Archives for March 2016

Next Week’s Harvest Boxes

Taking a small break….new newsletter will be back next week 🙂

Man, just as I said that we haven’t seen much of the March Lion, we got absolutely hammered this week. Fortunately, no real damage on the farm. Just hunkering down and waiting for the sandblasting to leave us alone. Which it always does, just never feels like it comes soon enough.

Lettuce, it looks like lettuce will be the first face at the fiesta this year. We have absolutely gorgeous heads of lettuce coming from the fields for you to enjoy. Right on the heels of the lettuce will be the springtime yumminess of bok choy. Look for those coming up in a couple of weeks.

Hot item of this week…Italian flat leaf parsley. Really an underutilized plant I feel like. It is an extremely versatile herb with its comfort zone ranging from pastas to potatoes. Here are a couple of recipes that we are highlighting in the box for this week so you can feel more at ease with parsley.

Parsley Pesto with Pecans:

2 cups Fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves SKRS

2 TBL Pecans (about 12) SKRS

1/4 cup Extra-virgin olive oil SKRS

1/4 tsp Salt

Combine all ingredients in processor or blender until smooth.

Oven Baked Parsley Potatoes:

1/2 cup Butter SKRS

2 pounds Red Potatoes SKRS

1/2 cup Fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves SKRS (chopped)

½ tsp Salt

¼ tsp Black Pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Place butter in a large baking dish and melt in preheating oven.

Toss potatoes with melted butter to coat.

Bake in preheated oven until potatoes are tender, about 40 minutes. Sprinkle parsley over potatoes and season with salt and pepper; toss.

And one more reminder about the local New Mexico cheese that we brought back last week. A stunning response this week with folks diving back into the cheese block. Over 10% of the orders added the Tucumcari Cheese Factory goodies this week. That is so great to see that kind of support for our local suppliers. And it makes a difference in our food landscape.

If we want to live in a society that has a strong agricultural presence, we have to support it with our dinero. No legislation will keep our farms in business, only our communities can do that. So thank you for being a part of the solution. And I know that I speak for all of our network of partners when I share our gratitude for your support.

Finally, I want to put a call out to our members for any suggestions that you may have for new products. Everything that we currently offer is not there by mistake or accident. All of these great products have come from members’ suggestions (pleadings). If there is something that we can bring you to make your life easier and more flavorful, just let us know.

Happy munching folks, Farmer Monte

Next Week’s Harvest Boxes

What a gorgeous Spring, uh I mean late winter, we are experiencing so far. March has definitely come in like a lamb and have not seen much lion yet. Fingers crossed.

Our fields are filling up and ready to start harvesting. Looks like lettuce will be the first to the party this year. Fitting as my old soccer team’s name was “Lettuce Win.” So keep your eyes peeled for some cool lettuces that you will not see from any store. We have found some very interesting varieties over the years that do very well for us, but for some reason, they are not grown commercially. Oh well, their loss is your gain.

On more product news, our/your CSA Manager, Emma, has been hitting the pavement looking for tasty new items to add to the offering. Her prize find this week was cheese. Tucumcari Mountain Cheese Factory. Straight from our amigos in Eastern New Mexico, some of the highest quality cow cheese around. And at a price point that you will love. We have many flavors that we already have brought in and can bring in more as well when we see how the demand takes shape.

Look for those on the web site now, and you can thank Emma for those. And if those weren’t enough, she also found some deli style meats (salami and prosciutto) to help round out your Spring picnic basket. I have to say that I think we are doing a really good job of filling some gaps that we have had in a more well rounded diverse kitchen. It is exciting and dare I say fun to see all these positive changes coming to our members.

I strongly encourage you to spend a few minutes surfing around the web site to see all the new items we have brought to your fingertips. Shoot, you don’t even have to be dressed to check out our store. The second part of this encouragement is to let us know what we are missing. What would you like to see added to the line-up?

Now a reminder (drum roll please) our Farmy Fridays begin now. 3/18, from 3-7pm, in our Warehouse Garden (3435 Stanford Dr NE). Just a quick recap as to all the cool stuff you will see, hear and taste.

A Farmers’ Market. We will have produce, meats, and some value added goodies available for folks to buy. No pre-order necessary. We will be hosting a CSA Pre-Pack pick up, so that you can order online, have us pack it for you, then you just come and pick it up after you relax in the shade of our canopy.

Cider and New Mexico Wines. I always walk away from Markets thinking that they need to highlight the liquid agricultural movement. Well, because we are a certified winery, we can serve cider and wine at our markets, so we will. Come try a cider and my first batch of super tasty wine. Depending on your plans for the weekend, you can even take some home.

Kids’ Table. Our weekly free event to let the kiddos get dirty and blow off some steam after that stressful week of 3rd grade. You can drop them off and let them be kids, and you can take some time to be an adult and talk to some fellow foodies.

As the season progresses we will be selling plants, hosting gardening classes, and letting you ride a mechanical bull. Well, maybe not the bull, but I wanted to make sure you were still with me here. Again, if you have a special talent or passion, let us know if you would like to play music, paint faces, tell jokes, teach composting, or run a cooking class. Our members are up to some pretty cool stuff, don’t be shy…share it!

Have a great weekend and hope to see you out here, Farmer Monte

Next Week’s Harvest Boxes

Flavors are such amazing things to examine. Somethings you want bold and strong like a BBQ sauce. While others, like a hint of sage on mushrooms, you want to be so faint that you almost cannot discern it is even there. The artistry of cooking can come down to which path you follow—is it a bold statement or just a hint to lure you in?

With that, this week I want to highlight the fennel bulb. She is from the Umbel family and is a sibling to the carrot, dill, and parsley to name a few. It is a very fragrant plant family and there is probably no one better at bringing beneficial insects into your field or garden. These plants are effectively a Welcome Mat for ladybugs in your yard.

I want you to try the amazing complexities that a little bit of fennel can bring to your plate. Throw the ferny leaves on top of salmon, roast the sliced up bulb with your potatoes, or thinly slice the bulb into your salad greens. Wherever it ends up, it will keep your taste buds guessing and wondering what those interesting flavors are.

This is also a good opportunity to look at the importance of execution in the kitchen. I had a chef break it down for me once that incredible food is just fresh ingredients with perfect execution. And execution is not knowing your spice rack, it is knowing your food. Think about this; the difference between a perfect steak and shoe leather is execution of timing. The difference between asparagus with a tiny snap to them and mush is execution of timing.

We have a very unique audience of kitchen warriors because we are all cooking with the same ingredients. Crazy to think about it, but the pork chops in your house could be the exact same chops that 1,500 people enjoy. Flavor, thickness, etc all the same. So what I am envisioning here is that we do not just focus on how to season the food, but we, as a group of food lovers, do a better job of sharing how the execution becomes perfect as well. I ask you to be more vocal on our community social media outlets, and we are bringing in easily printed recipe cards that we will be using to highlight best practices too.

The fear or unwillingness to try something new in the kitchen really just boils down to education. I would love for all of us to help each other better understand fun (and hopefully easy) ways to kick butt in the kitchen. It feels good to make something excellent in the kitchen. There is a real sense of accomplishment and pride.

So let’s help each other out. I want the farm to be a hub for you to share your tips, tricks, and secrets in the kitchen. This help/tips for one another does not need to just be in the context of our kitchens. As I mentioned last week, this journey that we are on is about choosing and living a healthy lifestyle. Food is just one component of that. We want to expand the scope of our members’ interactions and bring thoughts of healthy living to the table. So we’d like to encourage this platform within our members. But how can we do that effectively? Funny you should ask…

Farmy Fridays. Beginning 3/18, from 3-7pm, in our Warehouse Garden (3435 Stanford Dr NE), we will be wrapping up the week in style. We are hosting a farmers’ market, selling our cider and wine, having educational classes for adults, and interactive classes for the kiddos too. This will be a weekly fiesta that we will have to help everyone unwind from the week and start the weekend right. Bring a picnic or a set of horseshoes if you like.

If you or someone you know would like to lead a kids or adult class during one of these Fridays, please email Emma at emma@skarsgardfarms.com to set this up. Again, we want the members to help shape the experience you have with the farm. So grab the fam and/or any neighbors you like and bring them out here beginning March 18th.

See you then, Farmer Monte

 

Next Week’s Harvest Boxes

Let’s start this week with some product highlights. Which are always more fun than product low lights. Spring has sprung. That is the good news. I love seeing our fields fill up and I love seeing the bounty from our neighbors throughout the region.

Asparagus, strawberries, and artichokes. Honestly nothing tells me it is spring more than those three crops. Eating these 3 Amigos you know that the weather is not too hot and it is not too cold. They represent the Goldilocks zone of the spring and a time to be most definitely enjoyed.

Pasture Pork. We have begun harvesting some of the pigs that we over-wintered on the farm last fall. The first 5 are already in and a couple dozen more to go. This is a great time to load up your freezers with what you will need for this coming summer and BBQ season.

I feel pretty confident that you will not find a better quality of pork anywhere. Our pigs never see the inside of a building and are able to live on acres of land to do what pigs love to do, root around. They always make me laugh because after a rain or snow, you look around and only see their shoulders because their entire head is buried in the ground. They eat the weeds at the roots so we don’t have to see as many of them in the summer. Now that’s a win-win.

Moving on here to some birthday news. Some folks dread birthdays. I distinctly remember my mom celebrating her 43rd birthday like 5 times. Fortunately she is so energetic and beautiful that she was able to pull it off. But me, I love birthdays. The sage philosopher, Norm Peterson (from Cheers), once said that “It’s a dog eat dog world out there and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.” I could not agree with him more and that is why I love celebrating birthdays. It’s no small feat to make it through a calendar these days. So rejoice and don’t hide behind these mile-markers.

With that said, it is the farm’s birthday this week. 13 years of getting dirty and keeping it real with you. What started out as a dream for one dude has morphed into a mission of the many. As support for this farm grew, it became clear that the goal was not about just growing a better local carrot but cultivating better lives for our community. Sure this is a lofty goal, but as they say in Norway, “If the path was easy, the Swedes would have already done it.” 🙂

I give a lot of tours of the farm and of the business. And you know what, no one ever walks away saying what an amazing greenhouse or tractor we have. They always remember the people who make up the farm. The dedication and belief in what we do is apparent in everyone who keeps this place going and growing. This genuine passion for promoting healthy living is pretty special in today’s marketplace and I am so grateful for our crew. I can tell you all that you are in good hands.

I am also so thankful to our communities that keep the farm thriving. It is a very vulnerable position to ask your community for support. We can grow all the plants in the world, but if no one is there to buy (support) your farming addiction, then you have done nothing. For 13 seasons I have asked for your support, and for 13 seasons we have received more than I ever expected. I never take that for granted for a day. We are only here because you want us to be here. Without you, there would be no farm. Thank you.

So today I will light a candle for us and raise a glass to you. We have the “unlucky” 13 years behind and an amazing and prosperous 13 years in front of us. Enjoy the harvests this spring and again thank you for keeping us going. We have lots left in the tank still.

Farmer Monte