Presto Chango: Pesto!

We LOVE basil. And, my customers are pretty fond of it as well. So, I decided I was going to have plenty of basil this year. I planted it by the tomatoes in two different gardens, in the raised beds, in a flower bed and have three jars "rooting" in the green house.

Traditionally, basil--Ocimum basilicum--Treats fevers, cold and flu. Alleviates stomach cramps, vomiting and indigestion. Basil has many reputed medicinal properties, such as the ability to draw out poison from insect bites, as a sedative, for treating digestive disorders, soothing pain, promoting perspiration, and promoting production of breast milk in nursing mothers.

As a food basil is delicious whole leaf--top it on sandwiches, salads and summer soups. And, the world renown Genoa sauce famous for it's versatility, it's rich, wonderful, flavor-packed greeny goodness: pesto. It can be a sauce, a condiment, a topping or an ingredient for other recipes. Although it's quick and easy from a food processor, many folks still like the hands-on, tactile earthyness of using a mortar & pestle.

I do love a good matrix. (check out the Smoothie Matrix HERE)
It puts a lot of info in a birds eye view. I made a new one for pesto that will be on the website ( www.rockycreekvalley.com ) but here is the basics for now.

Pesto's three main ingredients are herbs, cheese and nuts. These three can be switched and swapped to suit your taste or recipe.

Herbs- 2 cups: basil, cilantro, spinach, arugula, parsley, mint, broccoli rabe
Cheese- 1/4 cup: Parmesan, Asiago, Romano, Grana Padano, Manchego
Nuts- 1/2 cup: pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios

Other stuff: 1/4 cup olive oil-extra virgin, 2 Rocky Creek garlic cloves, 1/2 t sea salt, 1/2 t freshly ground black pepper, 2 tsp lemon juice

Put all ingredients except EVOO & cheese in food processor add EVOO in a streat and pulse to desired consistency. Add cheese & pulse. Serves 8.
TIPS: Toasted nuts will UP the WOW factor. Spread on baking sheet for 7-9 minutes at 350 degrees, stir occasionally.
Freeze pesto in ice cube trays to pop into soup this winter.
Walnuts add that extra Omega-3 we all need.

For Chef Gary's more detailed description of making pesto check our website: www.rockycreekvalley.com

MMMMMmmmmm...I can taste it now. Life is good. :) e

HOW TO TUESDAY

It's my first How-To-Tuesday ...

How to find the proverbial "good egg". Run a good size bowl full of cold water. Add your egg (DON'T CRACK IT!). If the egg lays on the bottom, it's fresh. If the large end of the egg floats a little higher, it's 7 to 10 days old. If the egg stands straight with the large end up, it's at least a month old. If it floats, don't eat it!

Potato - PotAHto

Today is National Potato Chip Day. Now you may think that is NOT a dish for a farmgirl-herbalist. NAY. Not so fast. It is our neo-antifry culture that thinks of fried foods as a mud puddle...to be avoided at all costs. For most of us "Politically Correct Nutrition" has infiltrated our psyches to the point of excluding any possibility of an alternate view. Just this week a grocery store clerk looked at the shopping basket full of lard and coconut oil and with a horrified expression said, "What in the world are you going to do with this?
This post is not a treatise on good fat/bad fat but if you are willing to THINK about it beg, borrow or buy Nourishing Traditions. Beginning on page 4 Sally Fallon gives you all the info you would ever want complete with research. (You can buy this book by clicking on it in my Book widget in the sidebar.)
This year I am planting Superior potatoes--an early variety and Kennebec potatoes--a late variety and of course, sweet potatoes--which also make good fries and chips.

Back to potato chips. This is good just plain, but if you want to change it up a little just sprinkle on cayenne, BBQ seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder..well you get the idea. Let your potato muse run wild!

4 medium potatoes - thin slices are great, but if you don't have a food processor they're still good. Slice potatoes into a large bowl of cold water. Drain, rinse then refill bowl with more cold water and 3 tablespoons of SEA salt. Soak for at least 30 minutes, then drain. One more time rinse and drain. You could add vinegar at this stage if you want that tartness.
Heat oil(olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil) or lard (if you use Crisco, I will hunt you down and tweak your nose) to 365 and fry potatoes in small batches. Once they are golden, remove, drain and season.
Enjoy the Day of the Potato. Life is Good.

Which Came First...

the chicken or the egg? In my case, the chicken. My Mables are doing quite well. They LOVE this nice weather and even when we have a "set back" as is often the case in Missouri, they are out there scratching and pecking to their hearts content. Jack is so cute to watch with "his ladies". He calls them over to inspect an interesting tidbit in the ground, warns them when the hawks fly over and worries if they all do not stay right with him. There are some independent Mables who like to wonder around on their own and ignore his callings. Mable eggs have gotten progressively better these past weeks and oh so yummy. I think of my chickens as free-range, but, as usual, the names farmers have used for generations have been high-jacked by the commercial "farms" and no longer mean anything. If the egg-carton in the store says free-range by law it means chickens are "given access" to the outdoors, it doesn't mean they actually go outside. Some industrial "farms" have one small chicken door per thousands of hens. The outdoor facility is almost always a fenced dirt yard void of anything green or living. The new marketing term for REAL free-range chickens is pasture-raised. I suppose it is just a matter of time before corporate "farms" call their crowded dirty dead dirt yards (as opposed to living organic soil) pastures. Then, once again, true farms will have to change their description of true free-range, pasture-raised chickens. Just to be safe, BUY FRESH. BUY LOCAL, and ask questions!

Chicken Feed- Pass the Beans

I'm simmering a pot of beans on the stove. They smell good, but they're not for me. They're for Jack and Mable. Here at the farm we subscribe to the natural food method of feeding our animals. That simply means I do not leave it to Purina, Pedigree or any other pet food corporate conglomerate to decide what makes my animals healthy. Take a look at the stats...there are more ailments and disease affecting our pets than ever before. Then take a minute to research how pet food is made; it will literally turn your stomach. I decided years ago not to leave my health in the hands of someone else; to take responsibility for my own nutritional needs. After all, what the government says is safe today will be recalled next week. I'm an intelligent person; I can figure out what I need to do to stay healthy.

When we moved to Rocky Creek, I decided to do the same for our animals. Back to the beans. As with everything else, nutritional needs of chickens vary depending on which author you are reading, so I take in all the info, and like I do with my diet, I decide what my chickens need.

I give then a regular diet of corn, laying mash, mixed grains, oyster shell, herbs (of course), seaweed, table scraps and BEANS. (I'll go into the whys and wherefores of each of those on another day.) The beans give them a midweek protein boost. The beans I'm cooking today are navy beens with a protein content of 24.5%. I like my Mables to have around 17-18% protein and Jack around 20%. I'll put the cooled beans in a pan and let them have at it. Soy beans have a greater protein boost of around 27% but I have a love-hate relationship with soy so don't use it as often.

When feeding poultry beans YOU MUST COOK THEM. Beans contain trypsin which is very harmful to poultry when fed in a raw state. Cook about a cup of beans per dozen chickens for 15 minutes. They must reach a temperature of 180 degrees to take care of the trypsin. So, bring them to a boil and let them simmer away. Wala...a protein feast.

Snowbound

Now this is a snow I can relate to; one measured in feet not inches! That's the kind of snow I remember from my girlhood. We received two separate snowfalls here in the Valley each about 17-23 inches--depending on where I poked the yard-stick probe--with several small snowfalls of 1-3 inches. Then in addition we have the winter lasagna: snow layered with ice. February, the love month, has given us several days of 50-60 degree weather.

Although we still have plenty of snow, we also have a few grassy patches where the snow had been plowed thus allowing the sun to beam through with hot laser-like-snow-melting power. So, now we have wide avenues of ice-free-walking meandering purposefully throughout our farm. Mobile home to cottage. Mobile to barn. Cottage to barn. Mobile to mail box. We look like a veritable village. Cassie is appreciative of the pathways but still leaves them to do her business...such a thoughtful dog.





Jack and Mable (rooster and hens) LOVE the grassy walks. At last GREEN! Jack, the ever present provider, struts and calls his girls to first one spot of grass then another in a most delightful spectacle of male bravado. He completes his show by flying onto the highest gatepost and crowing with passionate satisfaction.



Chickens showing off their warm-weather antics have more than aesthetic appeal. Even though Mabels have never ceased egg production in spite of sub-zero temperatures and short dark days, the new green vegetation and the shinning sun will enhance the eggs with more nutrition. Mother Earth News did an interesting study about five years ago proving what my Grandma Lizzy always said: fresh air and sunshine for man or beast. Compared to the anemic grocery store eggs from caged hens, free-range chickens produced eggs with half the cholesterol, twice the vitamin E, 2 to 6 times the beta carotene (vitamin A)and 4 times the omega 3. Just crack open a Mabel-egg; it's so beautifully orange you'll think it's the sun shining in your bowl. Life is good.