GrowingWildFarm » nutrition

Food for thought

growingwildfarm — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 17:10:24 +0000

A neighbor brought this over for us this week, and I couldn’t help sharing.

I especially like numbers 1-4. Five and six seem like tenets everyone pretty much holds dear, right? And no one wants to waste food.

But I like that the US Food Administration is promoting these two things when it comes to the nation and food: thoughtfulness and local buying (not sure when the “and Drug” was added but found this interesting as well and will have to do some research when I am not buried in children with colds, holidays, birthdays, and spring farm work).

Supermarkets and fast food make it so easy to not have to think about what’s for dinner. And even those of us who give a lot of our attention to what we eat and where it comes from have those nights when we hit dinner-time wishing we didn’t have to think about it (Don’t we? At least I still do on “those” nights). My point being, the allure of easy and mind-less is there even for the diligent.

I feel the burden of all the thought I put into how we eat every time I go to the grocery store. Local, Organic, non-GMO, non-processed…and for us gluten and dairy and soy free…and meat we really only want to get at farmer’s market or from our farm–it isn’t easy to make these choices today simply because they are not the choices everyone is making.

Not the majority of consumers. Not the supermarkets or fast food chains (even though the marketing is there). And not the US Food and Drug administration.

If they were, our food culture would look much different. And easy and thoughtful would coincide beautifully with one another.

Free trade, globalism, commodities, and large-scale meat production are where most of our federal government’s food policy energy goes. A lot of things have changed in the last 100 or so years apparently.

But there is hope. And I do hope that we all can be a part of bringing some things on that list back to the front of people’s minds when they are thinking about what to eat.

Food. Buy it with thought. Cook it with care.

Buy local.

(And in my opinion and that of the 1917 US Food Administration, you should also consider using less wheat and unethically raised meat).

Filed under: community, cooking, CSA, farm, farming, health, home, newsletter, nutrition, organic, politics, seasonal eating Tagged: community supported agriculture, farming, food politics, newsletter, nutrition

At Market this Week: Nettles!

growingwildfarm — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 18:26:09 +0000

There are a few items we choose to bring to market that we wild harvest from our property because they are delicious(most importantly) , super nutritious (like out of this world nutritious), and also (very kindly) fill seasonal growing gaps for us. We do “cultivate” these wildings, clearing the areas where they grow or maintaining stands of them specifically for harvest, and we are always thankful to have such an abundance of them when we do. In the early spring, when our over wintered vegetables are well harvested and new plantings are young, we are blessed with fresh growing nettles, perfect for nettle pesto and just in time to start getting the farmer’s body ready to battle pollen season. In the summer, we harvest lamb’s quarters, a non-bitter tasting green that thrives in warm weather when our spinach has called it quits until fall and the kale has reached its height of “summer” flavor (not at all as sweet as in the colder months).

We never harvest a ton of these, but they are always a hit. Some people already know how good they are for you and appreciate the chance to eat these nutritional powerhouses. Other customers love their taste and will request them again and again. We enjoy them in their season, and making nettle pesto is something we do every year. It was the first recipe we tried the first time we ate nettles, back in the wilds of Colorado, with the encouragement of an old friend who not only gave us a taste for wild harvested weeds and king boletes, but also inadvertantly planted the seeds of our future–he had just returned to Colorado from the Pacific Northwest where he was working on a farm and we had many lively conversations with him about farming and this neck of the woods.

I was hesitant then, but the pesto was delicious and didn’t sting a bit. We love it so much that we rarely make anything else with our nettles, aside from drying them for tea. But they really can be used like any other cooking green, braised and finished with a bit of lemon juice or rice wine vinegar, or added to soups or sauteed and tossed with pasta. But this is important–they must be cooked! Between the soaking and washing we give them, and some cooking, even a light steaming, they will be sting free; but handling them out of the bag from our market stand with your hands will give you small stings. We just dump them from the bag into the pan and steam them until they wilt, then cool them and proceed to make our pesto. This blanching preserves their nice bright green color too.

We have always been fascinated by the high levels of nutrients in wild plants, so much higher than those cultivated by humans, even plants cultivated with as much love and care and attention to soil health as we give our plants. This is one of the reasons we really attempt to mimic nature as much as is possible, keeping it as our growing model in as is applicable to our very human endeavor. Nettles are really high in many minerals, including iron, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, and nettles are often used to help with anemia. I personally use them as a general blood builder and as a concentrated source of minerals during pregnancy and while nursing (though please speak with your health care provider before using if you are pregnant or nursing!) and for the kids. They help lesson your bodies immune response to allergens, and the farmer uses them in the early spring to help prevent or lessen his immune response to pollens later in the season.

This nettle season, encouraged by a friend and our own gut feeling, we are going to try to eat nettles even more than we normally do. They are recommended to help protect the body from radiation, and just in case we are coming into contact with more unfriendly radiation than we want, we will be trying out some different ways to cook nettles this year. Either way, we feel extra thankful to have such an abundance of this healthful and tasty green this spring. Head out to the woods and wild forage some for yourself if you are feeling adventurous, or if you want to keep it simple, stop by our market booth at The Market this month and grab a bag. Either way, enjoy the tastes of spring both wild and tame!

Filed under: cooking, health, local, nature, nutrition, seasonal eating, spring Tagged: nettles, nutrition, seasons, spring, wild harvested

Staying Healthy

growingwildfarm — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:43:48 +0000

I spent most of this week on the farm tending to fevers and sore heads, throats, and tummies. As terrible as that sounds, the farmer was better by day 3, the kids each after 1 or 2 days. We made lots of chicken soup from Kookoolan Farms’ birds with lots of veggies to make a rich, healthy, and healing broth. We sipped tea with some of the elderberry syrup we made at summer’s end for just such occasions, and we took hot baths and rested. In the end, we were happy that it was over quickly and that it wasn’t too bad.

We tend to look to food for our vitamins and minerals and medicines, and I feel blessed to be able to continue to eat fresh, nutritious vegetables through the fall and winter, times when our bodies are called on to fight off the colds and flus that come during this time of year. All growing vegetables and fruits begin to lose nutritive value once they have been picked, and they also will not reach their maximum nutritive value if they are picked under ripe to make it through shipping and handling to stores far and wide. And although each season offers its own set of repeating foods, we hope that with your CSA share you notice a rainbow of colors, from dark leafy greens to bright orange carrots and squash, with red, cream, purple, and white roots. All of these provide a well balanced supply of various vitamins and minerals and antioxidants. There are, no doubt, always many pieces to the pictures of our health, and colds and flus are hard to avoid, but I hope that you are staying well and enjoying the bit of natural medicine the healthy and tasty produce we share together provides!

Posted in challenges, cooking, CSA, family, farm, farming, food saftey, newsletter, nutrition, organic Tagged: csa harvest, health, newsletter, nutrition, seasons

Looking forward

growingwildfarm — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:56:00 +0000

Greens, greens, greens!! There are a lot of greens in your share today, in true spring veggie style. Everything we are harvesting right now until the first spring planted radishes are ready (next week?!?) was planted last year in July, August, and September!! This is very exciting to us, to even have so much fresh food to eat in this season. Still, as we actually plan for next winter/early spring harvests at the beginning of the year rather than committing to growing year round in the middle of summer like we did last year, we are happy to be able to plan for potatoes and celery root for these harvests next year when they need to be planted rather than way past too late. With a grain restricted diet, we miss starchy root veggies to round out our meals. Still, on the menu last week with the veggies that your share included we had so many great and filling and more than sustaining farm meals. Goat and barley soup with leek tops, salad mix with nettle pesto, vinaigrette, and chopped hazelnuts, braised rack of goat and sauteed rapini, pizzas with nettle pesto and sheep’s feta and with olive oil, caramelized leeks, rapini, and Parmesan, coconut red beans and rice with baby perpetual spinach, oil and vinegar, and feta, falafel and chard cakes, rice noodles with kale, locally fished tuna, and buttery leeks. Spring eating is great, and now that we are harvesting again, and we are on the road to new crops, our own veggie intake gets to go up as we no longer have to wait to pick at the greens we have been wanting to grow more. Greens upon greens on our table, yeah!

But the season will move on, and we have to grow different greens and some not at all in the heat of summer, so we enjoy their sweetness and abundance now! Some of you have asked about what will be coming through the summer so that you can plan your own growing spaces, so this is one thing to consider. We don’t tend to harvest kale, arugula, or mustard and Asian greens in the summer, although you will have them through June, but we will continue to harvest chards and lamb’s quarters in the greens department. Traditionally, we have given out salad mix, which goes through minor transformations through the seasons, every week. We aren’t planning on doing this for 2009 even though our salad mixes have been called the best by many of you (thank you!). We do plan on giving out more heads of different, beautiful varieties of lettuce, and one or the other for each week is the goal. If you are a big salad eating family, please talk with us about adding a bag of salad mix to your regular share. By doing it just for those who have come to really want this every week, we can save some harvest time (our salad mix is very labor intensive). We are growing a lot and multiple varieties of these crops: beets, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, beans, winter squash, tomatoes, and peppers. We are growing the same delicious Italian zucchini we did last year along with a Lebanese variety, some heirloom crooknecks and patty pan summer squashes, and will have loads of these and straight slicing Marketmore cucumbers. The spring will bring radishes and snow and snap peas. We will have pickling cucumbers and canning tomatoes available for u-pick, half price for CSA members. You can also pick cherry tomatoes and a bouquet of cut flowers near the house at your veggie pick up on us, our way to show our appreciation for your support and to make the drive (on top of the veggies) worth the while!

We are going to try to grow small watermelons and muskmelons in a hot spot on the farm with a constant supply of safe greywater in an attempt to get a harvest at least for the family, perhaps to share with members if they would like, but not to sell. Melons like it hot, and they like a lot of water, and to this point we haven’t had any ripe ones in Oregon, but we know it is possible, so we are working on it! Our apple trees may produce this year, but whether it will exceed family needs and suitable for the CSA or only be enough for a market crop has yet to be seen. Our first planting will be three years old, our second, just two, some only one year old, so yields will still be small. That is it on the fruit front for now, our kids will likely eat all the strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries we get this year!

Our whole eggplant planting failed in the greenhouse this year, so we are purchasing just 50 organic eggplant starts from a Beaverton farm this year. Eggplant isn’t a heavy producer here in Oregon, so this will likely only translate to one or two weeks of eggplant harvests for the CSA. If you love eggplant, this would be a good one to put in your home garden. We also will not be growing any sweet corn for fresh eating. This could be the subject of a whole other newsletter since we have many things factoring into this decision. We grow only open-pollinated varieties, and this in and of itself makes fresh corn difficult. OP sweet corn is perfect for harvesting in about a one day window and then good for eating in about a one day window. This is hard for scheduled harvesting and weekly boxes. We also have a neighbor who grows genetically modified corn, so we have been unsure about growing open- pollinated corn for fear of cross-pollination. Now we have gotten variety and plant dates from our neighbor, selected a corn variety that will pollinate within the safe 3 week distance from the GM corn, but it will be for drying, and we will be using a lot of this for supplemental chicken and pig feed. However, we will also batch grind some for cornmeal and polenta for our family, and maybe for the winter CSA! We know that sweet corn is good, but it is also water intensive, space intensive, and poor on the nutritional scale, so this is where we are going with corn. We always buy or receive a few meals worth from other local farmers, and encourage you to enjoy this summer treat from Farmer’s Market or from you own garden! We are growing some Cannellini beans this year too, for fresh shelling and dry beans!

Of course, it is hard for us to know what this will translate to given our last two years…we have had problems with certain crops each year. Yet, there are a lot of things that make us feel more confident that all of these crops will be on our tables in abundance. We have learned so, so, so much in the last two years. So much of when we were just large scale home gardeners hasn’t translated, but we feel like we are learning a lot of what will make us great market gardeners. We now see that as we work to build and build healthy soil and bio-diversity to ultimately deal with pest pressure and plant health, we have to use things like row covers, trap crops, and nettle brew in the foliar sprayer pro-actively to fight pests, and that we have to add to the soil organic fertilizing amendments (compost, granular, and fish emulsion for the greenhouse and transplants). These are intermediate ways to help with the problems, not long term solutions nor our long term goals. Still, we love carrots just as much as all of you (who doesn’t!) and we want at least most of what we plant to be beautiful and harvestable. So this year, we feel like the crops we say and plan to have, we will, and that is a good place to be this year!

Posted in cooking, CSA, farm, farming, gardening, newsletter, nutrition, organic, seasonal eating

Blog For Food Campaign

growingwildfarm — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:40:00 +0000

Because our farm is young and because we started the whole thing coming off of five years of living on a single meager income, whenever we make arrangements to donate to the food bank, Andre always jokes that it is the needy helping the needy. Luckily, we aren’t needy in the food department, being able in land and body and knowledge to grow so much of it for ourselves. Even when we didn’t have so much space, we were able to do this for ourselves…I’m not sure what our food status would have been otherwise. Even with the few staples I go to the store for, a bag or two full of butter, bulk grains and beans and flours, coffee, cream, olive and coconut oil, fruit in the winter, some almond milk, sometimes some cheese–I walk away with a price tag that always surprises me. Food is expensive, especially nourishing food from good sources. And I know of how to save money (and resources) on these things, Azure Standard, and I know how to cook, and knowledge goes such a long way when we are talking about poverty and hunger.

So a group of Oregon bloggers have joined together to raise money for the Oregon Food Bank, I urge all of you to contribute to this campaign by clicking on the logo here to go to the OFB donation page (just write “blog for food” in the tribute section), as these food banks are helping a lot of our community members right now, and if we help to keep them well stocked, they will continue to be a great source of help come what may this year. But, and I don’t really have anything solid here, more like just a calling to arms, great help can also be spread through spreading information. This is more difficult than it sounds, I know. But helping our communities gain knowledge about how to have more control of our food security and more knowledge as to how this is integrally tied to the control we have over our own health..this would help us become a community that has even more assets to fight these huge issues of hunger, poverty, and health care.

You can always take food itself too. If you would prefer to donate food rather than money, we were given this information as well pertaining to this particular campaign: Sarah Pederson from Saraveza has generously offered her place as a food drop off site for the campaign. So if people would rather donate canned goods than cash, direct them to Saraveza! (http://saraveza.com/) Saraveza is located at 1004 N. Killingsworth, PDX 503-206-4252. Here in the valley, contact Tricia Harrop of YCAP at Ext. 124 – 503-883-4170 for information on how to donate in Yamhill County.

For us, we always feel blessed when we have fresh produce to donate. We have to provide for the business and our family first, and because of those larger needs, the first few years we donated little in comparison to what we were growing. Our hope is that with improved yields we can reach a point of donating every week. And this is something for everyone with means to consider…planting just a little extra in your garden can provide you with a way to help fight hunger with fresh, nourishing food. For those in need, a little from those of us who feel our needs our met, goes a long way.

Posted in community, cooking, education, food bank, food saftey, gardening, health, hunger, nutrition

Joy of cooking

growingwildfarm — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:30:00 +0000

As an avid cooker, as well as a proponent of healthy eating, I have always had a desire to share information on nutrition and tips for preparing nourishing foods. Unfortunately, the result of this desire is not always the passing along of useful information, because my enthusiasm for sharing this information is often tempered by an honest weakness I have as a would be teacher. Now, it isn’t so hard to repeat the facts regarding the reasons to avoid processed foods, the nutritive value of whole foods, or the connection between nutrition and health. These facts tend to resonate with logic and common sense, and it is often just a matter of gaining access to information regarding these subjects that in turns propels folks to take a closer look at their diet. When we are confronted with the fact that it is food that is the source of all our body’s energy, we realize that the old adage “you are what you eat” really is literally true.
This I can do…share information on nutrition. The problem arises when people ask me how to do the cooking, because the truth is, as we farm so we cook–very creatively. We do not usually use recipes, and when we do, it is almost guaranteed that we do not follow it to the T. Even when we are baking, a much less forgiving branch of the culinary arts, we substitute at will to use different sweeteners and flours. As we approached the beginning of the CSA season, we began trying to keep notes of amounts used, but habit is hard to break, and we really do not prepare any two meals exactly the same way. The seasonings change, the veggie combinations change, all based more on what we have available than on a predetermined outcome. It is very fluid, very spontaneous, very fun…but very hard to transmit.
And yet, it wasn’t like this when I first started exploring the kitchen. I remember trying recipes, having them fail, having them succeed, learning different cooking methods, trying different spices and spice combinations. And now, this information, this knowing of my way around a kitchen and around different meats and vegetables, oils and spices, this familiarity is simply ingrained. I don’t think about it in the same way at all. And it has been questions from our great customers that have reminded me of this difference. Vegetables that I have a deep intimacy with have turned out to be new and intimidating to some of you. And although we never got too many of our own recipes nailed down, we were lucky enough to have an eye for good recipes so that we can include as many as we can for you to try, hoping to ease this burden of becoming familiar with new vegetables. It has even brought new dishes to our table at a time when a hectic schedule inclines us to simple foods.
And we love to hear that you enjoyed a particular recipe or that a new veggie is now your favorite, but we do also hear from some of you that you somehow messed up the recipe, or that you haven’t yet enjoyed a certain veggie because you think you are preparing it wrong. It is these comments that remind me of my inability to really transfer my cooking ability to others. I suppose like all good things in life, it is in the process of our own undertakings that brings true understanding. So many of the steps that occur as I cook the same recipe are happening at an unspeakable level. This may sound disheartening, but it all happened because I spent time cooking and observing.
To encourage any of you who have had trouble preparing some of this season’s veggies, I wanted to address this issue–the letting go of measurements and times and the development of your best cooking skills, your senses, Greens provide a good example of what I am talking about. We have tried to include a lot of recipes for cooking greens, recipes that we think are really yummy so that for those of you who have not yet learned to love the taste of these nutritional giants can begin to enjoy them. I was remembering the first year we grew and ate a green. I don’t why we chose them since they are not the most mild flavored green around, but it was mustard greens. My first reaction was not pleasant, and then my fobled attempt to cook them was even worse. Years later, I can not imagine feeling this way, partly because I no longer taste them with trepidation, a sure fire way to experience a negative taste (yes, our brains can affect how we taste things!), but mostly because I now can prepare greens in so many ways that truly do highlight the flavor of these veggies.
The trick is getting to know the vegetable. Most of the recipes for cooking greens we give out we would consider usable for all greens. However, tiny things like the minutes you will cook the greens to altering spices or meat additions might be necessary. Chard, like spinach, is less fibrous than kale. It can easily be overcooked and then be unpleasant to eat. It is mild, and so is a great salad green as well. Kale has thicker leaves than chard, so you would cook it a little longer. Because it is thicker, it can also go in the pot for soup without becoming mush, and there are scores of soup recipes with kale that attest to this. Collard greens, which we do not grow, are similar to kohlrabi leaves, which we do grow and encourage you to eat, are tough, but if given a long enough cooking time, become tender, with a delicious broccoli flavor. Mustards are course, and you would not want to eat them fresh unless young, have the strongest flavor, and are like chard in that they are more thin walled and not very good overcooked, but take a little longer to cook. Their strong flavor often requires additional consideration, and often is best cooked with other strong flavors rather than mild ones. Cabbages are like chard on one hand-they make excellent salads , but I find that when cooking them, their flavor is best with a longer cooking time.
All of this information can be gained from using your senses when you cook with these vegetables. It is more important to pay attention to the green as it cooks and softens than to the time listed in the recipe. With the tender greens, cooking times are so short that 1 minute extra can be too much, and the mushy green will not be very appetizing. Let the smells, feel of the vegetables, the taste tests you take mid-stream, and the look of what you are preparing be your guides. Soon enough, the things you have to make conscious decisions about now will become instinctual, and your dishes will take on characters of their own. Always temper experimenting with simple and sure preparations so that you can know the flavor of things by themselves too. And in the end, suit your time in the kitchen and at the dinner table to you, lest these necessary actions become chores rather than joys!