Strawberry Jam Making Class

May 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

This morning I attended a Canning Class at The Springs Farm Market taught by Beth Vanderwalker. Beth grew up on a farm wherethey grew/raised all their own food and she has a wealth of knowledge. I’ve done all sorts of things in the kitchen, but never canning. Canning is something I’ve been a little hesitant to do on my own, not fully trusting a recipe to guide me through.

Beth walked us through her strawberry jam recipe, giving lots of useful tips throughout the process. She had a variety of foods for us to munch on during the class including fresh bread with strawberry jam, enormous chocolate covered strawberries, and strawberry smoothies.

Let me tell you- Beth’s strawberry jam is better than any I’ve ever had before. Not sure I’ll ever be able to settle for store bought jam again. And she sent us each home with a jar of jam.

One of the ladies at the class shared a useful strawberry tip. For the most concentrated flavor, it’s best to not buy your strawberries after a rain. I did not know that.

Thanks to Beth’s class, I’m ready to start canning away. Beth hopes to offer an evening Canning Class sometime soon. Look for information on The Peach Stand’s website or Facebook Page. This is a class you do not want to miss. Not only will you be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor (no pun intended) all year long, but jams make fabulous teacher gifts and new neighbor gifts. Really when you think about it, everyone appreciates  a homemade gift.

On the subject of strawberries, The Strawberry Festival begins tonight with Pick and Flick from 6-9:30 pm on Springfield Parkway across from Nation Ford High School. Donnie Honeycutt will be performing and there will be local food vendors on hand.

Hayrides and a free movie, Happy Feet Too, on the Big Screen starting at dusk. Bring a blanket and be prepared for some family fun. The weather should be perfect.

Sponsored by Crescent Resources.

Filed Under: Local Farms, Things To Do Tagged With: ,

Bosky Acres Soap Making Class

April 18, 2012 By 1 Comment

This sounds like such a fun thing to do! Bosky Acres is having a goat milk soap making class this Saturday (April 21) from 10am-2pm. Bosky Acres is a family run goat farm that produces the most amazing fresh, unripened goat cheese. Their goat cheese is sold locally at The Peach Stand, The Matthews Farmers Market, and The Waxhaw Farmers Market. Read Fort Mill SC Living’s previous post on Bosky Acres here.

During this hands-on class, you will learn how to milk a goat and make goat milk soap the old-fashioned way. Cost for the class is $40 per person and space is limited. To register email info@boskyacres.com.

Filed Under: Local Farms, Things To Do Tagged With: ,

Bush-n-Vine Spring CSA

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Signing up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) is a great way not only to ensure that you get your fruit and vegetable requirements but also to expose your family to produce that might not normally find its way into your cart at the grocery store. In recent years, Community Supported Agriculture has become a great way for consumers to buy local, seasonal produce (and sometimes meats, eggs, honey, and cheeses) directly from the farmer. CSA’s benefit farmers because they put money in the farmer’s pocket before the crops are harvested (payment for a CSA is in advance).

The Bush-n-Vine Farm, located in York,SC is one local farm offering a spring, 2 summer, and a fall CSA. The Bush-n-Vine Farm is run by the Hall family and was started by Bob Hall in 1979. We used to live down the road from the farm and I really miss stopping by their produce stand. The Bush-n-Vine is well-known for their strawberries, but they grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

Sign ups for the Spring CSA end March 1. A downloadable form can be found here. The spring CSA lasts for 7 weeks, from April 10th to May 25th. Each week you get a box filled with just picked produce. Spring fruits and vegetables include strawberries, broccoli, kale , lettuce, cabbage, and sweet potatoes.

Three area pick up locations:

  • York at the Bush-n-Vine Farm on Highway 321 (Wednesdays)
  • Rock Hill- Ebenezer Road across from KFC (Thursday pick-up)
  • Lake Wylie- in Village Harbor Shopping Center in front of Christopher’s (Tuesday pick-up)

Pricing

Small Share- $150 (feeds 2-3 people)

Medium Share- $220 (feeds 3-4 people)

Large Share- $290 (feeds 5-6 people)

Don’t forget – Deadline is March 1.

Filed Under: Local Farms Tagged With: , , ,

Chorizo, Butternut Squash, and Kale Burrito

November 3, 2011 By 5 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased some chorizo at the Matthews Farmers Market from Grateful Growers. Grateful Growers is a wonderful local farm located in eastern Lincoln County. They operate both the Harvest Moon Grille Food Truck and the Harvest Moon Grille at the Dunhill in Charlotte. The primary focus of their 10 acre farm is raising Tamworth Hogs. Grateful Grower’s animals are hormone and antibiotic-free and graze freely in pastures. Their meats contain no fillers, preservatives, nitrates, or MSG. You can find their meats at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market on Saturdays and the Matthews Farmers Market. Reids Fine Foods also carries a selection of Grateful Grower’s products.

When I asked about cooking suggestions for chorizo, the lady from Grateful Growers suggested cooking it with butternut squash. So I did. And it was wonderful. Their chorizo is deliciously spiced with a much more complex flavor than the chorizo available at the grocery store. It has some heat, but also contains some non-hot spices. There’s something like allspice or maybe cinnamon in it that creates a wonderful fall-like flavor. The sweetness of the butternut squash is a nice complement to the chorizo. I threw in some kale for no other reason than I’m trying to cook more with it.

Chorizo, Butternut Squash, and Kale Burrito

  • 1 lb chorizo
  • 1 butternut squash, cut into 1/2 inch dice
  • 1 bunch of Kale, rinsed and ripped into pieces, discard large stems
  • olive oil
  • 1 cup rice, cooked
  • 4 burrito size flour tortillas

How to Do it

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. While oven heats, brown chorizo in a large nonstick skillet until cooked through. Remove from heat until squash is ready.
  3. Place squash on baking sheet and drizzle with oil and season with salt. Roast for 15 – 20 minutes, stirring halfway through.
  4. Once squash is done, heat chorizo over medium heat and add kale. Stir to help kale wilt down evenly. If you want the kale to retain some crunch, only cook for a  minute or two. Add in butternut squash and remove from heat.
  5. Place 1/4 cup of rice on each tortilla (warm the tortillas in the microwave to make more pliable) and add desired amount of chorizo mixture. Roll up tortillas burrito-style.

Yield: 4 servings

Filed Under: Local Farms, Recipes Tagged With: ,

Cooking Fresh Pumpkin Pasta

October 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

Last Saturday I picked up some gorgeous fresh pumpkin pasta at the Atherton Market in Charlotte. If you’ve never been to Atherton Market before, it’s a must see. It’s located in the old trolley storage building on South Blvd in the heart of the Southend. It’s a year round farmers market type place open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays – but Saturday is really the day to go. You will find the most vendors on Saturday and the people watching is pretty good too. There aren’t a huge number of vendors, but the ones who are here have really awesome products.

Atherton market is very dog friendly

One of the vendors, Rio Bertolini’s, sells a vast array of fresh pasta. They are located in Charleston, SC and their core business is producing fresh pasta for local restaurants, but they also sell at a few farmers markets. I had a hard time choosing a flavor, they were all so beautiful. Flavors included saffron, squid ink, roasted red pepper, beet, and chestnut.

They were doing a special- 1 lb of pasta and a container of sauce for $10. There were only 2 types of sauces, both red. I didn’t think a red sauce was the way to go with pumpkin, so I cooked up some boxed linguine for the tomato sauce. It was more kid friendly that way too. For the pumpkin pasta, I made a browned butter sauce to which I added another fantastic find at the Atherton Market, locally grown shiitake mushrooms. The pasta didn’t have as much flavor as I had hoped, but it was good. I probably should have kicked up the flavor of the sauce a little by adding a shallot – I love shallots and mushrooms together. I had wanted to add some fresh sage to the browned butter, but I couldn’t find any at the grocery store, so I had to use parsley instead – bummer! Am I the only one who experiences not finding something at the grocery store practically every time I go? Yet when the cashier does her mandatory, “DId you find everything you were looking for?”, I always paste a fake smile on my face and say “yes”.

Pumpkin Pasta with Browned Butter, Walnuts, and Shiitake Mushrooms

I love it when farmers create a posterboard showcasing their business and products.

I have never seen mushrooms this beautiful. They were huge! These mushrooms were grown by Sharonview Farm in Monroe, NC.  The vendor (or vendress I should say) told me they had just harvested 200 pounds. They are sold for $10 a pound but BEWARE- you will never be satisfied with grocery store shiitakes again.

In North Carolina, shiitake mushrooms grow well on red and white oak logs, as well as sweet gum logs. Apparently they grow fairly easily and are a pretty hands-off crop to grow. It is vital however to keep log moisture content above 35% which I guess can be difficult to do in a drought.

Innoculation is done in the early spring during which holes are drilled in the logs and filled with shiitake spawn which can be ordered from several sources. The holes are then sealed with wax to prevent drying. Then it’s just a waiting game during which attempts should be made to make the environment as hospitable as possible to shiitake and as inhospitable as possible to other types of fungi.

I think I may have found a project for next year.

Do you have any experience growing mushrooms?

Filed Under: Farmer Markets, Local Farms Tagged With: , , ,

My favorite Asian Chicken Salad

October 14, 2011 By 3 Comments

Saturday we stopped by the Matthews Farmers Market after a morning run with our Couch to 5k group. I had wanted to purchase some baby ginger grown by Windcrest Farms in Monroe, NC, but they had sold out. Windcrest Farms, a 14 acre certified organic farm, is the only farm in the area that I am aware of growing ginger and this is their first harvest. They started back in March with 15 pounds of seed brought in from Hawaii. I don’t know much about the process of growing ginger, but I’d like to learn more.

The ginger was gone, but I didn’t leave empty-handed. I bought some lovely lettuce seedlings which I have since planted in 2 pots on my back porch. Salad greens are easy to grow in containers, even for the novice gardener and they thrive in the cooler weather of the fall and spring.

 

Below is my favorite recipe for Asian Chicken Salad taken from my favorite salad cookbook, Simply Salads by Jennifer Chandler. When I finally get my hands on that baby ginger, I’m going to use it in the dressing for this salad.

Chinese Chicken Salad

  • 1/2 cup Peanut Dressing (recipe follows)
  • 1/2 cup fresh snow peas, stems cut off and cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 bag spring salad mix or bowl full of greens from your garden
  • 2 carrots, peeled and grated
  • 1/4 cup sliced green onions
  • 1/4 cup cilantro leaves
  • 1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts
  • 2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
  1. Bring a few cups of water to boil in medium pot. Add pinch of salt and snow peas and cook until just starting to get tender, about 1 minute. Drain and shock in ice water to stop cooking. (I’m usually too lazy to do this step- doesn’t really affect anything except the color). Drain again and place in salad bowl.
  2. Add lettuce greens, carrots, green onions, cilantro, peanuts, and chicken. Toss to evenly distribute ingredients.
  3. Add dressing and toss.

Yield- 4 servings

Peanut Dressing

  • 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
  • 2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • Pinch red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Whisk together all ingredients except canola oil.
  2. Slowly add canola oil while stirring constantly with whisk.

Yield: 1 cup

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Filed Under: Local Farms, Recipes Tagged With: ,