What Are You Craving?

What are you craving? 

Yummy Shares!

As the cold winter days gave way to spring I had cravings for crisp, buttery salad greens, sweet-tart

strawberries, and crisp spears of asparagus! I anticipate these first crops of the season for months! 

During the cold days of winter we eat what we've dried, canned, frozen, or sprout fresh, so a live, crunchy meal is foremost in my mind as I prepare the last meals of the frosty winter. 

This was Sunday's  dinner. We stir fried a variety of vegetables and put Italian sausage in it. Yummy and quick! The addition of corn on the cob made the meal a DELIGHT!

As we head into summer what did you crave? For me it was corn on the cob!! We were blessed with some last Sunday for dinner after church. I REALLY relished the buttery sweetness...cob after cob! From the looks on my children's faces and the quietness that fell around the 12' farmhouse table, I think they too were ENJOYING it!

I've been listening to our customers as the

vegetables begin to appear in shares or on our table at farmer's markets..."TOMATOES!!", one lady exclaimed as she began telling me of all she was going to do with that first "mator". Another gentleman's eyes "caressed" the squash when it appeared on table. He walked away with several pounds and had shared 3 ways he was going to use them. Yesterday an older woman "danced" at the sight of the table's display of tomatoes! We all look forward to summer's bounty in some way!

Maybe you're into sweets instead of vegetables. We

Our new Apple Pie Jam

have customers like this in Crossville! That's the one market we can sell our breads, cookies, and quick breads at. Folks slathered spoons of Apple Pie Jam or Seedless Blackberry Jam onto small slices of fresh stone ground wheat bread...their eyes would close and they began to sway! They eagerly buy a jar or two to enjoy. The next week, here they came again! :) They ran out, and were craving another jar of the tart sweetness of the Apple Pie Jam. 

We have a lot of tourists at that market as there are a lot of time share places nearby. I had my first couple come last week craving my cinnamon rolls that they'd enjoyed for the last 3 summers. What an honor!

Cravings...we all have them. I learned today that they mean something! I thought it just meant I really

Kohlrabi

liked something and wanted to satisfy my desire again! No...if I'm craving sweets I may be deficient in carbon, phosphorus, sulfur or get this one...Tryptophan! The good news is that these nutrients are found in  Broccoli, Kale, Cabbage, Horseradish, Sweet Potatoes, Spinach, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Kohlrabi, and other yummy vegetables!

I hear many gals say they CRAVE...no live for chocolate! Believe it or not it can be a sign your body needs magnesium! You can "cure" this craving (if you REALLY WANT to! ha ha!) by eating

raw nuts, seeds, beans, and fruits to satisfy your body's needs. I guess taking magnesium like I do prevents the cravings I once had for it! 

As we pack your shares each week I begin craving all the possible dishes that come to my mind as I put

This week's share!

the vegetables in each box. Kale chips (salty craving) as I put the bunches of kale in...Grandma's Potatoes as we bag the new potatoes...steamed carrots as I slide the colorful bundles of carrots in. I could go on and on! 

There's another area of my life I have "cravings" in also. I long for time alone with Jesus! When I sit at His feet for a time of quiet devotions I anticipate hearing His wise voice, feeling His comforting or healing touch, and being close enough to feel His heartbeat for me.

My days as a farmer's wife and Momma to many are

Eleven of our children this spring at
Caleb and Shelby's wedding.

filled with so many "voices". There is my dear husband, the farmer directing me...the children's endless chatter, and my voice teaching, directing, and even chastening at times. There is the loud ad on Pandora a midst my instrumental hymns, or the phone calls wanting me to take a "short" survey. Lately, even my own mind is loud...asking searching questions, condemning myself, or puzzling situations out. 

I CRAVE quiet time with my Lord! Over the years I've seen a pattern in my life time and time again.  When I don't have my personal time with Him I am weaker, more distracted, and shorter on patience. I hate the unsettled feeling of distance between me and those I love...especially Jesus Christ! 

The Lord lovingly gave me the solution to this dilemma years ago. He put a picture in my mind of Him sitting in our living room in my husband's chair, which is next to mine, early in the morning. He was beckoning me to come. Each morning I see this picture in my mind, and sit with Him for awhile to fill my mind with His truth, and wisdom, for mine is inadequate for the day. It's a love relationship.

What are you craving? If it's a love that is far reaching, peace that is unexplainable, or acceptance despite your inadequacies turn to Jesus Christ!  

In our farmhouse kitchen we've been falling into the rut of what's quick and easy that satisfies our cravings. I don't like being this busy. Thankfully I have several quick ways to use our vegetables that are quick. Here's some quick ideas I use often.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Squash Medley

Here is a link to me making this recipe YEARS ago!

To make this filling "side dish" cut up the amount of vegetables that look like they will feed your family cut up in coarse chunks. 

Zucchini

Yellow Squash

Onion

Okra

New Potatoes

Next, crack an egg or two into a small bowl and whip with a fork. Set aside.

Put at cup of cornmeal into a bowl and season it with salt and garlic powder. Taste to see if you can taste the salt, without it being too strong.

Pour the egg over the bowl of coarsely chopped vegetables. Mix with clean hands. The vegetables need to be wet with egg without any extra egg on the bottom of the bowl.

Finally pour the seasoned cornmeal over the vegetable mixture, mixing it again till coated.

Cast iron works best for this recipe, but use any pan you have. If you aren't in a hurry, use the oven method (use an oven proof pan) :

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Put your pan in the oven to preheat. When it's good and hot, put a bit of bacon drippings and oil of your choice in the bottom of the pan to 1/4". Heat again. Next, pour a good "single layer" of vegetables into the pan and return it to the oven. I have found it's good to have a couple pans baking instead of putting too much into one pan.

Let bake until the bottom is brown. Flip or stir the vegetables and bake until they are well browned all over.  Serve hot. Enjoy!

A quicker way to make this recipe is on the stove top. I find it ties me to the hot kitchen this time of year, so I prefer the oven method. Be careful, they burn easily.

Preheat a cast iron skillet on the stove top. Put a bacon drippings and oil into the pan until you have about 1/4" of oil. When the oil is hot, add your vegetables. Stir when the bottom is browned. Add oil when/if needed. 

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Zucchini Pizza

Here is a link to a video of me making zucchini pizza YEARS ago.

Eight Ball Zucchini (round ones)

extra virgin olive oil or spray

Sea Salt

Pizza Sauce or Chopped Tomatoes

Pizza Toppings of Choice

Mozzarella Cheese

Cut the nipple end of the zucchini off. Using the stem end as a handle, cut your zucchini into 1/3" slices.

Place them onto a baking sheet, and spray or wipe with oil. Sprinkle with salt. Place in a 400 degree oven until crisp tender.

Remove the squash and think pizza! Put a small amount of pizza sauce in the middle of the zucchini and top with your favorite toppings. Sprinkle Mozzarella cheese onto the  zucchini. 

I sauted onion and our mushrooms and topped chopped tomatoes with this mixture. Sprinkled it with basil, topped with pepperoni and cheese.

Place the pizza into the oven until the cheese is melted. Remove and serve! Enjoy a lighter pizza meal tonight!

Here's my version...chopped tomatoes really help "upgrade" the pizza!

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Here's what's been going on here on the farm as we learn and live together...all 17 of us!

We had our next batch of meat chicks shipped to us this week. Over half arrived dead. It's a big loss as we're on a time table. The replacements will be shipped next week.

We began to harvest our new potatoes!

We had our first BLTs of the season with all of our own
vegetables, bread, and Greek yogurt. Yummmy!

The tomatoes are beginning to come in strong!

We finished our seedless blackberry jam and began the peach jamming season!

Folks are pretty excited about the Apple Pie Jam! 

We're REAL proud of Allison, Adam's new wife!
She picked wild blackberries and made 17 half
pints for the first time!

Allison and Faith Anne peeling and cutting up early summer
apples for me as I make our new Apple Pie Jam.

The aftermath of jamming day!

Apple Pie jam has a tart sweetness with a mixture of slices and smooth
jam to tantalize any taste bud!

After my dining room and kitchen makeover I decided to start on the living room...I'm decorating one wall with piles of canning jars!

One  morning everyone worked together to label hundreds of jars of jam .

We are making apple cider vinegar with all the scraps from making the jam. I've always wanted to do this, and we have LOTS of good peels and cores that we pray will work great! 

Farmer Steve helped me finish up late one day. Here he's helping to pour sugar water to cover the apple scraps in canning jars. We've covered the jars with cheese cloth and have them in the dark to "work". In 6 weeks we'll see if the grand experiment worked! I've got my fingers crossed!

Charity (7) is learning to bundle greens, using a digital scale.
Real life home schooling.

Faith Anne (14) jumps in to help prepare vegetables
for a mid-week market.

The guys are preparing greens for market early one morning on our front porch.

It's hard to believe, but the end of July is coming into sight! Before long, folks will be talking about their cravings for fall crops! As you begin your weekend, ask yourself...is what I'm craving going to make me stronger (physically or spiritually) or weaker?

Abundant Blessings,

The Farmer's Wife

Val

Plowing the Furrows

Hello Folks!
In a rare dry moment this week
our boys completed numerous small jobs
around the home farm.
Any job is fun to them if they can
drive the smallest of our tractors!
Home schooling at its BEST!

Wet greetings from the farm! We have been blessed with many, many showers this week. We're choosing

During one shower this
week we had a beautiful
rainbow.

to think positive about them as they make or break the farm! Our ponds were rapidly being emptied by watering the high tunnels that don't get the rain, so we're thankful.

Shares all packed.

 The hard part comes when it's Friday, it's raining, and your shares need to be harvested. Pray for the men as they slosh through the mud picking your vegetables. 



We've had a busy week inside the

Lots and lots
of blackberries!

farmhouse also. It's blackberry season! We've been watching the berries ripen on our walks, and knew that this was going to be an OUTSTANDING year for berries if the spring rains didn't give way to early summer drought.

Our younger children have been scouring the dirt roadsides surrounding our farm picking berries for you during every free & dry moment! They've sent them off to farmer's markets in Crossville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Oak Ridge with high hopes of people using them in cobblers, jam, and quick breads as we enjoy.

We worked berries 3 days this week. Once was with 10 gallons of juicy berries, and then again

Luke was my right-hand man as we juiced
the berries!

on Friday we worked 15 gallons of berries! My kitchen still has pinkish-purple overtones! We canned a total of 201~1/2 pints, and 24 pints of seedless blackberry jam! Believe it or not, we have more to work on Monday! We're praising God for the abundant berry harvest!

We use a Champion juicer to work the seeds
out of the juice.

Ooops! I wear the juice "well"!

Seedless Blackberry Jam
1/2 Pints ~$5
     Pints ~ $9

Caleb harvested the
first flat of tomatoes
this year!

We're also very thankful for the beginning of the tomato harvest! We've just begun to pick, so pull out all those recipes that you make only with really fresh tomatoes, and gear yourself up. They'll soon be in shares when the harvests fully comes in!

Last week I completed the homework I

assigned ya'll the first week of the blog. I'm off a bit

I use Rubbermaid basins to
corral squash, kohlrabi, carrots,
and other vegetables in my frig.

in posting it since I traveled home to Massachusetts for 10 days. My refrigerator got its' spring clean and is ready for the abundant harvests! My daughter-in-love suggested I post the pictures of it to inspire you if you haven't gotten your refrigerator ready for your shares yet.

Now, I do have to say I have more than one refrigerator. I keep the most perishable items (my vegetables, fruits and the fresh eggs) that I want to use in each meal right before my eyes in my main frig. The contents of the bins changes daily. It all depends on what is leftover from each market.

Onions are readied for quick eating immediately.
Cut off root end, and trim tops to a usable size
before placing them into jars of water.

I trim the stems of the herbs and place them
into cups of water to keep them fresh.

Sandwich fixings, bulk perishable items and breakfast ingredients are in a second refrigerator as I know 

what is in them easily. I can stand at this refrigerator and load up with breakfast fixings, or pack a large lunch cooler without much running around. One glance inside my refrigerators will report how faithful I've been with all that is going on in my life. Orderliness means "I'm on top of things!"

I keep my fresh garlic in two ways. This is the
easiest...simply place on the shelf in a container.
My handiest way is to whirl bunches of green garlic
 in the food processor with a bit of olive oil.
Store in a jar in the frig for quick additions to your
meals.

We use the seconds (cracked or discolored) of
eggs for the family. Here I keep the duck and
chicken eggs that are for us.

To be honest, I'm struggling to write a post this week. My Daddy passed away on June 10th, and since then my heart and mind is running "too deep" for words.

 In my devotional time this morning I was touched and challenged by the following reading in an old devotional compiled by Mrs. Charles Cowman entitled, Streams in the Dessert, Volume One.  I highly recommend it. Find it used here at Amazon's used books.

"Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?" 

Isaiah 28:24

A view of our farm...all pictures are ours.

One day in early summer I walked past a beautiful meadow. The grass was as soft and thick and fine as an immense green Oriental rug. In one corner stood a fine old tree, a sanctuary for numberless wild birds; the crisp, sweet air was full of their happy songs. Two cows lay in the shade, the very picture of content.

Down by the roadside the saucy dandelion mingled his gold with the royal purple of the wild violet.

I leaned against the fence for a long time, feasting my hungry eyes, and thinking in my soul that God never made a fairer spot than my lovely meadow.

The next day I passed that way again, and lo! the

A plowed field ready for planting.

hand of the despoiler had been there. A plowman and his great plow,now standing idle in the furrow, had in a day wrought a terrible havoc.  Instead of the green grass there was turned up to view the ugly, bare, brown earth; instead of  of the singing birds there were only a few hens industriously scratching for worms. Gone were the dandelion and the pretty violet. I said in my grief, " How could any one spoil a thing so fair?"

Then my eyes were opened by some unseen hand, and I saw a vision, a vision of a field of ripe corn ready for the harvest. I could see the giant, heavily laden stalks in the autumn sun; I could almost hear the music of the wind as it would sweep across the golden tassels. And before I was aware, the brown earth took on a splendor it had not had the day before.

An abundant harvest of tomatoes will soon
be harvested.

Oh, that we might always catch the vision of an abundant harvest, when the great Master Plowman comes, as He often does, and furrows through our very souls, uprooting and turning under that which we thought most fair, and leaving for our tortured gaze only the bare and the unbeautiful." 

Why should I, His precious daughter, be startled when He turns the soil of my soul? I know He cares far more for me than my earthly father...He is preparing a crop...

Experiments from my farm kitchen this week....

In my quest to serve vegetables at every meal I tried a new recipe this week to serve with eggs at breakfast. This recipe for "Spinach Burgers" was easily made with the Swiss Chard found in your shares. I think you could make it also with baby kale, or other tender greens. 

Swiss Chard

Farmer Steve knows my love of spinach and bought me a bag of marked down spinach that surprisingly still looked like it was in good shape. It was well worth the

.50 cents! I made a batch out of spinach and another out of Swiss Chard to compare the results.

Chop 1 bunch of Swiss Chard greens (I twisted off most of the stems) or a bag of spinach lightly in the food processor
or by hand. 

In a bowl, mix 3 eggs, 1/4 C. chopped onion,
1/2 C. shredded cheese, 1/2 C. bread crumbs (I used almond "flour"), 1/2 t. red pepper flakes, 1 t. salt, and 1/2 t. garlic powder. Add chopped greens and mix well. 

Shape into patties using an ice cream scoop or 1/4 Cup measuring cup, and place on a well greased hot griddle or frying pan.

Let cook over medium heat until patties are golden brown and firm, about 4-6 minutes.

I'm sorry I didn't get a picture before we dug in!
Serve with poached or lightly fried eggs for a delicious breakfast!

I've begun to freeze our winter's store of pesto. This week we put 7 ~ 1/2 pints in the freezer. It is so easy to do, that I thought you'd like to share my favorite recipe!

Farmhouse Pesto

1 1/2 C. Basil

3+ Cloves Garlic

3 T. Roasted Nuts

(Almonds, Walnuts, or Pine Nuts)

1/4 C. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 T. Grated Parmesan

1/2 t. Salt

Heavy Sprinkle Coarse Ground Pepper

Place all but the olive oil into a food processor, and turn it on. Slowly pour olive oil in and let process until smooth. Scrape into a half pint jar and top with more olive oil. Refrigerate or freeze.

I love easy vegetable side dishes...little fuss...big flavor. This next recipe was little on the fuss, but exactly what we like with the lemon...a light taste is best. So if you really like a punch of lemon flavoring, up the amount of lemon zest a bit, and even consider adding it after your squash is grilled mixed with some coarse salt. I don't see why you couldn't prepare the squash in marinade up to the day before for a quick and easy side dish! I'll be trying it this week with our homemade Italian Salad dressing also! I love recipes that give you ideas for other meals.

Grilled Lemon Zucchini

3 small sized Zucchini ~ Whole
1/8 C. Olive Oil
1/2 t. Kosher Salt (any salt will do)
1/2 t. Coarse Ground Black Pepper
1 Whole Lemon, Zested

Cut tops and bottoms off zucchini and slice them

into quarters, lengthwise. Place them into a gallon Ziploc bag or Tupperware container. Next pour in the oil, salt, pepper, and lemon zest. Juice the lemon and add to your marinade within the bag. Seal bag well. removing as much air as possible. Flip bag back and forth a few times over the next 20 minutes as it marinades.

Heat the outdoor grill or even (I didn't use this method) an indoor grill on medium-low heat. Grill the zucchini on three sides until tender. Carefully brush with marinade while cooking, but be watchful as it can burn easily. Slow and longer is better than my usual method of hot and fast!

One more idea...With a frig full of assorted vegetables I like to make an easy roasted vegetable blend. In the following picture I have 9 different vegetables...turnips, patty pan squash, yellow summer squash, zucchini, onions, garlic, red sweet peppers (store bought on super sale...ours are coming!) & kohlrabi.

Place an assortment of coarsely chopped vegetables on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Drizzle the pan liberally with extra virgin olive oil. Toss the vegetables in the oil until shiny, but not dripping with oil either. Sprinkle on your favorite seasonings. We like Cajun or simply season salt with garlic powder. Roast at 450 degrees until the vegetables have a slightly charred look and are tender. Serve immediately.

More Pictures of the Family & Farm This Week

Faith Anne bakes cookies for the Cumberland Sustainable Farmer's Market each week.

Our Friday night packing crew "hard at work". We're blessed to be able to work and fellowship at the same time!

After a long day of harvest the boys back the trucks up to our porch to unpack. I always hold my breath until the back-up beeper stops...

Brother Tim Brock is also known as "The Friday Night Farmer". The length of the rows of squash this year is a challenge to him as he keeps up with our boys. He and his family have been working with us for 4 years and they are a huge blessing to us! They are "marrying into the farm" as their daughter Destany is Isaac's fiance!

Levi is heading out to gather the eggs.

Happy 4th of July!

Is the Lord turning the "furrows" of your life too? What kind of harvest will your life produce? 

Seeking the Keeper of My Heart,

Abundant Blessings,

The Farmer's Wife 

      ~Val~