Rhubarb-Ginger Wheat Beer Jam

Okay... I know it sounds a little weird.  Rhubarb + beer = jam... what???  Actually this turned out completely divine.  For those of you who steer clear of the spirits, let me reassure you that the alcohol cooks out, I mean really cooks out, what remains after 215ºF is the most fantastic array of flavors.  Sweet and sour with a little of that malted wheat and barley flavor in the background.  It is divine, and I am not exaggerating!

As I was cooking this up, my mind kept wandering to what it would compliment and one word seemed to stick out: PORK!  I bought a half of a pasture raised organic butchered pig from Clifford Family Farm last fall.  I never thought we would eat through it all.  Let me tell you... this pig has been delicious!  My family has eagerly gobbled it down and we are looking forward to purchasing another this fall.  (Don't you love knowing your farmer and how your food was grown?  I do!)  I pressure cooked a little pork roast with cinnamon and chipotle spices and shredded that little piggy to make shredded pork tacos.  A little shredded lettuce, some crispy spring onions sauteed in olive oil, avocado, lime salt, and a little bit of this jam spread over the top...

Oh... My... Stars!!!

I'm drooling...

So, so, good.

That's my story.  Rhubarb, ginger, raspberry wheat beer meet shredded pork tacos.  You should try it.  You will be so happy!!!

RHUBARB-GINGER WHEAT BEER JAM

adapted from Paul Virant's The Preservation Kitchen (Ten Speed Press, 2012)

3 pounds fresh rhubarb, diced

3 cups Wasatch Brewery's Raspberry Wheat Beer (a little local happiness!)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tbsp lemon zest (2 lemons should do the trick)

Juice of 1 lemon

2-inch piece of ginger peeled

Method:

In a wide, heavy-bottomed pot set over medium-high heat, combine all the ingredients and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool, then transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate overnight or up to 5 days (I did this early in the morning and then finished my jam later that evening - about 6 hours refrigeration is sufficient).

Strain the mixture through a sieve and into a wide, heavy-bottomed pot (save the rhubarb for later). Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the liquid reaches 215°, about 12 minutes. Return the rhubarb to the pot and simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, until the jam lightly coats the back of a spoon and its temperature has returned to 215°, 10 to 15 minutes.  Scoop out the piece of ginger. 

In a large pot of simmering water, sterilize seven ½-pint jars. Once the jam is finished, use tongs to remove the jars from the pot and set upside down on a kitchen towel to drain. Turn off the heat and soak the lids and bands in the hot water. Turn the jars upright and pour the jam through a funnel to fill each jar with jam up to ½ inch from the rim. Wipe the rims clean with a kitchen towel and seal with the lids. Screw on the bands until snug.

Place a canning rack into the pot of hot water and return to a boil. Use tongs to lower the jam-filled jars into the pot, making sure there is enough water to cover the jars by 1 inch. Boil the jars for 10 minutes and turn off the heat. Leave the jars in the hot water for 5 minutes, then use tongs to remove them. Cool completely before storing in a cool, dark, dry place.

Planted and Rooting...

The farm is planted!  I never thought I would be so relieved to share that little tid-bit.  We planted the entire plot this year, by hand.  In years past, we have planted up to two-thirds of it, all by hand also.  My hands are blistered and callused, and the feel of the wooden-handled rake and hoe have become a little too familiar.  Planting the entire space has just about killed me.  Not really, but there were days when I wondered if we would make the goal of being planted by June.  Here we are, goal met, and a week before June, and I am so relieved.

Planting the last of the corn with "Mama" cat on my back, she perches like a parrot!

I am gaining a greater appreciation for farmers than I have ever had.  I am planting a mere speck of a plot, but there are many that have farmed before me, planting acre after acre by hand.  I can only imagine the backbreaking work, the sweat, the scorching sun, and the worn hands and bodies.  Such a hard life.  These are the survivors.  I love these people!  They have a spirit that can't be broken.  They know the great value of hard work and they relish in the thought that no one else has fed them.  Their own hands are what feed them.  These people have strength I have never known.  I have great respect for them!

All of my Great-Grandparents were farmers.
 This is Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Hodson,
all gussied up shopping at the old ZCMI downtown SLC. 

This year we planted all heirloom plants, minus one little patch of corn planted to demonstrate the difference between hybrid and heirloom.  I have to tell you that putting these old, historic seeds into the ground has been a thrill for me.  They each have a story to tell, a history that comes with them, and a story still to come.  I love that!  Spinach that Thomas Jefferson grew, vegetables that fed Roman armies, lettuce save by a Yugoslavian family for generations, tomatoes that defined a region, it is so exciting!  I can't wait to taste it all.

Wade's Giant Indian Corn

My eyes widened with delight each time I ripped open a new packet of seeds and peeked inside.  I planted the most beautiful Indian Corn seeds that I have ever seen.  All different shades and hues, some striped, some vibrant, others pale and soft.  I think that my favorite seed was the Ojo de Cabra beans that I planted.  The name translates to "eye of the goat" and they are beautiful, shiny, smooth, and specked seeds.  They look like they have a flawless and lacquered "M&M" coating.  They were delightful to hold and plant, and I couldn't help but smile each time I dropped another into it's row.

It's a funny thing to plant a seed.  You don't just plant a seed, you plant some of your hope and faith, and a little bit of your heart with it.  As I plant, I think about what each seed will become, what it will give back to me, because I gave it the opportunity to grow.  I have great hope and faith as I plant.  I wonder if the seeds feel it.  What do you think?

I'm going to go sip a little lemonade and think about the bounty to come!  

Happy planting!

Toast with Avocado and Poached Egg

This was my lunch today.  I had the camera, and it looked so good, I snapped a few quick photos to share.  This was so yummy.  Homemade bread, fresh ripe avocado, and an egg snatched from under a chicken as I walked into the house to make lunch.  It doesn't get much fresher or any more tasty.  Plus it's very filling and gives you oodles of energy for more planting, which is just what I am going to do now.  I find that I need a little boost of protein on these long days in the dirt, and an egg at lunch really gives me the energy I need to motor through the rest of the day.  This is so simple and easy, it doesn't take up much of your time either, so you can get right back to the garden.

TOAST WITH AVOCADO AND POACHED EGG

backyard farmgals

1 thick slice of Farmhouse Whole Wheat Bread (or any good whole grain bread will do)

1/2 ripe avocado

1 fresh egg poached (for poaching instructions click here)

Salt

Pepper

Cayenne

Butter (optional)

Toast the bread, if you like you can add a little pat of butter when the toast is nice and warm.  Scoop out half an avocado and mash it onto the toast.  Place a warm poached egg over the avocado, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a little cayenne and gobble.  

SO SIMPLE and packed with energy for all that work ahead!  Happy planting!

Homemade Chai Tea...

There is honestly nothing finer in this world than sitting down to a fragrant cup of tea and sipping away while you read, listen to opera, or just escape into some other world.  I love tea... I am a tea junkie... there may be a 12 step program out there somewhere just for me and my tea.  Chai is one of my favorite teas.  I love the spices, the aroma, the warmth.

The first time I had chai it was a magical experience, maybe that is why I am in so in love with it, it was the moment, and the tea made it better... made it stick in my memory.  I was at a little Tibetan shack of a restaurant with the biggest picture of the Dalai Lama looming over me that you could possibly imagine.  The rest of the place looked like someone's 1970's living room.  A little old Tibetan man made me a hand poured chai tea that I have been searching to recreate for years.  No such luck.  It wasn't just the tea, it was the little old man, it was how he poured the milk back and forth between two canisters.  It was the whole spices, the fantastic seed pods that seeped into the milk and made my tea into a superpower.  Sometimes I wish I had that little man in my back pocket and he could pour me another chai whenever I needed him to (which is almost everyday... let's be honest!).

This is by no means the tea that the Dalai Lama hovered over that night in the Avenues, but it is good, and on stressful days when I need to escape, it does the trick!  It is especially lovely iced (and it is a little less work) and it takes the sting out of a really hot day.  Give it a try, if you happen to be a tea junkie like me, you may enjoy it.

HOMEMADE CHAI TEA

adapted from Tasty Yummies

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups water

8 bags black tea, or green tea, or roobios, OR 8 bags of chai tea (a little extra spice never hurt)

2 cinnamon sticks

2 vanilla beans, split in half 

1 – 3-inch section of fresh ginger, cut into pieces

10 whole cloves

8 whole cardamom pods

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

2 whole star anise pods

1/2 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns

1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

*to prepare honey and almond, coconut, cow milk

1 small square section of cheesecloth, approximately 6″ square (if you don’t want to mess with cheesecloth, make sure you have a good strainer you can use at the end)

kitchen twine

Method:

Removing any tags from the tea bags, if there are any, and tie them all together. Prepare the spices, vanilla bean and orange zest by laying them in your cheesecloth, I leave my cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans out to make the little pouch of spices a bit more compact. Tie the cheesecloth pouch shut with a small piece of kitchen twine.

*If you don’t wish to use cheesecloth, you will just add all of your spices directly to the pan when the time comes and strain them out after.

Add the water to a medium sized saucepan and bring to a boil over a medium-high heat. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and put in the tea bags, cheesecloth pouch, vanilla beans, and cinnamon sticks. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, strain the concentrate through a sieve or just remove the tea bags, cheesecloth pouch, vanilla beans, and cinnamon sticks. 

Allow the mixture to cool before pouring it into an airtight jar or container (I put my vanilla beans back in so that it can soak up a little extra vanilla). This amount fits perfectly into a 1-quart mason jar. Store in the refrigerator for up to one week.

To serve, heat 1 cup almond milk, or coconut milk, or whatever milk you are into over medium heat.  Add the chai concentrate and then add 1-2 tablespoons of honey (more or less depending on how sweet you like it).  Stir to combine, when it is warm and aromatic, pour into your favorite cup, go hide somewhere the kids will never find you and sip away!

Apple Puffed Pancake

Sunday morning breakfast should be divine every now and then, don't you think?  I stumbled across this fantastic recipe a few weeks ago at DigginFood (an essential organic gardening website with some great simple recipes).  I have the same problem as Willi at DigginFood, I have too many eggs this time of year, so I am always on the lookout for recipes that use up as many as possible.  This one is a winner in my book, because it calls for five eggs and because it is tasty and simply delightful!

This is one of those easy and fun to cook recipes.  The kids love to watch it cook, it puffs up to this enormous pancake creeping it's way up the sides of the pan.  It's kind of like a science experiment but with tasty benefits!  My hubby loves it with maple syrup whipped cream, I think it's divine just sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar.  I am sure that you will find your own favorite way to prepare it, but however you do it, you will surely enjoy it!

APPLE PUFFED PANCAKE

Adapted from Farm Chicks in the Kitchen and from Willi Galloway

Ingredients:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cardamon

1 apple

5 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup strongly brewed chai tea (trust me on this one)

1 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

powdered sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.  Place the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and cardamon in the center of a cast iron skillet and then set in the oven until the butter melts and becomes bubbly (about 3-5 minutes).  

Meanwhile, core the apple and slice it paper thin using a mandolin or a very sharp knife.  (I slice mine 1/16-inch thick on the mandolin - I love the paper thin slices of apple.)  Combine the eggs, flour, tea, vanilla and salt in a blender and blend until smooth (about 30 seconds).  I have been mixing mine by hand in a small bowl with a whisk.  Just mix until it is mostly smooth.  

Take the skillet from the oven and tilt it back and forth to coat the sides with butter.  Layer the apple slices over the butter and put back in the oven for about two minutes.  Then pour the batter over the apples and bake until the pancake pulls away from the sides of the pan and is puffed and lightly brown on top, about 18 minutes.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon.  Serve warm.  

For Maple Syrup Whipped Cream:

Combine 1/4 cup whipping cream and 1-2 tbsp maple syrup (depending on how sweet you like it) in a small bowl.  Beat until soft peaks form.  Scoop over the pancake and enjoy!

Why Farm???

I am asked almost every single day why I do this.  "Why do you work so hard?",  "Why would you want to do something so dirty?",  "Why don't you just be a nurse, that's a nice job?" are all phrases that I hear every day of my life.  So, WHY?  Why do I choose to do this hard, dirty, sometimes not-so-nice job of being a slightly crazy organic farmer?  

I have this funny daydream that I am Scarlet O'Hara, standing in the middle of my crops, grabbing a handful of dirt and shouting to the heavens, "As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again"!  All with a fantastic Southern accent, of course, could you imagine it any other way?  I call Melanie a ninny, then, I make dresses out of curtains and it all goes a little wild from there...

There are days when I think that I have the determination of Scarlet to succeed at conquering the earth.  Could the answer be so simple, I just want to conquer, to stand on top of it and say that I have controlled it?  Certainly not!  I look in my children's eyes and I know the answer.

Have you noticed that our food supply is growing more and more contaminated with disease?  Are you aware of the pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed repeatedly on our food?  Have you researched GMO's and the scary reality that they could be the potential key to a collapse in our food system?  Have you seen commercial feed lots and read about the antibiotics and growth hormones that our animal food supply is subjected to all for bigger, faster, cheaper meat?  Have you noticed the rise in diabetes in our country - now one out of every three children is expected to get diabetes - a statistic that I find extremely alarming.  Did you know that one out of every three women and one out of two men will be diagnosed with some kind of cancer in their lifetime?  Are you aware that life expectancy in our country is now on the decline, a first for us in this country?

This is why.  This is why I spend all of my extra time covered from head to toe in dirt, why my hands crack and bleed, why I am obsessed with organic, why we eat meat and dairy once a week instead of every day.  This is why I am sweaty and not in a girlie glowing way (oh my...)!  This is why I have become one of the crusaders that has lunatic bumper stickers on the back of my car (it's true...).  This is why my children plant with me, dig with me, and dance with me while we work.  It is because it is the one thing that I can control that will make the biggest difference for my family.

I know that I can control what goes into our bodies by growing it myself.  I can control the use of chemicals (uuhhhmmm...NONE) and synthetic fertilizers (again...NONE) and I can make sure that everything I grow is organic.  I can also make sure that nothing that I plant is a "frankenfood" or GMO.  I am really not a fan of the idea of genetically altering crops so that they can be sprayed with whatever chemical to start a genetic reaction.  I think that putting bt genes or other genes in plants will create super insects that are immune to bt and we will have a major food crisis on our hands.  Scary...

The best part about being this crazy obsessed earthy farmer is that my kids are learning valuable lessons.  They know how to grow food, and they know how to do it well!  My kids love to be outside, they know how to run and play and use their imaginations.  My kids know about nature and plants.  They know about bugs and birds, worm hunting could be considered a family pastime!  My kids have great respect for the planet and the soil, which I love.  They are the first to point out something that I have done that is not in harmony with the earth.

The very best thing, the thing I love the most, is that my kids are excited to eat the food we grow, and that means that my kids LOVE vegetables and fruit!  It makes this mama happy to know that they will gobble asparagus, munch lettuce and spinach, crunch cabbages, raid the peas and beans, eat up squashes, and sneak off with as many tomatoes as they can carry.  It makes every blister worth it!

The last thing that my whole family has learned is gratitude with what the earth can give.  We have been so blessed.  The earth has this ability to give, to grow, to heal, and to bring joy.  We are happy, really happy.  There is rarely a day when we are not, and then, we go get in the dirt and suddenly, we are happy again!  It's a magical thing!!!

I love this life!  This is not a job to me, it is life, I would not trade it for all the nice and easy jobs in the world.  To all those who ask me "Why", I hope that this answers the question.  It's not just that it is fun, or dreamy, it's that the earth runs in my veins, I feel it pulsing through every cell in my body.  I have to be a part of it because it is a part of me.

HAPPY FARMING!!!

We Are All A-Buzz...

This last week has been one that I have looked forward to for months, the arrival of our bees.  You may recall that our bees were wiped out in the horrific 103 mile-per-hour winds that we had last December.  I have missed seeing my little honey colored friends buzzing around the yard.  They seem to complete the farm, it feels just a bit empty without them, like we are missing one piece of the puzzle.  It's true that they make a difference.  Their buzzing from flower to flower really does increase our yields significantly, especially with the curcubits (squashes), sunflowers, and tomatoes (even self-pollinating plants like a little bee help).

Twenty-six hives in the back of a suburban... funny how they are focused on one
little bee on a glove when they have thousands in the back of the car!

Saturday morning we drove out to Grantsville to pick up the bees.  It is so much fun to go to get them, people come from everywhere to load up their new friends.  One man next to us was packing 26 new swarms with queens into the back of his Suburban... that's an exciting ride home and a lot of work to do!

Ian smelling the foundation racks... they smell like honey!

We started three new hives this year.  We like to paint our hives different colors; we have a yellow hive, a lime hive, and a turquoise hive.  So far the yellow hive has been the most aggressive, interesting to note since in our experience, the more aggressive hives make the most honey (not sure if that is true or just an anomaly that we have seen).

A river of bees flowing into the hive... this is by far my favorite part!

Long live the queen!  She stays in her little house, we plug the hole with a
marshmallow and she eats her way out, with assistance of course!  Brood
comb is what you see in the background from last years hives.

Sweeping the bees into the hive so we can put the lid on... I love this! 

The bees are busy cleaning house, visiting the blooming apple trees, and getting used to their new queen.  We will open and check the hives in about two weeks and hopefully have something interesting to share.  I am looking forward to fresh honey in late August, and I am sending the bees all of my best energy so that they establish and make it through the winter.  Long live the queens and sweet may the honey flow!