Monday Recap: Marching In

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Now that March is here I am happy to say goodbye to February. It has been a dreary, cold and disagreeable month, and I am thinking March could only be an improvement! It will be a busy month for me with lots of seed starting activities, but it is one of my favorite times of year. The new garden is still full of hope and promise, and any problems are far, far away. I think most gardeners are optimists at heart, and I know I am.

Thai Rai Kaw Tok squash

Thai Rai Kaw Tok squash

Last week I cooked up another of the Thai Rai Kaw Tok winter squash. The one in the above photo weighed a little over six pounds, and was almost too pretty to cut up and eat. This time I cut about one third of it into thick slices, skinned it then cut into chunks. I used the chunks in a Squash and Tofu Curry recipe from Food52. Of course I modified the recipe to use the Thai squash instead of Kabocha, and it turned out to be a real keeper.

peeled Thai squash for curry

peeled Thai squash for curry

I had been craving a Thai style curry dish, and this one fit the bill. The tofu, squash, and a chopped red bell pepper are simmered in coconut milk and broth that has been seasoned with onions, garlic and curry paste. I used green curry paste instead of the red the recipe called for, plus added a bit of chopped cilantro near the end of the cooking time. Once again, cilantro was the only fresh harvest of the week, and I am happy to have this fall planting hanging on in the greenhouse. I know it will bolt soon, but until then we will enjoy it for sure. While I am a big fan of whole grains, I served up this curry over a fragrant Thai white jasmine rice.

Thai Squash and Tofu Curry

Thai Squash and Tofu Curry

Of course there was still more than half of the squash left, so I baked it and made it into puree. Some of that puree went into a Black Bottom Pumpkin Cake, and the rest went into the freezer. The only negative I can think of for these squash is that they are big! But it is not a bad ‘problem’ to have, and we have lots of uses for the puree after freezing. Maybe there will be a pumpkin soap in our future, who knows? I made the cake from whole wheat flour, and half of the batter has some cocoa added for the black bottom part.

Black Bottom Pumpkin Cake

Black Bottom Pumpkin Cake

I also cooked up the 2014 harvest of dried Good Mother Stallard beans. I usually use them much like a would a borlotti or cranberry bean, and this batch wound up in some Pasta e Fagioli we cooked up last week. I love how they hold their shape after cooking, plus they have such a rich flavor. I think they will be my next featured bean, after I do a bit more research on them.

Paste e Fagioli with Good Mother Stallard beans

Paste e Fagioli with Good Mother Stallard beans

Last week had me working on an article for Love IT! EVV, which is a quarterly online magazine about the local area. I wrote a piece on fall gardening for the Fall 2014 issue, and I guess I must have done okay because they asked me to do another one for the Spring 2015 issue. This time I submitted an article on growing salad greens in containers. I love writing, and while this isn’t a paying gig it’s a good way to sharpen my skills. And it’s another avenue to spread my passion about growing food. It also prompted me to update the photo of me I use for my online presence. It was taken last fall, before I grew my beard back in for the winter.

growing lettuce in a salad box

growing lettuce in a salad box

I hope you have enjoyed a look at what’s happening here. To see what others are harvesting and cooking up, visit Daphne’s Dandelions where Daphne hosts Harvest Mondays. I’

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Homemade: Coffee Lip Balm

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Dave @ HappyAcres

When I was quite young, my parents would put a little coffee in my breakfast milk to let me think I was drinking coffee with them. Of course it was really just coffee-colored milk, but I didn’t know any better. When I got older, I graduated on to the real thing and I’ve been drinking it ever since. So it’s only natural that I would like a coffee flavored lip balm. With only three ingredients, this lip balm is a fun way to protect your lips.

coffee lip balm

coffee lip balm

One of the three ingredients takes a little preparation in advance. You see, the coffee flavor in this lip balm comes from coffee infused oil. To make that, I add equal parts ground coffee and coconut oil to a crock pot and heat it on low for a couple of hours. You can use other oils too, like olive or sweet almond, but coconut is my current favorite for this recipe. Be sure and use a good quality coffee, one that you like to drink, though it doesn’t need to be the most expensive coffee you can buy.

infusing ground coffee in coconut oil

infusing ground coffee in coconut oil

For instance, I used a medium roast Columbian decaf coffee for the batch in the above photo because that’s what I happened to have on hand, and it worked well. For a stronger flavor you can use a darker roast coffee, or else let it infuse for a longer period of time. I do not recommend using instant coffee, and I have never tried it in this recipe. After infusing, the oil needs to be strained to remove the coffee grounds, or else you will wind up with a very gritty lip balm. Click here for more info about the infusing and straining process. As you can see in the below photo, the coffee turns the coconut oil a medium dark shade of brown that looks lighter if the oil solidifies. Now that we have the coffee infused oil, it’s time to make some lip balm!

solidified coffee infused coconut oil

solidified coffee infused coconut oil

Along with the oil, you need beeswax and either cocoa butter or shea butter. Since we have a beehive here at Happy Acres, we use the beeswax that our hardworking honeybees make. It usually winds up in a big chunk or block after we melt it in our solar wax melter. But if you buy beeswax, you can get it in little round pieces called pastilles, which are much easier to melt than the big chunks. Cocoa butter or shea butter both work well in this recipe, but for a real treat try using raw cocoa butter. That makes for a heavenly flavor and aroma combo of coffee and chocolate – two of my favorite things for sure! The shea butter has a neutral smell if you don’t want to add the cocoa factor.

ingredients for coffee lip balm

ingredients for coffee lip balm

You need to melt the beeswax, cocoa or shea butter, and coconut oil in a double boiler type setup on the stove top. You can also use the microwave to do the melting. Either way, the ingredients need to be liquid and well combined. I used a small glass Pyrex measuring cup, set in a pan of gently boiling water. I stirred the ingredients with a bamboo skewer until melted (the beeswax will be the last thing to melt). I usually pour the finished product into twist-up lip balm tubes or little metal tins. Any clean, small container with a lid will do. Pour it while still liquid and then let cool thoroughly before using.

melting the ingredients for coffee lip balm

melting the ingredients for coffee lip balm

You can easily size the recipe to fit the container(s) you have. For example, the oval tubes I use each hold .15 oz/4.25g. I like to work in grams for the small amount I usually make, so if I want to fill 4 tubes then I need to make at least 17g of lip balm. I’ll round up to 20g, which means I need 4g of beeswax, 8g of cocoa butter and 8g of coffee infused oil. An electronic kitchen scale is just the ticket for a project like this, and ours gets used all the time. You can also make a little bigger batch and pour any extra into a glass jar for later use. When you need to refill your tubes or tins you can pop the glass jar into the microwave then melt and pour.

coffee lip balm

coffee lip balm

Various essential oils can be used in lip balms if they are food grade, but I think they would obscure the coffee flavor for this one. However, if a vanilla latte is your favorite drink, there are vanilla flavor oils available from several sources (including MMS and Bramble Berry) that can be added. I have also seen recipes that call for cocoa absolute, but that does not blend in fixed oils and therefore isn’t a good choice for a lip balm. Powdered stevia can be used to add a touch of sweetness. You could also add a drop or two of vitamin E if you have it, which will be good for your lips. And after all, this recipe is pretty much all about being good to your lips!

Coffee Lip Balm Print This Recipe Print This Recipe
A Happy Acres original

1 part Beeswax – 4 grams
2 parts solid butter (cocoa or shea) – 8 grams
2 parts coffee infused oil (coconut, olive or sweet almond) – 8 grams

Weigh all ingredients in small glass measuring cup. Melt by sitting measuring cup in pan of gently boiling water, or microwave at 50% power. Stir until all ingredients are melted, then pour into containers.

Let cool thoroughly before using. Lip balm should keep for about a year, depending on the oils used and how fresh they were to begin with.

NOTE: The consistency of this lip balm may vary depending on the outside temperature. Also, if you prefer a firmer lip balm, add a tad more beeswax. If you want a softer and more oily lip balm, either reduce the beeswax or increase the amount of oil.

 

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Monday Recap: The Deep Freeze

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Dave @ HappyAcres

We were fortunate last week to come through the latest Snowpocalypse with only about six inches of the powdery white stuff. We couldn’t escape the blast of Arctic air that followed behind it though that sent temperatures plummeting to record levels for mid February. The thermometer hit -4°F Thursday morning, with the wind chill even colder. The greenhouse looked like an icehouse with the icicles hanging down. Inside it was a “balmy” 16°F. Another system came through on Saturday, and we got a little bit of freezing rain before it warmed up and turned to just rain. Most of the bad stuff went south of us.

greenhouse with icicles hanging down

greenhouse with icicles hanging down

The cold and snowy weather had me craving comfort food. Since it’s my turn to cook, I whipped up a comforting meal of meatloaf, Garlicky Mashed Potatoes and some Derby green beans from the freezer. I made the mashed potatoes from a mix of our yellow-fleshed Yukon Gold and French Fingerling potatoes. For the garlic, I baked one head each of Russian Red and Lorz Italian so I could do some taste testing. After being in storage for over six months, both of these varieties are still in good shape. Despite the fact that Russian Red is a rocambole type with a great taste raw, I thought Lorz Italian (an artichoke type) tasted better after baking.

Lorz Italian(L) and Russian Red(R) garlic for roasting

Lorz Italian(L) and Russian Red(R) garlic for roasting

They both flavored up the mashed potatoes nicely, and my wife and I both enjoyed them and the green beans I cooked up to go with them. The meatloaf was a nice treat too, with some of our homemade catsup and mustard in it along with the local grass-fed beef. I like to form the meat into individual mini-loaves that bake up quicker than a big loaf, and make portion control a snap.

meal with Garlicky Mashed Potatoes

meal with Garlicky Mashed Potatoes

Another meal had me whipping up a batch of red pepper aioli to go with some salmon burgers. At the end of the season last year I pickled some of the ripe Topepo Rosso peppers. I made a sweet brine, and added the quartered peppers along with a few cloves of garlic and one or two of the hot Piccante Calabrese peppers to add a little zip.

pickled peppers

pickled peppers

I love these pickled peppers, and added them to mayo to make the aioli. I baked up a Beauregard sweet potato to go with the salmon burgers, which I served up on one of my Dark Rye Potato Buns. As you can see by the below photo, it was a big sweet potato and half of it made a large serving.

Beauregard sweet potato with aioli-topped salmon burger

Beauregard sweet potato with aioli-topped salmon burger

The only fresh harvest of the week was some parsley from the greenhouse. I dug out the snow by the greenhouse door so I could get in, then picked enough flat leaf parsley to make a bouquet. I used the parsley in some soup I made from the last of our leftover Thanksgiving turkey and broth. It also went in another dish I’ll talk about next.

flat leaf parsley

flat leaf parsley

Friday I used one of our neck pumpkins to make a batch of Butternut Lasagna Rolls. The recipe calls for butternut squash puree, but we have several of the Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck squash left in storage so I decided to use that instead for the puree. I cut the squash into pieces, baked it until tender, then scooped out the flesh and used the immersion blender on it. The squash in the below photo weighed a little over five pounds, and I got right at two pounds of puree from it after processing. I only needed one pound of it for the recipe, so I froze the rest.

Penn. Dutch Crookneck Squash

Penn. Dutch Crookneck Squash

The lasagna rolls are stuffed with a mix of cooked spinach, ricotta and parmesan cheeses, and a little chopped parsley. The spinach was some of our 2014 crop that I blanched and froze for later use. The squash puree is mixed with some sauteed onions and garlic, and goes on the bottom of the pan and the top of the lasagna rolls before baking. My wife and I both agreed this was a tasty and lightened up version of a classic dish. You can find the recipe on Skinnytaste.

Butternut Lasagna Rolls

Butternut Lasagna Rolls

My wife and I also found time to make two batches of soap last week. We make one pound (oil weight) batches anymore, using our homemade PVC pipe molds. That gives us five round bars after we cut them. We love to experiment, and this time we made one soap using 100% coconut oil. That turned out a lovely shade of white that almost matched the snow outside! The other soap was a variation on our French Green Clay recipe, this time using lemongrass and rosemary essential oils plus a bit of finely ground rosemary leaf. There should be no trouble telling the two soaps apart in the below photo!

100% coconut oil soap(L) and French Green Clay soap(R)

100% coconut oil soap(L) and French Green Clay soap(R)

I’ll close with a photo of our two cats, Puddin and Ace, who apparently fell asleep yesterday while reading about silk painting. Oh well, at least they weren’t trading catnip futures on the computer!

Puddin and Ace doing what they do best

Puddin and Ace doing what they do best

That’s a look at what’s been happening here. To see what others are harvesting and cooking up, visit Daphne’s Dandelions where Daphne hosts Harvest Mondays. I’ll be back soon with more from Happy Acres!

 

 

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Monday Recap: Snow Day

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Last week I said that so far this winter we had “been spared any significant snow or ice.” I also knew that winter was not nearly over, and today is proof of that as we are in the middle of a winter storm system that is dumping a lot of snow on the upper south and lower midwest of the U.S. The snow is still coming down as I write this, with totals of 6″-12″ predicted for our area, depending on how the storm tracks. Thankfully we will be spared any freezing rain or ice.

snowy morning

snowy morning

One nice thing about being retired – when it snows, I don’t have to deal with going to work, which means I usually just stay inside! We keep enough food stockpiled to last through most any weather emergency, so a little (or a lot) of snow doesn’t usually cause a panic here. One thing I like to keep on hand is dried beans, and I cooked up a pot of them for Red Beans & Rice last night. The bean variety I used will be featured in an upcoming spotlight. I didn’t grow the beans myself, but I used some of our garlic, smoked paprika and an Aji Angelo pepper from my potted pepper plant.

Aji Angelo pepper went in Red beans

Aji Angelo pepper went in Red beans

Yesterday I also I cooked up the one and only Seminole winter squash I harvested last year. I planted all the vining type squash plants too close together, and the yields suffered as a result. This heirloom C. moschata variety was grown in Florida by the Seminole and the Miccosukee people, where it was usually planted at the base of a tree. The plant then grew up the trunk and the pear-shaped pumpkins would mature up in the tree.

Seminole winter squash

Seminole winter squash

It’s supposed to be a good keeper, and even though ours had been in storage almost six months it was still in great shape. The thick orange flesh was sweet and moist, and my wife and I both agreed it was quite tasty. I’ll be growing this one again for sure, this year in a better location without so much competition.

inside of Seminole squash before cooking

inside of Seminole squash before cooking

Since gardening is not occupying much of my time these days, I’ve been working on some other projects, and catching up on my reading. I made some coffee-infused coconut oil last week, then used it to make a batch of lip balm. I’ll share that recipe here when I’m through tweaking it.

coffee lip balm

coffee lip balm

I’m also in the planning stages of a joint art project my wife and I going to try this year. We’re hoping to combine some of my intarsia with her dyeing, and that should be a lot of fun! The below photo shows one of my intarsia pieces I made a few years back, which is part of a robe rack I made for our bathroom. It will be nice to get back into woodworking again, at least on a small scale.

duck intarsia

duck intarsia

I hope you’ve enjoyed a look at what’s happening here at Happy Acres. To see what others are harvesting, planting and cooking up, visit Daphne’s Dandelions where Daphne hosts Harvest Mondays.

 

 

 

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Seed Starting Setup

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Given the fact that I have a small greenhouse, many people are surprised to find out I start almost all of my seeds indoors in our basement, under fluorescent lights. I use the greenhouse for growing the seedlings once they are up and growing, but most all of of them get their start indoors. The temperatures are just too variable in the greenhouse, and I find I get better germination results indoors where I can provide a more controlled environment.

starting seeds under fluorescent lights

starting seeds under fluorescent lights

Of course there are lots of different ways to start plants from seed, and no one way is right or even necessarily better than others. The way I go about it is largely based on personal preference. I do get questions from time to time about my seed starting techniques, as well as about equipment, lighting, and other seed starting essentials. I shared my Seed Starting 101 a couple of years ago, based upon talks I’ve given over the years, and it covers the basics for starting your own plants from seed.

lettuce seeds sprouting

lettuce seeds sprouting

I’ve used a lot of different light fixtures in the past, including ones I made myself. The one I’m using now I bought from Harris Seeds a few years back. It’s a rolling stand with adjustable light fixtures that holds up to 16 trays. It also came with a large size heating mat that goes on one shelf, heating up to 4 trays at once. I use the heating mat to start heat loving seeds like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. The stand was pricy, but it’s well made and should easily outlast me!

16 tray light stand

16 tray light stand

So far this year I have started seeds for parsley, lettuce and arugula. The lettuce was the first to sprout, as you can see in the earlier photo. The arugula wasn’t far behind it. The parsley seeds will take a week or two to come up, which is one reason they get an early start.  For the general timetable I follow every year check out my Seed Starting and Planting Schedule. I’ll be back with more updates on my seed starting activities as they happen.

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