Changes

It’s been a few months since I’ve written. Many things have happened in that time and life as I knew it has changed. With any change, there usually comes a healthy dose of fear and that certainly applies to me. To make it through to the other side, I have sharpened my coping skills. I have tried to make more time for things I enjoy, for things that fill my cup. One of those things is cooking – not just dinner in 30 minutes or less, but really cooking. Having the luxury of spending all day in the kitchen surrounded by the smells, sounds and textures of the season’s bounty. Derek has kept me supplied with loads of his amazing vegetables throughout the summer, encouraging me to try new things. There is nothing I love more than cooking in the summer – everything is so easy because so little has to be done to make the food shine. Tomatoes only need a dash of salt, olive oil and basil to have the most luscious summer lunch. Sautéed squash, eggplant, tomatoes and basil, all topped with fresh mozzarella is divine. And the corn? It really hardly needs anything – not much is better than that.

But my life is not the only thing changing – the days have grown shorter and cooler. We have moved into fall, my favorite season. I love the crisp air, the intensely blue sky and the changing leaves. Fall foods are here – kale, collard greens, lettuces, spinach, chard, squashes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes. The perfect ingredients for a warm bowl of soup, a hearty meal by the fire and even some sweet pies. I was lucky enough to have my dear friend and chef extraordinaire, Coby Ming come cook with me yesterday. I had two bushels of goodies from Derek – five different types of greens, beautiful salad mix, beets, red onions, butternut squashes and the biggest sweet potatoes I’ve even seen outside of the state fair. Ivor and Seamus supplied a beautiful chicken, garlic and basil. I had the goal of making a soup, something to nibble on in the fridge, a couple of go to helpers and dinner. For the soup, we roasted the butternut squash and blended it with onions that had been cooked down with plenty of butter and salt. I ate a quarter of it for lunch yesterday, froze half and will probably finish the rest today. Divine. For the fridge, we cooked some french lentils and mixed them with more roasted butternut squash, caramelized baby red onions, beets, basil, feta cheese and oil and vinegar. I think I ate half the bowl while checking for seasoning. It was so good. The go to helpers were garlic oil and a vinaigrette. For the garlic oil, we filled a little pan with plenty of garlic cloves and covered with a mix of olive and canola oil and let it simmer for a couple of hours. After the oil had deepened in color and absorbed the flavor from the garlic, we strained it. With the super soft sweet garlic, we took a few cloves and mixed with with olive oil, a raw egg yolk, honey, vinegar and salt and pepper. Some people might be leery of eating raw egg yolks, but I know exactly where these eggs come from.

Dinner was all of those greens cooked down with onions that had been caramelized in butter, vinegar and spices; mashed sweet potatoes; Derek’s beautiful salad mix with fall apples, pumpkin seeds and garlic vinaigrette;  and the pièce de résistance, fried chicken. Coby had marinated the chicken overnight in buttermilk and spices. We dredged it in seasoned flour and fried it in my grandmother’s cast iron pan. There are not many things that can top that, I am here to tell you. My son came in the room and said, Mmm mmm, something smells good! Eating food grown with love by dear friends, prepared with friends and shared with family and friends is a very healing experience indeed.

Whether you are just dealing with the daily stresses of raising children, working at an unsatisfactory job or going through a major life trauma, find your happy place. I think I found mine in the kitchen.

Spring greens – get ‘em while the getting’s good!

Recently, I took the children to the Pine Mountain Settlement School with some friends from school.  We had a marvelous time hiking through Blanton Forest, Kentucky’s largest known old-growth forest, while being hosted by the fine folks of Kentucky Natural Lands Trust.

While there, a friend told the story about cooking dinner for his 2 year old daughter while his wife was away. He was making tortellini and conveniently found a pot of warm water on the stove. He simply heated it to boiling, dropped the tortellini in the water and a few minutes later, dinner was served. His daughter was shoveling the tortellini in her mouth as fast as he could give it to her. Wow, he thought, she must be really hungry. “What do you call this???” she exclaimed. By the time she requested her third bowl, he was getting suspicious. After tasting a bite, the mystery was solved. He had cooked the tortellini in a pot of hummingbird food. That’s right, a pot of water, 3 pounds of sugar and a box of tortellini – yum.

I had the same revelation Monday evening. I was exhausted from the long weekend and not really in the mood to cook. I found a bag of something green in the fridge, tossed it with a bit of olive oil, salt and champagne vinegar. Whoa – flavor explosion. It looked like baby spinach, but it didn’t taste like it. It didn’t have that gritty after taste that comes from eating a big spinach salad. “What do you call this???” I thought to myself as I shoveled huge bites into my mouth. I went back for a second bowl and felt so smug eating such a healthy dinner that was unbelievably delicious and sinfully easy. After a fact-finding mission this morning, I discovered that it was, indeed, spinach. Who knew spinach could be so utterly amazing? I already liked spinach, but this was something different – so fresh and clean tasting. This, I imagine, is Coby Ming’s secret to my favorite side dish at Harvest - the kaffir lime spinach slaw. I could eat a giant bowl of that stuff. It really makes you realize that when you start with the freshest ingredients, it isn’t that hard to make your side dishes shine.

Tonight, Stella finished off the rest of the spinach and I ate an entire half pound bag of salad mix from the garden. In my last post, I remarked that ramps are sometimes called a spring tonic. Well, I’m here to tell you there is no spring tonic like Derek Kelley’s greens. To get in on the action, sign up for our CSA or find us Saturday mornings at the St Matthews Farmers Market.

http://www.ashbournefarms.com/csa.html

This place that feeds us

The past few weeks Austin has been our family forager.  It seems every time he comes out of the woods, he has a treat – turkeys, ramps and morels, to be exact.  Ramps are a wild onion sometimes called a spring tonic.  They are just what the doctor ordered after a long cold winter.  Tender green leaves shooting up from the forest floor. Now we are scanning old fence rows for my favorite, wild asparagus. Usually, not much makes it home because we eat so much as we are picking. Fresh asparagus is like fresh berries – pick one, eat two, pick one, eat two.

Morels offer a wonderful earthy taste that are even more special because they are so hard to come by. They are only here a short while, so we get them while we can.  Austin has brought huge bagfuls home after turkey hunting.  It led me to think about our farm in a new way.  I know we grow lots of food here – beef, pork, eggs and plenty of vegetables.  But, what about the other things? What about the things that we can’t legally sell because they are “wild”? The turkeys with the yellow fat and richer flavor. The venison with the lean dark meat that you only find in wild game. Doves signal the beginning of fall – tender breasts wrapped in rosemary and bacon is hard to beat. Our kids have grown up eating quail and rabbit without a second thought. Summer brings fresh bluegill and small mouth bass from our farm ponds, caught equally by Austin and the kids. And that huge snapping turtle that was roaming across our yard last week? That also became someone’s dinner – turtle soup. I’ve heard it’s great with morels.

Barefoot Contessa, with a local twist

For Easter this year, I decided to cook brisket. It’s a long standing tradition for the Passover Seder, so I figured it was as good of a seasonal dinner as ham and asparagus.  For such a cold rainy day, it seemed much more comforting as well.  After a bit of internet surfing, I found a great recipe from Ina Garten, one of my favorite cookbook authors.  Her recipe called for tomato juice and I had recently gotten a jar of a very intriguing tomato cocktail from my Grasshoppers CSA, made by Eco-Gardens in Scottsville, KY. This dish was very similar to a nice chuck roast with carrots and potatoes, but a little different. The meat had less fat, but was still super tender. The tomato cocktail gave it a richness and silkiness that my pot roasts have never had. If I had local potatoes and carrots it would have been even better. I think this is a dish I will definitely bring out during the fall as well, maybe even with fresh late summer tomato juice from our own garden.

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend ~

Layla

Louisville’s Original Farm to Table restaurant, The Ashbourne Inn

Check out the menu from a true farm to table restaurant – from the 1950′s. All fruits for pies and preserves came from the farm’s orchards.  All beef and chicken came from the farm and was processed in La Grange at the Meat Locker. All eggs and seasonal vegetables were grown on the farm. Amazing, isn’t it?

Take a ride out to La Grange and visit the Oldham County Historical Society for more interesting information about our farm and agriculture in Oldham County.  They have a fabulous exhibit running through the end of the year.

Our Summer CSA!

Busy as bees

Okay, so maybe the bees aren’t out yet, but we are! Things are gearing up on the farm and it’s shaping up to be the most exciting summer season yet. Austin has been working all winter on his bee project. He has gotten materials for 12 hives, put them together, painted them and is now finding good spots around the farm to place them.  Because of how he is running this farm to blend good agriculture practices with quality wildlife management practices, he has plenty of great spots. Clover fields, fruit orchards, vegetable gardens and such. Hopefully, in a couple years, we will have sweet honey to add to our list of offerings.

Derek and Clarence are busy ordering seeds and getting a new greenhouse set up. This should really help us extend our growing season and get a head start on seedlings. Derek has expanded our vegetable garden to three acres so we are better able to meet the market. This should provide plenty of produce and flowers to sell at the farmers market every week, as well as supply Grasshoppers with quite a bit of additional vegetables. We’ve ordered some blueberries, raspberries and grapes, too. We are also considering starting a CSA.  We would provide 16 weeks of a mix of beef, pork, eggs, a bounty of vegetables and maybe even a nice arrangement of flowers to finish it off. If you’re interested, shoot me an email at info@ashbournefarms.com.

Austin and his crew have also been taking advantage of this recent warm up to start seeding clover, planting more trees.  We have had orchards on our farm from the beginning and are expanding those efforts.  We recently planted more pear, plum and apple trees to add to our existing orchards of peach and pear trees. Last year the pears were very prolific and very tasty.  That might be something we are able to offer our CSA customers, too – fruit!  We’ve also planted some chestnuts and edible walnuts.  The guys are certainly taking advantage of our new tree planter.

Austin, Derek and Todd spent an intense week at the Bluegrass Army Depot getting their fire training.  They are now certified wildland fire fighters! Soon, we will begin to burn the prairie grasses on our own farm, as we’ve done for years. The burning season continues until May.  This practice removes the dead layer and competing plants like cedars and briars. It adds beneficial nutrients and allows the sun to warm the soil for seed production. It keeps the grasses, forbs and flowers vibrant. And for those of you concerned with global warming, these native grasses absorb much more carbon dioxide than non-native vegetation. It’s like our own little Brazilian rainforest out here.

Calves are being born, buds are coming out on the forsythia and dare I say? The grass is starting to look a little greener around here.

Spring is in the air!

I love that my last post was “Winter Doldrums” and I’m already feeling a little more spring in my step. Mother Nature hit us early with a cold snowy winter and I’m hoping that she’s as ready for spring as we are. Austin has seen it, too and even has predicted an early spring. Geese are starting to pair off in all the ponds on the farm. The deer have shed their antlers and the turkeys are beginning to strut a bit. I know the chickens are feeling it – with this recent warm weather we are starting to see egg production go up. They are venturing a little farther out each day. In the bitter cold days of December and January, there were many days when they didn’t dare venture outside. Only the bravest would come out for my scraps, the others huddled together in the corner. It never slowed our guinea hens down and I am anxious to see how they do. They are a wild looking bunch, beautiful bodies and feathers with scraggly bald heads. They move in a pack, flying and squawking all over the place. When they first started “calling,” I thought the pigs had gotten out. I couldn’t figure out what was making all that noise!  Before too long they will begin laying beautiful little round eggs. If anyone is interested in guinea hen eggs, let me know. I imagine they taste similar to chicken eggs, but with a much more interesting shape for hard boiled eggs.

The other morning on the way to school I had to tell the children that Swana, their favorite friendly goat had died. Swana lived at my mother-in-law’s horse farm keeping an orphaned foal company. After she was no longer needed there, she came to live on our farm. The children loved visiting with her after school. At the same time, I also had to tell them that one of the best beagle hunting dogs had to be put down as well. She had cancer and was no longer comfortable. Carolina said, “Oh no, two animals died on our farm!” But as the cycle of life goes, I had the pleasure of informing them that 8 new baby piggies had just arrived. Our mama heifers are looking big and beautiful, won’t be too much longer until we have lots of baby calves, too.

With death, so begins life anew.

Winter Doldrums

Blah. Somedays, that’s how I feel. Blah. We are blessed with an amazingly gorgeous spring and fall here in the Bluegrass, but we earn every glorious bluebell bloom and red maple leaf with these dreary gray winter days. So, this winter it is my charge to find beauty around the farm in winter. (The photo above shows that I’m off to a good start, I think). I know it’s there, it just doesn’t envelope me the way all the other seasons do. Maybe it’s seasonal affective disorder – we all need a little more vitamin D this time of the year. Which led me to wonder, do foods that are in season this time of the year actually provide nutrients our bodies need more during this time of the year? Namely, vitamin D? Well, not really I came to find out. But, if you are curious how to boost your vitamin d and maybe your mood, too, read on. Sunlight is the best source of vitamin D and right now, that’s pretty hard to come by. Other good sources are egg yolk (check!) and many different varieties of protein from fish to beef to dairy. At the farm we are fortunate enough to be surrounded by many different, delicious sources of vitamin D.

In honor of all those with the winter doldrums, we’re offering you a little dose of sunshine. For $100 you can stock your freezer with our Sunshine Package! This includes one 3 lb. beef roast, 2 packages of hamburger patties, one package of beautiful ribeye steaks, 1 lb. of breakfast or italian sausage and a package of our famous pork chops.

And cheer up, spring is only 2 months away!

Ode to Memphis Meats

For all of you restaurant owners and chefs reading this, you have heard me proclaim the wonders of Memphis Meats many times.  When I call a restaurant to pitch our product, half my time is spent pitching Memphis Meats.  They are a major player in this local food movement who always work behind the scenes.  Without them, Louisville would have a much less vibrant food system.  Ask any farmer what the biggest obstacle they face and most likely the answer is lack of processing plants – both for vegetable growers and especially, livestock farmers.  There are only two processing plants in our area that are USDA inspected.  This is a must for anyone wanting to sell to stores or restaurants.  Memphis Meats is a jewel and all local farmers are lucky that we have such a high quality plant as one of our choices.  Many of you have heard of Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown – whether it is for 21C Hotel, Proof on Main, Kentucky Bison or Museum Plaza – there are familiar faces in the local scene. What is not as well known is that they are the owners of Memphis Meats in Memphis, Indiana.  When they started their bison herd, there were no processing plants that slaughtered bison.  So, fortunately for the rest of us, they bought Memphis Meats.

I recently had a customer write to me to inquire about where we got our animals processed and how they were treated.  I was thrilled that someone asked.  Here’s what I told him — Memphis Meats has a pasture where they hold the animals for a couple of days to get them used to their new surroundings.  This calms the animal down, so they are not stressed.  If an animal is stressed out when slaughtered, your meat will be tough.  The farmer can do every thing right and if they go to a bad slaughterhouse, all of their work is for naught.  Memphis Meats is meticulous about cutting the meat to our exact specifications.  We have restaurants that want uniformity and Memphis Meats delivers.  They have a top of the line vacuum sealer that protects our meat from freezer burn.  When we get our meat back, it looks beautiful. I tell customers all the time, if you want something special, just ask.  They can do whatever we need in terms of weights of cuts and styles of cuts. Every single time I call to give orders on processing, Tim Bell takes time to ask all the right questions and more importantly, give me all the information I need.  As someone new to the intricacies of butchering, he explains everything to me with the utmost of patience and respect. He, quite literally, has taught me everything I know.

In short, Memphis Meats makes us look good.

Tim Bell, photographed by Andrew Hyslop.