Magnesium 101, The Miracle of Magnesium

Magnesium is essential to more than 300 biochemical processes in the human body and over 3,700 magnesium binding sites. The functions the need magnesium include:

• Blood pressure regulation
• Protein synthesis
• Neurological function
• Blood sugar control
• Energy metabolism
• Antioxidant production

Most of the US population is deficient in magnesium.

This post is about magnesium rich natural food sources...

Turning Hostile in to Habitat

Spring in Minnesota can be wild and unpredictable. You won't be able to do any serious tillage until middle to end of April. So what do you do if you want to get a jump on the growing season and get things planted as early as possible?

January Kale

It never ceases to amaze me how much winter cold our kale plants can take. We had an extremely cold November and early December with temperatures near zero for several days. We picked quite a bit of kale before then and thought the rest of the crop lost.

But that was not to be....

Baby Kale - Quatro Kale

We have been going bonkers with baby kale in our market garden this year. We started variety experimentation last year and have refined our selections to the best of the best. We are growing four different varieties and will be putting together a mix I am calling "Quattro Kale" for the summer and fall.

The four baby kale varieties are...

Plants That Do Well Together in Pots

There are a number of combinations of garden plants that do well together in pots. Here are 10 combinations:

1. Sunflower, squash and peas. Similar to the three sisters that were planted by the native Americas when the Europeans first settled in America.
2. Two peppers do well in pots. They also do well planted together in the garden.
3. Combinations of herbs, such as Basil, Rosemary and Thyme.
4. Edible flowers such as pansies work well with shorter herbs.

How to Control Flea Beetles

Have you noticed those little pin holes in leaves of brassica plants like kale, broccoli and cauliflower. Well those are cause by tiny beetles that are no bigger than a grain of sand.We often ignore them as they don't really cause more than cosmetic damage. However, there are two excellent organic controls.

First Fruits

We had some beautiful 50 degree weather today. I took Reed to do his driving test after work, he passed. Good job Reed!

I got home a little early so I planted our first greens of the 2014 growing season.  I planted...

Ravioli and Winter Vegetables

I don't know about you, but I like about any kind of ravioli. Jenna and I made spinach and rigotta ravioli pasta last night for supper after we all got back from Christmas shopping. It was very good. I'm going to put the recipe in the blog, but realize that the ravioli filling can take lots of forms and many of the winter storage vegetable work well for ravioli.

Ingredients:

Dough:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
6 eggs

Filling:

1 pound fresh spinach
1 tablespoon salt
1 pound ricotta
1 egg
2 tablespoons heavy cream
4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch black pepper

Sauce:

1/4 pound butter
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon chopped sage

Directions:

Dough is formed by making an indentation in the floor on a tabletop or bowl.  Add the eggs to the center of the flour indentation. Incorporate the flour into the eggs with a fork. Knead the flour and eggs together to form dough and continue to knead until the dough is thoroughly worked together, this should take 4 to 5 minutes. Reserve the dough until ready to assemble.

Cook the spinach until tender. Remove the spinach from the boiling water and cool for 2 to 3 minutes. Put into a colander and squeeze out the water from the spinach. Chop the spinach coarsely and combine spinach, ricotta, egg, heavy cream and parmesan cheese. Season with nutmeg, remaining salt, and black pepper.

To make the sauce, melt the butter in in a skillet. Simmer the nutmeg, saga and butter for 1 minute. Reserve until the raviolis are cooked.

Assemble the raviolis, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Roll out each piece to form a thin layer (about 1/8 inch).  Place 1 spoonful of filling onto a sheet of dough 1/2 inch from the edge. Continue to place spoonfuls of filling along the dough 1-inch apart. Put another strip of dough on top of the strip with the filling on it. Pinch the edges of each ravioli with the tines of a fork.  Use a knife  to cut out the raviolis. Set aside each ravioli on a cookie sheet dusted with flour. Avoid stacking so they don't stick together.

Add raviolis  to boiling water. When they are fully cooked, they will float, this takes about 2-3 minutes to finish cooking. Serve each portion with sage butter and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of grated parsmesan cheese.

Other fillings for ravioli are:

• carrots
• kale
• cheese
• winter squash: butternut, acorn, delicate, jester (are all good types)

Sweeter with Frost - Kale

Kale is one of the most frost hardy of the greens and highly nutritious. It protects it's cells from deep cold by increasing the solids content in the cells. One of the solids being sugar. Mature kale has a heavy leaf that holds up well under repeat freeze and thaw cycles. It wilts after a heavy frost and then recovers during the thaw the next day.

Kale has gained popularity over the past several years as a gourmet green as well as a highly nutritious health promoting and cancer preventing food. I was not aware at the time, but I have been looking for a seed source for baby kale. I finally found a source this year and was taking baby kale to market this spring way ahead of when the full sized kale would be available.

In parallel the cooking magazines were promoting kale as the next hot food item for raw and cooked dishes. Largely due to these promotions kale was highly prized as a farmers market purchase. Some weeks we sold more baby kale than spring mix.

I was wondering if this baby kale would hold up under frost like the full sized plants and so far it has been hanging in there.

Kale also has few pests. The little green worms that love cabbage and broccoli pretty much leave kale alone.

We will see how it goes next season. If kale is a flash in the pan designer green or if it has the staying power of some of the other common greens.

Baby Patty Pan, Zucchini and Kale White Sauce

I made a delightful white sauce with very small Patty Pan and Zucchini squash, Baby Kale and Sweet Onions last weekend. We will have all of these at our market stand this week. I used Ricotta cheese as the base for the sauce. You can get hand made pasta at the Farmer's Market, or use any pasta you wish. I used bow tie pasta as I had that on hand.

It was very good, give it a whirl.

Ingredients:

1 box of patty pan squash (Petersen's)
1 box of baby zucchini squash, tips and stems remove and sliced into bite sized pieces (Petersen's)
Large bag of baby kale (Petersen's)
Large Sweet Onion, diced (Petersen's)
8 oz of Low Fat Ricotta Cheese
1 cups of low fat milk
white pepper to taste
salt to taste
pinch of cayenne or chipotle pepper
1 clove of garlic, minced (Petersen's)
1 tsp of arrow root starch or corn starch dissolved in a small amount of cold water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound pasta of your choice (bow tie, spiral, penne)

Directions:

Prepare pasta of choice and drain while finishing sauce (most pastas take 8-10 minutes to cook)

Saute onion with olive oil and garlic. When on)ion is starting to soften add patty pan and zucchini. Cook about 2 minutes (don't over cook squash). Stir in Ricotta cheese and milk, salt, pepper and cayenne. Warm up to where it just starts to bubble, add arrow root starch to thicken. Bring back to a simmer and add kale. Wilt kale and gentle stir into the sauce. Serve over pasta.

Kick It Up:

Serve Over Potatoes (Petersen's)
Serve Over Saffron Rice
Serve Over Seafood like scallops or shrimp
Add a little more cayenne.
Add some fresh Rosemary (Petersen's)
Add some fresh Basil instead of Kale, price is the same at our stall (Petersen's)
Add some fresh Thyme (Petersen's)
Add more garlic or several shallots. (Petersen's)

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.

Kale Salad With Almond Sweet Curry Dressing

Creamy Almond Sweet Curry Kale Salad (wheat-free, gluten-free, soy-free, oil-free, low fat, low salt)

This time of the year we have lots of fresh cut baby kale, so I was looking for a delicious dressing to go with this extremely healthy green. Kale by itself is pretty plain and is best if complemented by a good dressing. I tried several non-oil type dressings and picked the things I liked the best from each. So here goes, Almond Sweet Curry dressing.

Salad Ingredients

1 pound baby kale chopped (Petersen's)
3 carrots grated (Petersen's, new this week)
1/4 cup dried cherries or cranberries
1/4 cup slivered almonds

Creamy Almond Sweet Curry Dressing Ingredients

1/2 cup raw almonds (any almonds will do)
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp maple syrup (can also use equivalent stevia)
1/2 cups water (or more to thin if needed)
1 small clove garlic or can also use a shallot
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp sweet curry powder (I like Pensy's blend)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions for Dressing

Using a high powered blender mix all ingredients until very smooth and creamy. Thin with water to the consistency you wish. Sample and add more curry if you wish. This makes a good full cup, you can easily double the recipe by doubling all the ingredients. This baby is really good and works well as a dip. Just cut back the water and chill before serving.

Instructions for Salad

Just toss carrots and kale with dressing. Sprinkle with slivered almonds and cherries.

Kick it Up

- Add an apple julienned or thin sliced fennel
- Red bell pepper julienned
- Grated Beet will give the salad a pink color
- Use other dried fruit (raisins, apricots, goji berries)
- Use fresh fruit like blueberries or strawberries

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.

Heavenly Tasting Greens

It is show time in the garden for those heavenly tasting greens. Lettuce, spinach, kale, mizuna, tatsoi, cress and arugula are our favorite greens. They are especially flavorful compared to store purchased greens. We have been told this by our customers many many times and they often ask why this is. Some customers have even gone so far as to do a taste test.

There are several reasons for this amazing flavor.

First we work very hard at remineralizing our soils. We add kelp meal, low magnesium lime, and highly mineralized salts. These minerals replace those removed from the soils over the years of farming activity.

Second we use several inches of compost in each bed. The substrate for this compost is vegetable matter such as leaves and alfalfa hay that brings up minerals from deep in the soil. These minerals are maintained by the compost. Compost is not a fertilizer perse, but it does contain a nice amount of slow release nitrogen that is just right for light feeding greens. It is more of a soil amendment that feeds the microorganisms in the coil. A primary purpose for the compost is to provide a weed free shield for the greens to get ahead of any weeds that may be present. This makes for a low maintenance growing site.

Third we harvest the greens Friday night right before market. They are extremely fresh for the market and that gives them incredible shelf life. We have had many customers tell us that they have been able to enjoy their salads for two weeks after purchase.

The best way to get the maximum shelf life is to wash the greens you purchase and then spin or pat the greens free of moisture. Then put them in a zip lock bag with a paper towel to collect any residual moisture. It is the anaerobic conditions where drops of moisture collect that cause spoilage.