Attend the INCA Conference!

Just wanted to give all you Iowans (and even southern Minnesotans) a heads up about the upcoming INCA (Iowa Network for Community Agriculture) 14th Annual Local Foods Conference. It will be held Saturday, February 7 in Clear Lake.

I won't be able to make the Saturday morning sessions - I've got a volleyball tournament to be at - but on Saturday afternoon I'll be facilitating a session with Chef Kurt Michael Friese of Iowa City's Devotay entitled "What's So Big About Local". He's also the featured guest at the Friday evening Slow Food event. (I do plan to attend the Friday afternoon session and evening Slow Food event.)

There's something for everyone - producer and consumer alike - at this conference. Check out the links below for event and session details. I know you'll find something of interest! (And the Saturday potluck lunch is fab. u. lous.)

Conference overview: click here

Program details & events: click here

Registration: click here

Sporadic

Sorry for the sporadic posting around here, but there's been a lot of this...


Olivia on the right with the ball

and a lot of this...


Madeline in the middle, on defense

The girls, they love their sports. And I love that concession stand popcorn.

Today was Madeline's last game. Olivia's got a couple of months hiatus before her last tournament. So regular posting may resume.

Or not...winter volleyball league started Sunday :)

There's nothing like hoarfrost

to fire up my photo-snapping mojo.

Isn't this spectacular?


The creek was beautiful.


I loved the contrast of the red gate against all that white.


Even common weeds turn magical.






The grand oak tree at the end of our drive.



3 years ago:

The picture of health

2 years ago:

Winter cows

Winter ducks

1 year ago:

Weather fatalities

Mudroom

Another one bites the dust

How to Cook : Ham & Cabbage Soup

What is it about peeling and dicing potatoes that calms me, soothes me, centers me?



What is it about making something so simple as soup?



Some humble vegetables, some chicken bones boiled in water to make broth, some salty ham...



Something magic happens when you combine these simple things...a tonic for the soul.


Ham & Cabbage Soup

1 onion, diced
3 potatoes, peeled & diced
2 carrots, peeled & diced
4 cups shredded cabbage
2 cups water
2 cups chicken broth
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 lb. diced ham

Combine all ingredients in stock pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat and simmer 30 to 60 minutes or until vegetables are cooked through. Serves 4-6.

NOTES:
* I doubled the recipe, and then some. I used a whole head of cabbage, which I'm sure was more than 8 cups. And I used 3/4# of ham.

* So I just added equal parts water and chicken broth until it barely covered the vegetables. The cabbage will give off some water, making the final product more "soup-y".

* I used a ham steak, instead of leftover regular ham.


3 years ago:

Practical Farmers of Iowa conference

Easter eggers

Walk the line

2 years ago:

Mist rising at sunset

Salmon Faverolle

1 year ago:

Chicken still life

Munch Munch

Therapy

There's nothing like chicks for some mid-winter therapy! The peeping, the pecking, the scurrying, the napping. The cuteness! These are Gold Star pullets from Hoovers Hatchery. 52 of them, that should be laying by June - in time for farmers market.



Our garage has a heated floor, but when I turned up the thermostat early this morning nothing happened. The temperature outside was 25 below, the room temperature was about 42 above. Uh oh. I like the room temperature to be about 60.

I picked up a space heater, and of course there's a couple of heat lamps going. They seem quite comfortable. I got the temp up to almost 60, but this evening it's started to drop. Just crossing my fingers that it doesn't drop too much tonight. Matt just dropped Madeline off at a friend's and the car says its 30 below.


4 years ago:

Back in school

2 years ago:

Whatch you lookin' at?

1 year ago:

How to Cook : Ham

Same story, different day

Every day this week.

Snow. Wind. Cold. School started late, or let out early, or cancelled.

Repeat tomorrow, except colder. Actual temperatures of 25 below, wind chills of 50 below in the morning.

Heck of a day to bring home 50 day-old chicks, but what are you gonna do?


1 year ago:

On the farm 01.14.08

Heart

Some days you take your smiles where you can. As I walked by this upstairs window I noticed a lollipop heart in the snow, "drawn" there by Ava on one of her rounds.


1 year ago:

Hydrant

On the farm 01.13.08

Olive bread

Help! The Beatles have invaded my bread!

With a blizzard raging outside, it seemed like a good time to talk about warm, yummy bread. Using the same dough I started with here and here, I tried the book's olive bread variation.

You follow the same steps, hacking off a hunk of dough approximately 1 pound from the master batch of dough. For olive bread you then need to press the dough out flat, and then stud it with about 1/4 cup halved black olives. I think in the future I would cut them up into quarters or even chop them smaller. That way each bite of bread would have some olive in it, rather than random hunks of olive here and there in the bread.



Then roll up the bread the long way.



Fold the ends in towards each other.



Flip over and then rotate the dough, pulling the sides down and underneath as you go just as in the original recipe to form a round loaf.

I also tried the book's bean dip recipe, which includes white beans, lots of garlic...


and roasted red peppers, among other things.


I wish I could make a scratch-n-sniff on your screen of the wonderful smell in my kitchen, between the fresh garlic, the bread baking, and the red pepper strips grilling! The book includes quite a few recipes that make good accompaniments to the breads.

Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the finished project. But I ended up tearing the olive bread into hunks and serving them in a bread basket alongside the bean dip at my monthly bunco get-together.

I'll continue to post as I work my way through the recipes in the book. But at this point I would definitely recommend it! The basic recipe and technique are easily mastered, and the book contains so many great variations that you can keep your bread basket interesting all year long.




3 years ago:

Mmmm, bratwurst

1 year ago:

On the farm 01.12.08

Glare

Have I mentioned the ice? I guess I have. This is our driveway. Except now it's covered over with snow, and another blizzard is on deck for tomorrow - 4 inches of snow and 40mph winds. Wahoo.


3 years ago:

Sucky, sucky day

Us versus possum, Day 6

Victory is ours

2 years ago:

Last call

Another installment

Dog pile!

1 year ago:

On the farm 01.08.08

Hanky panky

On the farm 01.10.08

On the farm 01.11.08

How to Cook : Pork and Vegetable Soup

(and Bread : Round 1)

So before I get to the bread, let's talk about soup. This one is super easy. Last weekend I seasoned a couple of pork roasts with Greek seasoning and slow roasted them - probably 4 to 6 hours at 325 degrees. One roast I shredded for sandwiches. The other I cut into cubes.



If you're starting with an uncooked roast, you can cube it and then brown in a skillet with a couple tablespoons of oil. Then just toss it in the crockpot with a few diced carrots, a diced onion (or be lazy like me and use a handful of dehydrated onion), a can of diced tomatoes, 1/2 jar of salsa, equal parts frozen corn and green beans, a couple cups of water, beef bouillon granules, garlic, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low 8 hours.



Once the soup was going, it was time for the bread. The directions say to take your big batch of dough out of the refrigerator and cut off about a one pound piece.

Okay, a confession. The part I was most nervous about was hacking off a hunk of dough that was about one pound. I'm just not good at eyeballing. In junior high I did the long jump, and I could never eyeball that point where I should stop running and jump. Silly, right? But that's what you get when a computer programmer bakes.

Anyhoo, put your anal retentive tendencies aside and simply hack off a hunk of dough. Dust it with a little flour and shape it into a ball by pulling the sides down underneath of it. That will make the bottom all bunched up and bumpy, but it's okay. It will smooth out as it rises and bakes.



Then it's supposed to rise for 45 minutes, and a commenter yesterday pointed out that the authors' website says to let it rise more like an hour and a half.

Me? I let it rise something like 3 hours because I went back upstairs to work and promptly forgot about the bread. But it all turned out okay.

After the rise, I dusted it with rye flour and then slashed a tic tac toe pattern in the top with a serrated knife.



A 40-minute bake in a 450 degree oven and we had this:



The family loved it, and it went perfectly with this:



The only problem? I should have made 2 loaves. One wasn't enough for the 5 of us.

Tomorrow I'll eyeball another hunk of my batch of dough and use it to make olive bread. Stay tuned...

Pork & Vegetable Soup

2 pounds boneless pork roast, cubed
2 tablespoons oil
3 medium carrots, diced
1 onion, diced
16-oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
8 oz. salsa
2 cups water
1-1/2 cups frozen corn
1-1/2 cups frozen green beans
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp. beef bouillon
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper

Brown pork in oil. Add to crockpot with remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low 8 hours.

NOTES:
* I used a handful of dehydrated onion in place of the fresh onion
* I didn't have a can of tomatoes, so I used a 16-oz jar of salsa and 2 extra cups of water instead
* I didn't have any beef bouillon, so I just left it out and added a little extra salt
* I almost always use granulated garlic in place of fresh minced garlic because I'm lazy
* I cooked on high for 4 hours, instead of low for 8 hours.


1 year ago:

Fence

Head on over

On the farm 01.07.08

I mentioned before that I got some fun cookbooks for Christmas. Tonight I broke out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. For whatever reason, store-bought bread irritates me more than perhaps any other processed food. Not that we don't eat plenty of it, we certainly do. But you can see why this book intrigues me.

Homemade bread? In 5 minutes? Lay it on me.



The basic idea behind this book is that you make a big batch of dough, 3 or 4 loaves worth, at once. Then just tear off what you need each day, give it a quick shape and rise, and bake. Obviously, the total time is more than 5 minutes with rising and baking. But hands-on time is supposedly only 5 minutes.

I mixed up the "peasant loaf" dough tonight. After mixing (just mixing! no kneading!) it sits at room temp for a couple of hours, and then you just throw it in the refrigerator. So I mixed it up after supper, and will refrigerate it on my way to bed tonight.

Stay tuned...tomorrow I'll bake my first loaf, along with a pork soup that I'll share the recipe for. Yum!


3 years ago:

Drooling

1 year ago:

Marked

On the farm 01.06.08

Ice, ice baby

I stepped outside this afternoon to see what was going on around the farm that might be photo-worthy.

I didn't find much.



Everything is iced over and everybody is hunkered down just riding it out, trying to not to slip and fall.



At least the sunset was pretty.


3 years ago:

Us versus Possum, Day 2

1 year ago:

On the farm 01.05.08

Icing on the cake bale

The cornstalk bales aren't net wrapped, and have become encrusted in ice after the many storms we've had recently. Madeline delivered one to the butcher calves for bedding yesterday - in the midst of yet another(!) icing - and had to break it apart with the loader bucket for it to be of any use to them.


As soon as she started, one little calf came a-running. Calves are very curious things.


He decided to help her out with the bale, and soon there came another (and a duck)...


...and another...


...and another and another...


...until the whole fam damily was there (and the duck.) And then the rodeo began, with calves jumping and running, kicking up their heels and head butting the bale.


3 years ago:

Year in review (by Matt)

Book review (Simply in Season)

Commotion in the Coop

2 years ago:

What we did on New Year's Day (or why some people think we're crazy)

Tractor girl

Road ducks

1 year ago:

Still football season

On the farm 01.02.08

Oops I did it again

On the farm 01.03.08

On the farm 01.04.08

Happy 2009!

And we're back, after our little hiatus where we did this...



and this...



and some of this...



and this...



and some more of this...



And how did a landlocked farm family end up at the beach, you ask? We took a wonderful 10-day vacation and drove (yes, drove!) to south Texas to spend Christmas with Matt's brother and his family. Matt got to catch the final Dallas Cowboys game at Texas Stadium with his brother & nephews. We visited the Texas State Aquarium, the Padre Island National Seashore, and the USS Lexington. And best of all we enjoyed just hanging out as an extended family, celebrating Christmas together, playing some Wii, and eating a lot.

Of course you can't get away from the farm without someone to take your place. We're fortunate that my dad took care of things around here for us, especially considering the snowstorms, ice, and subzero temperatures he had to battle while we were gone! There's no one else we would have trusted things to (except my brother, but he's got enough on his plate.) Thank you, Dad!

Now that we have a new year, a new start, I hope to put a little more time into this blog again! Usually I'm one to relish the making of New Year's resolutions, but for some reason this year I don't have any clear-cut goals yet. Still ruminating on that for now.

But I got three (three!) really fun cookbooks for Christmas, among other things, so it's time to get busy in the kitchen. Food posts are some of my favorites to write here.

I hope you all had a blessed holiday, whichever one you celebrate, and wish all of you health & happiness in 2009!


3 years ago:

Happy 2006!

2 years ago:

Happy 2007!

1 year ago:

Happy 2008!

On the farm 01.01.08