At the Farmstand: December 21-Jan 2

December 21, 2017 – 8:40 am

Happy Solstice! The days may be short, but hopefully that allows for some additional time for long, slow cooking meals and the farmstand is stocked and ready for that as well as for those quick meals one needs as you prepare for the holidays.

The farmstand is now restocked with Maple Breakfast Sausage, Christmas Sausage and even a small batch of our Heirloom Tomato Bloody Mary Mix and egg shortage is officially over! Also restocked with beef cuts from 100% grassfed Greenfield Highland Beef. (check out their new website!)

And to help out with those holiday gift needs we have: Holiday gift baskets, our own Popcorn!, even in gift bags & festively tagged canned goods as well as beeswax candles and homemade soap from Brookfield Bees.

*There will be some mix of fresh greens available, but until today’s solstice sun gets up higher and warms the hoophouses & greens, we won’t know for certain what and how much we can harvest, though volumes will be limited. See story from farm for more details.

12/28 Update: Due to the severe cold snap we will not be able to do any harvesting this week, so most of the fresh greens are gone already, but there are a few things left.

This week at our Farmstand you can find:

• Eggs, plentiful!

Fresh/Stored Veggies & Herbs

• Beets
• Bok Choy (likely)*
• Broccoli, Frozen
• Brussels Sprouts
• Cabbage, Red & Green
• Carrots
• Chard, Frozen
• Delicata Squash
• Garlic
• Ginger, Baby (LRF), Frozen
• Onions
• Popcorn
• Potatoes
• Pumpkin
• Salad Greens – Claytonia (likely)*
• Shallots
• Spinach, Frozen
• Sweet Potatoes
• Tatsoi (likely)*
• Winter Squash:Butternut, Red Kuri, Blue Hubbard

Meats

Goat
• Goat Loin Chops
• Ground Goat
• Leg of Goat Roasts*
• Loin Roasts, Goat(small)
• Goat Ribs/Rack*
• Shanks, Goat

Pork
• Alsatian Christmas Sausage
• Bacon
• Beer Brats
• Fat, Pork Leaf
• Fat, Pork Back
• Ham Roasts & Steaks
• Kielbasa
• Maple Breakfast Sausage
• Pork Jowl
• Pork Chops

Poultry
• Chicken, Roasting
• Chicken, Stewing
• Turkey, Whole

• Bones, Pork & Goat
• Offal & Odd Bits – Trotters, hearts, liver, kidneys, necks, Pig Heads, etc.

Greenfield Highland Beef
• Beef Bratwurst
• Ground Beef
• Italian Sausage links
• Eye of the Round Steak
• Top Round & Eye of Round Roasts
• Rib & NY Strip Steaks
• Delmonico Steaks
• Stew Meat

Pantry & Prepared Foods

• Applesauce – Maple Cinnamon & Pure
• Heirloom Tomato Bloody Mary Mix
• Bone Broth/stock – Chicken, Roast Turkey, Mulit-Species
• Chimichurri Sauce – Sage, Mint & Regular
• Curried Green Tomato Pickles
• Dilly Beans
• Lard, Leaf & Regular
• Lemon Pickles
• Marinara Sauce
• Mojo Verde Sauce
• Pepperoncini
• Pesto, Kale & Spicy
• Roasted Pepper Sauce
• Heirloom Tomato Salsas
• Salsa Verde
• Soup: Creamy Spinach, Broccoli-Spinach & Tomato & Roasted Veggies(V)
• Canned Tomatillos
• Tomolives (pickled green cherry tomatoes)
• Dried Hot Peppers
• Dried Tomatoes

From our Farm Friends

• Farmstead Pizza from Field Stone Farm: Many flavors
• Blueberries, Frozen from Spotted Dog Farm
• Cider Syrup
• Honey, Brookfield Bees
• Maple Syrup, Brookfield Bees
• Beeswax Candles & Homemade Soap, Brookfield Bees

This Week’s Member Special

All of the above is available for members and retail shoppers, but we also offer some specials for our members. To learn more about our flexible, free Choice Farm Share memberships, see the details on our website.

• Leg of Goat Roasts

• Goat Ribs & Racks

By Laura | Posted in Available at our Farm Stand | Comments Off

Zanahorias Aliñadas (Marinated Carrots)

December 21, 2017 – 6:34 am

marinated carrots

‘Tis the season for roots and with the sometimes busy & chaotic nature of the holiday season it is always nice to have a dish that is meant to be served at room temperature. We first made this dish several years ago as part of a Tapas Farmhouse Lunch we served to a group from Norwich and we’ve repeated it many times since.

This approach has the carrots not quite pickled, but not quite cooked either, but all delicious! No wonder these carrots appear on many a bar menu in the Andalusian area of Spain, they are easy, tasty and unique. And served at room temperature, ah so easy!

Ingredients:

6-7 large carrots (1-2 lbs)

2-4 garlic cloves

1 T dried oregano

2 t cumin

1 t smoked Spanish paprika (hot or sweet)

⅓ c of apple cider vinegar (or substitute another mild vinegar)

Salt to taste

Extra virgin olive oil

Recipe:

1. Bring about a half gallon of water to a boil with a spoonful of salt.

2. Wash and end the carrots, then add to the boiling water

3. Boil the carrots until they are just tender– do not overcook! Then drain them and cover in cold water to let them cool.

4. Mash the garlic and spices in a mortar and pestle or processor until you have a paste.

5. When the carrots have cooled, cut them into large round slices and put them into your serving bowl or a container that will fit easily in your fridge.

6. Add the garlic paste to the carrots and stir and then add equal parts of vinegar and water until the carrots are covered with liquid.

7. Cover the carrots and allow them to marinate for a minimum of 4 hours in the fridge.

8. Spoon the out of the liquid with a slotted spoon and serve with high quality olive oil and a pinch of salt. Some fresh herbs on top are also nice if the sesason allows.

By Laura | Posted in Eating from the Farm: Cooking Ideas | Tagged carrots, event, pickles | Comments Off

Clean Food

December 6, 2017 – 8:32 pm

We returned home from the BioNutrient Food Association’s Soil and Nutrition Conference spinning with ideas and very optimistic. As if to egg us on, Laura clicked on a NYT op ed by Jacques Leslie entitled Soil Power! The Dirty Way to a Clean Planet. Quoting Dr. Rattan Lal, it read “Putting carbon back in the soil is not only mitigating climate change, but also improving human health, productivity, food security, nutrition, water quality, air quality — everything.”

In addition to catching up with regenerative farming friends, we were thrilled to attend sessions by heroes like Elaine Ingham (the soil food web is her gift to science) and many others as well as nutritionists and health practitioners. We learned tons, had breakthroughs about our practices and got inspired. We hope some of the films we were introduced to amplify the possibility of eating and growing clean food.

In the film Secret Ingredients, Dr. David Perlmutter explains how glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup – which is sprayed on most GMOs and many other crops – can compromise our microbiome, promote inflammation, and exacerbate numerous health conditions. The film highlights spectacular health recoveries, featuring Kathleen DiChiara, one of our favorite speakers from the conference. Check out the trailer via this link!

This week we also said our goodbyes to our oldest sows Ramona & Amelia, who had come to the end of this phase of their productive life. These girls allowed us to learn AI (yep, Artificial Insemination) with/on them producing lots of great piglets. They were supreme champs at the “Go to your bowl” command. Amelia often going to her bowl, and drooling over it, at feeding time without even being prompted, reminding us how much pigs can learn.

They were pasture stars, raising their piglets to also appreciate pasture, respect the fence and move when called. They were always receptive of a belly rub and scratch behind the ears and happy to share to share space with the chickens, taking advantage of the hens grooming skills.

And those eyelashes, such beauties these Tamworth sows.

We served them up the last of the russet apples from a tree on the edge of their pasture as a last meal and then like always, they calmly and easily followed us into and then out of the trailer, no worries, just curiosity about what they will find in the next new space, because for five years, moves have always been good.

Goodbyes are never easy, and truly I don’t believe they necessarily should be. This is part of knowing your food and how it is raised. They have been a backbone of the farm for five years, but their offspring will continue in those roles and these pigs, like many before them will provide clean, nutritious food for many.

Five years…that is a lot of moves, feedings, belly rubs, inseminations and piglets…and we thank Ramona Quimby and Amelia Bedelia for it all. And we remember that heartache comes with the love, joy, abundance and deliciousness.

Check out a full gallery of some great Ramona & Amelia moments on our website

: Maker:S,Date:2017-8-29,Ver:6,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar02,E:Y

: Ramona and her piglets in the field nest she chose to build

Pregnant sows enjoying chard..

By Laura | Posted in Stories from the Farm | Tagged goodbyes, organic, pigs, soil health, sows | Comments Off

At the Farmstand: December 7-13

December 6, 2017 – 6:33 pm

Well, hello December. The daylength gives it away even if the temps and lack of snow do not. The farmstand is getting more and more stocked for cozy winter meals and the holidays every week. In time for the Sunday market we should be restocked with Maple Breakfast Sausage, Christmas Sausage and even Bloody Mary mix!

We continue to have a mix of fresh greens from our hoophouses, but the volumes aren’t like the early fall. With today’s maximum possible sunlight at 9 hours even, the plants are growing very slowly. But we will keep managing them based on temps & sun to have some mix of fresh greens each week to brighten these short, darker days.

Holiday gift baskets, our own Popcorn! and some beeswax candles and homemade soap from Brookfield Bees are also now in the farmstand.

This week at our Farmstand you can find:

• Eggs (limited to members)