Date Night Movie -The Hundred-Foot Journey

Lisa and I went to a movie for our date night this week. We don't usually pick that venue for date night as we find it is better to do something where we can talk. I also don't usually do movie reviews on our blog. But I'm going to make an exception for this one.

I had seen a trailer at another movie a month or so ago and this looked like something Lisa and I would both enjoy. Turns out it was an excellent movie. Great themes. Very uplifting. No profanity. No violence. No sex.

Here are five reasons you might like this movie...

A Passion for Farming

Our passion is farming and we love to grow great vegetables for our customers. You cannot be a leader in your field without a passion for that activity, its technologies, and the result. Passion causes us to move towards our goals and it creates leverage or a force multiplier to our efforts. It keep us going when the days are long.

We care deeply about what we grow, how we grow it and who we grow it for. For example:

Basil Pesto Recipe

When I wrote the post you can make pesto from about anything talked about the ingredients in Pesto but not the exact proportions. So here is a full recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
2 cloves garlic (1 clove if you don't like strong garlic or if they are very large)
1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts (you can toast or use raw)
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese

Directions

Process basil, garlic and nuts in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Add oil slowly and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Mix in cheese if using immediately. If freezing leave the cheese out.

Toasted Walnut Kale Pesto

Kale and toasted walnut pesto follows the theme that you can make pesto from about anything. We have some excellent baby Kale that makes a great pesto. Toasting the walnuts adds a nice additional flavor.

Red Russian Kale

Red Russian Kale is one of the premium ingredients in our spring mix. We also offer it separate as baby kale. It is great in soups or a crunchy salad, although we have also had people buy it to make kale chips. It is very popular with our salad loving folks with unsurpassed tenderness and sweet flavor.

Russian traders brought this kale from Siberia to Canada in the 1800's. Kale is in the brassica family and has some of the same healthy ingredients as broccoli and cabbage.

I planted a 30 foot by 4 foot bed, so we will have a good supply. It does well at cut and come again, so the beds can be harvested for several weeks before succession planting. Kale loves this years cool wet weather and has great disease resistance. So bring on the spring showers.

When choosing Red Russian Kale look for bright, fresh, firm leaves and wash well before using.

A quick tasty side dish can be made by sauteing the washed and trimmed leaves in a little butter and garlic. Or use olive oil and add bits of bacon, red pepper, onion and a spicy sausage. Yumm.

This can also be added to pasta dishes such as linguine or spaghetti.

Spring and summer kale is wonderful and healthy. Similar to many other vegetables, the light frosts of fall sweeten the kale further for the peak of the season.

A Mothers Day Blessing for Lisa

A mothers day blessing for Lisa and all the other mothers of young and not so young children.

Ten ways Lisa blesses her family, friends, church, and community.

1. She prays for her family. She texts her family frequently to see how she can serve them. She makes many trips to school and college to participate in her children's activities.
2. She makes our favorite meal for the 1000th time even though she'd rather have something else. She gets up early to make lunches before school. (Even though teenagers are able to make them themselves, as evidenced by the fact that they can make a lunch when mom is gone. Maybe more like they'd rather make lunch than have dad do it.) She makes great meals for our farm workers.
3. She takes a college course in music theory so she can better understand what her oldest daughter is doing. (What if Reed wants to be a brain surgeon? The prerequisites alone could take years.)
4. She does laundry daily during the summer just to keep up with the chore clothes. (There are a lot of chore clothes.)
5. She buys a good used car from time to time. (When she bought the Jeep it was so nice that Reed our 15 year old said why would anyone buy a new vehicle for 4x more...exactly.)
6. She cares for her parents and speaks with them often. (Including a recent surprise trip to Iowa to visit.)
7. She serves at school on numerous occasions.She serves at church in the orchestra and teaching Dave Ramsey material. (Wow she is good at that. She taught twice this week.) She accompanies her children when they play musical instruments.
8. She spends every Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market as a farmer vendor. She shops at the market for as much of our family groceries as possible. She encourages other farmers.
9. She uses her new sewing machine to make quilts, hand bags and dresses for her family. (She got a great deal on the new one and resold her old one for a great price to a happy new family.)
10. She helps many friends less fortunate than we are and donates extra produce to Channel One.

Look at the close parallels to a great mom's activities and this scripture...

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still dark to provide food for her family and portions for her servant girls. She considers a field (or car) and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She opens her arms to the pour and extends her hands to the needy. When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothes in scarlet. She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments (and soap) and sells them and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothes with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks wisdom and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: many women do noble things but YOU SURPASS THEM ALL. Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the rewards she has earned, and let her words bring her praise at the city gates.

Proverbs 32:10-31

Any comments for Lisa, a great mom?

Spinach Then and Now

On Saturday, May 7, 1988 the Rochester Downtown Farmers Market opened for the first market of the season. This was our second season, having attended sporadically the year before.

 Andrea, always the early riser, literally leapt out bed when I went to get her up. She was "on a mission" to get there, plying me with questions all the way.

We got our one tiny table set up at about 7:30. In addition to some tomato plants, we also had about 20 large bunches of fresh spinach. We'd had a fresh spinach salad the night before that Andrea really liked. Everyone that stopped by got her sales pitch for spinach. She explained how yummy it was and that it had her personal endorsement, which often culminated in a twirling leap into the air (this girl was high energy). She then closed the deal by firmly offering to put a bunch in a bag for them. We were sold out by 9:00. By the time Andrea sold the last of the spinach all the vendors around us were asking if she would take a commission to sell their stuff. I told them that Andrea was in charge of our marketing strategy. This weeks technique was the spinach twirl!

The children loved this spinach and would perfer spinach and ranch dressing to any other treat before bed, even better than a cookie. Now that they are teenagers, they also love Candy Carrots, but spinach is still high on the list of coveted treats.

The reason we were able to have spinach at the very first market was we had some spinach from the previous fall that over wintered and it was one of the first things to come out of dormancy in the spring. I did not realize that the spinach would do that so this was a little bit of serendipity.

When we started at the market we grew Melody spinach and let it get big enough to bunch. So Friday night Andrea and I would wash the plants thoroughly, pick off all the yellow leaves, and group several plants together with a rubber band to form a bunch. We could get about 20 bunches in a large rubber maid tub and would typically take 1-2 tubs per market. We would get $2 per bunch.

Today we grow Tyee baby spinach and cut everything when it is just an inch tall. Andrea and Jenna are still the greens experts and do all the harvesting. I prefer to harvest with a knife, but they still like to use a scissors, which harkens back to when they were little. They can harvest about 20 lbs in 15-20 minutes. We typically get $5 for a a half pound bag. So we are able to pay our help a little better than when we started. That is important as both our children and our other workers are building their college funds.

Candy Carrots

When carrots have experienced several light frosts the remaining starches turn to sugars. We have trialed many varieties and grow the carrots in the late fall that are the sweetest during cooler weather. The children call them "candy carrots". You have never had such a sweet juicy treat until you've tried our "candy carrots". We eat them in school lunches, snacks, when traveling and even for breakfast.

The carrots need to be planted in late July or early August to reach the appropriate size before the ground freezes.

Kelp, rock powders and liberal compost all enhance the flavors of the carrots. We typically use a strip of compost 6 inches wide and 4 inches deep for planting. We plant directly into the compost and plant 2-3 rows 2 inches apart. No other fertilizer is needed, especially nitrogen.

(Never any chemical fertilizers.)

We harvested about 700 pounds of carrots in November from our late summer planting and they have been simply amazing. It was a very dry year and we had rains at just the right time to keep the carrots going. The compost holds 8 times its weight in water, so that probably help too.

The earliest carrots can be planted right after the ground thaws in the spring.

Black Garlic

One of the weird things I have made is Black Garlic

I found Black Garlic on the internet and started asking some of the local chefs about it. They had been using it in a few cases. Mostly as a condiment, since it was very expensive.

Black Garlic is made by ...

Pumpkin Pie

How To Cook A Pumpkin

It is very easy to cook a fresh pumpkin. Brian recommends you put a pumpkin on a cookie sheet lined with foil (for easy clean-up if it drips) and cook the pumpkin whole for 1-1.5 hours at 350 °F. Once cooked the pumpkin is very easy to handle. Let the pumpkin cool. Cut unto half and remove seeds with a spoon. At this point the pumpkin is very soft and the flesh can be removed with a spoon or a knife along the edge of the outer shell. Puree the pumpkin or mash. If you have more pumpkin than you need for the recipe you are making, freeze the extra in a quart zip lock bag for easy future use. I often cook several pumpkins at a time (six small ones fit on a large cookie sheet on one shelf) and freeze it all. Our sweet heirloom pie pumpkins are amazing for any baking use.

Pumpkin Pie - Traditional (Reed's Favorite)