June 2009
Monthly Archive
Diagonal dinner (halibut cheek with asparagus, garlic scapes, and fresh garden peas)
Posted by Lauren on 29 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: comestibles, deliciousness, recipes, seasonal, spring
Diagonal dinner (halibut cheek with asparagus, garlic scapes, and fresh garden peas), originally uploaded by laurenipsum.
In a hot pan with bacon grease, started before the fish went on, went minced shallot and sliced asparagus and garlic scapes. We put the fat asparagus stalk segments in first, to get more cooking time than the skinnier ones, the flower buds, and the scapes. Partway through I decided it should have peas so I ran out to pick several pods, which I dumped straight into the pan as I shelled them.
Halibut cheeks went into another pan with melted butter. We worked from this recipe for the ‘but cheeks, lightly breading them with flour with salt, pepper, a bit of cayenne, and paprika. These cheeks were HUGE and took longer to cook than that recipe; I only bought three at the fishmonger today, and we only ate the two smaller ones, one each. The other will make fish tacos for both of us. HUGE. For reference, we often cook up 6+ normal-sized cheeks to make tacos — they are usually much, much smaller.
After frying and removing the cheeks, I deglazed their pan with some vermouth, lemon juice, and water mixed together, reduced a bit, combined that with the veggies in their pan, and plated (I’m like Iron Chef!).
All in all, a very successful meal. We are happy to have more than one way to cook ‘but cheeks now — previously we have exclusively grilled and served as fresh soft tacos.
Rototilling tips.
Posted by garth on 29 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: planting, tools
It appears that, if you’re rototilling a garden that’s gone to grass and blackberries for the past six years, watering prior to tilling makes it easier to remove the vegetation. It looks like a softer, wetter soil allows the tines to pull plants bodily out of the soil instead of chopping them up but leaving the rhizomes. Of course, when you’re tilling mud the tractor gets stuck more easily. If, like me, you’re running a walking tractor it’s not a problem but just takes some muscle to get moving again.
Of course, I still hate rototilling and want to find an affordable, labor-efficient, and less intrusive method of soil preparation.
Shelling peas on the couch
Posted by Lauren on 22 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: comestibles, freezing, harvest, peas, putting by
The shelling peas are coming on strong so we picked a big bowlful to shell while watching Buffy. I use the shells to make stock in case we need to feed any vegetarians, and I blanched and then quick-cooled the peas right in the colander we shelled them into.
Does what it says on the tin.
Happy Solstice!
Posted by Lauren on 21 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: calendar, holidays, seasonal
I couldn’t wait for the last holiday, but this one snuck up on me and I didn’t even prepare a holiday meal. All the same, we ate well, with ribeye steaks (we are using up the last of our cow from last year, in preparation for the new cow in a couple of weeks), and garlic scapes and spring onions, both from farmers at Pike Place Market, on the grill, as well as our current standard of plenty of salad with sliced radishes and fresh shelling peas.
I feel some stress about the fact that the year has peaked today; the garden is way behind and we are still not sure if we will do meat birds for sale and we have lots of lettuce but the tomatoes are still in pots in the greenhouse and and and … But we are doing OK. We are raising turkeys and a flock of 25 chickens for ourselves and our neighbors to eat, so we will be supplied with chicken for the winter. In spring I made a little spreadsheet to do the planting math for me, and it tells me that I still have 60-90 days of good growing season. So here’s hoping that the downhill side of summer is good and we have squash after all.
Naming and Naming Conventions
Posted by garth on 21 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: chickens, ducks
Like a lot of farmers, we don’t name the poultry or other livestock. They’re wonderful creatures and we love them very much a desire nothing more than the happiest possible life until we kill and eat them. This requires some mental gymnastics for city folk and former vegetarians. One thing I’ve found very interesting in raising poultry is that they lack the empathy for humans shown by dogs, horses, and even cats. (Yes, cats are hateful and contemptuous, but that’s because they understand how you feel AND THEY WANT TO PUNISH YOU!)
However, we’re also animal people and we need to refer to our various groups of animals as something, so they evolve names. We couldn’t remember the name of the breed “Wyandotte,” so our first one was referred to as Wilhemina (We’d been reading the League of Extraordinary Gentleman), and the Black Austrolorpes as “the Octothorpes”. The Khaki Campbell ducks have generally been referred to as “those fracking ducks.” They are not my favorite animals to work with but we’ve got the new ones this year known as “the ducklings” or “those misbegotten creatures.”
Our new chickens this year are the Ameraucanas (who lay blue eggs) and four new Wyandottes. 
Pretty, aren’t they? So they reminded us of the humanoid cylons from Battlestar Galactica. Did I mention we’re nerds?
There are many copies. And they have a plan.
In deference to my previous career as an alt country musician, the Ameraucanas are referred to simply as Uncle Tupelo.
The two that hate each other are clearly Chicken Jeff Tweedy and Chicken Jay Farrar. Chicken Jay Bennet is playing a guitar solo in Chicken Heavan.
We can has irrigation
Posted by Lauren on 11 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: Bainbridge, TWL, johnson farm
Folks who are local to us, come on out on Saturday to our new farm and help us install some irrigation! We’ll be there early in the morning on Saturday, so come on by anytime, and we’ll put you to work!
Johnson Farm is on the west side of Fletcher Bay Road, just south of where it meets High School Road. There is a stylish new red and white sign so you can find us more easily.
links for 2009-06-11
Posted by Lauren on 11 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: links
-
No soil, no food.
-
Trapper Creek's notes on raising many meat chicks, including that they go outside at 3 weeks, weather permitting.
-
Using one of those big mailboxes as storage for small tools in the garden.
-
Bug Girl on earthworms!
-
BYC's page on poultry diseases
-
A good paper on water quality for livestock.
-
More on Trapper Creek's chickens, including their gravity-fed waterer.
-
WSU extension article on how they have their broiler tractors set up.
Things that are new!
Posted by Lauren on 07 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: deathandnomming, pictures, spring
Here are some things that are new this year!
This year we are allowed to let our blueberries set fruit. We won’t get much, but I’m excited!
Our Wyandottes are fifteen weeks old, and all grown up! They are starting to venture out of the coop when we open it up to let them out. They have discovered they love the grass and the sun.
I sprouted these beans in a dish of water, which worked beautifully, and then I waited too long to plant them and I didn’t think any of them came up. I was sad. But then I noticed these lovely flowers! I know the replacement beans we got didn’t have beautiful red flowers, so I was very happy to know that I hadn’t killed the first batch.
The chives overwintered, though I thought they hadn’t, and now they have beautiful purple blooms that the bees love.
This week we got the first batches of chicks and turkey poults (babies) that we will raise for meat and ultimately slaughter. They are awful cute but I am fairly confident that we will be able to dispatch them when it comes time.
Faceplant turkey faceplants, and narcissist turkey examines self in mirror, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.
The turkeys, pictured here on their first day home, are so funny. The yellowish one in the front has learned about reflections!
Our first batch of meat chickens arrived on Friday, and Garth took this lovely video of the box before opening it. Starring: Ruby dog; box of peepers.
SQUEAMISH VEGETARIANS may not want to proceed — there are some non-graphic, at-a-distance pictures of chicken slaughter day below.
Laura at (not so) Urban Hennery raises a flock of chicks a couple times a year, and before ordering chicks she puts out a call to interested folks who can claim a few chicks. The deal is, you pay some deposit money for feed, and then you come help out on slaughter day too, and at the end pay a total for average weight minus the deposit you paid. It works pretty well. Slaughter day was this weekend, and pictures are below.
Kimberly, Jessi, and Megera at the eviscerating table, with Laura instructing and Garth lurking in the background, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.
This weekend, we went up to Arlington to help slaughter some chickens that were raised by Laura. I did a lot of gutting, but I took a break to take a photo.
While we were gutting and finishing up, the guys were plucking and queuing up birds for us.
Phew! We’ve been busy.
Baby turkeys are here!
Posted by Lauren on 04 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: firsts, pictures, turkeys
They are smaller than I thought they would be!
On redundancy
Posted by Lauren on 02 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: meta, seasonal
The peas are coming in, and the mustard greens are flowering and covered with honeybees, and the beans are coming up, and the 100+ tomatoes have been potted up and are just waiting for ground to go into, and yet I haven’t been taking pictures. I took pictures of peas last year! This year’s pictures would be basically identical. Maybe I should take them anyway. I guess if we stopped talking about things that reoccur seasonally, we would run out of things to talk about very quickly. I love the cyclical nature of the farm, but it sure does make me a boring conversation partner.