Thoughts from Farmer Curtis’ trip to Uganda

Uganda is challenging; it challenges my concepts of wealth, poverty, freedom, bondage, love, hate, good, evil, helping, hurting, God, and justice. Who made this awful, beautiful, dangerous, gentle, dirty, pristine, mess? I know we serve a sovereign God, and I am also aware that he has given us a measure of sovereignty as well, so the blame game is a slippery teeter totter, perched on a heap of rotten fish heads; that is to say, a fools game. This country brings out the contrasts of life in extreme ways, at once stirringly beautiful, and devastatingly filthy, pristine, and yet rotten, dangerous, and yet loving and gentle. I’ve never been anywhere which made me think so much of the garden of Eden, with a wonderful climate, papaya, bananas, mangos, avocados, pineapples, growing everywhere, most planted, some wild. The climate is gentle, with good rainfall, and very comfortable temperatures; you could thrive here year round in one pair of pants and a long sleeve shirt. Most people where flip-flops year round. Seemingly such an easy place to live… But on the other hand, if the original garden had one serpent, this one has hundreds. From snakes which are deadly poisonous to ones which don’t even need poison to eat you whole, to lions and elephants. Not to mention the thieves who will take anything which is not locked down with an armed guard, and the constant knowledge of the deadly diseases of the tropics, which would fill a large volume of their own. On the other hand, the landscape is jawdroppingly gorgeous, and the people are almost universally kind and generous, to outsiders and neighbors alike.. I’ve learned more over the past two weeks about the nature of the world than I have I the last three years if life on the farm (and it’s not like those years haven’t been eventful…) and yet it seems that I had to come half way around the world to prove the truth of the old adage, “the more you know, the more you realize what you don’t know… That’s the news from Uganda, where the water might kill you, the electricity is sketchy, and life is the sweeter for it.

Baked Garlicky Butternut Squash

This is super easy and makes a wonderful side-dish to any meal.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves,chopped or minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine the parsley, oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Add squash and toss to coat.
2. Transfer to an ungreased shallow 2-qt. baking dish. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees F for 45-55 minutes or until squash is just tender. Stir it every 15 minutes, be sure to check toward the end so that you do not over-bake, remove before the squash gets squishy.

Fresh Spinach at Homegrown and Mama Jeans.

Here is a farm girls favorite dressing, fresh strawberries are always best, but if not frozen, will work too!
Strawberry Vinaigrette!

We are delivering another load of fresh spinach to Homegrown Food on Pickwick and Cherry and  Mama Jeans North,( if you would like to see it at the south store just put in a request).  You could also find some baby salad mix, and turnips for sale too.

Strawberry Vinaigrette!

1 cup of strawberries- washed and sliced

4 teaspoons rice vinegar

1 juice of a fresh squeezed lemon, or  4 teaspoons of lemon juice

1 Tablespoon of raw sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons Honey

1/4 teaspoons salt

1/8 teaspoons of garlic powder

1/8 teaspoons onion powder

1/8 teaspoons dried basil

1/8 teaspoons dried parsely

1/8 teaspoons pepper

1/4 cup of olive oil

Using Sarah’s favorite kitchen gadget, the Immersion Blender, or if not puree the strawberries in blender.  Add remaining ingredients holding back the oil.  Gradually add oil while blending at a low speed.

Use this over a bed of spinach, green or red onions, sprouts, walnuts and fresh strawberries or kiwi.  Just another idea to get your kids loving spinach as much as my girls do!

Summer CSA Shares

 We’re excited about the upcoming growing season, and are already ordering seeds, starting plants, and finalizing summer plans.  We’ve spent the winter months researching, studying, attending conferences, recruiting apprentices and interns, renovating greenhouses, revising planting schedules, and all the other things that go in to a successful season.  Enjoy the fruits of our labor. New for this summer season is the the home delivery option.  Just think, fresh, organic, veggies on your door step, just waiting for you to create dinner.  We are offering a half share option again this summer. We also are utilizing SFC again, it is the program that helped us streamline correspondence with you all last summer, as you sign up you will be directed to the member assembler. You can pay for your CSA share via paypal as part of this process. You will have the option to save 10% by paying in full up front, either with a check or with by paypal.  Ozark Natural Meats is not offering a meat share this summer, but we are looking into having great meat available for purchase monthly during pickup. We have already arranged for interns this summer, and both of them come to us with families, so we will have even more children this summer, sure to make your CSA work days a joy. Please let us know if you have any questions, call Curtis 839-0847. Go to ,  Join us this summer, 2012 CSA” to sign up.

Spinach for Toddlers! Green Smoothies!!

So my special needs little girl, Grace, has a really hard time chewing greens, but she loves drinking a smoothie, so green smoothie it is.  Being spinach season, she is enjoying her greens via spinach!  Here is a simple recipe that can easily be tweaked with whatever fruit you have on hand.

6 frozen strawberries, 

1 banana

1 cup of milk, we use raw milk

2 handful of fresh harvested spinach

Blend, need I say more, oh yea, Yum Yum Yum!

Meatless Winter Borscht

To make Borscht, dice up 4 white potatoes, place them in a stock pan with water and bring to a boil.  Slice Napa cabbage or other cabbage thinly, place about 2-3 cups in pan with the potatoes and boil until the potatoes are soft.  Meanwhile grate 5 med carrots, 6 med beets and chop up a large onion.  Heat olive oil in frying pan and cook onions, carrots and beets until they change colors.  Add veggie base or chicken base to the potato water, as per the amount of water you started with.  Pour frying pan items into stock pan, stir together, pour in some oregano, basil and other herbs you have on hand, then salt and pepper as needed.  Serve with a heap of sour cream.

I was surprised at how much my kids loved their “beet soup”.  Be sure make plenty because it make a wonderful, easyand delicious leftover! Even freezes well! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.  Submitted by Sarah Millsap

Served for lunch today on the farm, Delicious Wild Rice Soup (with farm veggies)

Delicious Wild Rice Soup

6 tbsp butter

1 onion minced

1/2 flour

3 cups of broth (Chicken is good but Veggie is possibility if you are vegetarian or serving vegetarians in this case omit the ham too!!)

2 cups of cooked wild rice

1 cup of cooked brown rice ( I boil 3 x as much water then throw in the wild and brown, let simmer for 30-40 minutes until the wild rice pops open then drain and add to soup)

1/2 cup minced ham

1/2 cup grated carrots

1/2 head of boc choi sliced like celery, including the greens

1/2 bundle of kale, de-stemmed and sliced thin

3 tbsp chopped slivered almonds

salt if necessarily

1 cup of half and half or in our case straight from the cow milk with cream on the top

2 tbsp cooking wine

minced parsley or chives

cooking direction

Melt butter, saute oniond in until tender.  Blend in flour; gradually add to broth, cook stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil.  Stir in cooked rice, ham carrots, boc (bok) choi, kale, almonds, salt if necessary. simmer for 5-10 minutes, blend in milk or half in half and cooking wine; heat and serve with parsley or chives                         Serves 6 cups

Harvest for December 13, 2011

Greetings from the very damp farm.  Looks to be a wet harvest day, with no sunshine in sight.  No problem though, at least it’s not 14 degrees, like it was last week.  The greenhouse crops are still growing pretty well, and the lettuce, spinach, and choi are all coming from in there this week.  The field crops are about done for now, although some of them may survive through the winter and be harvestable next spring, like spinach and green onions. Meanwhile, we’re enjoying the break in the cold, and a chance to be outside without 4 layers on.   We have one more harvest next week before our winter break starts.  Tuesday the 20th will be the last pick-up, and then they will resume on the 21st of February.   Hope you all have a great week.  In today’s share you will find;
Romaine lettuce- crisp and fresh from the greenhouse.
Turnips-  we like to roast our turnips.
Beets- these are great in borcht, the classic eastern European winter soup.
Spinach- I love winter spinach
Sweet Potatoes- Japanese sweet potatoes from our fields, with a red skin and creamy white interior.
Choice of winter squash- butternut, red kuri, turban, or spaghetti
Onions- yellow candy onions
Bok Choi- elegant and tasty.
Sprouts- Mung bean sprouts, great raw or cooked in a stir-fry.
Bell peppers- red and green
Thanks for letting us be your farmers.
Curtis

Cream of Cauliflower with Leeks and Potato Soup

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 leek, cleaned and chopped up to the green part, discard the green
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 20 oz of  chicken broth, or enough to cover the the veggies to cook them down
• 1 head cauliflower, chopped
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon salt (be careful with this if your broth is already salted)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• Grated cheese for the top

Directions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in leeks and garlic and cook  to translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in potatoes and carrots and cook 5 minutes more. Pour in chicken broth and bring to a boil. Stir in cauliflower, cover, reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, 10 to 20 minutes. Remove from heat.
2. Puree using an immersion blender or in batches in a blender or food processor. Return to low heat and stir in milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg and sherry. Heat through. Serve garnished with parsley and cheese.

Fresh veggies harvested today that are in your fridge are loosing nutrients. The sooner you eat them the more beneficial they are for you, especially the greens.

Waiting to Eat Fresh Vegetables Means Loss of Nutrients

Mar. 27–CHEYENNE — That bag of spinach that has been sitting in the fridge for a week looks OK. Not too many wilted pieces. Tastes fine too. But guess what? It’s missing a lot of the nutrients it had when picked.

According to research from Pennsylvania State University, a bag of spinach that has been stored at 39 degrees Fahrenheit for eight days has lost half of its folate and carotenoids, compounds known for their importance in preventing birth defects, fighting heart disease and preventing blindness and cancer. And at higher temperatures, the breakdown was even faster. At 50 degrees it took only six days to reach about half of initial levels; at 68 degrees it took four. What’s a consumer to do?

“People should just eat (spinach) fast and not let it sit in their drawers,” said Luke LaBorde, associate professor of food science at Pennsylvania State. “You have to accept the reality that it’s a living plant, and you should eat it while it’s fresh.”

The research also underscores the importance of keeping fresh vegetables cold — experts recommend a refrigerator temperature between 36 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit — and eating them as soon as possible.

Eight days. And that count started from within 12 hours of the time the spinach was packaged. Commercial spinach must be transported from the field — somewhere in the Southwest at this time of year — to the processing plant and to the store. Then it must sit on store shelves until it is purchased. This takes a few days at least, and the clock is ticking.

LaBorde said while fresh fruits and vegetables are becoming popular, not a lot is known about their nutrient loss because much of the early research was done on canned and frozen vegetables.

“We’ve got the fresh vegetables that are so popular right now,” he said.

“When you have a fresh vegetable, it slowly dies. And as it dies, the enzymes take over and slowly degrade it.”

He said the fruits and vegetables most at risk of nutrient loss are those that are crushed or cut. Apples, he said, are not going to change much because they are designed to fall off the tree.

Spinach and most greens are a different story, though.

“In this case you’re ripping it off the plant,” LaBorde said. “(Loss) would be even higher with chopped spinach.”

Broccoli, another cut vegetable, loses about half its total carotenoids after six days at 41 degrees, previous research shows.

The culprits are degrading enzymes that are normally contained inside intact cells but are released and free to cause damage when veggies are wounded. Chopped or peeled versions of fruits or vegetables also are vulnerable to nutrient loss during refrigerator storage.

LaBorde and Suzy Pelican of the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension agree that fresh veggies are part of a good diet, but a combination of fresh, canned and frozen is the best way to go.

“Don’t assume fresh is best and frozen or canned are not,” Pelican added.

Canned or frozen fruits and vegetables are relatively stable and impervious to nutrient loss. Frozen vegetables are made that way very soon after harvest, preserving almost all of the nutrients. And in canning, the enzymes that break down vitamins in fresh vegetables are inactivated.

You are reading from
www.rawfoodinfo.com

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
03-27-05
www.wyomingnews.com

You can read more here.