Fresh Intentions

This Thanksgiving was super exciting.

Like a brand-new puppy on Christmas morning kind of exciting. I know I know, you’re rolling your eyes, but Thanksgiving to me means spending time fine-tuning new recipes, which I get to share with friends and family. And what made it even more exciting were all the firsts this year. First time cooking in the new kitchen, first thanksgiving for my sister’s kids, first time we had friends feast around our dinner table together.

Because I’m still thinking about all the deliciousness (while simultaneous scouring Facebook marketplace for a used Kitchenaid), I wanted to share with you our recipes. I’ll preface by saying I eat only veggies and I have family members that are gluten-free, so I’ll also throw out some cooking variations.

Appetizers:

Winter squash galette. This was well worth every second of making it. The homemade bread put it over the top. I followed this recipe to the T, and made the dough the night before (keeping it in the fridge until ready to use). I used the delicata squash from our garden, and you’ll catch a theme with all the rest of the dishes too…

Spinach dip. I definitely took liberties with the recipe, adjust based on what’s in your pantry. 

First Course:

Roasted Pumpkin Bisque With Pumpkin Seed Dukkah with rolls. If you’ve never cooked with sugar pie pumpkins, this is a great one to start with. This was a crowd fave on Thanksgiving. I baked the pumpkin the night before in the oven, so just had to throw it into the crockpot the day of (I doubled the amount of leeks it called for). Don’t know what Dukkah is? Neither did I until I made this, and it was such a unique addition.

Stuff Mushrooms, prepped the night before and popped in the over just 40 minutes before serving.

Lemony Green Salad with Radicchio & Pepitas, cause we needed something light right? We used some left-over mustard greens from the summer, and I added an Asian pear and watermelon radish for color, crunch and sweetness.

Main:

Kale Goat Cheese & Bow Tie Pasta. Bryan and I eat this, not going to lie, at least once a month. We had yet to share it with others, and thought this occasion would be perfect. We used GF noodles, and I’d recommend adding olive oil to the dish to keep the noodles tasty.

Roasted asparagus with lemony walnut crumble. Opps, I forgot to add the lemon and seasoning. Last dish to go on the table kind of problems. Also, we added beans to this mixture.

Creamy Roasted Fingerling Potatoes. Solid, go to seasonal side.

Miso Pot Pie. This was a fun one. And we had TONS of leftovers. Cooked with winter specific veggies like turnips, turnip greens and I added parsnip as well, the wine reduction is what helps turn the sweetness on this dish up a notch. For friendsgiving we added some chicken for our meat-eating friends.

Dessert:

Homemade Apple Pie. A friend’s grandmother’s recipe. We added a woven pie top before the streusel. This put to use all the apples I froze this summer (not nearly enough though!)

Strawberry rhubarb plum pie. Not going to lie, this wasn’t my favorite recipe as it calls for too much cheese. I’d recommend halfing it and cooking the fruit on the stove prior to adding to the dish. We did a second version of this in cupcake tins (minipies!) the second time and it was legit. Another fun one to use the rhubarb and plums I froze from the summer.

Here was the gluten free crust recipe I used. Make sure to use a gluten-free flour mix, not just pure gluten-free flour. You’ll need those binders. I used Bob’s Red Mill Paleo Baking Flour and it worked really well.

Here is the regular, non-gluten free crust I used. I watch a lot of cooking and baking shows. Guilty pleasure. But one of the shows recommended using shortening with butter, which this recipe calls for. They weren’t lying, it was legit. I used Crisco butter-flavored shortening and Bob’s Red Mill Organic Flour.

Where to shop:

I bought as many veggies as I could from the Milwaukee Winter Farmers Market. It was PACKED, but worth it considering all the mushrooms, onions and squashes I needed and the fact these farmers worked their butts of bring this food to our thanksgiving table.

Woodman’s for some great produce options (turnip greens anyone?) and affordable spices.

Costco for pre-made foods, like crackers and cheese, cause they know how to do apps!

 Timing:

I prepped as much as I could the night before, mainly all the dough. Which gave me all day on Thanksgiving to actually cook everything. Timing worked out well, so if you have 2 days to cook, you should be able to knock out all the above recipes including shopping for ingredients and the random grocery store run for that stick of cream cheese you forgot!

Bryan and I participated in the Organic Vegetable Production Conference in Madison the other week, that brought people from all over the state together to talk about all things organic farming. We pulled the trigger to go because, we gotta start somewhere!

We sat alongside 200 plus organic producers from all over Wisconsin, from 5 acre farmers from Viroqua to 200 acre farmers from Mount Horub. It was both super inspiring (and a little intimidating) to hear the knowledge, experience and stories all these people had. It’s been a little over a week now so we’ve had time to let the ideas sink in, and mull over our farm plan. 

A few things we learned:

Growing garlic seems AWESOME. We’re about 100% sure that we MUST have garlic on the farm. It doesn’t require irrigation in Wisconsin, making it sustainable for our Wisconsin climate. Lots of the farmers explained how most stores sell garlic from China (um, what and why?!). And not to plant store-bought garlic—there’s a high potential that it carries diseases which could take out entire fields of the crop.

Greenhouses for starting seeds is the way to go. Especially in cold temperatures like Wisconsin. Expensive for first year farms, we’re looking into how to build our own low-budget version. People had lots of different styles—from cold frame prop structures, electric underground coils, to larger gothic style vented houses with overhead watering systems. 

You can make your own seed start mix. This one farmer created soil bricks for all their seeding. No plastic seed trays needed. And what you think would be a simple process of planting a tiny itty bitty seed into a tray, is actually comprised of lots of different systems and techniques.   

Try new things and learn from it. Many farmers had experience growing many different varieties of vegetables—some worked well, and some didn’t. As we get things going, seems like a lot farmers take risks, but balance it out with consistent methods. 

The organic farming community, is just that—a community. Seeing people in Wisconsin, doing something that we too are working our way up to, was super fulfilling. 

Been following this group’s story the last couple of years! Looking forward to maybe getting the change to meet them!

Farmlife is Knockin'

Every night as we drive home from work and get to our place, we see the cornstalks. They surround our house, making it feel like a cozy, welcoming, insulated little homestead. Because of how long it took to buy the house, we saw the corn grow from small ankle height plants, to giant green stalks, and turn into windblown frost covered feed corn. And every night as we pull up to the house, we turn to each other and wager a bet on if it’s been harvested yet.

To be honest, the most knowledge we have about corn growing is from the car windows, passing through the country in the summer. Now living with the acres of crops, we have a hundred questions:

When will it be harvested?

Once it’s harvested what happens to all the organic matter on the ground?

Is it supposed to look like that?

Is it okay to have that much standing water in one place?

What can we start in the Spring?

How do you plow?

Is it going to be too wet in the Spring to plow?

Will our tractor break down in the middle of the field in a mud puddle?

What are we going to need to turnover the field?

All while having these thoughts, some of which I get it, I should not be stressing about yet, we’re also thinking about the home. We’ve had contractors removing a load bearing wall and running new HVAC and electric. So walking in the door at night after work is sometimes a very fun experience, and other times, very terrifying.

On one of the more terrifying days (made a mistake with measurements), we decided to decompress by turning early. It was 8:30 and I heard an earthquake size rumble outside, with a heavy knock on the door to follow. Downstairs, we opened our old timey storm door and there was our farmer friend Richard, with his giant corn combine taking up our whole driveway— bright lights and all shining into the fields. If you’ve never seen a combine up close, pay Farmhaus a visit, these things take up the width of an entire country road.

We learned from Richard that the freezing weather finally gave him the window to combine. With it being so wet, the soil has been too soft to work, and the work he typically does before Thanksgiving, he’s had to delay until December this year. He was showing up bright and early tomorrow morning and our corn stalks would be no more. The moment had come! And here was the man leading the operation!

We learned that Richard had hundreds of acres in the Richfield area, most of which has been sold off. We learned that he’s 75. That he has MS. That he built the shed on our land. That the only way to farm our neighbors field with his giant equipment is through our land. And that he has quite a running nosy in the cold, sweet blue coveralls and a solid John Deere hat, which makes him come across as the real deal.

We learned that we have plot lines in the field. Richard explained that these plot lines are marked by iron rods, and if he hits one while he’s working the field, it’ll break his equipment. He came over to find out where these rods where. After a couple hours looking at our survey map which we got as part of our closing paperwork, and calling the surveyor to confirm that yes, indeed they are out there, we called Richard back. We told him that in the morning we’d mark the location with a red flag (i.e. a red Sendix bag on a tomato stake).

Cause this recipe is the best. And our lack of kitchen shouldn’t stop the holiday spirit! 

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” 

It’s official, we have the keys in hand, so Bryan and I can finally shout it out to all, we are farm owners! We literally could not stop smiling this morning after signing all the paperwork. We saw this property on May 1st, 2018, and here we are October 5, more than 5 months later–2 sisters are now married, my mom turned 60, we grew a MKE garden at my aunt’s house this summer, we visited San Fran with Bryan’s family, and we put all our belongings back into a Uhaul to prep for this move.

Scrolling through all the emails, text messages and photos, I kept thinking about conversations I had had with friends back in Seattle on the farm, way back when. You can try and plan, and prepare and dedicate yourself to making this food grow, or life move in a certain direction, but at the end of the day, nature takes over and may have other plans for you. As Ralph Waldo Emerson so nicely sums up one of the virtues of working on the land, “adopt to the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

And this new farm already knows that secret of patience. We learned zoning laws and town approvals don’t speed up for you, just because you want to buy a home. Or a fall filled with rain and showers do nothing more that delay the process of putting in a new septic. And while you may want to get a greenhouse up before the frost sets in, the corn-filled fields are just that, filled with corn and not ready for all the new plans. 

Bryan and I are ready to do this. Since first talking about this over three years ago, we’re now at the place we always had hoped. The keys have officially been given to us, and ahead of us are tons of new things to learn, to try, and to do, on a piece of land that will call for long hours of fixing, making, building, growing, testing, trying, planting, harvesting, tilling.. and on and on. And we get to do this together.