the new year

It’s a new year and we have a new web site. Ok, it’s a couple of months old but that’s still new to us.

With new, being the word of the day, every day there’s something new: Seed catalogs, plant catalogs, irrigation catalogs. So much to look at and think about.

With the new comes waiting, for the seeds we ordered, for the new pruners, to prune everything, to plant, just plain waiting. Waiting for us to share what we are up to. Waiting for us to post something new. I’ve made the commitment to post an update on what we are up to and a recipe at least once a month. Plus, a picture or two every week. Now that I have made this goal public, I had better keep it.

Continuing with the new theme, we are trying some new beans this year: rattle snake, a green and purple podded snap bean, and two different green beans as we did not really like last year’s. We’re growing cucumbers on a trellis this year. We shall see how this goes and if it’s worth it.  I have the same problem with tomatoes, I’m always late getting them trellised. We are also going to plant some flowers, sunflowers and zinnias. We decided we wanted some color over by the shop and thought these would be nice.

We have a nursery license this year since we get many requests for plants. We are ordering honey berries (haskaps). Two varieties that have the bloom have the same time are needed for pollination. We are getting Beauty and Beast, just by the name you can tell they are made for each other. They produce nice largeish fruit on nice sized bushes. We are also getting some raspberries plants, asparagus roots and some dwarf apple trees (honey crisp and zester). These will be dwarfing trees and should only get 7 to 8 feet tall and produce fruit in two to three years. We are talking to some friends who like to start tomatoes, peppers, and other garden plants, we hoping to offer those vegi starts as well.

The new building is officially finished, in reality we have been using it and the self-serve farm store since July. This spring, when we start to harvest, we will have asparagus, rhubarb, and honey berries for sale in the farm store. As the year progresses, we more fruit avaible, cherries, straw berries currants, goose berries plus many more. We will also have garden vegetables. Every thing will be grown here.

Now for the promised recipe. Christie made this just last week with some red Kuri squash and we really enjoyed it. It was a nice way to use some leftover squash. Our daughter Julie got us the cookbook for Christmas, you can get it from Minnesota Historical Society Press. 

 Autumn Harvest breakfast bread, from Smitten with Squash, by Amanda Kay Paa

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, slightly melted and whisked to a creamy texture

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

¾ cup red kuri squash pureed (we just made sure it was just mashed up well)

1 cup of mashed, very ripe bananas

2 table spoons of dark rum (you can just leave this out if you want)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1.5 plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (or 210 grams gluten free all purpose flour mix) we used regular all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x5 loaf pan, in a large bowl, whisk together the butter, sugars, squash puree, bananas, rum, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Add half the dry ingredients to wet and stir a few times. Then stir in remaining dry ingredients until just combined and no flecks of flour remain. Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Bake bread for 50 to 60 minutes, checking for doneness with a wooden pick after 40 minutes. If bread is browned but not quite finished, cover lightly with foil. When wooden pick comes out clean, remove bread from the oven, let cool in pan for 8 minutes, then turn out and cool completely on a wire rack. Wrapped in aluminum foil, will last up to 4 says at room temperature. Also freezes well.

Thanks Larry and Christie