggs, even emu eggs! A while back, at the Farmers Market, I got some goose eggs to try.

The first two I used to make a huge omelet, and I noticed that the goose eggs made the dish sweeter than chicken eggs. So I knew that with the third egg, I was going to make a creamy rich custard. I love a good, simple vanilla custard.

I went pretty basic here, wanting the flavor of the egg to really come through. I used this recipe from Evil Shenanigans as inspiration.  I don’t like my desserts super sweet, and I tend to cut the sweetener in any recipe by half, sometimes more. I figure that if it isn’t sweet enough, we can always add a drizzle of maple on top. But some desserts are so sickly sweet, and you can’t remove the sweetness once it is in. This is also a good way to make desserts if people in your family vary in the strength of their sweet tooth – this way everyone is accommodated!

We enjoyed the custard with a nice dollop of Frangelico-laced fresh whipped cream and a raspberry on top!

INGREDIENTS:

1 goose egg (or substitute 3 large chicken eggs)

¼ cup of pure maple syrup

1 TBS pure vanilla extract

2 cups whole milk

½ tsp ground cinnamon

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 325F. Boil 4 cups of water. Whisk together the egg(s), maple and vanilla. In a sauce pan, heat up the milk until it simmers and remove from heat. Add the milk to the egg mixture at about ¼ at a time, whisking the entire time. Once half of the milk has been added in ¼ cup increments, pour in the rest of the milk, and whisk well. Add the cinnamon. Then pour the custard into 4 ramekins, or a small baking dish. Place the ramekins, or baking dish into a roasting pan, or larger baking dish. Carefully add the boiling water until it reaches ¾ of the way up the sides of the ramekins or small baking dish. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until custard is set, and jiggles in the middle. Carefully remove from the oven, and allow the custard to cool in the water bath for about 30 minutes. Then you can chill it in the fridge, or serve warm. However you like!

Life has been a bit hectic lately, which means that many nights, after coming in from the garden at about 7:30 PM, I need to get dinner on the table – we are hungry and don’t want to wait too long. These are the moments where sometimes I want to just crawl into bed, and forego dinner all together. Sometimes we say to hell with it, and go to one of our great local eateries. But you can’t and really don’t want to do that every night, and we find ourselves in this situation at least 5 nights a week.

This is when my kitchen forethought and planning really pay off. I like to make sure that I have beans and usually grains in the freezer that have been pre-soaked and partially cooked. Things I can just pull out and throw in a pan in a pinch. I also have a variety of fresh veggies always on hand – whatever looked good at the farmers market, or local market that week. Plus, some kind of animal protein that is quick to cook like sausages, or skirt steak, or doesn’t need to be, like good quality non-nitrate cold cuts or canned fish.

In this case, I had some Christmas Lima Beans from Rancho Gordo ready, some huge and meaty portabellas, and some nice British style Bangers we got from the local butcher. So I decided to make a nice adult version of Beans and Franks.

I sauteed the beans in some olive oil and then added some diced fresh portabella mushrooms, onions and garlic. I de-glazed the pan with a little red wine and seasoned everything with some thyme, salt and pepper. Then I added some nice fresh, local spinach and stirred until it wilted. I served it with half a link of British Banger and some nice goat cheese crumbles. It was quick, satisfying and really delicious.

(photos courtesy of Nourished Kitchen)

There is still a few more days to sign up for the Nourished Kitchen e-course! If you ever wanted to learn how to make your own cheese, yogurt or soft drinks at home, this is the course for you! If you want to learn how to shop farmers markets and make awesome seasonal, organic and local foods using the freshest and most nutrient-dense foods for you and your family, without breaking the bank – this course is for you! If you read my blog and wonder how the heck I have time to make all this stuff, and wish you could, this is the course for you! If you care about the foods you put into your body and want to make a commitment to REAL FOOD today -     Please sign up today and start your own Food Revolution!

photo courtesy of CrankyCakes

So we have been here officially on the homestead for less than a month, and already I have had the great opportunity to meet some awesome people, as well as reacquaint myself with some that we have met on previous trips to the area. I have certainly learned that people in Vermont love good food, and care about where their food comes from, they also care about their fellow Vermonters.

Vermont has just come off Restaurant Week . It is a big deal here – participating restaurants offer special, prix-fixe menus showcasing their chefs’ greatest dishes. Those menus will feature discounted, three-course “tasting-style” dinners (e.g. appetizer, entreé and dessert) priced at $15, $25 or $35 per person. 10% of the proceeds from event admissions, sponsorships and restaurant participation fees will be donated to Vermont Foodbank.

(Inside Sugar Snap, checking out the produce at City Market, with Cheryl outside of Sugar Snap and City Market!)

To celebrate Restaurant Week and all the fine food that Vermont has to offer, Burlington resident, fellow food blogger, Vermont Fresh Networker and all around Vermont local food expert Cheryl from Cranky Cakes offered to take Roberto and I to all her favorite foodie spots in and around Burlington, ending with dinner at Bistro Sauce in Shelburne, a participant in Restaurant Week, which I will talk about in an upcoming post . We were in for quite a day!

We started the tour off at Cheryl’s Residence, Burlington Co-Housing. It is such an interesting place, the grounds are full of acres and acres perfect for wildcrafting and gardening. She took us on a tour of the grounds where plants, berry bushes, and everything in between are growing, all over the place. Her partner Greg told us that at the height of summer, it likens to a real life Hobbiton with everyone outside working the grounds. All they need are some livestock running around, and I can totally see it!

But the tour must go on, so we headed out in Cheryl’s car. Car conversations revolved around food in the front seat, while in the backseat between Roberto and Greg, major comic drawing and illustrator geekness abounded. It was the perfect arrangement! Geeks unite!

photo courtest of CrankyCakes

Our first stop on the tour was Sugar Snap – an awesome little takeout joint, serving lunch and dinner. Situated right at the beginning of Burlington’s REAL Food Hub, The Intervale . Before hitting the ‘Vale, we needed to fortify ourselves. We hadn’t had lunch yet, so I went with half of their secret recipe chicken salad sandwich on sourdough. Roberto had the Dark and Stormy – ham, mustard sauteed portabellos, on a delicious roll. Cheryl and Greg shared goat cheese quiche. It was a very good start to the tour.

We took a drive through the Intervale, home to many of Burlington’s small farms and community gardens. It was once full of cows, then became more of an industrial center, but is now finding it’s roots again in the natural world. This is where Cheryl and Greg’s CSA, Intervale Community Farm (the second largest CSA in Vermont) is located. The Intervale has a lot of interesting events throughout the year, including Slow Food tastings on Thursdays…sounds like another reason to go to Burlington.

After that we drove through the Old North End, home to many ethnic restaurants and groceries – everything from Middle Eastern and African to Himalayan. This part of town is also home to the Sustainability Academy , in partnership with Shelburne Farms , is the nation’s first K-5 magnet school with a sustainability theme. From their website: “The goal of the Academy is to prepare students to be responsible citizens and agents for change, in their community and beyond. The Academy is an international model for using sustainability as a lens for place-based education and service learning. We maintain the highest expectations for academic and personal growth for all of our students and embrace the rich economic and cultural diversity of our community”. WOW. If I could only go back in time to be a student there!!!

(Roberto and Greg chatting it up in Bulk Foods – but likely not ABOUT bulk foods….Photo courtesy of CrankyCakes)

From the North End we headed to City Market a fabulous co-op full of local, organic and fair trade foods. Kind of like a Whole Foods, but owned by the community – even better in my book! I got some lovely and tasty souvenirs, including cheese from Doe’s Leap. Doe’s Leap, who recently broke my heart. It is a sad tale, indeed.  They advertised a most incredible internship opportunty on their website-  teaching interns about raising goats, goat healthcare, artisan cheesemaking and training herd dogs – all the things I want to learn. But unfortunately they are not offering the program anymore. BOOHOO!!! So I drowned my sorrows in goat cheese from their farm, instead.

I was also able to get some lovely local non-GMO cornmeal from Butterworks Farms, and some black turtle beans from another local farm, both in City Market’s extensive Bulk Food section! After all the shopping efforts, we needed a pick me up, so we left with some amazing Serchan’s Potato salad – a Nepali potato salad, made by one of Cheryl’s neighbors…of course! I swear she knows everyone who has anything to do with good food in Burlington!

(Lambs at Shelburne Farms, a delicious pit stop at August First, Red Wagon Plants, and Sicilian donkeys at Shelburne Farms)

We drove into downtown Burlington for a stop at August First, one of Cheryl’s favorite bakeries. We had been hearing about how wonderful their breads are, from Cheryl and Greg all day, so we were lucky enough to get the LAST baguette of the day to taste. We were lucky enough that they were already out of iced coffee, since the owner Phil then had to improvise by giving us a shot of delicious espresso, that we filled halfway with filtered water and then topped off with cream. YUM. I told him he should always do iced coffee this way. I put a drizzle of honey in mine and it was so good. We decided to catch our breath on their beautiful outdoor patio with the iced coffees and a chocolate, apricot and hazelnut scone, which was out of this world. The name August First comes from the traditional date for the early European harvest festival called Lammas, which celebrates the annual wheat harvest. Way cool.

At this point Greg had to leave the tour to go back home and draw…ah, the life of an artist…so the three of us dropped him off and continued on our way. First stop, plant heaven – Red Wagon Plants , purveyors of heirloom and specialty plants. It was perfect, since Roberto, this family’s resident gardener, had been wanting to go there anyway! We met the fabulous owner, Julie, and then took a tour of their greenhouses looking at all the beautiful flowers, and smelling the best chocolate mint ever! Going back there this weekend to get some for our garden, because we can’t stop talking about it!!!

(photo courtesy of CrankyCakes)

Then we walked over to the neighbors, Family Cow Farmstand , a raw milk farm. They sell their milk to the community and also have home dairy making courses. They had two sweet calves in the barn that after a bit of coaxing came up to sniff and lick us. Their tongues were a bit like a cat’s tongue – a little rough. But their fur was soft and thick. We spent a few minutes checking out their beautiful views and breathing in the fresh farm air.

(The Intervale, view driving through Shelburne Farms, The “Barn” at Shelburne Farms, The Inn at Shelburne Farms)

Our last stop before dinner was Shelburne Farms . This is truly an incredible place, and if you come to visit, a definite stop on our tour of Northern Vermont. I think at this point Cheryl was realizing what a lover of farm animals I am, so she knew that no matter how tight our time was, we had to make this stop.

(photo courtesy of CrankyCakes)

Shelburne Farms is an amazing place that we literally just touched the surface of. Our main focus on this trip was the animals – cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens and donkeys. We met some really cute friends along the way . So cute that if we had brought our truck, I might have had to smuggle! Shelburne Farms offers cheese tours, wagon rides, snowshoeing in the winter, hiking trails in the summer, a sugar shack, a farm store, a farm eats stand and even an Inn – where you can stay or enjoy a rather swanky meal. I will certainly enjoy going there time and again.

I hope you enjoyed the first leg of the tour with me. Join me next time for dinner at Bistro Sauce in Shelburne. If you still want more, and believe me, you so do, you can check out Cheryl’s take on the day here, at Cranky Cakes. She has a great blog!

HELLO COMPOST!

Life has been extremely busy here on the homestead. If you are following my facebook updates, you know I have been up to my ears (almost) in dirt. I have learned in these few short weeks, that spring is the busiest time of the year in the country. If you are in the North Country, you are trying to get your gardens, fruit/nut tree groves and berry patches started for the summer, while dodging rain storms, and on occasion even snow storms! Here at Thistlemoon Meadows, it is no exception. All of this while trying to settle into a new place. We have been spending as many sunny days as we can outdoors, and if there isn’t enough of those to do what we need to accomplish, we go out in the rain – and if you can believe it, the snow storm is actually a blessing from Mother Nature, as it allows us time to go indoors and take care of household needs. It has been several years since I have really enjoyed the dichotomies that make up spring and it has been amazing – when you are working with things that grow, it kind of all makes sense. Nature is amazing that way.

(The Culture Club (this is not how I normally have my “lab” set up. If you are culturing more than one kind of culture they need to sit a few feet apart from each other, but I asked them all to gather together for  photo).

Our house is not a home unless I have set up my cultures, lovingly termed my “science lab” in the kitchen. On any given day I have sourdough starter, kefir, some kind of sour milk either viili or buttermilk, yogurt and sometimes cheese culturing. Plus I usually have various kinds of grains and legumes soaking and fermenting. It is this life sustaining and nourishing foods that get our bodies through all the hard work that comes with setting up and maintaining a homestead. And our chickens haven’t even arrived yet!

FIDDLEHEADS!

So to celebrate spring in all her glory, on one warm and beautiful day, we decided to have our first barbecue of the season. We had been to the local market earlier in the day and picked up a prized local wildfood – fiddlehead ferns. These ferns can only be harvested for about 2 weeks in the early spring, in Northern climes, like New England, and Canada. Fiddleheads are harvested early in the season before the frond has opened and reached its full height – they are named fiddleheads as they bear resemblance to the curled ornamentation on the end of a stringed instrument, such as a fiddle. Since I am a fiddlehead, it seemed like a food I should try. It is not suggested that you eat fiddleheads raw, as they have a bitterness to them before cooked, that can lead to stomach upset. I was told they taste a bit like asparagus, so I decided to just toss them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and cook them on the grill, on top of foil – kind of like broiled asparagus, which is my favorite way to prepare it. Although truth be told, if asparagus ceased to exist, I wouldn’t miss it.

For this meal I wanted to cook everything on the grill. Steak is best when grilled, and we had also gotten a beautiful skirt steak from a local farm. I lightly drizzled olive oil on it, and then dressed it up with fresh herbs – cilantro, thyme and basil.

To accompany this meal, I decided to make poutine on the grill, sans gravy, which I guess really makes this potatoes and cheese curds – but it was light and perfect with this menu. I cooked both white potatoes and sweet potatoes on the grill in foil packets for about 40 minutes. For the last 15 minutes,I opened the packets so the potatoes could brown, and then put the cheese curds on top, turned off the grill and closed the grill lid for about 5 minutes.

(Spring Foods Dinner)

It was a wonderful evening outside listening to the night sounds – frogs, birds and eventually even a guitar and…you guessed it, a fiddle.