Thanksgiving 2013

Just thought I would share some pictures from our Thanksgiving this year. 

My mom mashing purple potatoes

Beets with kale

Purple mashed potatoes

 

Gravy for the potatoes

Dragon Tongue Beans

Sweet corn

Winter Squash with nuts and scallions

Pumpkin bread stuffing

Macaroni salad (of course with our pasta and turnips)

 

Homemade onion bread

 Our turkey this year (from Brown Brothers Farm in Paris, Ohio)

And here is everything on my plate

 And of course, can not forget about the homemade pumpkin pie for dessert.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is Almost Here!

So today I spent some time getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I made pumpkin bread for my pumpkin bread stuffing, I cooked up some more pumpkin for my pumpkin pie that I will be making tomorrow, and I made some winter squash cookies out of some left over winter squash puree.

Tomorrow I need to make the pumpkin pies and prep the turkey, which I have to pick up tomorrow.  This year our turkey will be coming from Brown Brothers Chicken Farm in Paris, Ohio.  I meet Bill Brown of Brown Brothers up at Akron General Farmers Market, since he was selling right next to me this year.  He has really good chicken so I am excited to be getting a turkey from him this year.

Everything that we cook for Thanksgiving is something that I grow.  It is nice because we do not have any shopping to do before Thanksgiving other than to pick up a lemon for the turkey.  Of course I did have to get some eggs and the turkey, but they both came from someone I know.

Another cool thing is when I cook up my pumpkins I either save the seed for planting or for eating, of coarse I use the puree for whatever I am going to cook with it, and I save the skins to feed to my worms.  Absolutely no waste other than the stem, which does go into the trash.

Fall Spiced Rigatoni with Pumpkin Sauce

I have a new pasta available called Fall Spiced Rigatoni Pasta.  Today I turned some pumpkin puree into a nice sauce for my Fall Spiced Rigatoni.  Here is the recipe:

Fall Spiced Rigatoni with Pumpkin Sauce

Ingredients:
1 (8oz.) package Fall Spiced Rigatoni Pasta (cooked according to package directions)
1 lb. pork sausage
2 tbls. butter (divided)
1 small pie pumpkin
1 1/2 pint container heavy whipping cream
About 8-10 large kale leaves (torn into pieces)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Cut pumpkin in half, scrape out insides and seeds.  Place in a casserole with about 1/2 inch of water on the bottom.  Place a little bit of butter in to each pumpkin half, altogether equaling about 1 tablespoon.  Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes or until inside is soft.  Once pumpkin is cooled remove puree and set aside.  In a large deep saucepan over medium heat brown sausage in 1 tablespoon butter.  Once sausage is browned add heavy whipping cream and pumpkin puree.  Over medium heat cook for about 5 minutes, then add kale and cooked rigatoni pasta, cook for approximately 5 minutes longer, remove from heat, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.


There is no sugar in this recipe (I try to stay away from sugar myself), but if you would like it to be sweet, I do not see why you couldn't add some brown sugar to this dish.  Also another thing I plan to try is to add some chopped nuts to the recipe.

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For more pasta recipes do not forget to visit our Pasta Page.

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Unknown Winter Squash

So due to the fact that I had thrown some winter squash and pumpkins in my lettuce garden at home, in the spring I had lots of winter squash that came up on its own.  Most of them I pulled out since I did not want pumpkins growing all over in my valuable lettuce planting area.  But I did leave a couple of vines that were out of the way and ended up growing out of the garden area anyhow.  One of them was a regular normal pumpkin, but the other one is the plant in question.  When I first seen it I thought it looked like a delicata winter squash crossed with maybe a pumpkin?

 

I grew a lot of winter squashes and pumpkins last year so I am not exactly sure what it would be a mix of, I do know I did not have anything exactly like it last year.  Can not wait to cut into it and see how it tastes.  If it is good I will have to see if I can work on getting a new variety going and save all the seeds.

Vegetables coming very soon!

I took some pictures the other day, and just thought I would post some pictures of some of the veggies that I am starting to pick or will be picking soon.

These are two new past tomatoes that I was trying out this year.  The one to the left is a very pretty yellow paste tomato called Cream Sausage, and the one on the right is a striped paste tomato, called Striped Roman.  I will be growing both of them again next year.

My personal favorite variety of basil, Blue Spice Basil.

Some of my zucchini and summer squash plants, I have over a dozen different varieties planted right now.

This is something new that I have tried this year and will definitely be growing again next year, yard long beans!  I love these beans, they are great for sauteing and the red beans keep their color.  I have just started picking beans from my first planting of these guys, but due to the weather I only had about a dozen plants that come up, which is why I have not started selling them yet.  But do not worry I have a full second planting right next to these that is coming along very well and should start producing beans very soon.

I also have somewhere around 8 different varieties of beets in the ground and growing well.

Pasta at the Market

So it has been quite a while since I have done a blog post, and since this year has been a very strange year (bad year as far as vegetables go), I thought I had better get everyone up to date.  Anyhow we had gotten quite a lot of rain in a short period of time out at the farm, which is why our table at the market does not look anything like it normally would this time of year.  Our vegetables are way behind, which is why the past few weeks I have not been able to bring much of anything as far as vegetables go (if anything at all) to my markets.

But, I have been bringing a wide selection of homemade pasta to the market.  I have been making pasta for myself at home for quite some time now, and have always wanted to start selling it at the market, but just have not done so.  With all the problems I have been having out at the farm this year it seemed like the perfect opportunity to start selling pasta.

 

I have been adding new varieties of pasta every week, and now have quite a variety available. 

Rigatoni Pasta

Garlic Rigatoni Pasta

Basil Rigatoni Pasta

Paprika Rigatoni Pasta

Lemon Pepper Poppy Seed Rigatoni Pasta

Poppy Seed Rigatoni Pasta

Cajun Rigatoni Pasta

Whole Wheat Rigatoni Pasta

Garbanzo Fava, Flax Seed Rigatoni Pasta

Cinnamon Rigatoni Pasta

Chocolate Rigatoni Pasta

Garbanzo Fava, Flax Seed Macaroni Pasta

Macaroni Pasta

As far as my vegetables go here is some of what I hope to have soon:

~ Potatoes I have just started digging and will have a variety of fingerlings (blue, red, pink, and yellow)

~ Sweet Potatoes (Common variety and yellow)

~ I should have my lettuce mixes available again around the middle of next month

~ Radishes, beets, and turnips should also be available around the same time as the lettuce

~ Zucchini and Summer Squash - I have over a dozen different varieties coming soon

~ Dragon Tongue Beans - A favorite at Valley City Farmers market (yellow beans with purple stripes)

~ Yard Long Beans (green and red)

~ Slicing Tomatoes (many different varieties and colors)

~ I am hoping to have okra, sweet and hot peppers soon 

Sadly due to the rain there are a lot of things that I just did not get planted, and a lot of things just died on me completely, such as my winter squash and pumpkins which I never did get planted due to lack of time in between frost and lots of rain.  

I just wanted to thank all of my customers for their patience this year, I have some really great customers that have been very understanding and I know have been eagerly waiting for my vegetables to start coming in again.  I just wanted to let everyone just how much I do appreciate all the wonderful customers that I do have.  

Thank you to all of my customers

April