Corn Bread Variations

Buttermilk Corn Bread

2 cups cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon bacon fat or butter

Preheat oven to 375. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Pour in the buttermilk and honey and beat in the eggs. Melt the fat in a cast-iron skillet. Pour in the batter and bake in the skillet for 20 to 25 minutes, until risen and browned.

Cakey Corn Bread

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
1 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons honey
2 eggs
1 cup milk
¼ cup butter or lard

Mix together the dry ingredients. Add honey, eggs, milk, and fat. Beat until just smooth. Pour into greased 9x9x2 pan. Bake at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes.

Corn Griddle Cakes

Melt a couple tablespoons of fat in a cast-iron skillet. Mix cornmeal and a bit of salt with enough honey and water to make a sloppy batter. Spoon into hot fat and cook on one side until solid enough to flip. Cook on other side until done.

Why Heirlooms?

   We probably ought to begin by explaining some terminology.  An heirloom plant variety is a variety that you can save seed from, plant it, and get essentially the same thing again generation after generation.  The alternative is a hybrid variety, which if you were to save seed from, you'd get something not quite the same as the previous generation: maybe a different color or shape, often less productive, probably a different taste or texture, etc.  So, for example, the seed of an heirloom 'German Johnson' tomato should yield another 'German Johnson,' but the seed of a 'betterboy' (which is a hybrid) would yield a tomato that might more closely resemble one or another of the parent lines that were crossed to yield the 'betterboy' or some very different cross.  So the most basic thing to understand is that for the gardener or farmer growing hybrid plants means going back to the seed company to buy more seed every year, whereas with heirlooms there's the potential to isolate a variety (from other varieties of the same species it might cross with) and save seed to replant.
   We grow pretty much exclusively heirlooms (or more accurately “open-pollinated” varieties which includes all heirlooms.)  Even those crops that are almost always hybrid, like corn, onions, broccoli, bell peppers... even with those crops we're growing heirlooms instead.  So why grow heirlooms?  There are a lot of little reasons.  Heirloom varieties were often bred for taste; modern hybrids are often bred more narrowly for productivity or traits like suitability to picking under-ripe and shipping long distances.  Heirloom varieties are often more suitable to simple organic growing methods; modern hybrids are often bred specifically for use with heavy applications of purchased fertilizers, intensive irrigation, and other chemicals and plastics.  Of course, heirloom varieties also allow us to save a lot of our own seed, which means we can be more self-sufficient and grow a product with more local value.  Saving our own seed means we don't have to worry about buying seed that might come treated with chemicals we don't want to use.  It means we can grow varieties that originally came from 50 different sources without having to pay separate shipping and handling to 50 different seed companies every year, because if we can save our own seed we only need to get it here once, so overall it means that we can grow a greater diversity than we could otherwise.  And when we save seed from an eggplant, instead of a packet with 30 seeds, we have 10,000 seeds, which means we can share with friends and neighbors and other farmers, and they can often share with us.  We wrote last week about the field peas that came from Eric's great uncle.  Another pea variety came from friends at church and another variety from a customer.  We're growing yacons and roselle (wonderful crops that we didn't even know about), sweet potatoes and tomatoes from friends in Rutherford County, another tomato from Melissa's mom, rhubarb and field corn from Eric's former workmate in the Brushy Mountains, beans and butterbeans from a farmers' market customer, peanuts from a friend in Virginia peanut country, etc., etc.  Many of these seeds came with working knowledge of how to grow them.  What all this amounts to is independence: heirlooms mean the potential to eat the kinds of crops and to farm in ways that aren't determined by corporate profitability.  And as much as anything, what we want to offer to you is a real alternative to the corporate food system.

Summer peas

  On these late summer afternoons we've been retreating to the house to shell peas.  We each take a bowl, even the kids, and start working on the pile in the middle of the table.  A few summers ago we visited a neighbor with a homemade sheller; in a half hour his machine shelled out the couple bushels we'd brought along.  We haven't been able to talk him into making a similar sheller for us.  But an excuse to sit down in front of the fan (and even watch a movie!) when it's hot outside isn't so bad.  Then come winter, we'll pull peas out of the freezer or pour them out of a can and enjoy the summer's work.
  I'd never had "peas" growing up.  I'm not even sure the related dry black-eyed pea made it on our table.  Soon after moving to North Carolina, though, Eric's great aunt and uncle offered me a big bowl of little green peas grown in their garden.  I was hooked.  His great Uncle Nick sent us home with seed and we've been growing them since, saving seed every year to keep the family seed going.
  But we haven't stopped there.  We've become pea collectors, always curious and ready to try another variety.  There is an incredible number of varieties with each corner of the South having a favorite pea and many families having seed handed down from generation to generation.  This year we're growing pink-eye purple hulls, strawberry crowders, red rippers, colossals, and “Nick's peas.”  (“Crowders,” by the way, are so called because they're closer together in the pod than other field peas.)
  Of course one problem with growing so much variety is that it complicates seed saving.  Peas need one or two hundred feet of isolation distance to come true. To meet this challenge we separate varieties we want to save seed from in separate gardens and harvest enough seed for multiple years.  Saving pea seed is simple.  Just let the pods go until they are completely dry on the plant.  Then on a hot dry day harvest them into a feed sack and thresh with a baseball bat like we did with the dry beans.  Put them in a glass jar and freeze them to make sure any bugs are dead.  If there's room, just keep the jar in the freezer.
  In the garden, peas are space hogs.  It takes a large area to grow enough to have some to put up.  That said, we think of our pea plantings as cover crops.  They are legumes that add nitrogen to the soil.  And fairly quickly, they vine to completely cover the soil surface and outcompete weeds.  So it's a cover crop that's edible and profitable to grow.  Peas are also fairly quick, 60-90 days depending on the variety.  They can be planted any time from early May to late July.  There are hardly any other crops that can be planted mid-summer and withstand the heat and dry spells and mature a crop before it gets too cold like peas will.  They have few pests and diseases aren't a problem.
  Harvesting the peas can be easy or challenging.  Some varieties have peas that stick straight up above the canopy while others hide under the leaves.  The easiest to harvest are ones that have a colored hull when they are ready, like pink eye purple hulls.  There is actually good debate about when a pea is ready to harvest.  Some folks like them in the "green" stage for a fresh vegetable taste.  These are not quite so easy to shell as when the pea has just started to dry down a little.  We usually pick a bit at both stages and if there are enough peas, separate them out as we shell.
  Peas are simple to prepare.  Simply boil in salt water (or with some pork product) until soft.  Then drain and add some butter.  We also enjoy them cold in a summer salad mixed with corn, peppers, tomatoes and onions.  They are great in soups, too.
  The pea season should last as long as it stays warm.  If you happen to stop by the farm some hot afternoon, we'll find an extra bowl for you.

Melon Ice Cream

   It's melon season and it's also ice cream season.  So how about melon ice cream?  Why not.  We even found a recipe in an ice cream cookbook that inspired us.  Here's our version, approved by Hattie.

2 cups melon puree

2 cups cream or mix of cream and milk

7.5 oz honey

  Cut one melon in half.  Remove seeds and peel; cut into chunks.  Using an immersion blender or blender, puree.  Measure out two cups.  Put the rest in the freezer to use another time for ice cream or for making smoothies.  Add the dairy and the honey.  Puree again to make sure it is all well blended.  Thoroughly chill before freezing according to your ice cream maker.
  Next on the agenda - watermelon popsicles.

2011 Tomato Blind Taste Test Results

    We conducted our annual blind taste test of our tomato varieties this past Tuesday.  We compared 15 varieties of paste and slicing type tomatoes including a couple small varieties that would probably better be described as salad size.  We left the cherry/grape tomatoes for a separate tasting to do later.  In addition to Eric and Melissa, Nora took part for the first time this year, and our two visitors took part, too, so we had 5 tasters altogether.  The tasters were blindfolded and asked to score each tomato with a number between 1 and 10, then each taster's 4 highest scored tomatoes were tasted again and ranked from 1 to 4.  A new variety for us this year scored the most #1 rankings (from Nora and both of our visitors): 'Thai pink,' a small, pink, oval tomato about the size of a very small egg.  The other #1 rankings went to 'San Marzano redorta' (the banana pepper shaped paste variety) which also scored a #3 ranking and 'Amish paste' (the red "oxheart" variety) which also scored a #3 and a #4 ranking.  'Amish paste' has the most #1 rankings from the last 8 years total. 'Mr. Stripey' scored two #2 rankings this year.  'White queen' and 'German Johnson' each scored a #2 ranking.  'Azoychka' (the bright yellow variety), 'vine peach,' and 'Peron sprayless' (the medium-large regular round-shaped red tomato) each scored a #3 ranking.  One of these years we're going to invite you all up for a taste test, but you'll have to do your own this year.  You might be surprised what you really like best when you're blindfolded.  One of our visitors discovered that she really likes the white/yellow varieties, which she never would have bought before.  And we were all very impressed with the odd little 'Thai pink.'

Processing tomatoes

   It's peak tomato season, and today the kitchen was a furnace of tomato processing (making the heat outside not feel so bad).  There were tomatoes roasting in the oven, a crock pot simmering sauce, and two water bath canners going, full of whole canned tomatoes.  Canned jars are now cooling on the counter filled with the colorful array of the tomato rainbow.  But the effort of capturing this peak tomato flavor will be well worth it for all the other nine to ten months, when we can open a jar of tomatoes and taste summer.
   Here's a quick preview of how we preserve:
   For most of our tomato processing, we prefer to use the "paste type" San Marzano redortas.  As our tomato patch is as much for ourselves as it is for you, we grow about seven times as many of the San Marzanos as our average, far more than any other variety, and this despite the fact that they're poor sellers.  With their almost solid flesh and their low seed and juice content, we think they're the perfect type for canning whole, for roasting, for making sauce or paste or ketchup, for drying, for salsa...  But as we wind up with cracked tomatoes and extras of every variety, they all find a preserving purpose.  We mostly use the slicing  types for juice -- the ripe-green or the cherry tomatoes make really good, out-of-the-ordinary juice -- but roasting is a quick way to process tomatoes, so we'll use any varieties for additional roasting tomatoes, too.
   The most basic way we preserve tomatoes is to can them whole.  Simply drop the whole tomato (as is) into boiling water for about 30 seconds.  You'll see the skin start to crack.  Remove the tomatoes and cool in cold water.  At this point, the skin will easily slip off.  Then we core them and put them in jars.  We can them as recommended by the Ball Book of Canning in their own juice in a water bath for 1 hour and 25 minutes.  Instead of canning, these whole peeled tomatoes could easily be slipped into a freezer bag and frozen.
   A couple years ago, we were introduced to roasting tomatoes, and it has changed the way we enjoy tomatoes.  We'll load a couple cookie sheets with mixed tomatoes cut into about one inch pieces.  Then we might throw on some garlic or quartered onions, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with some salt.  Then we'll roast them at 325 for about an hour or until the pieces are concentrated but not burned.  At this point we might enjoy them as an appetizer with bread or cheese, or we'll put them as is in jars and can or freeze.  Or we'll puree them together with the onions and whatever else we added for a thick sauce, then run them through a food mill to take out the seeds.  It's thick and has a wonderful roasted tomato flavor.  Sometimes we add herbs and more garlic and onions.  Then we'll can or freeze the sauce.
   Drying tomatoes is a great way to concentrate tomato flavor and store it in a really small space.  We run several loads in our dehydrator then store the pieces in the freezer just in case they didn't get dry enough.  Then we'll pull them out as we need for meat or bean dishes.
   We make a lot of juice which we really relish in late winter and early spring.  Simply cut off any bad spots from the tomato then quarter, put in a large pot and cook until soft.  We have a small hand food mill we'll then run it through to get out the seeds and peel or we have a larger Victorio strainer that is useful for large quantities.  We especially enjoy separating the different colored tomatoes to end up with the different colored juices.
   And finally we make salsa.  This is basically chopped tomatoes, peppers and onions with some vinegar added.  Cilantro, of course, is a normal addition, but cilantro is a cool season crop, so we can our salsa without cilantro and then add fresh, chopped cilantro in the fall, early winter, or spring as we enjoy it.
   We'll probably have another big day or two of tomato processing in the next week (maybe two), so if you'd like to come help out and learn firsthand how we preserve our tomatoes, let us know, give us your phone number, and if we can plan ahead well enough, we'll get in touch and invite you to spend some time in our very hot kitchen with us!

Potato and onion harvest

Harvesting potatoes was a community event this year.  Especially with the record harvest this year, we were grateful for the help.  Here is Steve plowing out the taters.

We even had some young people join in the pickup.

Lea, our current WWOOFer from France picked up pounds and pounds of them.

Piles of Kennebecs and Red Pontiac in an outbuilding.

Melissa pulling our Yellow of Parma onions.

A pickup full of onions.  Next step, the outbuildings to hang them cure.