Wintery Mix!

We are battening down the hatches here because the mama farmer doesn’t like to be cold!!!!! So all the animals have extra bedding and hay and I’m going to hibernate while everyone else does chores! Just kidding, but I am happy to be cooking and doing indoor jobs! At the least the room in the barn that we do our seeding in is heated. I did turn the heat up a little, I hope the wood choppers don’t mind!

We are up to our ears in puppy snuggles, they are opening their eyes and are super cute! The calf is romping around in the barn and doing great. We still haven’t named her, but we love snuggling her. When it gets a bit warmer she’ll move to a hutch closer to the cabin for all to enjoy! For now, she’s loving the barn life!

OK, let’s talk soup for a minute. I have been cranking out the soup lately. My new best creation is Chicken Thai soup. I think I made a different one a few weeks ago, but my new one is yum! I just cooked a frozen chicken in the instant pot (for quick easy prep), pulled the meat and chopped it. Then I add the bones to some broth I had going on the stove already to keep the broth going! I took some broth from the last batch and chopped my Tat Soi (it’s the green bouquet type of veggie from this week) and some thinly sliced carrots, diced onions and mushrooms, chopped fresh ginger and garlic and a little fish sauce. No measuring necessary, just wing it! It was a hit! We added rice noodles to the second batch to pretend we were at a restaurant!

Pick up tomorrow may be a little slippery so we will be putting CSA out by 10 AM incase the weather holds off and you want to come early. If you can’t make it here we will put the shares in the fridge for pick up anytime next week. If you won’t be coming to pick up your shares, please let us know so we can donate your produce to someone else.

Enjoy!

Blessings,

The Bakers

Iron lady, Indigo Apple, Mountain Magic, Cherokee Purple.......

Here is Cuddles two years ago with our Bernese Babies, she helped raise them and loved them!

Did anyone guess what we are doing this week? Ordering seeds! Those are just a few of the tomato varieties we plant. We thought about cutting down the variety this year and decided that is too boring so the list goes on! So if any CSA members have something they are dying to try, let us know and maybe we can fit it into the planting schedule! This month we will start seeds for our greenhouse peppers, tomatoes and lots of greens for spring. Then February comes and I cannot begin to list everything that gets planted that month. It’s a busy one! All those baby plants to tend to again, we can’t wait! Baby plants are like any baby thing, they are cute! And have such promise for things to come!

Speaking of things to come…..Dolly’s second litter has arrived! We have 11 precious baby Bernese Mountiain babies! They are so sweet and Dolly is being a super mom! They came at a nice time as we just said goodbye to our old faithful golden retriever, “Cuddles.” She went to sleep Saturday and didn’t wake up again. We enjoyed taking her on a trail ride on Christmas Eve with the horses. The puppies are a welcome distraction!

This week in your shares you will find lettuce (oh glorious lettuce!), mustard greens, spinach, and roots galore! We made an awesome spinach dip this weekend with homemade cream cheese, ranch mix, chopped onions and instead of spinach we used mustard greens that we boiled and drained first. We also are enjoying salad nightly. We make our own dressing and use a super simple recipe: 1 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar and 1/2 cup maple syrup. So simple and so good, not to mention good for you!

We have also been roasting chickens and making chicken pot pie and chicken fried rice. Then we boil the bones and make great broth!

Enjoy!

Blessings,

Your Farmers

Cooking Time!

Goats, Kids and Kitties enjoy hay in different ways!

I hope everyone is enjoying a healthy new year so far! Full of good food and good plans! We will be updating our garden planting schedule for the year this week. It’s crazy to think we plan about food so far in advance! We will even order our baby turkey’s for Thanksgiving soon! That is so we get the best dates for hopefully having the best sizes for everyone’s table! Of course as with all of farming a lot of that depends on weather. We are still enjoying a few extra big turkeys left from this years harvest. Yum!

So this time of year we love to make a new menu. Our meal planning is relaxed because we eat seasonally so it isn’t about deciding what exactly I want to serve, but what I’ve been provided with and how I want to use it. I also have to be relaxed since on the farm things can change quickly. Like when baby animals are being born and you can’t predict when it will happen. Or worse, when something goes wrong and something is broken or an animal is sick. But if I have an idea of what we are eating then I can quickly substitute an easy meal for a more difficult one when I need to save time.

It really helps to choose my meat ahead of time and have it thawing in the fridge. That makes changing my plans easy. We tried some new fun things this week. We took some beef bones and made some Pho broth. We will have some for sale at CSA pick up. It was really good and just took time, but wasn’t hard. Then we thinly sliced carrots and onions and chopped some Tat Soi and added some rice noodles and had a fun dinner! We will also be making a great Thai chicken soup this week. It’s pretty easy to adjust the veggies based on what I have as long as there is a cooking green, onions and carrots. I hope this inspires you to try something new!

We also had a fun preschool craft we did. After the beef broth was made there was a lot of tallow that we took off the top. We took pine cones and smeared them with the fat and then rolled them in birdseed. This was a very messy and fun project! We then tied them up on our front porch and are watching the birds enjoy themselves!

Herbal shares this month are cinnamon honey (great by the spoonful or in tea for illness), herbal tea to chase the germs away, and elderberry syrup (refrigerate or freeze within 2 weeks)! Fermented shares are elderberry switchel and fermented radishes. Enjoy and be well!

We have meat pick up today and Saturday 2-5 PM and look forward to catching up with folks!

Blessings,

The Bakers

Happy New Year!

From your “Farm-ily”! This picture was taken at Mabry’s Mill during a late summer trip we took. We hope you had a lovely holiday and have a Happy New Year! We have been having cozy evenings by the fire reading books and playing games. During this warm weather we have been getting the cow’s winter housing finished up before the nasty winter weather sets in. It’s always a blessing to have better weather longer than you expect. It helps you get ready for when it’s going to be rough on the animals and crops. Cold rain is the hardest to deal with for animals. Well for people too!

We are having awesome winter meals lately! We are making lots of soups with the root veggies. A member made a split pea soup with a ham bone and beets and carrots, they really enjoyed it. It’s hard to go wrong with any combination of winter veggies and soup. We are loving having salad so far into winter this year, that keeps your vitamins and minerals up to fight colds and flu. It also makes me feel healthier after indulging in lots of Christmas sweets! Our special surprise this week in shares is Brussels Sprouts. I sauteed onion in a big dutch oven with lard and butter, then added a little more and tossed the brussels sprouts in. I put the whole thing in the oven at 425 for about 30 mins. While that was cooking I took 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar and 1/2 raisins and boiled them in a small pot and then turned it off and let them absorb the vinegar. When the sprouts were done roasting I tossed the raisins on top and added some crumbled bacon too. It was grand! We are also enjoying Kale, mustard greens, sweet potatoes, and carrots this week.

I have been keeping up with our yogurt making as well. Once you get a system, it isn’t hard to keep it going. I heat my milk to 180, then I cool it with an ice paddle. This really speeds up the cooling time since I do about 2 gallons at a time and it can take a LONG time to cool. That way I don’t feel like I have a project going all day. Then when it reaches 115, I add the yogurt starter and mix well. Then I put the mixture into jars and into the dehydrater for 4 hours at 115. Super easy breakfast with our homemade granola on top! We have granola in the cabin for sale, but sorry we aren’t offering yogurt at this time.

We can’t believe it’s time to think about the major spring planting! We will begin ordering our seeds in the next week. If you have any veggie requests please let us know! This year we are trying to have tomatoes earlier, longer and more of them! If only they were as disease and bug resistant and okra and eggplant! HA HA! Enjoy your food and family and friends and count your blessings as we enter a new year with so much potential!

ALL CSA and MILK SHARES are available at regular times. Enjoy!

Blessings,

The Bakers

PS Remember to stay tuned for baby watch, “Ducklegs” is the mama cow due in January. She will be brought into the birthing area in a few days.

Merry Christmas

We are excited about spending time by the fire next week and hope you will all have a wonderful Christmas! We have been very blessed this year. The greenhouse is making growing and harvesting greens this winter much easier and more enjoyable! We are getting ready to make our planting schedule for this coming year and it’s very exciting! Winter is such a nice time to recoup and regroup! We will also be thawing a big turkey to enjoy on Christmas, along with some butternut squash pie and sweet potatoes. Oh and spinach is coming your way this week too! I love a spinach salad with some dried cranberries on top. The napa cabbage is awesome either cooked or raw, it makes nice wraps. I love to shred carrots and chop the napa with some nuts and dressing of choice for a nice slaw. If you add some cooked shredded chicken its a whole meal!

In the garden this week we have put the winter frost blanket on the strawberry plants. They had a make shift cover before, but now we have the proper one on. Those little babies are snug and warm (well as warm as they can be in 20 degrees!) The garlic is poking up and about 4 inches tall, looking very brave in the garden all alone! There are other veggies out there still, like the kale and cabbage, but they have blankets on and the garlic is the only thing uncovered. It will be fine and dandy all winter long. No wonder it’s so tough on illness, it’s one tough plant!

The dry dairy cows and beef cows will be coming “home” for winter soon. They have run out of grass in the pasture a few miles from here and the water supply is soon to freeze. That means moving some fence and setting up some winter hay feeding area for them. We have a new calf due January, brrr! Stay tuned for news about that. Ducklegs is the mama expecting. She also is coming home from the far pasture for us to take special care and prepare her for her labor.

We hope you enjoy all the farm goodies and have a wonderful Christmas!

Blessings,

The Bakers

Winter meal ideas

Wow, the greenhouse is really producing now and it’s so nice to harvest in the warmth of it instead of the cold garden! Well we still did get kale from the field this week, but the other greens were inside and so lovely! In your bags this week you will find: Kale, Tatsoi, Mustard Greens, Butternut, Beets, Carrots and Napa Cabbage for the Full Shares. We used the asain greens in a stir fry this week when we were watching a friends children. We had 11 children between only two families! 7 of them were 5 and under so we needed a quick, easy, lunch that everyone would eat!

We made some rice in the instant pot(I use half water and half broth when cooking rice), browned some ground beef and pork sausage and just chopped the asian greens and sauteed them. Then on the side we whisked an awesome peanut sauce together, this one I actually measure! Most of you know I don’t usually cook with a recipe! Our sauce recipe is:

1 C Peanut Butter, 4 TBS liquid aminos, 4 TBS maple syrup, 4 TBS lime or lemon juice, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp sesame oil, about 1/2 C water to thin.

I love how easy it is to enjoy whole food! Ok, so the maple syrup surely helps the kids eat this meal, but it’s really not much and has some vitamins and minerals in it :) If you have any winter radishes hanging around in your fridge still, try making soup! RADISH SOUP!

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 cups sliced radishes (from 2 bunches), divided (Or some of the large winter radishes)

½ cup chopped onion

1 medium Gold potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

2 cups milk

½ teaspoon salt

1/4-1/2 teaspoon white or black pepper

¼ cup sour cream

1 tablespoon chopped fresh radish greens or parsley

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1 3/4 cups radishes and onion and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are beginning to brown and the radishes are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add potato, milk, salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potato is tender, about 5 minutes more. Use an immersion blender and top with sour cream and chopped greens. Enjoy!

We can’t wait to start baking some pies again, butternut and sweet potato make a great pumpkin pie. Our pie pumpkins didn’t do well this year, but we can’t tell a difference between sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie. So when God gives you 4,400 pounds of sweet potatoes, you make SWEET POTATO PIE!

We do have some Christmas Turkeys available frozen for sale, please email if you want to know what sizes are available. We also have Lamb cuts from our friends farm so please email me if you want to know what they have available for your holiday table!

Have a lovely week and enjoy the food!

Blessings,

Your Farmers

December is here!

We hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving, we were so thankful for the mild weather! We had a lovely harvest of some huge turkeys, with the average being 23 pounds! Yum! We are finishing up getting the tree farm closed up. It’s amazing that we sold out of trees from our beautiful family farm in Highland county, VA, in just two days! The cabin still has lots of lovely wreaths and center pieces to brighten your home. The smell is amazing! We will be in the cabin from 2-5 Saturday for selling local Christmas gifts and handing out the meat shares. We are fully stocked with all the herbal items, so grab some before they are gone!

The farmer girls are busy planting a few hundred tulip and daffodil bulbs to make the farm more cheerful next spring! The farmer boys have news too! Tommy bought an interesting cart that you lay down on to pick vegetables and strawberries. It’s a great invention that is solar powered and saves your back from the difficult process of harvesting things that grow close to the ground! It’s to help him with his new enterprise of organic strawberries! Last year he took over the lettuce production on the farm and this year he is taking over the strawberries. Meanwhile middle farmer boy, Timmy, has decided to become a broom maker. He is going to begin is first broom today! I just hope that he practices using it a lot in the farm house!

We are harvested the first greens out of the new greenhouse! All the work it was makes them taste better to me! The radishes and mustard greens from this week are among the first things we harvested. There is plenty more great stuff to come! The kale is still doing great in the field and I can’t get enough root crops this time of year. So great in soups and roasted! Don’t forget to roast the seeds of the butternut with a little coconut oil and salt! OH and beet chips, I love to slice them thin, brush them with oil and salt and then roast at 350 until crisp. They disappear so fast!

Well have a great week, and enjoy your Christmas preparations! I’ll be posting my favorite hot coco recipe soon, I can’t wait to dig it out!

Blessings,

Your farmers

Happy Thanksgiving!

(For CSA Holiday schedule please make sure the read details at the bottom, thank you!)

We have much to be thankful for and you are on that list! We couldn’t be farmers without you in fact! Whether you are a farm member, occasional shopper, friend or family, we appreciate your support and encouragement. We have had a wonderful year and are looking forward to our final 2 farming ‘seasons’ of the year…..Turkey and Trees! We hope you enjoy a season of Thankfulness, filled with good food and special memories!

We will be harvesting our turkeys today and have them available for those that have reserved them (we are sold out) on Tuesday from 2-6 PM at the farm store, and some will be going to Willowsford Farm for their holiday pick up as well. We have fond memories of cooking our first farm raised Thanksgiving Turkey with Emeril Lagasse! What an experience that was! We like to stuff our turkeys with veggies not stuffing. As the veggies cook they give off steam, keeping the bird moist instead of drawing liquid out. I also like to rub my turkey with butter and herbs under and over the skin before cooking. We hope you enjoy yours as much as we enjoyed growing it for you! For a hilarious video of the farmer children and turkeys at “play” see our facebook page.

Christmas Trees will be happening here as soon as the dishes are done from the big feast! Well actually we open Friday at 10 AM. We will have wreaths and centerpieces made by the talented farmer girls, white pine roping, fraser fir trees (freshly harvested from our family farm in Highland county, VA), FREE hot cider and loads of homemade organic gifts in the farm store! Pony rides will be available for an extra fee.

This week we made a fun meal. I find the men in the house like the food to have a name, do you? I like to just saute veggies and meat, put it over rice and call it a stir fry! But the guys get excited if it sounds like a restaurant. So we made a “butternut, kale bowl” yesterday! Sounds fancy, but it was really easy and delicious! We made rice in the instant pot, tossed in the chopped kale when it was done, and peeled and chopped up a butternut and boiled it on the stove until tender. After we added some browned sausage and the butternut to the instant pot we put a dribble of honey, vinegar and a generous pat of butter on! Wow, it was a hit!

Well, delivery this week is scheduled for Tuesday instead of Thursday since we hope everyone will be busy enjoying themselves Thursday! Also pick up here for CSA will be Tuesday from 12-6 and Saturday from 12-6 PM. Remember next week is the December meat pick up! Also, if anyone wants some Lamb for the holidays please email me for a list of what is available from our friends the” other” Bakers! Their lamb is raised on pasture with supplements of Non GMO grains and lots of love! It will be available in the farm store after you order.