La Vida Locavore

2012-06-14T14:10:00.001-07:00

June 14, 2012

First Summer Squash of 2012

This years planting of Summer veggies has been very successful. We got the starters in the ground at the right time around about a month ago. It really makes a heap of difference to plant at the right time. Our zucchini, crookneck, tomatoes, bell peppers, basil, and cucumbers are flourishing, the result of a most favorable environment.

A special thanks to "The Fav Five" the girls contribution has been invaluable-our soil has never been more alive!

Zucchini

Tomatoes, Basil

Bell Peppers

Cherry Tomato

2011-07-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

"Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade.

Rest your head

in her lap.

Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts."

-Wendell Berry

Dragon carrots from the garden.

Pink, yellow, three-color, and orange carrots.


Daily salad for lunch. Cucumbers and butter lettuce from Finley Farms. Everything else is from our yard.

Update: Red-Headed House Finch Family

2011-07-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

Remember when we introduced you to our new neighbors back in mid-June?

We weren't sure if the mother and father had abandoned the nest because we didn't hear or see them for about a week. We thought maybe we'd scared them away. You see, every time we opened the back door the mother would fly away and perch on the phone wire. We tried not to use the door, but it just didn't make much sense after awhile.

A couple of days ago we were eating lunch outside near the chicken coop and heard peeps coming from the eaves. Lo and behold, the nest was not abandoned and the babies have arrived!

We used the zoom and snapped some photos from inside the house.

We counted four babies total. The one you see above is the largest, strongest and feistiest. He/she gets most of the food. The mother and father trust us enough to allow us to watch their feeding. Yesterday it was so hot (close to 90's), so the mother nudged the babies onto the ledge next to the fence.

Also, if you look close you can see white hair. We realized it's fur from when we brushed and bathed a shedding Little White Fox!

Summer Flowers

2011-07-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

"Nothing is more the child of art than a garden."

-Sir Walter Scott

The flowers are flourishing with the warm, summer days. As the heat rises, so do the sunflower stalks! It's so beautiful, I just had to take the camera and snap some photos. Enjoy!

Bird's eye view of a bee inside a squash blossom. (Squash blossoms are an excellent addition to sauteed vegetables or pizza.)

Plums O' Plenty!

2011-07-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

"What is more mortifying than

to feel that you have missed the plum

for want of courage to shake the tree?"

-Logan Pearsall Smith

Last week we burrowed Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook at the Solvang Library. We hoped to use local ingredients while experimenting with the famed Waters recipes. We found a Plum Upside-Down Cake recipe which is perfect because our plum tree is plum full of plums!(Try saying that fast ten times.) You can find the recipe HERE.

Recipe Changes:

Our tree is produces Santa Rosa plums, so we did not use Elephant Heart Plums.

We used raw whole milk.

For the batter, we used about 9 tsp stevia instead of 1 cup sugar.

Instead of all-purpose flour, we used organic whole wheat pastry flour from the bulk section at New Frontiers.


When we were kids we would shine the plums on our shirts before eating.

The Little White Fox LOVES to steal plums!

Kale, zuchinni, eggs, turnip, snow peas, three-color bush beans, strawberries and plums.

Eggs and plums from the backyard.

Completely baked!

Ta da! We served thin slices with a dollop of McConnell's coconut ice cream (a Santa Barbara company).

In a Pickle!

2011-06-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Years ago, when our son played Little League Baseball, we learned the art of playing pickle defense. A "pickle" is a situation that occurs when the baserunner is caught between two bases protected by two defensive players. The players close in on the runner in an attempt to tag them out. Here's a YouTube video example of a runner successfully escaping the pickle.

When the kids were young we used to meet up with another family of five to play baseball. The father of the other family (let's call him Mr. Pickle for the story's sake) was caught in a pickle between myself and one of the kids. He did the "pickle dance" and then took off for the opposite base, I threw the ball with all my might. I nailed Mr. Pickle in the head and he went down. The kids gasped and yelled, "Mom! You hit him!" After a moment of stunned silence, we realized he wasn't hit hard and was just fine. Always a clown, Mr. Pickle flopped and rolled like a fish out of water, moaning and calling out, "I've been hit! I've been hit!" He had all of us in stitches.

Now today we're going to talk about pickles, but not THAT kind of pickle. THIS kind of pickle:

Last week we bought some beautiful pickling cucumbers from Finley Farms at the Solvang Farmer's Market. I've tried pickling cucumbers before, but it never came out right. We wanted a simple recipe and found something that looked promising.

The recipe is as follows (our changes/omissions are highlighted in yellow):

Put the following Pickling Solution into a pot and bring to a boil:

6 cups water
2 cups vinegar WE USED APPLE CIDER VINEGAR
1/2 cup canning salt USER COMMENTS CAUTIONED AGAINST USING THIS MUCH, SO WE FOLLOWED THEIR ADVICE AND HALVED THE AMOUNT TO 1/4 CUP SALT
1/2 tsp. alum (optional) WE DID NOT USE THIS

While that is coming to a boil, do the following:

Wash enough fresh pickling cucumbers to fill a 1 gallon jar CHOOSE THE THIN CUCUMBERS AND FORGO THE THICK, ROUND ONES. THE LATTER DO NOT PICKLE AS WELL AS THE FORMER. THE ROUND ONES CAN BE SLICED AND USED RAW ON SALADS, ETC. SO WON'T GO TO WASTE. WE ONLY HAD ABOUT 1-2 POUNDS, BUT CHOSE NOT TO ALTER THE SOLUTION PORTIONS.
1 large bunch fresh dill weed (about 1/4 lb)
1 large onion
2 whole cloves
2 tsp. sliced garlic

Clipping dill leaves.

Clipping dill flowers.

Sliced onions. (Garlic skins on top left. The garlic was already chopped and added.)

Layer whole, unpeeled cucumbers, onion, cloves and garlic and dill.

First layer: Raw, unpeeled cucumbers.
Second layer: Chopped garlic.
Both cucumbers and garlic from Finley Farms.

Third Layer: Dill from the backyard.

Fourth Layer: Onions from Finley Farms.

When the vinegar solution reaches a boil, turn off the stove and pour it over the layered cucumbers, etc.

Solution poured onto the layers.

Let set on counter for 3 or 4 hours.
Refrigerate, ready to eat in 2 to 4 days.
WE TASTE TESTED AT TWO DAYS AND THEY WERE DELICIOUS! AT FOUR DAYS THEY WERE PERFECT! I THINK WE SHOULD USE A LITTLE BIT MORE SALT NEXT TIME, BUT MY DAUGHTER BEGS TO DIFFER. SHE LIKED IT WITH 1/4 CUP. I MIGHT TRY JUST OVER A 1/4 NEXT TIME.

See how the color has changed? Ready to eat!

Variation: Sliced cucumbers may be used, and ingredient amounts can be varied to your taste. WE WANT TO TRY THIS NEXT TIME!

THE PICKLED ONIONS ARE DELICIOUS, TOO! GREAT TO SLICE UP AND EAT.

Thanks to Cooks.com for providing a basis for this pickling recipe.

Next up:
After scanning recent posts, we realized that we've become extremely cooking-centric. So, we're going to try and spend more time blogging about the backyard farm, the in's and out's of growing our own food, and ways we're trying to "live simply." We're also going to share with you how we constructed and designed our chicken coops, raised them from chicks, and more!

Little White Fox collecting dropped plums.

Yum! Finley Farms!

This girl was broody last week.

The last of the sweet peas.

Grilled Vegetables From Finley Farms

2011-06-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

Photo from "edible Santa Barbara."

Our favorite dinner to make each week is "Grilled Vegetables From Finley Farms." Both us work day jobs in addition to our afternoon/evening backyard farming gig. Simple, easy dinner prep is therefore a blessing. Grilling vegetables is tasty, healthy and simple to do.

Grilled Vegetables For Dinner

Serves 3 with plenty of leftovers.

You can use any vegetable combination. For this particular dinner, we used:

4 leeks (from Finley Farms)(clean thoroughly and slice in half)
3 tomatoes (from a different farmer, most likely hot house, organic - we couldn't resist)
1 large onion (Finley Farms)(slice into three thick discs)
5 carrots (Finley Farms)(no need to peel, chop off stem end if desired)
3 fennel (Finley Farms)(chop off tops, leave end on, cut into three sections)
4 zuchinni (Los Olivos Roots)(cut in half)
11 small golden potatoes

Coat everything with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Place on grill. Best to put fast-cooking leeks and tomatoes on the top rack. When the everything else is almost ready, bring the leeks and tomatoes down. Everything will finish at the same time.

This zuchinni produces a nutty flavor when grilled.

As we reach the home stretch, we placed the tomatoes onto the bottom level for finishing.

Grill fennel until soft. It is sweet to the taste. It is finished when it can be effortlessly sliced.

Because no meat was prepped, you can use the same dish for serving. Easy clean up!

Serve with slices of bread drizzled with olive oil.
We also grated asiago and placed in a side dish for sprinkling upon the vegetables, giving the dish a salty, cheesy kick.

Don't have an outdoor grill? You can achieve the same dish by chopping everything up, coating in olive oil, salt and pepper, and placing into an oven-safe dish and baking.

Blue potatoes, leeks, zuchinni, fennel, onion, and brussel sprouts.

The deep blue color of these potatoes is reminiscent of blueberries.
In fact, both blue potatoes and blueberries contain the same antioxidants.

We fed the fennel and carrot tops to the chickens.
All other scraps were composted.
Next up? What to do with Leftovers.

New Neighbors

2011-06-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

A darling new couple is moving in next door. And by next door, we mean above the den door. Our daughter, who is visiting from the East Coast, noticed a redheaded bird perched upon the fence. She wondered if he was making use of the birdhouse custom-made by my husband and hoped to catch him in the act. However, he spent most of the day shooing other birds.

She noticed that one brown bird was allowed to freely pass by, toting twine, twigs and moss. When we arrived home from work, she explained her observations and we quickly realized it must be a new bird couple moving in.

We google image searched "red headed California birds" and up came the Red Headed House Finch. Sure enough, that was him!

Phone snapshot of Mr. Red from the kitchen window.

Nest in progress. She even took some
twine left out for typing up vines.

Barbara Kingsolver's Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

2011-06-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

We recently recommended that our daughter read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She's very interested in urban farming, eating local, and eating in-season. Barbara's book is a great introduction to all of those topics plus more. The book contains little essays and recipes in between the chapters. One that stood out, no doubt because the strawberries are ripening near Lil Miss' chicken coop, was the Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. Luckily, we picked up rhubarb and strawberries at last Wednesday's Farmer's Market in Solvang. Our daughter baked the crisp on Friday. It was almost too late - the strawberries were not happy campers. We'd left them out on the counter. However, all was well and the crisp was delicious!

You can find the recipe HERE.

We bought our honey from... I'll have to check today at the Farmer's Market... can't remember at the moment.
Strawberries from Finley Farms and Los Olivos Roots.
Rhubarb from Marcie of Marcie's Pies. (Slice like celery.)
Butter, cinnamon, oats and flour from New Frontiers.

We didn't have allspice, so had to look it up and make our own.
To make allspice mix together 2tbs cinnamon, 1 tbs nutmeg, 1 tbs ground cloves, and 1 tbs ginger. From that concoction, measure out the amount called for in the recipe.

Strawberry from the backyard farm!
These are Lil Miss' favorites!

More strawberries from the garden.

2 cups diced strawberries and 2 cups diced rhubarb coated with 1/2 cup honey.

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/3 cup butter
Mix until crumbly.

Sprinkle over fruit.
This is just about to go into the oven.

We composted leftover strawberry leaves and rhubarb scraps.
We didn't get an "after" photo because hungry people beat us to the punch.

Last Week's Trip to the Solvang Farmer's Market

2011-06-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes are appearing at the Solvang Farmer's Market. Strawberries are abundant. It's exciting to have more than turnips and potatoes to choose from during these warm early summer days. We purchased most of the week's groceries from Finley Farms, per usual. We bought strawberries prompting our daughter to dream of baking a strawberry rhubarb crisp. I wasn't sure if anyone would have rhubarb and made no promises. Our luck, Marcie (of Marcie's Pies) had a few bunches of rhubarb for sale. We bought all three.

List of Today's Purchases:

To save room in the crispers,
slice fennel tops off before storing.

From Finley Farms

5 heads of lettuce
8 fennel
2 leeks
Tons of carrots
9 white turnips
3 onions
Pickling cucumbers (thumb-sized cucumbers, great to eat as snack, no need to pickle)
Slicing cucumbers (the usual)
9 beets
radishes

From Garden of... Yes and YesYes Nursery:

Blue potatoes
Golden potatoes
Zucchini

Simply slice in half, douse in olive oil, sprinkle with
salt and pepper and grill!

From a Goleta farmer:
The joyous gentleman who runs this stand, is fun to talk football with. He's a USC Trojan fan so our daughter, a Stanford fan, loves to razz him. He has young people help him out and we like supporting that, too.

2 stalks celery
One carton of Brussel sprouts

Not sure what to do with some of these vegetables? Check out our Recipes. Or, simply ask by commenting on this blog!

From Creekside Apple Ranch, Home of Solvang Pie Company:

2 loaves of rustic wheat bread
1 loaf of olive bread
The pasta was sold out by the time we arrived :(

Next up: Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with a little help from author/homesteader Barbara Kingsolver and her daughter Camille!

Artichoke Heart and Vegetable Leftovers

2011-06-15T15:19:00.000-07:00

Early Summer Salad

Chop up leftovers from last nights grilled vegetable dinner (artichoke hearts, turnips, and sweet potatoes).

Add radishes, carrots, celery, red onion and butter lettuce (from Finley Farms).

Chop everything in small pieces.

Drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegarette, salt and pepper.

Artichokes, Artichokes, Everywhere!

2011-06-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

It's us versus artichokes and the artichokes are winning. We have multiple bushes full of the delicious vegetable. We've been eating them for weeks and weeks. Usually we eat the whole thing. The leaves are yummy to scrape with your teeth and eat after steaming. Now some of our artichokes are opening and past the point of eating whole. When the artichoke leaves become too mature and stiff to steam and eat, so we harvested for the sake of eating their delicious hearts. You can also do this with purchased artichokes that have sat too long in the fridge.

The chickens love the big leaves.
You can tear off an
entire stalk and put it in the coop.

Harvest by cutting the stem just below the leaves.

Wash thoroughly to remove bugs and dirt.

See how these one's have opened up?
They are perfect to steam for use of hearts.

Before steaming, peel off all leaves.
Scoop out the purple and light green soft leaves (see in picture).
Steam only what's left.

We served the artichoke hearts (see them between the halved sweet potatoes and turnips) with baked sweet potatoes, our eldest daughter's garlic and onion potato medley, butter lettuce, celery and carrot salad, and baked turnips. You can also make dips. Some people like to eat with mayonnaise (you can make this, too!). Check out our Recipes tab for info on other dishes.

Tomorrow: What to do with the leftovers from this dinner?

Green Eggs Sans Ham

2011-06-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Our eldest daughter is visiting home after spending two years in Western Massachusetts. She didn't bring back the bitter cold (thank goodness), but she did arrive with some yummy recipes. This breakfast is inspired by one of her favorite dishes at The Green Bean Cafe. It's exciting for us because this meal was made almost totally from backyard farm ingredients!

We'll call it "Green Eggs Sans Ham."
15-20 mins start to finish
Serves 3
Ingredients:

6 eggs (from the backyard farm, but you can purchase at the farmer's market)
6-10 kale leaves (from the backyard farm, but you can purchase from Finley Farms)
1 garlic bulb (you can use 6 cloves or less, depending on your garlic preference; we grow it in the backyard farm, but you can purchase from Finley Farms)
olive oil (Cadia brand from New Frontiers in Solvang; we prefer using local olive oil from Santa Barbara Olive Company)
salt and black pepper (Purchased at New Frontiers; we used Himalayan pink salt; not local)

Collect 6 eggs or purchase from a local

farmer (always choose organic, free-range, anti-biotic free).
This picture shows 5, but make sure you use 6!

One whole garlic. We used the medium size one.
Pictured: Purple-colored garlic from our backyard farm.

Kale is the green! Pick about seven leaves.

You'll want enough so you can see the green in the eggs.

Here are two different kinds of kale. We used the top kind.

Before using, remove the stems so you're left with the leaf.

Cracked eggs, kale stems (remove from kale leaf) and chopped garlic.
We composted the garlic skins and egg shells. We fed the kale stems
to the chickens. Don't have chickens? Add to compost.

Put full leaves of kale, eggs and peeled garlic into Cuisinart.
Blend. It will look slightly frothy.

Pour into pan. (First coat pan with olive oil).
Add salt and pepper.

Scramble the mixture and serve!

What results is a warm scrambled egg dish with a garlic aroma. This picture doesn't do it justice. It's really beautiful. Serve with optional side of toast (bread purchased at Solvang Farmer's Market) and/or salsa (best to make when tomato season is full force).

We fed the kale stems to the chickens.
We composted the garlic scraps and egg shells.

I Spy... Asparagus!

2011-06-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

We love asparagus and planted it early on in the backyard farming project. Planting asparagus is like planting a tree in that you don't have to plant new seeds every year. You chop off the stalk when it's ready for harvest. Next year, it will grow back.

See that light colored nub poking out of the soil?

Beautiful first asparagus!

We also harvested some artichokes, carrots and
radishes to pair with the asparagus.

We steamed the artichokes and simply sliced
the raw, fresh asparagus, carrot and radish.
Makes a great appetizer.
Oh! We know it might sound weird to eat asparagus raw, but when it comes
straight out of the ground, it tastes different and BETTER than cooking store bought.

What to do with an empty nest?

2011-06-12T20:22:00.001-07:00

We're in our fifties and the kids are grown and gone. What to do now? Why not figure out how to grow our own food and explore the blogging world?

We've been inspired by other brave folks who invite us via blog, YouTube, and novel to share their homesteading, backyard farming, and gardening adventures. This is a way to chronicle our journey to eat locally and produce our own food, including meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts and grains.

Our journey began with a simple goal: Improve our health. We now have a mission: To transform our personal relationship with food, to eat food grown organically by either local farmers or ourselves, and to enjoy ourselves in the process. We're not purists, but we're strong, confident and enthusiastic.

Backyard farm fresh organic free-range hormone-free
living the good life chicken eggs.

Follow our blog as we sow a healthier, happier, and smarter future one farmer's market and backyard crop at a time.

We are located in the Santa Ynez Valley.