Spring carrots

Two weeks ago there was no snow on the ground.  Two weeks ago we had a wonderful weekend with temperatures that soared well above the normal high of 48 degrees and landed at 65 degrees on Sunday afternoon.  It seemed that spring was indeed right around the corner.  I took my usual walk around the farm with the beagles and along the way I passed through the old carrot patch.  Everything that was green in the garden has been thoroughly eaten by all the deer that forage their way through the winter months.  We had pretty much written off the carrots, but as I walked across the bare dirt, I noticed something.  There WERE carrots in the ground.  Lots of them.  The tops had been eaten off and sometimes a chunk of the carrot itself had been bitten off right at the level of the ground.  I started pulling up carrot after carrot after carrot and they didn't look bad at all.  The ground had preserved them in very good condition.  It felt good putting my fingers into the wet earth and pulling out my prize.  It was like finding hidden treasure.  This time of year nearly all the vegetables we eat are ones that I have either canned or frozen from our farm.  The thought of fresh from the ground carrots was making my mouth water.  I took my prize back to the house and gave them a good scrubbing.  

Within a short time I was eating a plate full of cooked carrots seasoned with just a little butter and salt.  What a treat for this time of year.

Mike and I are still discussing if we should pick some for market.  We can certainly trim up the munched on ends, but traditionally carrots are sold with the green tops on.  I'm not sure anyone would buy them without the tops.  It seems sad that all these carrots should go to waste because the tops were there to feed the deer.

Mother Nature has decided to make sure though that we don't have to worry about harvesting carrots from the ground.  Last Saturday it snowed.  Then on the first day of spring it snowed.  And the next day it snowed more.  For going on two weeks now, our high temperatures have been running at least 15 degrees below normal.  Most of the days this past week, our high temperature did not even reach what our normal low temperature should be.  Snow this time of year is like some cruel hoax, but there is nothing to do but take a big sigh and know that spring will be here eventually.  In the meantime, the snow does make for some pretty scenery.

The big maple tree behind our house in the early morning light.

Peters Creek

Our dairy farm neighbor's granary

Wild growing apple tree looking like it was sprayed with foam

Another view of Peters Creek with our barn in the background

Rabbit Ragu

Living here on the farm, we eat a lot of wild game as part of our diet.  We have three beagles that love to chase rabbits around the farm and we have lots of rabbits that love to eat our vegetables.  And so it is that the dogs and I get some exercise during rabbit season.  I shoot a few rabbits to keep the population in check a bit and to keep some lean healthy meat in the freezer.  Truth be told, I exercise the dogs way more than I actually shoot any rabbits, but a few weeks ago the rabbits ate every last bit of our spinach and radishes that were growing in our high tunnel.   Last weekend was the last weekend of rabbit season and I thought I had better take advantage of the last opportunity to thin out the rabbit population.

Every once in awhile I come across a recipe that deserves an inclusion in the blog. I've been looking for something different to do with the wild rabbit meat I have on hand.  Seems like I've been kind of stuck in a rut ever since I came up with a rabbit and gravy recipe that I really love.  A couple months ago I came upon a recipe for rabbit ragu.  I've been wanting to try it ever since and this weekend was the perfect opportunity.  I browsed the internet for more rabbit ragu recipes and I finally settled on one from Emeril Lagasse via www.foodnetwork.com.  It is called Rabbit Ragu with Pappardelle Pasta.  Of course I made a few minor changes, but the inspiration certainly came from this recipe.  This recipe was certainly somewhat of a labor of love and definitely not something that could be put together for a weeknight dinner, but you could certainly do the long steps ahead of time and crockpot the rest.  Today though I had some time and so this is how it went.

I took two wild rabbits and deboned the meat and cut it into chunks.  I even removed the silver skin off the loin muscle.  Probably not necessary but I did it.  Actually I have not deboned a rabbit before and I have to admit it was a bit tedious.  I think I actually like better the method of cooking it until the meat is tender and then pulling it off the bone.  But I do see an advantage of deboning first.  There were no shards of bone in the meat like there sometimes are when pulling off cooked meat.  I also did this step the day before so that was a time saver today.

Then I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and tossed the meat in flour (sorry Emeril, I just used plain ol' all purpose flour).

Next I browned the meat in a little olive oil, about 10 minutes, until browned and nearly cooked through.  Removed the meat from the pan and set aside.

I added a little more olive oil to the pan (just enough to coat the bottom).  I find it hard to believe the recipe calls for about 1/2 cup of olive oil at this step.  Wow!  That seems like it would be an oily mess.  Whatever.  I then added the 2 cups of minced onion, 1 cup of minced celery and 1 cup of minced carrot.  Pretty colors!

This next step is definitely the "labor of love" part.  I don't think I have ever caramelized vegetables to this extent.  One time I made a deep dark caramel colored roux for a gumbo recipe and I remember that took a long time.  I read up on caramelizing veggies and it convinced me that this was a step that needed to be taken seriously.  And  so, 50 minutes later I ended up with some beautiful caramel colored vegetables.  Perfect!

For the next part I added 2 pint jars of home canned whole tomatoes with the water/juice.  I mashed them in the pan with a hand potato masher.  Add to that the 1 tsp dried oregano and about 2 teaspoons of  fresh chopped garlic (I like garlic more than 1 tsp worth), 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (I had no red pepper flakes), no rosemary (I hate rosemary) and no bay leaves.  I also added 1 cup of red wine and cooked this for another 30 minutes, reducing the liquid a bit.

After this, I added the browned wild rabbit meat, the tomato/veggie/wine sauce and only 1 cup of broth (I used homemade turkey broth because it is what I had on hand) and put this all in the crockpot.  30 minutes on high and then 5 hours on low.  When it was time for dinner, I got the handy dandy potato masher out again and used it to break up the chunks of meat a bit.  Served over pasta.

I really really REALLY liked this recipe.  Mike thought there was too much heat from the cayenne, but he does not like spicy food much at all.  I thought it was just right.  A slight touch of heat/flavor without being too noticeable.  Maybe next time I will try it without the cayenne, but it will need more salt or garlic or something else if the cayenne is not there.

The semi-myth of those stand up egg whites

The "kids" grow up so fast it seems.  Only 8 months ago, they were little egg-sized balls of fluff.  Now they are cackling and crowing young adults.  It's probably a good thing that we don't have any real close neighbors because when all the girls (and the two boys) get to "talking", the noise level in the chicken barn is quite loud.  So far this winter has been bearable.  We've had stretches when the ground is covered by snow, but we've also had several mid-winter thaws that have taken us back to green grass a time or two.  The chickens love being outside when the snow is gone.

But when the snow is on the ground, they excitedly run to the barn door when it is opened and promptly come to a screeching halt at the edge of the concrete.  Sometimes there is a major chicken pile up with the ones in the back plowing into the ones in front at the edge of the snow.  Except for a few brave older hens, most of my chickens will not step foot on snow.

Right now we have about half of our older hens laying as well as the majority of the 8 month old birds.  I even bought a few Americaunas for the first time and their green eggs are a big hit with the kids that show up at the farmers market with their parents.  And talk about a variety of size.  When chickens first start laying eggs, the eggs are small.  Gradually the eggs increase in size.  My older hens are laying a lot of extra large eggs right now while the younger hens eggs are more medium in size.

Now that the "youngsters" are laying regularly, I finally have the opportunity to write about the semi-myth of stand up egg whites and what that says about the age of an egg.  First you need to know there are actually four parts to the egg white.  Two of those parts are closely associated with the yolk.  The other two parts are the egg white that is seen when you crack an egg open on to a frying pan.  There is a thick gel-like part closer to the center and then a thin watery egg white that spreads to the outside.  As an egg sits in your refrigerator, it gets older and as an egg gets older, that thick gel-like part of the egg white gets thinner and flatter.  Therefore it is often written that if you crack open an egg and the egg white is watery and does not stand up tall then that egg is old.  This is true for store bought eggs that are graded when they leave the farm.  But there is a HUGE exception to this rule of thumb that is often seen in eggs that come from small backyard flocks.  These are the eggs that will often be for sale at farmers markets.

Several years back I had a customer complain that the eggs I was selling were old because the egg whites were very watery.  That is what he had been told and probably what he had experienced with his store bought eggs.  Well we sell out our eggs every week at the summer market so the absolutely oldest egg is seven days old.  I collect them, I wash and sanitize them and into the refrigerator they go.  So why would I be selling eggs with watery egg whites?  The answer is that I have hens in my flock that are much older than in commercial flocks.  As hens get older, egg whites have more and more of the thin watery part and less and less of the thick gel part.  Some hens have eggs that do this more than others.  When I look at my eggs in the egg basket, I can tell you which eggs will have thick stand up egg whites and which ones have thin watery egg whites.  Since there is no difference in flavor or nutritional value in eggs from older hens, I choose to keep my hens for an extra laying season compared to the big egg farms.  It is what I do.

And for a demonstration, I recently cracked open two eggs into a fry pan when I was making Sunday breakfast.  Both eggs were less than 24 hours old.  The egg on the upper left came from one of my old hens.  The egg on the lower right is from one of the young hens.

So there you have it.  If you buy eggs from someone who has a small flock of chickens and happen to get some eggs with watery egg whites, those eggs are more than likely not old eggs.  They are just eggs from old hens. Same farm fresh tasty goodness.

A little education. A little bit of local food movement.

Winter on the farm may not involve much work in the field, but there is a lot of behind the scenes work going on.  Last week Mike went to his third vegetable grower conference of the winter.  This one was in Hershey, PA and he got to spend the week learning all sorts of new things and eating chocolate.  What sort of things do vegetable farmers learn at conventions?  Some examples from the Hershey conference were seminars on storing vegetables for winter markets, growing sweet potatoes (haven't done this yet but are planning for this coming season), and field tests on growing seeded and seedless watermelons side by side.

Around mid-conference, I asked Mike to send me a picture of the conference so I could post one to the farm's Facebook page and this is what he sent.  The man does love his pie.  He also seemed quite fond of letting me know what he was having for dinner each night.  Tuesday night was especially memorable because the text message he sent couldn't have been timed more perfectly.  I had worked a little later on Tuesday and didn't get home until close to 7pm.  The temperature had been above freezing for the second day in a row and it had rained most of the day.  I was in a hurry to just get out to the barns and get chores done and over.  As I crossed the driveway and headed to the chicken coop, the light rain became a steady downpour.  As I walked through the yard, I could feel my feet squishing in the muddy muck of all the snow melt and then realized that I had forgotten to switch into my rubber barn boots and instead had on my suede boots that I wear to work.  I was not going back to the house at this point though.  That's when I heard the text message tone on my phone.  I got to the barn and was thinking that while the chicken pens would be dry, I would be walking through wet shavings and bits of chicken manure near the doorway.  My poor suede boots.  Once out of the rain, I pulled my phone out to read my husband's text that read "Sitting in the nice restaurant here waiting for my steak.  Butter and chocolate flavored butter came with the bread.".  Lovely.  I'm soaking wet and my feet are covered in mud and chicken poop.  Yep, timing is everything or so they say.  The following day there were texts about French toast for breakfast and later about Yuengling beer, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  At least I knew he was eating good while he was gone.

The other happening last week was a local meeting to promote the local food movement.  The meeting was hosted by Mark Winchell, executive director of the Ashtabula County Convention and Visitors Bureau and Dave Marrison, Ohio State University Extension Educator based in Ashtabula County.  A fine looking duo to be sure (that is Dave on the left and Mark on the right).  Anyway, the purpose of the meeting was to network local farmers with local restaurants.  Mark has a lot of ideas for promoting local Agribusiness and his enthusiasm for this project was fun to see.  Normally Mike would be the one to attend meetings like this, but since he was out of town eating chocolate flavored butter on his bread, he sent me.  This alone is kind of scary because while I claim part ownership of the farm, most of my farm duties involve taking care of the animals that live on the farm.  When it comes to the vegetables, I am best at cooking them and eating them.  Half the time I don't even know what is growing out in the fields.  In spite of my lack of knowledge, I went (armed with a notepad page of facts about our vegetable farm - Mike made me write this down ahead of time) and just had fun.  I got to talk to the chefs of several local restaurants as well as meet other farmers from all over the county.  One of the hardest parts of being in the business of farming is marketing one's product.  Us farmers are busy sorts and it is often hard to find the time to reach out to potential customers.  So a big thanks to Mark and Dave and the local restaurants that attended the meeting.

That about sums up the farming for the week.  Mike was planning on taking inventory of the Brussels sprouts still in the field.  All the snow melted while he was gone and all the snow came back on the day he got home so a thorough inventory will have to wait.  I'll leave this blog post with a typical winter scene from the farm.  Little ol' Peters Creek is slowly freezing over once again.  This is the view of the creek as it runs through our pasture and our high tunnel can be seen in the upper right hand corner of the picture.