Quick Treats with one Local Ingredient

The other day I also got some pecans from KBH farms in Georgia at the Red Hills Online Market.  I decided to make some quick treats with them to bring with us when visit family for Christmas.

Locally Grown Pecans

The Ingredients:  Pretzels, Rollos and Pecans, well the pecans are local!

 OK, so this isn't that local, just one local ingredient, but at least I am supporting a local farm.

It's easy enough for the kids to help.

 You put the unwrapped rollos on top of the pretzels on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  You cook them at 250 or 350 (depending on the recipe you use) for three minutes.  Then press the pecan halves into the top.

Final product, let them cool.

My favorite candy (and still is) are the turtle candies with pecans, caramel and chocolate.  These are a lot like those. 

Winter Solstice Dinner

Last year our family started celebrating the Winter Solstice, as a way to have a small family gathering before we see our parents for Christmas.  I try to make the meal as local as possible and order from the Red Hills On-line Farmers Market .  This market has the motto of "Shop Naked" because you pick out your order on-line sometime between Sunday and Wednesday morning at 6am and then pick up your items at the Bread and Roses Food Cooperative on Thursday after 5pm.

I looked at the items available and decided to do a beef stew.  Someone recommended a chestnut and beef stew and I found a recipe to try.  I substituted turnips for potatoes in the recipe, since that was what was available locally at this time. 

Carrots and turnips from Full Earth Farm, beef from Deep Roots Meat, and chestnuts from Blue Ridge Farm

I steamed the chestnuts using my rice cooker/steamer after looking up some instructions on-line.  First I cut them in half vertically and then steamed them on the highest setting of water for 20 minutes.  They were hot, and peeled very easily.  Their meat is rich and tasty.

The recipe called for a red wine.  I was all out of my red wine from Florida wineries.  Luckily I shopped for additional ingredients at one of the larger Publix stores and they had a selection of red wines from Florida wineries.  I decided on the Vintner's Red from San Sebastian Winery over in St. Augustine, since I have not yet been to that winery.  I also looked at the Southern Red at Lake Ridge Winery near Clermont, I have been there before and like many of their wines.

We also served a salad with lettuce from Ragged Glory Farm (this is the first I had heard of it) and carrot slices with a dressing of ponderosa lemon juice and almond oil.  While the produce was fresh and tasty the salad really could have used something else, I am not quite sure what though.

The beef and chestnut stew was very yummy and made for a nice, local Winter Solstice dinner, especially since a cold front had just come through, making the weather perfect for a hot stew to enjoy before opening our presents.

I even got two new cook books that were published this year and are specifically about local eating in Florida!



Winter Solstice presents from my family, can't wait to read them!

 

November is a time for Citrus

Last week two of my coworkers brought in bags of citrus from their trees.  The satsumas that my boss brings in are tasty and sweet and people just eat them as a snack.  I have also used them to make a marmalade in the past.

This year the boss of my boss brought in what she described as northern (frost tolerant) key limes.  I was wondering about this and after doing some searching I think they might be limequats, a cross between the key lime and the cold hardy kumquats.  You can buy a limequat tree at Just Fruits and Exotics in Medart.

I was excited about them and when there were still a bunch left at the end of the week I brought them all home and planned to make a key lime pie with them.  I figured that I could also freeze the juice for future use.

A basket of limequats

 

The recipe I was using was an "easy" key lime pie recipe and it called for 1/2 cup of lime juice.  It took about ten limequats to make that much juice.  Luckily my aunt recently sent me a vintage juicer.

Juicing limequats

I also had to use 5 egg yolks.  My eggs come from my chickens in the backyard.  They are all different breeds and lay different sized eggs.  I am not sure if it mattered that much for egg yolks (even the tiny bantam eggs seem to have regular sized yolks) but the standard egg size in baking is large so if you are using other sized eggs you need to make sure you are using the right amount.  The My Pet Chicken blog has a great explanation here: 

My Pet Chicken Tips for Cooking with Backyard Eggs

 

So, I used my Jiffy Way egg scale (also from my aunt) to make sure the eggs I was using were about the right size, just to be safe.

I love my vintage jiffy-way egg scale.  It makes for great decor and it is useful too!

 

My daughter and I mixed up the ingredients and put it in the pie crust (going the easy way with some local ingredients here).  Then I noticed that the comments on the recipe had some modification recommendations to make sure it filled the pie pan.  Oh well.

Well, didn't quite fit all the way, but I am sure it will be tasty.

 And in the end it was pretty tasty.  My daughter didn't like it (it is very tart) but my husband and I did.

 

The final product with ready-whip.  So I used some local ingredients while still keeping it easy. 



Adventures in Beekeeping

So last year I decided I wanted to try beekeeping.  I took an eight week course from the Leon County Extension office.  In that course I learned that we have a local beekeeping association.

I started attending the monthly meetings of the Apalachee Beekeeping Association.  The people there are a wealth of knowledge about beekeeping.  Each meeting has an educational presentation and during the longer days of the summer they even hold open hive demonstrations before the meeting.  These have been so helpful in learning how to take care of my hive.  And trust me, there is a lot of information to know. 

Last February I took a shortcourse on beekeeping from the ABA.  They hold it every year and it fills up at 100 registrants so if you are interested be sure to get your spot early.  It costs $50 to register (and includes a year long membership to ABA) and ABA members can attend for $35.  I have been thinking about sending my husband and daughter this year (persons in your household under the age of 14 can join an adult for only $25).  Find out more about it with this flyer:  Apalachee Beekeepers Association Shortcourse

This spring we started keeping a hive out in our backyard.  It has become a family project.


My husband is showing our daughter how to use the smoker

Here they are looking for the queen and checking the health of the hive


I don't know how long my beekeeping hobby will last or how much honey will will get from it (none yet, many people often are not able to harvest honey in the first year of their hive).  But one thing I can tell you is that because of all the beekeepers in this area there are many options for sources of local honey here in Tallahassee.

I often buy honey from the Full Moon Apiary .  We purchase beekeeping equipment from them as well, they have been very helpful.  They are often found at the downtown market and you can buy their products at Tupelo's Bakery and Cafe up in Monticello.  They even hold a monthly breakfast with the beekeeper to answer all your questions about your hive.

Beekeeping isn't for everyone, but you can't beat the sweetness of real local honey.

Making a Worm Bin

I am not a very good gardener.  I did not inherit my Grandma Anna's green thumb.  But I always try to grow my own food.  One of the things that is really needed for growing things is good soil.  I have a couple of compost bins but I also wanted to make a worm compost bin so that we could also do vermiculture.  I had a simple one made from a plastic bin in grad school so I was excited when I saw these instructions to make your own worm bin from two plastic bins.  I saved it to my pinterest boards with the intention of doing it one day.

That day came this week when my daughter decided to do a project with worms for her science fair experiment.  We got a small container of 30 red worms so that she could test what material (rock, sand, soil, leaves) they preferred.

Red worms (Eisenia hortensis) 

 After we tested them we needed to do something with them so I used it as an excuse to make my worm bin.  Since worms eat about half their weight in food scraps each day 30 is not really enough so I will most likely get more.  They will also multiply on their own.  In the mean time I am making sure to only give them a small amount of our food scraps and the rest will either go to the chickens or into the regular compost bin.


This worm bin is so easy even a seven year old can do it (with adult supervision). 

1/4 inch holes are drilled into the bottom of both bins for drainage and worm movement between bins.  1/16 inch holes are drilled in one cover and around the upper edge of both bins for air exchange.



Getting the bedding ready for the bin is great fun for kids and even the toddler wanted to help.

Shredded wet news paper serves as bedding while coffee grounds and filter serve as food.  I later added some sand after remembering that the worms need it for their crops where they grind their food.

I put the bins out in a sheltered part of the deck.  The undrilled cover is beneath to catch moisture and vermicompost "tea".  This bin is small enough it could also be kept in the kitchen, pantry or garage. 

Some additional resources that might come in handy:
Ladybird Organics and Monticello Vineyards is a source for worms.  If you don't want to make your own worm bin you can also buy worm castings from them.  I have bought their castings at Tallahassee Native Nurseries and through Turkey Hill Farm.

Worms Eat my Garbage was a book I used when I was vermicomposting in grad school and I found it to be very helpful.

Date Night Means Eating Local

Several months ago my husband picked up a groupon for a restaurant called Liam's in Thomasville, Georgia that is known for utilizing local food sources.  He saw that they also served craft beer so it was a win win for both of us.  We rarely get date nights and when we do it is fun to support locally owned restaurants that use local food sources (like when we went to Miccosukee Root Cellar for Valentine's Day).

Our wedding anniversary is next week so we decided to use the groupon.  We made reservations, got a babysitter, and headed off to Thomasville forty minutes to the north of us.  To be honest with you I was wondering what we were going to do afterwards in Thomasville for our date night, we had the babysitter until 10 pm.

 

Liam's was charming and the food was incredible.  I started with a salad of

fresh greens.  We were both in the mood for beef so we had a hangar steak that was served with a hash of wild mushrooms and butternut squash.  I mentioned to the waitress that I was there for local ingredients.    

After we left Liam's we went down the street to Grassroots Coffee for some lattes.  Sure, you can't grow coffee locally (at least not any you might want to drink, there is a wild coffee further south in Florida) but this place roasts all the beans in the store.  It reminds me of the coffee shop that I worked at in college with a nice ambiance. 

 

I also grabbed some beans for brewing coffee at home. 

 

  

Now all this time I was logging into facebook and updating where we were going on our date.  I know, this isn't very romantic and it is a sign of a times of how we are tied to the internet.  However, I also like to let my friends know about these cool places so that they can enjoy them too.  Luckily for me though, one of my friends who lives in Thomasville posted a comment that we should go to Moonspin Pizza and have a chocolate peanut butter cookie for dessert.  So we did, and I am so glad that we did.  Not only was the cookie tasty, we also paired it with a pecan beer from Mississippi and it was a great combo.  We also learned more about Moonspin Pizza that uses local ingredients and makes everything from scratch wherever they can.  We decided to come back to have some of their pizza one day. 

 

They also had this quote up that I enjoyed:

"We eat to live But there is more to it than that.  Food prepared with mindfulness and intent, and eaten with thought and thanksgiving, satisfies hungers that are deeper than those of the body" - peace meals

Then it was time to go home to relieve the babysitter.  Thomasville has so much to offer it really made for a wonderful date night.

New Leaf Market Farm Tour 2012

This weekend was the 5th Annual New Leaf Market Farm Tour.  I don't think we have missed one yet, although the year I was pregnant with my youngest child we only made it to one farm (an alpaca farm that sells beautiful yarn). 

I really like the idea of seeing where your food comes from and in teaching your children that the food they eat does not come from just a grocery store.  So, with a seven year old and an 18 month old in tow, we headed out to four farms this year.  They were picked because they were open on Sunday (we had other plans on Saturday) and because they were all farms we had not yet seen.  Most were in the Quincy area.

The first one was to keep my seven year old happy.  She is a horse lover.  Johnnie's Garden keeps horses on staff to provide manure for their compost pile. 

Horses providing manure at Johnnie's Garden

 

They also have chickens that provide eggs and they grow various vegetables.  They did have information available on their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.  So contact them if you want more information.

Eggplants growing at Johnnie's Garden

Next stop we made was Full Earth Farm.  They were doing tours of their vegetable gardens and compost piles.  We had a truncated tour (because of the 18 month old) and were really impressed with their place.  We bought some kale, bok choi, and lettuce from them.

Broccoli growing at Full Earth Farm

 

I was proud of my daughter when she asked to buy a button that supported the Red Hills Farm Alliance that runs the Red Hills Online Market.  They are a great place to buy local food.

 

Next we were off to check out Blue Ridge Farm.  My kids were most interested in their one year old dog that loved to play fetch.  I was excited about their persimmon and chestnut orchard and their hydroponic vegetables.

 

Chestnut trees with a hydroponic greenhouse in the background

 

On our way home we stopped at Orchard Pond Organics and Meridian Community Garden.  We used to be members of their CSA and I really recommend it.  We just couldn't use up all the fresh delicious vegetables in time.  I am really interested in their community garden but am not sure if I have the time to commit and I really fear that I did not inherit my grandma Anna's green thumb.  But I thought the community gardens were beautiful.

 

Meridian Community Garden at Orchard Pond Organics

 

In the end we were all tired out and maybe got a little too much sun.  I am excited about my haul though:

 

Clockwise from the lower left corner:  Chestnuts and persimmons (Blue Ridge Farm); Lettuce, bok choi and kale (Full Earth Farm); and Tatsoi (Orchard Pond Organics)

I have plans to eat a little bit of local food all week long.  I already used the bok choi in a yummy chicken stir fry.  The lettuce will be in my lunches.  I might cook the kale with a little bit of soy sauce.  The tatsoi is tasty with some red pepper flakes sautee'd in olive oil.  I may try pairing some of these with the muscadine grape wines I picked up a couple of weeks ago from Three Oaks Winery and Sea Breeze Winery during a trip to Panama City Beach.

If you haven't been on the Farm Tour with New Leaf Market yet I suggest you try it out next year!

Fall Traditions

When I was a child growing up in Minnesota we went to an apple orchard every fall.  Sometimes we even went to a pick-your-own apple orchard.  I wanted to create some fall traditions with my children here in North Florida.  I have not found any apple orchards here, as this is not the right climate for apples (although a few varieties grow here, as I learned on the Just Fruits and Exotics website).

Last year we discovered Rocky Comfort Farms on the New Leaf Market Farm Tour.  But more on the Farm Tour later....

At Rocky Comfort Farms they have a pumpkin patch where you can ideally find your locally grown fall pumpkin (this year happened to be a bad year and they had to ship them in).  You can also take some cute fall pictures of your kids, provided they actually cooperate.

 

They also have a hay ride to tour the farm where they raise angus beef cattle.

 

They also have peafowl there which was very exciting for my daughter who wants to be a peacock for Halloween.

 

They also have other various fall fun activities for kids including a giant hay slide, face painting, a bouncy house and a millet maze and a corn bin (basically a big box with dried corn kernels in it, I don't know why but kids like it).

 

They are open on the weekends in October for a small entrance fee.

 

They sometimes sell their own honey (since pumpkins are dependent upon bees for pollination) and other products.  It isn't quite the apple orchard I miss from my childhood but it is a nice way to support a local farm while giving my own kids some childhood memories.

 

 

National Honeybee Day

I just thought that you might like to know that this upcoming Saturday is National Honeybee Day.

Did you know that?

You should go celebrate at Native Nurseries with the Apalachee Beekeepers Association

Native Nurseries is a great place to get native plants as well as locally grown herb plants and vegetable plants.  They also sell non GMO seeds.  The staff there is very knowledgible and helpful.

The ABA has been very helpful with my quest to become a beekeeper.

It isn't going that well though.  You can learn a lot but the hive is a complex system and there are constant threats there.  I may just end up purchasing local honey from all of our fabulous beekeepers in the area.

A Stop by Dakotah Winery

When we travel we love to stop at Florida wineries to sample and purchase their wines.  Of course the closest winery to Tallahassee is the Monticello Winery but when we travel we like to use this site to find wineries along the way.  There are also green road signs with grapes on them to help you find the wineries.  We have come across a few surprises that way.

When we travel to Tampa to visit relatives we like to stop by the Dakotah Winery in Chiefland.

They have a very pretty facility

The inside has a gift shop and a wine tasting bar.  They have free tastings of their wines and muscadine grape juice.  Some of their wines are from grape juice shipped in from California but they also make muscadine wines that are from local grapes as well as a blueberry wine that also often comes from a local source.  If buying wines from locally grown sources is important to you, be sure to ask questions during the tasting.  We bought a bottle of their Carlos, their Blush and their Noble wine and an extra bottle as a hostess gift.

The back patio overshadows a koi pond where the kids can feed the fish and grapes hang overhead

There is also an adorable pavilion with tables

If you are ever traveling through Chiefland on Highway 19  be sure to stop by!

Chanterelles Everywhere!

About a month ago my husband brought home a bag of chanterelles that he had won in the raffle at the North Florida Brewers League meeting.  I knew that some of the home brewers were foodies and locavores and I was really excited about this special treat (maybe even more excited than my husband was about winning all the beer that came with it).  So I set about looking up information on chanterelles and how to cook them.  We ate them with chopped onions in a creamy sauce served with orzo pasta.

About a week later I was so excited when we found these in the yard:

They looked just like the ones my husband brought home.  But I had to be sure and look them up.  There are two species that are very similar.  One is the Jack-o-lantern (Omphalotus sp.) and the other is the false chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca).  I needed to make sure that the ones I had found were true chanterelles.  This website was really helpful.  I think the fact that I am a biologist also helps me with identification.  It is definitely important to make sure you know what you are doing before collecting and eating wild mushrooms. 

Pretty soon it became apparent that chanterelles are everywhere in Tallahassee right now.  Two of my facebook friends mentioned finding them in their yards.  I started seeing them all over the neighborhood.  They were in neighbors yards though so I wasn't about to trespass and steal their gourmet mushrooms.

However, we also have lots of woodsy green space in this neighborhood.  Look what I found this morning while on a walk!

This time we ate them with chicken and rice.  I read that they should be paired with a dry red wine (such as Pinot Noir) but all we had was a semi-sweet Noble from Dakotah Winery and we liked that pairing.

Chanterelles are in season in the east from July through September.  Patches of mushrooms can be reharvested about every three weeks during this time, if you are careful not to disturb the soil too much.  I look forward to trying more chanterelle recipes.