June gloom (and ice cream!)

Time to mow! I wish I'd taken a before and after photo of this orchard. The grass was well above the lowest branches, creating a seemingly impenetrable wall around the trees. Now they are freed! And look at how large they are! We planted this orchard in 2010 ...

June is mowing season! I wish I’d taken a before and after photo of this orchard. The grass was well above the lowest branches, creating a seemingly impenetrable wall around the trees. Now they are freed — and look at how large they are! We planted this orchard in 2010 …

When we went to bed Sunday evening, a brisk wind had picked up, leading us to consider closing windows and prepare for rain. Good thing, because we woke to bright flashes and crashes of thunder in the middle of the night. All four of us awoke, listened for a bit and then fell asleep to the sound of rain as the drama of the storm passed over.

The rain continued for the early part of the week, reminding us of the classic Pacific NW phrase “June gloom.” Oh, how often have been surprised by rain and gray skies in this first month of summer! But, it happens! Regularly!

After a busy spring of planting, planting, planting, it’s nice to get this respite really. We often rely on it for the timing of certain tasks — a rainy June day is perfect for thinning apples and pears in our orchards (something on this month’s ‘to do’ lists), and this week Casey took the opportunity to get quite a lot of mowing done.

Grass sure can grow in the Willamette Valley. And it had grown quite tall here on the farm. The animals are grateful for the food, but in many places it can truly be an obstacle! So the tractor and our powerful flail mower were put to good use, freeing our orchard trees, delineating roadways, and clearing overgrowth from buffers and edges. It feels good to see these shapes of our farm again — definition where there was much softness.

Planting continued too though. We got a big round of brassicas in the ground, thanks to having more bodies around these parts. This week is our first week at our full summer load of employees. We’ve got two extra folks out for the summer, which brings us up to four folks in the field (plus one extra one on Mondays). Having so many extra hands at this time of year is a must, as the work piles up with the lengthening days. We’re quickly marching toward the longest day of the year and the Summer solstice. Much to do! Much to do!

With so many of us out here, we thought it’d be fun to revisit the concept of weekly sit-down farm lunches. We’ve done this before, often as a potluck or other manifestations. But you know what? It’s hard for busy farmers to also pull off great meals mid-day. So this year I hired an enthusiastic and culinary-skilled friend to prepare food for us. We provide her the ingredients (bins full of farm-fresh foods!), and she brings us delightful assortments of goods for our Monday meal. Our first week was a huge success, with much rejoicing as everyone helped themselves to seconds of the coconut-strawberry ice cream.

Rain + ice cream felt like a good start to this month. We took a deep breath, and we are now fortified for the coming blast of heat, which I’m sure will be just one of many as we dive headfirst into summer. And, soon after, I’m sure we’ll be jumping (perhaps not diving) into the river, to find our perennial relief there when the days get too hot for our native NW blood. It’s good to farm surrounded by the river.

This week’s share brings a fun array of early summer veggies. Casey remarked to me that right now it feels like we are poised at the top of an immense wave (an apt metaphor for an Oregon surfer). So many crops are just coming on (including such delights as raspberries and cherries). Here it comes, folks!

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

Meet this week’s vegetables:

  • Shelling peas — Make sure you check the labels when you pick up your peas this week! We’ve got both sugar snap (which have an edible pod) and shelling peas (which have a yucky pod but big delicious peas inside). If you take the shelling peas, please do shell them! The peas will be some of the most delightful spring food! At this point, they are almost all sugar with very little starchiness, so you can eat them raw (our kids do!), or a very light cooking will suffice. Pan saute in butter with green garlic and then use as a topping for pasta or salad or just eat it!!!!
  • Sugar snap peas — Again, these are the peas that are good to eat whole, pod and all.
  • Strawberries — And, these are strawberries. YUM!
  • Zucchini — I can tell you honestly that a few years ago I would have felt ho-hum about the start of the zucchini season. Can you believe it actually took Casey and me years to truly love zucchini and summer squash???? I still can’t believe it, because our love is so deeply profound now. After a winter of eating so many greens (and greens with our greens and then some more greens), we welcome a new staple vegetable in our diet. Just yesterday I made a delicious stewy dish for dinner, using kale (mustards or chard would work just as well), sliced zucchini, the final jars of canned tomato sauce, LOTS of green garlic, and pork belly. I first sauteed the garlic in butter (a great way to start any meal!), then loaded the pot with the veggies and cooked them down. I precooked the pork belly in a slow cooker and then transferred chopped meat to the pot. It was delicious!
  • Fava beans — You may notice that our fava beans are getting fatter! You could possibly still roast these whole, but this is probably also now the season for doing all that slow (but delightfully satisfying) kitchen work of shucking and then peeling the fava beans. If you’re new to this food, fava beans grow in a shell like many legumes, so obviously you can shuck them. But then for the sweetest and most tender flavor, you’ll also want to remove the white outer skin that grows around each individual fava bean. We’ve seen people do this with raw fava beans, using a paring knife or a finger nail to get it started. We often will blanch and then shock our beans. At that point, the white skin will just slip off (and the fava beans will be parboiled to boot). What to do then? You can finish cooking them in a bit of butter or oil and then dress them as a side dish (we had some this week with shaved fennel!), put them on pasta, etc. One of our favorite things is to finish cooking our fava beans in olive oil with green garlic and then mashing the resulting beans/cooked garlic into a spreadable paste. Spread on toast. Divine!
  • Fennel
  • Mustard greens
  • Chard — Chard seems to do well on our farm. So well that at some point in the season, we run out of ways to eat it. This week I made an old favorite that’d been neglected for a while: chard MEATLOAF. That’s right! I made a big batch, but you could make a smaller batch by cutting all these ingredients in half (or so). I started by coarsely chopping two bunches of chard and then running the chopped through the food processor to chop it into very fine bits. I put these in a bowl. Then I chopped some green garlic the same way (the amount will depend on your taste preferences! I think I used one large stalk, everything up to the top green leaves). After adding these to the bowl, I mixed in two packages of ground beef, three eggs, and ketchup and salt to taste (ok, I didn’t actually taste the raw mixture, but I imagine some households will want more or less of these last ingredients — thankfully they can both be added at the table too!). I really love mixing meatloaf by hand; I find that I have the best control over the process, even if it is a bit messy afterward. I poured the mixture into a medium-sized pan (probably about the volume of two loaf pans, so if you’re making a single batch a loaf pan should work!) and then baked it at 350° for one hour. I like meatloaf well cooked. Ours was “done” about two-thirds of the way through the baking process, but it was liquidy and not crispy yet (I like crispy outsides of meatloaf!). One hour for our batch was perfect, but watch it carefully because your pan shape and loaf volume will determine that best done point for you. This dish was gobbled up by everyone, including our most picky eater who loved it SO much. With the double batch, we had plenty for an entire meal the next day. I served it with raw sugar snap peas that we dipped in a homemade dressing/mayo dip. Yum!
  • Potatoes
  • Sweet onions
  • Green garlic
  • Garlic — The next garlic season approaches! And last year’s garlic is really on the way out now — the remaining heads are lighter and require more work to use. It’s time to clear them out to make room for this year’s crop, but we don’t want to just throw them to the animals! So, this week, consider taking a HEAPING LOT of garlic as one of your items! We’ll even put that on the sign! HEAPING LOT! Help us find these final garlic heads a home! Thank you!

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

  • Green garlic ferment! Finely chopped green garlicky goodness! $8/pint, $4/half-pint.
  • Corn flour  — $5 lb
  • Walnuts — $5 lb
  • Eggs — Hens on strike! As we explained to of our egg-loving customers last week, we are transitioning our hens to a new diet right now — from the farm-grown one we’d been using to an organic ration (we just plumb ran out of the feed we’d grown! Until later this year anyway!). Apparently the hens are taking their time getting over the change.
  • Lamb — Prices vary depending on the cuts. We have roasts of all kinds. This is going fast, so if you want lamb, I recommend checking out the selection this week. We’ll take more animals Monday.
  • Fresh pork roasts & belly — $8 lb. These are cuts that haven’t been cured at all, so “fresh.” We have lots and lots of roasts that make for delicious crock pot meat. Most of the uncured products have sold, but we still have at least one beautiful ham left! More animals going to the butcher tomorrow morning, destined for pork chops and fresh sausage.
  • Pork fat & skin — $3 lb
  • Ground beef — See my chard meatloaf recipe above! So good! $7 for 1/lb packages
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2 Responses to June gloom (and ice cream!)

  1. Sherill Roberts says:

    Hey, I made meatloaf tonight too. Only I made it in little muffin tins instead of a loaf pan. They are convenient for meals and snacks, and just the right size for little hands to hold.

  2. Katie says:

    Sounds delightful Sherill!

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