salt crusted new potatoes. homemade eats

We were weeding our four beds of onions today and came across some volunteer potatoes that we had let grow amidst the onions. The plants were big, and we pulled them out along with two to three small bright potatoes. Just by weeding a few plants out, we got about three pounds of red, fingerling, and dark purple potatoes. They were beautiful in the dark soil, and so exciting to harvest.

Harvesting volunteers is so gratifying. Its almost a "free lunch," since there was no planning or maintenance involved to grow the food. And we make lunch from them. We like to keep some "wild" in our farm and garden. It often surprises me on how much life overflows without too much human control. There is so much food out there just growing on its own, if only we are there to see it. 

mason maple custards with blueberry sauce. homemade sweets.

It seems as though I make a lot of sweets on this blog. I definitely don't just eat custards and cookies and galettes every day, and I think I post sweets more often because making them is such special occasion for me. It's something for a community dinner, or just a surprise treat for friends (a usually very well-received treat!). Plus, I do work towards manipulating dessert recipes in order to make them lighter or at least more nutrient-dense. Take this recipe, for example, which replaces heavy cream for (preferably organic) whole milk and maple syrup and sucanat rather than white sugar. 

Not all sugar is created equal, nor eggs or milk or anything for that matter. There is a whole spectrum for every ingredients that goes from chemical-laden, shelf-stable, nutrient-poor foods to homegrown, organic, freshly picked foods that are packed with nutrients and life. This has been a theme for me throughout my personal journey towards health and wellbeing. Not all food is created equal. That fuji apple will be different on every tree, on every farm, grown by every different method. 

seeded buckwheat cookies. homemade not-too-sweets.

I have some lovely gluten-free friends. Though I am on a strict gluten-lots diets (wink), I love experimenting for my wheatless companions. There are so many beautiful grains with completely different flavors, textures, and baking effects. Wheat gets a lot of the spotlight, and its gluten power is quite incredible for making light, chewy loaves of bread with epic crust. But what about emmer? And buckwheat? And kamut and oats and brown rice and einkorn and barley and rye and spelt and millet and sorghum and teff and amaranth and quinoa? Many of these so-called "ancient grains" are extremely nutritious and very different

wild spring kale salad with tahini miso dressing. homemade healthy

Wild edibles are popping up everywhere, from juicy chickweed to bitter dandelion to sticky cleavers. Miner's lettuce is sprouting from the moist shade of trees; a delicious and refreshing snack to come upon on a hike. All we have ready to harvest is kale, a flat-leaf red russian variety that is so sweet and tender right now. Eating it raw in a salad has been my go-to lunch almost every day this early spring.

Mixing the kale with the freshly picked wild edibles is a fun variety of flavors and textures, and the combo packs dense nutrients into a delicious meal. Wild foods contain more phytonutrients and minerals than the modern cultivated varieties, as much of the nutrition has been bred out for other traits, like drought-resistance, size, taste, color, and shelf life. An article written by one of my UC Berkeley professors, Katherine Milton, argues that the prevalence of wild foods in the hunter-gatherer diet of our Homo sapien ancestors protected them from diseases of affluence: type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. that are so widespread today. These foods are different than our tame apples and spinach. Very different. 

100% whole wheat curried flatbread. homemade bread.

After traveling for over 2 months this winter, I learned a lot about what I miss about the home kitchen. I moved around almost every week and could not realistically carry my whole pantry of baking supplies and spices with me in my backpack, so the food I ate was simple. This was pretty easy to do in Hawaii, where juicy papayas and avocados grow all over and easily satisfy a low-budget traveller like myself. 

Halfway through the trip, however,  I was craving foods like kimchi and sprouts and of course, freshly baked bread. These things that take time and patience and a home base to create. I yearned for my own kitchen space to make a mess and experiment in without intruding on my hosts. Of course, my day to day experience was full of hiking and swimming and learning and failing how to surf, so I might not have wanted to spend hours babysitting my rising bread inside. In any case, it felt great coming back and rewinding into winter (still very mild) here in Oregon and cozying up next to a warm oven full of my kind of bread. 

This bread is from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. Their approach is unique and very useful for a busy schedule, as there is no kneading involved and the recipe makes enough for baking multiple loaves a week. Very versatile, very simple, and very delicious!

spiced pumpkin custard. homemade sweets.

We had our first frost here on Monday morning, followed by another the next day. For most, frost is a very normal part of Autumn, a sign of Winter coming. But for me, a beach girl raised in balmy Southern California and then the Bay Area, I had never seen frost. Sure, I've been knee deep in the Winter's snow pack in Lake Tahoe and Steam Boat, CO, but I've never been around more temperate parts in the subtle transitional phase of Fall. 

So Monday morning I woke up an hour before the alarm set at 8:00am. I felt utterly awake. Rion and I would be doing morning animal chores in a couple hours, but I felt impelled to get up and out into the world. The bright crisp sky outside the window lured me outside onto the farm. And how quiet it was out there. No other humans up and about. Just me, with my morning eyes and already frigid nose. And the first thing I saw was the blue green grass. It looked like a fairyland, with the icy coolness encrusting every surface like delicate lace. 

rainbow tomato basil feta salad. homemade healthy.

Its tomato season. Ripe, small Sungolds pop in your mouth with the sweet tangy juices spurting all over. The less juicy paste tomatoes glisten in the sun, amidst the curling tangle of vines and leaves, waiting to turn into winters tomato sauce or the freshest ketchup in town. The heirlooms sit high and mighty with their zebra stripes, massive and barely holding on the their mother vine. The slicer tomatoes, those sandwich kings, rest humbly next to their kin tomatoes, ready for a nice summer salad opportunity.

Working with tomatoes is a love/hate sort of thing. If you've ever dug deep within the seeping tomato vines to get to that vibrant red globe, you know that feeling of itchy roughness that rubs all over your arms and hands. The tomatoes, a nightshade (Solanaceae family), are related to a number of toxic plants, and you can feel that noxious materials exuding from the leaves. After trellising a greenhouse full of tomatoes, my hands were covered in green, yellow, and black sticky resin. It looked like the skin of a lizard. But once those delicious red fruits started ripening, my aversion to the fierce plants turned into sunny delight.

epic spring salad. homemade healthy.

I like to make salads epic. Ever since I was young I would try to scoop up all the "jimmys" at the bottom of the salad bowl. That's where all the salty brined goodies are, all the nutty bits and herbaceous bites. The right balance of salty, sweet, creamy, crunchy, and acidic can raise an everyday salad up to epic proportions. 


This week at the farm, raspberries were the star. There we were, just our sun-kissed faces popping up from behind the line of raspberry crop. I found that looking up from below for the berries was choice. Seeing that flash of juicy red flicker within the greenery sparked miniature bursts of excitement within. We picked and picked. Dark, deep purple berries, young bright berries, and sunny golden berries speckled the half-pints. Each little berry hand picked for our community to savor. After hours of picking, we each just hand a handful of pints to contribute. Our bellies were already fermenting the cosmetically-deficient berries as we readied the beautiful berries for selling. 

Rion's friends came to visit during the week of raspberries, so naturally, we had to make a huge farm dinner. Rion's friend is an spiring chef in Austin, TX, so I brought out the big salad guns to get them excited about our farm super fresh eating. We piled raspberries on the fresh tender salad greens and sprinkled chives on top. Sarah's homemade raw goat chevre added a salty bite, and roasted beets from a neighbor farm added deep rooty sweetness. The only non-farm salad topper were almonds, which I candied with butter and sugar before adding to the salad. 

We all noshed on the goodness. So many jimmys to search for! So enjoy this salad, and make sure to give thanks to all those who pick raspberries! 

mustard. homemade pantry.

mustard.

I plan on starting a mustard revolution. A huge upheval in our culture, where mustard, with its nostril burning pungency and tangy burst of flavor, will rise to the top of the condiment hierarchy and rule the table-side arena. 

So I really appreciate mustard. 

And there's a mustard for everyone. No one is left mustardless in the mustard kingdom. Honey mustard for the sweeter crowd, super spicy horseradish mustard for those strong at heart, or champagne mustard for impressing those at a mustard gala. Yellow mustard is for those new or shy to the mustard world and those folks need your help in the good cause of real good mustard. 

sourdough cornmeal pancakes. fermented eats.

Sourdough Cornmeal Pancakes (with orange!)

So every Friday, after four days of weeding thousands of onions under the sweet hot Oregon Sun (I'm talking very southern Oregon), we celebrate with some pancakes. My partner Rion and I have gotten our method down, where I whip up the ingredients in a big bowl and he starts a'flippin them, one at a time on two cast irons (that's his style). We always seem to have some folks coming by for a bite, planned or not, and it is always such a wonderful morning feast. The dew is still rising from the leaf while we munch down our mini pancake stacks.

chevre red cabbage slaw. homemade healthy.

chevre red cabbage slaw

Red cabbage is a beautiful thing. Especially when its all chopped up in a white bowl, with the deep purple burgundy shreds cut with the whites of its insides. Its a crunchy confetti of purple delight, and it can become a magical bowl of veggie addiction when gussied up in a bright slaw. I threw this recipe together in less than 10 minutes, grabbing jars of nuts and mustard and running out into the garden for some chives. 

It was for a housewarming party...I mean, a tent warming party, up a short trail in the woods 

to where I currently live. We had our friends living here on the farm come from their respective homes on the property through the woods to our tent cabin, fit with a new pallet deck and a fire pit. So I made this, along with homemade cornmeal buckwheat muffins, graham crackers, and cinnamon marshmallows.