GREEN TOMATOES

I am always looking for green tomato recipes at the end of the season, because I can't bear to see them go to waste. I've made the usual relish and pickles, eaten them fried and even put them in stir fry dishes. Last year I found the best recipe yet, (I think), it's green tomato cake. It's just like a spice cake and very moist. I made a powdered sugar glaze frosting and dribbled it over the top after it was baked, it was sooooo good! Here's the recipe for those of you lucky enough to have access to green tomatoes.

GREEN TOMATO CAKE

2 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil or melted shortening (I used canola oil)
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup pecans or walnuts
1 cup raisins (I used cran-raisins, I like the tartness of them)
2 1/2 cups diced green tomatoes
coconut optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In mixing bowl, beat sugar, oil, eggs & vanilla until smooth & creamy. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon & nutmeg; slowly beat into egg mixture. Blend well. Stir in nuts, raisins & tomatoes.
Pour into greased 9"x13" pan. Top with coconut if desired. (I just mixed into batter 1 cup). Bake for one hour or until wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean.

I also found this recipe in this months Southern Living Magazine that sounds very good, but I have not tried yet.

ARNOLD'S FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 whole green tomatoes
2 cups apple juice
5 eggs
1 dash Tabasco
2 cups cornmeal (seasoned with salt & pepper)
2 Tbsp. basil
Cut the tomatoes int 12-15 slices. Coat slices in flour. Dip in mixture of apple juice, egg whites & Tabasco. Dip into mixture of cornmeal & basil.
Fry in oil until brown

We've been making applesauce and digging sweet potatoes. Finally got all the sweet potatoes dug, but I think we'll have more applesauce to make! We are going to go Persimmon hunting this evening and see what they look like. I'm not sure there's very many this year like there was last year, we'll just have to see!

Market was pretty good today, and the best part was the sun was shining and it wasn't raining!!!! We weren't sure how it would be as it started out cold and it is MU Homecoming weekend. We got rid of a lot of pumpkins which is good because loading and unloading them gets very tiresome! Plus after Halloween no one is interested in them any more! We sold quite a few apples, sweet potatoes and winter squash. We also had dried apples, dried peppers, jams, baked goods, eggs, peppers, radishes, swiss chard. tomatoes and parsley.

BABY CHICKS HAVE ARRIVED!!!

This morning I recieved a telephone call from the Post Office at 7:00 a.m. to tell me that our chicks had arrived, so away I went to pick them up. Such a dreary cool day, I didn't want them to set around and get chilled. We ordered 150 chicks and they sent 155. They always send a few extra in case some don't make it in shipping. Chick like it warm, around 95 degrees, like me! As I took them out of the box I had to dip each one's beak in water to get them to learn to drink, and then tucked them under the brooder.

It's fun to watch them once they get their bearings and start to run around. They go full speed for a few minutes then suddenly stop and take a nap!

APPLE FIGURES & TIPS

Since it's apple season I thought you might enjoy some of these apple statistics.
The six top apple-producing states in the United States are Washington, New York, Michigan, California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

The 2000 U.S. apple crop was estimated to be 254.217 million 42-pound cartons.

The largest U.S. apple crop on record is 277.3 million cartons, harvested in 1998.

In 1997, there were 9,000 U.S. apple growers and 453,200 acres of commercial orchards.

Apples trailed only oranges and grapes in the amount of U.S. acreage committed to fruit production in 1997.

In 1999, the average U.S. consumer ate an estimated 18.7 pounds of fresh apples and 29.7 pounds of processed apples.

In 1999, the People's Republic of China produced the world's larges crop of apples. The United States was the world's second largest producer, with Turkey, Italy, and France completing the list of the world's top five apple-producing countries.

The United States, New Zealand, and Japan are the leaders in apple breeding.

APPLE TIPS WHEN COOKING WITH APPLES

1 pound of apples yields 4 cups when chopped or sliced, and 1 1/2 cups of applesauce.
1 pound of apples may contain 4 small, 3 medium, or 2 large apples.
Apple juice and apple cider can be used interchangeably in recipes.
2-2 1/2 pounds of apples will suffice for a 9" or 10" pie. That means 9-10 small apples, 7-8 medium or 5 large apples.
Overripe apples, once the bruises have been removed, make good applesauce or cider.
Under ripe apples can be chopped, diced, sliced, and grated for sauteing with vegetables or for putting into cakes, muffins, pies, and other cooked dishes.
Sliced or cut apples will stay white longer if dropped into a bowl of water containing 2 Tbsps. of lemon juice. (Cortland & Golden Delicious do not discolor as quickly as other varieties.)

APPLE VARIETIES & THEIR BEST USES - (These are just a few of them, there are lots more!)

ALL-PURPOSE: Braeburn, tart-sweet; Cortland, pleasing tartness; Empire tart-sweet; Fuji, sweet, slightly spicy; Golden Delicious, sweet; Granny Smith, tart; Ida-Red, tangy-winey;
Jonathan, slightly tart; Jonagold, sweet-tangy; McIntosh, tart-sweet; Mutsu or Crispin, sweet; Winesap, tangy-winey.

COOKING: Rome Beauty, tart-sweet



EATING: Gala, sweet; Red Delicious, sweet

The above information came from "Apple Cookbook" by Olwen Woodier.

The CSA season may be over but we are still selling at the Columbia Farmers' Market. Today I need to see if any tomatoes in the hoop house are ripe. There are lots of green ones and we can keep them from freezing, but as cool as it's been it takes forever for them to ripen! Then I will have to uncover the peppers and see if there's anything ready to pick and cover them back up as it's supposed to be cold again tonight and tomorrow night. But then Sunday it's supposed to start warming up into the 60's so hopefully that will help ripen what's left a bit! We are still digging sweet potatoes, have several bucket fulls that need to be washed today. That's always fun to do in the cold and rain! We still have some apples to pick, and of course the winter squash and pumpkins. But as cold as it is supposed to be tomorrow (mid 40's) I don't know how many people will brave the weather to come out and shop. I'm already trying to plan on how to layer what to wear so I can stand out there for 5 1/2 hours and not turn into an ice cube!!!!!!

We have had plenty of rain. We don't have a rain gauge up, but the weather man has said we have had at least 6" if not more! We would like for it to dry up so we can get the potato beds made for next year. That way next Spring maybe we can get a jump on planting them, and not have to wait for it to dry out to make beds. Same thing for the lettuce beds. We plant most everything in raised beds as our ground is pretty flat and drainage can be a problem. We've found that planting on raised beds sure has helped that problem, but if it's too wet in the Spring we can't get the beds made, so if we can do a few the Fall before we are that much ahead.

Yesterday Greg's folks came down for a visit and as it was baking day I decided to put a pork loin roast in the crock pot. I took a jar of the onion jam I made last week and dumped that on top and added cubed up sweet potatoes and let that cook all day. Boy was that good! Even Greg thought it was pretty good and he made fun of my making onion jam!

LAST CSA BOX DAY FOR THE 2009 SEASON!

Today the full shares are getting applesauce bread, eggs, eggplant, radishes, apples, peppers, onion, winter squash, sweet potatoes and tomatoes. The half shares are getting applesauce bread, eggs, apples, eggplant, onions, peppers, winter squash, sweet potatoes and radishes. I hope you enjoy the last produce of the season, savor every bite because it will be 27 weeks before you can receive another box of fresh produce from us again!

Please remember to bring back all the CSA boxes you may have and any egg cartons that you have. I will have plastic sacks with me today to transfer your produce from the boxes to take home with you so you don't have to worry about getting boxes back to us after the season. Also please remember to bring your survey or mail it back to us so that we can better plan for next year. Thank you for being such great customers and we look forward to seeing you again next year. Keep checking the blog as I will continue to post through out the winter as farming never ends and we will be working to make our operation more efficient for us and more sufficient for our customers!

Well frost has hit! We got a touch of frost on Friday night. It got our eggplant and some of the peppers. So Saturday we covered the rest of the peppers to try to save them as there are lots of green peppers out there yet. We closed up the hoop house with tomatoes in it so they are fine. I have to check the peppers today to see if they are all right.

Saturday Greg had a decent day, but the Hatton Fall Craft Festival was the same day and that always affects that weekend! I went over and helped him set up, but then I came back as there was an auction I wanted to go to. We went to another auction Sunday looking for a walk-in cooler, but they told people that they had to get it out of there that day, and there was no way to get it tore down and hauled off that quick! It really killed Greg, because it went very very cheap!!

We've been working on chicken houses! We have baby chicks coming in a few days, so we have to move chickens around and empty out one of the little chicken houses and get the brooder set up with lights and heaters. We got the window panes put back in the big chicken house, fans unplugged and put away, getting it ready for winter. Still need to close up the top windows in the attic, but will wait a little bit on that, that makes the guineas upset as they like to get up there and look out and watch everything and be protected!

Well it's still raining this morning. We picked a few tomatoes in the hoop house, but there wasn't much, lots of green ones though! I can always make green tomato relish! It's supposed to quit raining around noon, then we can go out and pick peppers and see what else is out there.

Yesterday I packaged up dried apples and dried tomatoes to take to market. This morning I packaged up some dried sweet peppers and made onion jam! I only made one batch and it only made 4 half pint jars! Not nearly enough! It is good stuff!!!! I definitely want to make more of it! Greg does not agree, as he hates onions!

Well the weatherman sure didn't miss the prediction of heavy, heavy rain for today! They've been predicting this one all week! Just hope the house doesn't float away and the roof holds! Not much you can do outside when it's like this, good thing today is baking day again!

I made corn cob jelly and persimmon jam yesterday and ground up some monster zucchini for bread. We emptied the dehydrator of apples and put in some more tomatoes.

Greg has been helping a neighbor who had back surgery dig holes to bury a couple of his old dogs that died. He raises them and shows them. So they are glad to have gotten that all done before the rain hit!

I got up early this morning to get some house work done before I start baking, as Greg's folks may come down for a visit if the rain lets up this afternoon. So I'd better go finish the bathroom and get chores done so I can hit the kitchen!

CSA BOX DAY!!!
Today the full shares will be getting eggs, applesauce bread, potatoes, tomatoes, apples, eggplant, cucumbers, summer squash, cushaw (winter squash), radishes, mini cabbage, peppers and onions. The half shares will be getting eggs, applesauce bread, tomatoes, apples, eggplant, acorn squash (winter squash), radishes, peppers, sweet potatoes and onions.

This is the 24th week of the CSA, only one more week to go. Today there will be a survey in your box, we'd appreciate it if you would take time to fill it out and return it in your box next week, or you can mail it to us if you like. We would like to have every one's input so that we can plan better for next year and make any changes if necessary! We would like to expand the program next year so if you know of anyone that might be interested you can jot their name and number on the survey, that way when we have our winter meeting we can call them and include them.

Yesterday we put another bushel of apples in the dehydrator and dug some more sweet potatoes. We have another row and a half left to dig.

We've been busy picking the winter squash and pumpkins, finally got it all done on Thursday. We went to market on Sat. and it turned out to be a pretty good day. We weren't sure how it was going to go as there weren't too many people there at the start, it was so cold and windy! But that also put people in the mood to buy pumpkins so we were happy with what we sold!

We've been cutting up apples and putting them in the dehydrator. Our dehydrator holds a little over a bushel and they'll be dry in 24 hours, then we can fill it up again!

We also need to check on the Persimmons and see how they are coming along. I've got a little bit of Persimmons left in the freezer, and I need to get that made up into jam this next week. We also made Elderberry jelly on Friday, got about 24 half pints! Still have lots of Elderberries in the freezer, too.

Always plenty to do, we still have two rows of sweet potatoes to dig, then will need to dig up my stevia, rosemary and oregano plants and re-pot them to take into the greenhouse for the winter. I would like to dry more peppers, too. Greg wants to freeze all the hot ones, as he wants to make deer repellent spray for next year out of them!

Rain, rain go away, come again someother day! At least it's baking day and I don't have to do much outside today! But first I have to go to the dentist at 8:00 a.m. and get a cavity in my wisdom tooth fixed.

Yesterday afternoon Greg came home a little early and we started picking the pumpkins, gourds and winter squash. We got it almost done, there wasn't a lot this year, but you will be getting some in your boxes next week.

I'm sure most of you have your favorite recipes for winter squash, but here is another one for those of you who don't or for those of you who want to try something new! This comes from Taste of Home cookbook "The Market Fresh Cookbook" It's calls for butternut squash, but most any winter squash can be used. Winter squash is a lot like summer squash and can be interchanged most of the time.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH CASSEROLE
5 cups shredded butternut suash
Juice & grated peel of 1 lemon
1 cup raisins
6-8 dried apricots, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
1 apple, cubed
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 egg, slightly beaten
3 Tbsp. plain yogurt, sour cream or buttermilk
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

In a large owl, toss squash with lemon juice & peel. Place half in the bottom of a greased 1"x7"x2" baking dish. Combine the raisins, apricots & apple; sprinkle over squash. In a small bowl, combine the cheese, egg, yogurt, cinnamon & nutmeg; spread over fruit mixture. Cover with remaining squash. Sprinkle with nuts.

Cover with foil. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 min. or until heated through. Yield: 10-12 servings

Here's another one for those who are like me and don't like their squash sweetened up. It comes from "Red Hot Chilli Pepper" cookbook by Jenni Fleetwood.

Salad or Roasted shallots, chillies and butternut squash with feta

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar, plus a little extra if needed
1 Tbsp. sweet soy sauce
12 oz. shallots, peeled, but left whole
3 fresh red chillies
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks
1 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme
4 Tbsp. chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecan nuts, chopped
5 oz. feta cheese
salt & ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Beat the oil, vinegar & soy sauce together in a large bowl.

Toss the shallots & 2 of the chillies in the oil mixture and turn into a large shallow roasting pan or oven proof dish. Season with salt & pepper. Roast, uncovered, for 25 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Add the butternut squash & roast for a further 35-40 min. stirring once, until the squash is tender and browned. Remove from the oven, stir in the chopped thyme and set the vegetable mixture aside to cool.

Mix the parsley & garlic together & stir in the nuts. Seed & finely chop the remaining chilli.

Stir the parsley, garlic & nut mixture into the cooled vegetables. Add chopped chilli to taste & adjust the seasoning, adding a little extra balsamic vinegar if you like. Crumble the feta cheese & add it to the salad, tossing together lightly. Transfer to a serving dish & serve immediately, at room temperature rather than chilled.