Products we make regularly in our house (from L to R): fromage blanc (fresh soft cheese), kefir (in progress here), and fermented veggies. Fun stuff!
I rejoice here regularly about the beautiful annual rhythms that shape our farming and food life here at Oakhill Organics. Oh, how I welcome each new turning in the season and the return of familiar and missed flavors to our plates. It is wondrous to feel myself rolling along through time, with that passage marked by each crop’s new arrival — the soft tender spring greens, the first tangy bite of an August tomato, the comfort of a roasted Delicata squash in fall … ah, for me seasonal eating is the foundation of life’s true pleasures.
But lately I have also been grateful for the smaller regular rhythms in our family’s food life — those daily and weekly routines we have shaped as we feed ourselves from this farm. When we hatched the Full Diet CSA scheme back in 2011, I don’t think we anticipated how much it would transform our diets as well as those of our customers. As we’ve added more farm fresh products into our diet, we’ve had to come up with ways to really integrate these whole foods into our routines. At first, it felt like extra work to eat more food from scratch (in an already quite “from scratch” diet by most standards!). But over the months, the process of eating most of our food from the farm has organically evolved into a series of weekly and daily routines that in of themselves have become pleasurable.
I have come to deeply love and appreciate the little tasks that Casey and I perform almost ritualistically in our kitchen. The food we prepare is very simple and yet the work we do transforms the raw ingredients into something profoundly satisfying and different. We float into the kitchen many times during the day to either prepare a meal directly or to tinker on an ongoing project for future eating.
In the morning, Casey begins his day with his first cup of coffee (not from the farm! but still one of our favorite food rituals!), then he prepares Rusty a simple breakfast of meat and yogurt (Rusty is hungry immediately upon waking so eats before the rest of us). Often while Rusty eats, Casey will tend to cheese or yogurt that he started culturing the night before — he strains it on the counter while preparing breakfast for the rest of us (almost always cooked greens, eggs, and kefir).
After breakfast, I put away the dry dishes we washed the night before and then check on any projects I have going on. Most often, I strain our kefir and get a new batch going. I stir the kefir and strain it in a colander to catch the grains and use again. The completed kefir goes in the fridge for drinking the next day, and I pour fresh milk over the grains. I love the ritual, and it’s a very easy task for me to complete in the brief windows of time I am “given” when the children actually settle into quiet play.
At the beginning of the day, one of us will also often get a big cut of meat cooking in the crock pot. This is how we cook almost all our meat these days, since we tend to favor roasts and such. We pop them in the crock pot without any liquid and let them cook all day. The juices flow out and self-baste the meat, and the results are superb — tender and moist. Since I usually incorporate the cooked meat into a veggie-loaded dish, one crock pot worth of meat will often last us many days. Once it is done cooking, we transfer it to a container and store it in the fridge for use in meals later.
Mid-morning, the kids I pause our activities for a snack, which is simple fare around here. This time of year, apple slices rule. Often I chop them for the kids, but a while back I bought them their own “safety” knives that they like to use for cutting little bites of apple too.
Later in the day, we prepare lunch — almost always leftovers from dinner the night before, often topped with a fried egg or fromage blanc (a fresh soft cheese that is simple to make). We often eat fermented veggies on the side. We are blessed to eat this lunch together as a family every day, and we enjoy the opportunity to check in mid-day even though we often rush away again quickly.
If we have a moment in the afternoon, Casey or I may do another food project too: starting a new batch of fermented veggies, straining bone broth that we’ve been simmering in the crock pot, starting a batch of kombucha … Our kitchen has a fairly constant flow of mason jars and strainers of all shapes and sizes that we use in making and storing these foods. I love seeing the jars loading our dish strainer each morning, knowing just how many awesome things they have held and will hold in the future for our family!
When Casey finishes work at the end of the day, I often jump back into the kitchen for a more focused cooking period. I bring a lot of veggies to the counter and chop, chop, chop. We don’t eat grains at all in our house, so veggies serve that filling purpose in our meals — our plates are usually loaded with lots of cooked greens and other veggies with some meat mixed in. I have several very large pans that I use to cook two or more meals at a time. I’ve found it doesn’t take me much more time to cook a bigger volume of food at once, and then future meals are much easier. Casey usually takes the kids outside to play while I cook, and I savor this rare alone time when I can catch up with my thoughts and listen to “my” music while I work (I do love Raffi with all my heart, but sometimes I need to hear something other than “Baby Beluga”).
Dinner is (ideally) our least rushed meal of the day. Before any meal, we take a moment to physically raise our plates and say “thank you” to the universe for feeding us and for bringing us together as a family. At the end of the day, this moment always feels more composed than earlier, since our tasks are behind us. No one has to leave the house again, and it is sweet to be together. Oh, yes, and sometimes Rusty complains about his food, and sometimes Dottie knocks over her water (on purpose!). There’s a lot of getting up and down for dropped forks and napkins and such. That’s mealtime in a real family!
After dinner, we put away leftovers. While I’m getting the kids to bed, Casey washes dishes and starts any cultured projects for incubating overnight — he usually makes two batches of fromage blanc and one batch of yogurt per week.
When all is quiet, still and put-back-together in our house, Casey and I enjoy a last calm half hour or so with a cup of unsweetened tea before bed. More and more, this tea comes from our farm as we’ve gotten into simple rhythms of harvesting herbs as we have a moment throughout the year: nettles, lavender, linden blossoms, and mint. We turn down the lights and sip our tea and read or talk quietly about the day before heading to bed early (by most people’s standards!).
Casey and I have the unique privilege of working at home, meaning that popping in and out of our kitchen for all these little tasks is easy. As you can see, for us, preparing all these simple farm foods has become part of our day’s work — almost like breathing and certainly as routine as getting dressed or other basic housework (ok, for full disclosure — some days all those things feel daunting, but some days are just like that). Our kitchen is open to the rest of our living spaces, and it is a simple way to be productive while being present with each other and/or the children. I can sing songs with the kids while straining kefir, or Casey and I can catch up on the day’s news while he heats milk for yogurt. The kids like to pull up chairs and stand next to me while I chop veggies to ferment (especially when they get to eat carrot sticks!).
Truly the large counter in our kitchen is like an anchor in our family’s food life — we come back here again and again to touch base with the source of our nourishment and each other. These daily rituals of preparing and eating food don’t happen in the fields, but they offer us a new, deeper understanding of the work we are doing outside just beyond the kitchen door. With our knives and strainers and jars and pots, we take the blessings of the fields and simply transform them into something familiar and appealing — a carrot becomes a carrot stick for snack; a bunch of kale becomes dinner; milk becomes kefir; herbs become tea … Little physical meditations on sustenance, reality and love. Thanks be. I am grateful to be nourished by this place and these hands.
Wishing you mindful appreciation of your own food habits this season. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Kefir? Kombucha? Fermented vegetables? What?!?! Hey, did you read all those lovely prose up above and find yourself in unfamiliar territory? Welcome to the rapturous land of fermented foods — those of us who dwell here are pretty enthusiastic about the foods we make. Or, more accurately, the foods that helpful beneficial microbes make for us if we give them the chance. Here is a quick run-down on those three food items, followed by links to more information for learning about them (including all the amazing health benefits):
- Kefir is a very simple to make fermented dairy beverage. It’s even easier to make than yogurt (which is probably the most familiar fermented food for most folks)! The resulting beverage is tangy like yogurt but drinkable. For us, it is a breakfast staple.
- Kombucha is a fermented tea beverage. This one is a new one for our household and doesn’t really use any of the farm’s products, but I had the crazy idea recently that maybe I could drink kombucha instead of coffee. Actually now I am just drinking both. Ha! You can buy kombucha in the stores to get a sense of it’s qualities: it’s tangy, sweet and a bit effervescent (and mildly alcoholic, as is kefir). I like making it at home so I can control the sweetness (I like it less sweet), and to keep the cost down.
- Fermented veggies are just that: fermented veggies! You are probably familiar with sauerkraut and “crock” pickles, which are the most common variants of these available in most stores (look for them in the refrigerator section for the real deal). We’ve always loved making a big batch of sauerkraut in the fall for eating all winter as a garnish — it’s a magical transformation to chop a cabbage, mix it with some salt, and then let it turn into sauerkraut over a week (followed by storage in the fridge). The texture of good “lacto-fermented” vegetables is unique — crisp and fresh. And the flavor is just simply the best: what a pickle should be. I recently branched out into making other kinds of fermented vegetables (beyond sauerkraut) after learning about the magic of air locks and culture starters. The batch in the photo above is carrots, apples, and green onions. Incidentally, all of those items are in the week’s share, so you could try making these unique pickles too!
And, some resources for learning/trying more:
- Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz is the classic “go to” for information about fermenting. His website is chock full of info, including how/where to buy the book (also available in our library system).
- Cultured Food for Life by Donna Schwenk is a more recently published book that I personally found a bit more “kitchen accessible.” It’s very straightforward and offers simple, easy-to-follow directions for loads of basic (and fancier) fermented foods, including the ones I’ve mentioned here. This was the book that led me to culture starters and air locks for my veggies, which have produced tremendously consistent and delicious results! Her website is chock full of information too (including a store for purchasing air locks and starters), and her book is available through the library system.
- Yamhill Valley Heritage Project — we live in a wonderful community for learning about and celebrating all things food and fermentation! This Mac-based group sponsors awesome events throughout the year, including the annual Fermentation Celebration (usually in the fall), which is a day of workshops and classes and talks all about fermentation! Check out their Facebook page for updated info.
- Home Grown Food Products — You can (and should!) make your own fermented veggies in your kitchen … but, if you just want to try some quality stuff without the work, check out this local business that makes lacto-fermented veggies! They buy vegetables regularly from our farm too! You can find more info on their website, including updated purchasing info. (If you attended our dinner last summer, these guys made the delicious beets that were on the tables!)
- Kookoolan Farms World Meadery — Among other things, our multi-talented farmer friends in Yamhill make delicious kombucha, which you can find at Harvest Fresh. More on their website here.
- New England Cheesemaking Supply Company — These folks aren’t local, but they’ve been in the culture business for years and years. We bought our very first cheesemaking kit from them back in 2003!!! (It didn’t turn out very well, by the way, but we weren’t using good farm milk like we are today!) We still buy our fromage blanc and yogurt cultures from them via their website.
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Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Salad mix
- Mixed Asian greens — We have so many different kinds of tender Asian greens growing our greenhouse right now that Casey thought it’d be nice to make an “Asian” distinct braising mix. If you like hot greens, you can certainly eat these fresh (they are very tender but some are spicy when raw!), but they will also make a beautiful cooking green mix. When we cook these, we do so lightly (unlike the chard, kales, and rapinis, which we generally like to wilt a lot). A little fat plus some cooking time transforms these into a delicate cooked green that can be served on top of meat or fish or as a dish dish to anything!
- Cabbage rapini — This is a favorite in our house right now. After a winter of eating so much actual cabbage, it is a treat to eat it into a different form. We prepare it very similarly to kale — chopped and sauteed with plenty of fat until wilted. Dottie’s favorite bit to eat are the cooked stems, which are tender and reminiscent of asparagus.
- Apples
- Beets
- Carrots
- Green onions
