I wanted to blog earlier, but I took a nap instead. My head has been killing me lately, so I go to bed in hopes that when I wake up, it will be gone. It’s not. All signs are confirming that this baby is a girl. Not the least of which are the headaches she’s giving me now in preparation for the ones she will give me later.
Anyway….
I am always saying “shop local”, “know your farmers”, blah blah blah. And I do shop farmers markets, but Stephanie told me about CSAs and I have been looking for one in my area that wasn’t crazy expensive.
So last weekend, the hubs and I drove to a farm about 30 mins away from here. I read about a guy who was doing CSA and I wanted to check it out.
CSA, by the way, is community supported agriculture. It is a way for the farmer to ease the financial risks and for average people to share said risk, but also get great food, local food, and have a relationship with both the person who grows your food, and the farm.
You pay the farmer up front at the beginning of a season, and then once a week, you pick up a share of the crops. You are also welcome to go to the farm and help out. If I wasn’t pregnant, I would love to help out. I think it would be a great experience for my little guy, plus I would learn a lot too.
We pulled up and saw this:
“Is that a chicken?!?!” Now look, I live in Texas, I grew up in Oklahoma, and I was born in Wyoming, that does not mean I am accustomed to farm animals. I’m scared of cows, seriously, and I’ve never been on a horse. In fact, I’m not a big fan of those either. On a recent road trip, I stopped and saw a cousin in Austin who has a horse. A mini horse, but still a horse, in her back yard. So as we sat around the pool and visited, he would sneak up behind me and lick me. I didn’t know horses did that. He was a nice little horse, but I kept wondering, don’t they bite? Is he tasting me to see if he should sink his teeth in? All the while everyone else was sitting around like there was not a HORSE AMONG US!!!!
I am not scared of chickens, but I was surprised to see them just wondering around. How do they know to stay close? Do you train them? Can you train chickens? Maybe not “sit” and “heel” but, “don’t cross the street”, or “be home by dark”. Like I said, I would learn a lot helping out.
The farm was a beautiful farm, and the farmer was a really nice guy. Here are a couple pics I took. With permission of course.
There were more chickens too, some in cages, and some not.
He said they can all get out, but that they don’t go far, so he doesn’t mind. Guess you don’t get more free range than that!
I see you under there!!!
And this is Wilbur. He’s a friend of my little guy now.
He comes when you call him too. I’m pretty sure we need a pig.
So because it has taken me so long to get this post done, I have picked up two shares, here they are…
The first thing I made, was Yellow Squash Soup
3 medium yellow squash -roasted
2 onions -diced
6 cloves of garlic
1 red bell pepper-roasted
6-8 cups chicken stock
1 Tbs olive oil.
Salt
Caramelize onions in olive oil while squash and pepper are roasting.
Add garlic and sauté.
Roughly chop roasted garlic and add to the pot along with the chicken stock.
Add 3/4 of the roasted red pepper.
Simmer on stove for a while, the longer it cooks, the better it will be.
Blend soup in small batches in a blender or with an immersion blender until smooth.
Finely dice remaining 1/4 of roasted red pepper.
Serve soup with grated Parmesan cheese and diced red pepper.
And I forgot to get the chicken stock out of the freezer, so I had to defrost in the pot.
Whoops!
Now, y’all have seen me make a colcannon before, but this time I tried a little something different:
And I’m sorry I don’t have a pic of these, but you’ve seen them on here before….
4 Potatoes
1 Head of Garlic
1 Stick of Butter
1 tsp Olive Oil
1/4 – 1/2 cup milk
Large Handful of Baby Kale- stems removed and sliced into thin strips
Salt
Turn oven on to 400 and put potatoes in. Bake until fork tender (about an hour).
While potatoes are cooking, roast garlic by slicing off the top of the head of garlic, drizzling a little olive oil over the top, wrap in foil, and roast in the oven for about 20 mins then remove from oven and set aside.
Melt butter. I generally do this by placing the butter in a large bowl that I plan to mash potatoes in, and place on the back vent burner and let the heat from the oven do it’s thing.
Sauté the kale in olive oil and a pince of salt until just wilted. Then remove from heat and set aside.
When butter is melted, or mostly melted, squeeze garlic out of head into the butter and mix, then add kale and a heavy pinch of salt.
When potatoes are done, remove from oven and slice in half and peel as soon as you can handle it. Drop peeled potato parts into butter mixture and mash. May need to add more salt here too.
Add milk a little at a time until you get the consistency you are looking for.
This has a bonus recipe for leftovers!
Bonus Colcannon Cakes
Add one or two eggs to leftover mashed potatoes and mix well.
Heat a pan with olive oil over medium heat. And drop spoonfuls of potato mixture in pan. Do not over crowd the pan. Fry on one side, then flip and fry on the other side until firm.
Remove from pan and drain on a paper towel.
I think my sous chef is trying to escape….. She’s mad that I won’t give her any kale.
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