wramping up for the season!

first few trays of onions and leeks


the bee boxes against a perfect blue sky


mixing up potting mix


Thanks to all who have joined the CSA already! We are pleased each and every time we bring in the mail and recieve a membership form (and check)! As is our custom, we sent our membership forms to last years members about two weeks ago, and we are now readying our selves to send forms out to potential new members, we have our largest list ever with 50 people who were interested in learning more about the CSA!

We know that the winter is wearing thin and that springtime weather will be here before we know it. The signs are everywhere, in the last two weeks we have finished up our canned strawberries and peaches and so we are now really looking forward the season for local fruits to roll back around. There are some forsythia branches on our table that are about to burst into bloom, (we hope) as each day we see more of the yellow blossoms swelling out. The plants are started in the greenhouse and many more will be started in march and over then next few weeks. The garlic is well rooted and safe beneath a thick layer of hay mulch.

We've been busy looking for a new "used" truck and think that in the next week or so that we will buy one. We looked at a promising one today.

We are so pleased to have our three "working shares" from last season lined up to help us again! And are still looking for another few, so if you are interested, please be in touch.

things are going well as we get ready for a new season. Thanks for checking in!
liz and matthew

shhh...the farmer's are sleeping...

Thanks to all who have been checking back occasionally to see what is going on here at muddy fingers farm. According to this site - not much. But that is not the case! We have still been going to market once a week, with today scheduled to be the last market of 2008, unfortunately the roads around us were quite slick and the snow kept falling all day, so we missed the market and the annual rutabega curl, bummer! We did get to do some nice cross country skiing, so that is good, but we were sorry to be snowed in from a day out.
Pictured is an event from a few weeks back, when we rented a gi-normous chipper and made our own mulch for around the trees in our orchard and our blue berry plants. It is super fun to make our own mulch, first it kills two proverbial birds with one stone (cleaning out unsightly brush while clearing some new land and also keeping weeds from growing around our young trees- i guess that's three birds) and secondly, it is a huge rush to put a six inch diameter piece of wood into the machine, and have chips come out the other end! If you ever find a huge brush pile around your place, we highly recommend a chipper!

With all that chipping done, we had managed to clear a new area that will be put into production either in 09 or cover cropped next year and used to grow in 2010. Matthew moved the fence around our field out enough to accomodate the new growing area and its great to have some more room to use. We will not be expanding production, instead, we will use the new space to allow ourselves to have two areas of our current field "fallow" each year, thus allowing them to rest while we grow crops to feed the soil in them. The idea of a fallow is an important one for sustainable farming and its an old one, too. We have been worried that we didn't have enough land to really rest any of it (and instead we would have to buy compost to truck in that fertility), and are excited to have made room to grow soil improving crops every four years or so in each spot.

In addition to farm stuff, we have been enjoying sleeping, reading a lot, cross country skiing, taking walks in the snow (or not depending on the day), and are looking forward to ice skating when the ice is really hard.

We couldn't resist saying welcome to winter, since tomorrow is the darkest day of the year! Check back again sometime,
liz and matthew

last week of october (and CSA)

celeriac on parade

putting our friends sarah and eric to work!


Last week of the CSA. Its been our pleasure to provide your family with food this year, thank you for your support of our family and farm.

There are a few things left to do to wrap up the season, still have a little garlic to plant, and then a bunch to be mulched with old hay to keep it warm(er) over the winter and moist in the spring and summer until we harvest it next july/august. We will still have a market on saturday to attend until we run out of things to bring and we plan to sell to the three restaurants that we have been selling to all season for another few weeks.

The forecast is sounding like we may see our first snow of the fall soon, and we all are winding our activities down accordingly -- the humans in our house are working less, and cooking, reading, and relaxing more, the pets in our house are sleeping in front of the fire and showing us the appropriate pace for cool, wet days. Before too long, liz will be back to substitute teaching and matthew will be in charge of "holding down the farm", so to speak.

This week's share:
lettuce
arugula
onions
garlic
broccoli/cabbage/or cauliflower
pumpkins or winter squash
garlic

next week, you're on your own!

baked acorn squash stuffed with nuts and apples
1 medium Acorn squash
1 large Apple peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon (to 2 tsp) honey
1 teaspoon Lemon juice
1 tablespoon (to 2 tbs) walnuts, chopped (opt)
¼ teaspoon Ground cinnamon (opt)

Preheat the oven to 350.
Cut the acorn squash in half and remove the seeds. Bake upside down for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the apple, honey, lemon juice, nuts and cinnamon. Fill the squash halves with this mixture and bake for another 30 minutes, or until the squash is soft. Serve hot. From The Occasional Vegetarian by Karen Lee



Andrea’s Aromatic Pumpkin and Chick pea hot pot: (this is more like a curry that you would serve over rice than it is like a soup, last fall we ate this a lot, then we forgot about it, we'll eat it again, it is delicious!)

3 T vegetable oil
1 ½ cups finely chopped onion
¼ tsp salt to taste
2 or more tsp bottled thai curry paste (I used just curry powder, and it was fine)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground corriander
2 T grated fresh ginger
2 pounds peeled, seeded pumpkin or other winter squash, cut into 1 ¼ inch cubes. (alternately, you can bake the squash and scoop the softened insides out into the “soup”)
2 cans (15 oz each) light coconut milk
1 cup stock or water
3 T soy sauce
2 cans (15 oz each) chick peas, drained
1 cup cubed tofu, plain or herbed
Black pepper to taste
1 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves, finely chopped
Cook basmati rice and plain yogurt, optional

Saute onions and salt in oil until softened, but not browned. Stir in curry paste, cumin, corriander, and ginger. Raise heat to medium high and add pumpkin, stir to coat with seasonings. Add coconut milk, stock, and soy sauce. Simmer on low until pumpkin is almost tender, 10-20 minutes. Stir in chick peas and tofu, partially cover pan and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Stir gently, adjust salt and pepper to taste, add additional curry paste to make it hotter. Serve over rice, sprinkle with cilantro. Yogurt can cool taste buds if too hot.

From Asparagus to Zucchini cookbook, 3rd edition


Potato salad with Arugula
2 lbs. Small potatoes
½ cup very thinly sliced red onions
2 large tomatoes, cut into ½ inch wedges
1 cup chopped Arugula leaves

Dressing
3 t white wine vinegar
6 T extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp dry mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes until tender when pierced. Cool and chunk into 1 inch pieces. Toss other ingredients, mix up dressing and pour over.
From greens, glorious greens!


Home made pumpkin pie:
Cut pumpkin in half along the longitude, then into 6 or 8 wedges, Bake uncovered in 325°F oven until tender throughout (1-2 hours), you can combine this with baking other winter squashes, potatoes, or other items so that you can double up on meals with one oven use. When cooked, allow to cool slightly and then puree in a food mill or in the food processor. Then use, in the following recipe or in soups, breads, or mashed as a side dish with butter. I often make two pies at once or freeze enough for a second (or 3rd or 4th) pie for later.

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup evaporated milk, undiluted
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 unbaked pastry shell (9-inch)


PREPARATION:
Combine pumpkin, sugar, salt, spices, and flour in a medium mixing bowl. Add eggs; mix well. Add evaporated milk, water, and vanilla; mix well. Pour into pastry-lined pie pan. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 350° and bake about 35 minutes longer, or until center is set.
From southerncooking.com

have a great week and winter! liz and matthew

Fourth week of October

Running out of room for our share lists, the season must be almost over!

A carrot loving dog!

Luscious paw paws! YUM!

frosty parsley on tuesday morning.

Just two more pickups for the 2008 CSA season! Hard to believe that we have already eaten our way through so much of the year! Thanks for belonging to our farm this year and taking an interest in a little slice of the world and what happens to an agriculutral family that lives on that land. It makes a huge difference to us to know that if our farm was wiped off the map somehow, that there would be people who would know and it would matter to.

Yesterday was the day that comes only once a year, and that is the one where it is permissible to throw rotten or frost damaged tomatoes at each other. Soon after our first killing frost of the year, we will give into the urge to toss a few really gross ones at each other as we duck behind what is left of the once lucisous plants. We try not to really hit each other too much, but its acceptable to let a really sloppy, wet one land near by with a little warning splatter to land on the other. Its fun to get that kind of thing out of the sytem once in a while, but its also nice to take a shower afterwards and to leave those stinky clothes outside until the next laundry day.

The house has been full of Paw paw seeds this week, we got a bushel of paw paws from Cornell's orchard and we are eating them like crazy and have been freezing some for winter use, too. We would like to grow paw paw trees of our own someday, so we are saving all the seeds in order to plant them later. Today i realized it was out of hand as i saw four piles of the large, shiny seeds scattered on various tables, and counters. It is time to consolidate them all in one place! But, what, you say, is a paw paw? It is the largest native fruit in north america, they have a great tropical taste similar to a banana, or some say a mango or pineapple. Simply scrumptious! Can be cut open and eaten with a spoon tastes like a soft banana custard.


Reminder: October 25th will be our last csa event of the year. We will be planting some garlic, though its is going in the ground fast! we planted three more beds today. Then we will enjoy a potluck that should be very nice, please put it on your calendar and come on up!


This week's share:
Lettuce
Celeriac
garlic
potatoes
leeks
parsley or cilantro
carrots
apples

Next week's share:
greens, onions, cabbage or cauliflower

Baked apples:
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup honey
12 large sweet apples
butter
cinnamon
boiling water

mix nuts and honey (can add raisons) core apples to within half inch of the bottom, do not pierce bottom of apple

fill cavity with walnut-honey mix. dot top of each apple with butter and cinnamon

put apples in oven proof dish just big enough to hold them. Pour boiling water to one inch level, cover with foil.

bake 30 minutes at 375 or until tender but holds shape. serve warm or cold

from farm fresh recipes


Summer in winter celeriac carrot slaw:
1 large or 2 small celeriac bulbs
2 large carrots
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T sherry vinegar (red wine or lemon juice work)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/3 cup olive oil
1 T sour cream
freshly ground pepper

peel celeriac with a sharp knife (or wash well and trim hairy roots off). Grate celeriac and carrots into large shreds. you should have about four cups. Mix together other ingredients. pour over veggies and toss gently, marinate for 30minutes before serving. from asparagus to zucchini cookbok, third edition

have a lovely week, and stay warm!
liz and matthew

Third week of October

putting the parent's to work!


Special thanks to the Glenn parents this week, with their help, we were able to replace a fabric wall on the greenhouse that had developed some tears and a torn zipper door. With their help, we were able to frame up a real endwall. It's still waiting for plastic to be put on it, but it looks a lot better than it did last week and will last for years. Thanks guys!

Things on the farm this week have been good. We look forward to the end of october and things slowing down a bunch, three of our weekly markets will end and with them our CSA pickups. November will mean just one market per week and a much slower pace for us. (We are currently harvesting for four markets per week, four csa dropoffs, as well as three restaurants.)

Please join us for our last CSA event of the year! We will be planting garlic on the saturday, the 25th of october. The event will begin at 4:30 PM (after market for us) and we will do what we can before dark, please stay for a potluck supper and a last chance to say hello and goodbye to other CSA members for the year. An email reminder will follow.

Tonight we had a Cornell Cooperative Extension Event at our farm to plant garlic and talk about fall gardening. We were excited to have an enthusiastic group of 13 show up at our place to take a tour, talk about CSA, and learn about growing garlic. It was neat to be able to open up our farm to some community members and to meet some more local folks! Plus, we got 40 some pounds of garlic planted, not a bad deal at all!

This week's share:
Apples
Winter Squash
Parsnips
Onions
Chard/Kale
Lettuce mix
Spicy greens mix

Next week's expected veggies:
potatoes, garlic, brussels sprouts?

Apple Pudding
Butter a pie plate, cake pan, or casserole dish. Peel and slice 4 to 6 apples (Granny Smilth or Pippins work the best).
Combine:
1 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 egg, beaten

Pack this crumbly mixture over the apples and sprinkle with the following topping:

1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

Doth with butter. Pour 1/2 cup of water over the top.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the apples are tender.

(this recipe is yummy, thanks, marcia! Next time i make it, i will omit the egg and perhaps just dot with a little more butter, i didn't like the eggyness)

two ideas for parsnips, also nice sliced or grated on salad!
Oven fried Parsnips:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Julien parsnips toss in olive oil and salt. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes, toss well with additional salt. Continue to bake, tossing occasionally, until golden brown, about 30 minutes total.


Cream of Parsnip-leek Soup:
1 lb. Parsnips, diced
2 leeks, sliced
5 cups of stock, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup skim milk powder
Tamari or soy sauce
Chopped parsley

Cover parsnips and leeks with stock and cook until tender. Puree in blender. Add remaining stock and heat in a double boiler. Whisk skim milk powder into 1cup water, ad to soup about 10 minutes before serving. Add tamari/soy sauce, correct the seasoning to taste, and garnish with parsley. Makes 4-6 servings.

have a great week!
liz and matthew

Celeriac (Celery Root)

Here, sorry for the delay...

What the heck is this hairy looking thing again? Celeriac is closely related to celery, and the leaves are edible, and taste like celery, though stronger. The leaves and stalks can be used in salads or are most excellent in soups. The root is what the plant is actually grown for, and it is an old vegetable that was grown widely both in Europe and in the US back in the 1800s. When people where concerned about having a steady supply of food throughout the winter, celeriac was a true standout. It can be stored for 6-8 months in a root cellar. As long term storage became less important than looks, celeriac fell out of favor. (I wonder why?) The root has the texture of a potato when cooked and a mild celery flavor. It is delicious in soups and stews of all kinds, making a creamy and flavorful soup base. Or use it to replace potatoes in a favorite recipe and see what you think. It is excellent raw in salads, or as sticks dipped in your favorite dip. It is high in carbohydrates, Vitamin C, phosphorus, and potassium, and has only 20 calories per cup.
To store it, remove the tops, and put them and the root in a bag in the hydrator drawer of the fridge. The root will keep at least a month. The Leaves will keep 10 days or so. See the couple of recipes below.



Cream of Celeriac and Leek Soup:
3 Leeks
1 ½ pounds celeriac
1 large potato
3 T butter
4-5 cups broth, divided
Light cream, optional
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Wash leeks and slice white and light green parts, to make 2 cups. chop celeriac (peel if tough) into ½ inch cubes, you want 3-4 cups. Chop potato coarsely. Melt butter into soup pot, cook leeks until soft. Stir in potatoes and celeriac. Add four cups broth, bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, 20-25 minutes. Pass through a sieve, or puree in a blender/food processor. If very thick, thin with cream and more broth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Makes 8 cups.

Garlicy mashed potatoes with celeriac.

1 celeriac, equal amount of potatoes
2-3 large garlic cloves.
Cube both celeriac and potatoes. Boil seperately, or add celeriac and cook for 12 minutes, then add potatoes and garlic and continue to boil until quite soft. Drain and mash with butter, salt, pepper, and a little milk to make it smooth. an excellent addition to your thanksgiving feast, or a nice winter meal.

First week of October, (and last day of september)

Well how could i have forgotten to say it last week? Happy first day of autumn! It is looking like and beginning to feel like fall, too. We have been noticing how early it is getting dark, and the amount of clothing we leave the house wearing in the morning and how much we come in wearing at night. The maples and locusts lately have been putting on a lovely show and i've noticed the burning bushes beginning to burn. We have begun to talk about when our first fire of the year will be, but i don't think it will be very soon. In the last week, we've started to see the veese of geese heading south following the lake.



Lately lots of people have been asking when the last week of the CSA is, what are people getting tired of us already? But really, it is a good question. The CSA runs until the end of October, so there will be four more pickups after this week's, with the last saturday pickup (and the last pickup of the year) actually on november first.



We hosted a dinner this week to say thank you to our three working share groups, and we wanted to publicly thank them as well, if it were not for their hard work and generous help we would not have been able to manage everything this season. It was uplifting to see smiles on their faces even when picking beans and tomatoes for what seemed like hours at a time. The cheerful and very helpful mood each friday morning made it one of our very best days of the week. Our deepest gratitude to Harold, Mark and Pat, Terri, Lydia, and Reeder--thanks guys!



If you are interested in becoming an extremely appreciated person next year, please think about it over the fall and winter and let us know next spring. We will certainly want at least three working shares for harvesting on friday's next year, we will also be looking for someone to help us set up our thursday market in Corning, and may be looking for someone to help us setup at one other market of the week as well. The ideal candidates seem to be self employed, retired, parenting children, or teachers. If you have free time during the week or know someone else who does and may be interested in a working share, spread the word for the 2009 season.



The pierogi making day was a great success and quite fun, too! Pierogies were made and filled and eaten. Folks took walks out to the gorge and sat and appreciated the pond. It is always so meaningful to us to see other people appreciate our land and take time to sit and absorb what is going on here, from the swimming of fish, to the calls of the turkeys in the woods, it makes us glad to see other people have a chance to watch the large and small of our little ecosystem go by. And it made me especially glad to see the ecosytem of our kitchen return to equilibrium before the last guest left, as it is daunting to have 20 some guests in the kitchen, and my heartfelt thanks go out to those who did the dishes and scraped the dough off of our counters. What a nice event! For those who missed it, and for those who didn't- below is the "Classic pierogi" recipe that i have always used. Several other people brought other doughs, as for filling variations, the possibilities are almost endless, we had lots of types of fillings ranging from mushroom, to potatoes, to sweet potato, to grape. I'd be glad to post the dough and filling recipes too, just send the recipes along in an email and they'll go up here for all to see.

This week's share:
Winter squash
cabbage
spinach/lettuce
garlic
onions
Kale/chard
Parsley
apples

next week's share:
broccoli, potatoes, garlic, leeks, celeriac?

Recipes:
Classic pierogi
Dough: combine
3 cups all purpose flour
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp salt
dash of pepper

let stand 20 minutes, roll out thinly (1/8-1/4 inch thick) on a floured board. Cut with a biscuit cutter or the top of a large mug. Place a rounded teaspoon of filling in center, fold edges over and pinch to seal them completely (a little water may help). Boil 3-5 minutes, may be browned in a little butter and then served.

Potato Filling:
combine 3 cups mashed potatoes with 1/2 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese.

cabbage filling:
finely chop cabbage, cook in boiling salted water about 10 minutes, saute one onion in butter and then add cabbage, toss with salt and pepper.

Let your imagination run wild with ideas for fillings. Samosa or ravioli fillings work just fine.


rolling the dough and boiling the pierogies

filling the pierogies Butternut squash soup (works with other squash, too.):
1 large squash
6 cloves
2 Cinnamon sticks
6 allspice berries
1/4 cup maple syrup
ground Cinnamon
ground nutmeg

Peel, seed, and cube squash, cover with water and boil, tie non ground spices in a cheese cloth and add to pot, boil and simmer over low for 40 minutes. Remove spices, drain squash and keep liquid, return to pot and mash (puree for smoother soup), add maple syrup, and ground up spices if desired, thin with liquid if needed.

OR cut squash in half and scoop out seeds (save them and bake them at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes, salt and enjoy a delicious snack), put face down in a tray with a little water, bake at 350 until very tender (about 40 minutes), allow to cool and scoop the flesh out of the skin, mash and add cooking water as needed to make desired consistency, add spices as desired.

have a tremendous week, and eat lots of soup! Liz and Matthew