Categories
Recipes

Garlic-rosemary Bread

Garlic-rosemary Bread with pile of rosemary on wooden table
Photo by Stephanie Staton

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup pitted and chopped Kalamata olives (optional)
  • 2 to 3 T. chopped fresh rosemary or 1½ T. crumbled dried rosemary
  • 1 T. white sugar
  • 1¼ cups water at 110 degrees F, divided
  • 1 T. active dry yeast
  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 T. salt
  • 3 T. olive oil
  • 2 T. cornmeal

Preparation
Preheat oven to 100 degrees F or lowest setting. Put large oven-safe bowl in oven to warm. In small bowl, combine garlic, rosemary and olives; set aside.

In a medium stainless-steel or glass bowl, dissolve sugar in 1/2 cup water. Stir in yeast, and let stand 5 to 10 minutes in a warm place.

In separate large bowl, stir together flour and salt. Add yeast mixture, 3/4 cup water and olive oil. Stir with wooden spoon until mixture pulls away from sides of bowl and starts to form a ball. Add more water (1 tablespoon at a time) if mixture seems too dry or more flour (1/4 cup at a time) if it seems too wet. Transfer dough to heated bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 30 to 45 minutes in a warm place.

Transfer raised dough to lightly floured surface. Make indentation in the dough and place garlic mixture inside. Knead dough about 12 to 15 times, just until smooth and holding together. Form dough into round or oblong shape.

Sprinkle cornmeal evenly onto greased baking sheet, and place dough on top. Heat oven to 150 degrees F for 2 minutes, then turn it off. Place loaf in oven and let rise for 30 to 40 minutes or until light and puffy.

Remove loaf, and increase oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Bake for 30 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on wire rack.

Categories
Recipes

Cranberry Sauce with Pears and Anise

Cranberry sauce with pears and anise on a yellow plate with cinnamon sticks and biscuit with butter
Photo by Stephanie Staton

Yield: 4 cups

Ingredients

  • 1 large orange
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp. anise seeds
  • 1 3-inch cinnamon stick
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 2 Bosc pears (1 pound), peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 3 cups fresh or frozen whole cranberries

Preparation
Finely grate zest from orange. Squeeze juice from orange, adding enough water to make 1/2 cup.
In 4-quart pan over high heat, stir orange juice mixture, zest, sugar, anise seeds and cinnamon stick until sugar is dissolved, about 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in honey and pears, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium, and stir occasionally until edges of pears are just tender, about 3 minutes.

Stir in cranberries. Leaving heat on medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until cranberries begin to pop and pears are tender when pierced, about 6 to 8 minutes. Let cool. Pour into bowl and refrigerate. Remove cinnamon stick, and serve chilled.

Categories
Recipes

Hot Gingered-apple Cider

Hot Gingered Cider in tea cup with cinnamon sticks and orange peel
Photo by Stephanie Staton

Yield: 1 gallon

Ingredients

  • 4 1- by 4-inch strips orange rind
  • 8 whole cloves
  • 6 whole allspice
  • 4 3-inch cinnamon sticks
  • 1 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled
  • 1/3 whole nutmeg (use a large knife to cut off the portion in one chunk)
  • 1 gallon apple cider

Preparation
Place the first six ingredients on 8-inch-square double-layered cheesecloth. Gather edges of cheesecloth and tie securely.

Place cheesecloth bag and cider in large stockpot. Cover and heat over medium-high heat just until mixture is about to boil. Remove lid and reduce heat to medium-low or low. When mixture is no longer close to boiling, replace lid and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove cheesecloth bag. Serve hot.

This recipe also does well in a slow cooker.

Categories
Crops & Gardening

My New Buttonbush

Dormant buttonbush plant in backyard garden
Photo by Jessica Walliser
Even the buttonbush seed pods have a distinct look to them.

A good friend gave me an early Christmas present last week. A buttonbush! Cephalanthus occidentalis is a shrub I have always wanted since seeing it at a zoo a few years ago. I read about its benefits to wildlife (butterflies and bees in particular) in Doug Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home (Timber Press, 2007).

Buttonbush is a native that I had never seen at any of our local nurseries and figured I would have to buy either online or from a mail-order native nursery. Lucky for me, my friend did manage to find it at a local nursery that never carried it before, and he nabbed it, knowing how much I’ve wanted one. Even though it came to me in its dormant state, I recognized it immediately.

What caught my eye at that zoo a few years back is also the reason I recognized the buttonbush so quickly. It’s also the reason for the plant’s common name. The blooms are 1-inch, perfect little balls of tiny white-flowers clusters. Several blooms occur on the end of each branch. It’s unique, and even the seedpods are interesting.

I haven’t decided yet where in the garden to put my new buttonbush, and I think I’ll wait until spring to situate it in its final destination. In the meantime, I have temporarily healed it into one of the vegetable-garden beds, pot and all. I’ll be thinking long and hard over the coming winter months about where to place it—I want to be able to watch the butterflies and bees enjoying it from my station at the back patio. I have a sneaking suspicion it may become a good excuse to build a brand-new garden bed next spring. Just what I need!

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Categories
Recipes

Sweet Chocolate: Hot Cocoa Mix

Cup of hot cocoa on wooden table with saucer and spoon
Courtesy iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Make a healthier, farm-supportive cup of cocoa by using organic, fair-trade ingredients.

Most folks associate the do-it-yourself movement with building bookshelves or birdhouses, saving money by making your own. But there’s another group of DIYers that play around with things like making cocoa and dry milk, homemade equivalents of processed food with healthier, better-quality ingredients.

We’re regular pantry ninjas in our farmstead kitchen. Rather than buying the over-priced, hyper-processed items that come shrink-wrapped in a box or in a can from the supermarket, we’re on a perpetual quest to see what staples we can make at home. When you DIY in the pantry, you can lower the cost and pump up the quality of your food, prioritizing ingredients that are local, farm-grown, sustainably produced and supportive of fair trade.

To unplug from processed products and make your own pantry equivalents, try anything from crackers to cocoa mix. We’ll help you get started with a favorite winter staple: hot cocoa.

This recipe showcases how simple DIY can be. All it takes for a cup of comfort are three ingredients: dry milk, sugar and unsweetened baking cocoa. Because of this simplified ingredient list, we can focus on selecting better quality ingredients that are:

1. Fair Trade Certified
Because we don’t have local access to cocoa or sugar, these pantry staples need to be imported from countries located thousands of miles away, typically in South or Central America. As hardcore locavores, we use Bill McKibben’s “Marco Polo exemption” definition, which rationalizes using things, like spices and yeast, which the 13th-century explorer would have brought with him on his travels. We don’t believe eating local should mean depriving yourself; instead, being “farmsteadarian” should be about knowing your farmer, even if he works with a cacao cooperative a few continents away.

By buying from companies that support fair trade and champion the farmer, we make sure the farmers who grow and harvest our hot cocoa ingredients receive a fair price for their goods and are treated with respect. Our unsweetened baking cocoa comes from Equal Exchange, founders of the fair-trade movement and one of the most well-established fair-trade farmer cooperatives. We purchase our sugar from Wholesome Sweeteners and vanilla from Frontier Co-op, both offering fair-trade-certified products.

2. Organic
We buy organic, nonfat dry milk in bulk from Organic Valley Family of Farms, the largest farmer-owned organic cooperative in the U.S. In a cooperative, the farmers own and control the company. We choose to buy this way because we know the cows were raised without the stuff we want to avoid (antibiotics, synthetic hormones, genetically-modified organisms) and with methods we want to support (access to pasture).

Recipe: Homemade Hot-cocoa Mix

Yield: Approximately 20 servings

Ingredients
5½ cups dry milk
1¼ cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa

Preparation
In a food processor, combine all ingredients and blend well. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Recipe: Mug of Cocoa
Recipe tip: Give yourself time to slowly blend the mix into the hot water. For a mocha infused warm-up, substitute brewed coffee for the water.

Yield: 1 serving

Ingredients
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup hot-cocoa mix
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)

Preparation
In a saucepan over medium heat, bring water to a boil. Add mix, and blend well. Remove from heat, and add vanilla.

Savoring the good life,

John and Lisa's Signatures

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Categories
Urban Farming

Cornmeal Apple Pancakes

cornmeal-apple pancakes

Photo by Judith Hausman

For a tasty breakfast, serve these cornmeal-apple pancakes with applesauce, apple butter and real maple or sorghum syrup.

Well, I think my appetite is fully winterized. I’m craving all those cozy comfort foods that make the kitchen smell good and can be eaten while sitting by the wood stove. I’ve already made lentil soup, grilled-cheeses sandwiches and hot cereal; I’m planning for venison stew, pot pies and shortbread cookies, too.

Because it gets dark so very early now, I want to stretch the morning meal a little, at least on weekends, by making some homey cornmeal-apple pancakes. The crunch and sunny color of cornmeal partner so well with apples (and ginger or cinnamon), which I slice thinly and place on each pancake before I flip it. I also depend on a terrific no-stick griddle I’ve had for years to pretty much eliminate additional oil for cooking, but a hot pan and a thin film of oil should work well, too. The trick is not to turn the pancakes too early; watch for bubbles across the whole surface before you do.

Serve with applesauce, apple butter, and real (only ever real, please) maple or sorghum syrup. Any extras can be kept in the fridge and re-heated in a toaster oven the next day.

Cornmeal-Apple Pancakes

This batter and technique work well with blueberries in season as well, but use nutmeg for the spice instead.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 egg, slightly beaten
  • 2 cups buttermilk OR 1 cup milk and ½ cup plain yogurt, mixed
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 cup yellow cornmeal
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose or part whole-wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ginger or cinnamon, optional
  • 1 to 2 apples, cored and thinly sliced

PREPARATION

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients — except apple slices — well. Ladle about ¼ cup batter per pancake onto a lightly oiled griddle or fry pan. When the surface just begins to bubble, lay two to four thin apple slices on that surface. Cook more until the edges look firm and the surface is evenly bubbled. Flip each pancake carefully and cook another 30 seconds. Makes about 20 pancakes, fewer if they are larger.

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Categories
News

Limited Time to Compete for School-garden Supplies

Child and adult gardening with seedlings
Courtesy Jupiterimages/Bananastock/ Thinkstock
Burpee’s “I Can Grow” program supports school and community gardens.

Burpee Home Gardens is now accepting applications for the 2012 “I Can Grow” Youth Garden Award. In its third year, the “I Can Grow” program supports school and community gardens in cities across the United States, jump-starting children’s interest in farming and gardening. To date, the “I Can Grow” program has provided more than 8,000 vegetable and herb plants to help create 16 gardens nationwide.

The 2012 “I Can Grow” Youth Garden Award will be presented to established or start-up school and community gardens that demonstrate well-developed and -staffed plans for a youth-centered educational program that emphasizes nutrition, food production, environmental awareness, social responsibility and scholastic integration.

“Our ‘I Can Grow’ program is literally planting seeds of inspiration for the next generation of gardeners,” says George Ball, chairman and CEO of W. Atlee Burpee & Co. 

Two grand-prize winners will be awarded up to 500 vegetable and herb plants, including the Burpee BOOST collection, and $2,500 in garden supplies. They also will receive on-site assistance for initial garden layout and installation from the experts at Burpee Home Gardens, 5 gallons of Daniels Plant Food, one hose-end sprayer and a Flip Video camera to document the garden’s progress throughout the year. In addition, three runners-up will receive 500 vegetable and herb plants, including the Burpee BOOST collection, 5 gallons of Daniels Plant Food, one hose-end sprayer and a Flip Video camera.

Educators and community-garden leaders can visit the Burpee Home Gardens website to download the application and review eligibility requirements. All entries must be postmarked by Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. Winners will be announced no later than the week of Feb. 6, 2012.

Categories
Equipment

Christmas-wish Catalogs

Tool catalog
Photo by Jim Ruen
Catalogs are full of my Christmas wishes (circled in red).

Christmas is nearly here, and I am so grateful for tool catalogs. They make gift giving easier for my wife and receiving more satisfying for me. They also allow me to relive one of those great childhood moments … winter-catalog arrival. I am old enough to recall mail order being the rule of the day as online shopping is today.

Living rural meant a lot of things were either not available or were difficult to get. Local stores handled the necessities of life, and driving for an hour to a department store was only done on rare occasions. The catalog offered an economical and timesaving alternative and was filled with everything from the mundane to the magical. Hours were spent compiling wish lists that I knew would never be realized. Like so many things, it was the process that provided the greatest enjoyment.

Those memories are relived with arrival of catalogs from Lee Valley, Forestry Suppliers or one of a handful of other specialty catalogs I receive. I can admire and dream of owning and using countless tools, attachments and supplies I might never buy for myself. 

My wife likes them, too. She gets an easy-to-work-with list that won’t be misunderstood (e.g. “Did he want a 12-ounce hammer?”) I know it violates my “buy local when possible” rule, but most of these items simply aren’t available at the hardware store or lumberyard. My list this year includes things like unique shelf brackets for stud walls, a hand-operated metal break for light sheet metal, and a right-angle attachment for my power drill. While others might find the items mundane, just making such lists, to me, are a reminder of good days gone by and a hope for even better days yet ahead.

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