#manofarm

Hey Folks, Shawn Fulbright writing - I've not had a suitable camera with which to photograph the continued efforts at seed production that have been occurring out on the farm this summer and I'll admit that the rarity of posts on this page is the direct result of being less inspired to share without said visuals.

That dry spell ends today, the day that I spotted for the first time since I planted this stand last year, three decent-sized Monarch caterpillars feeding deep within my California Milkweed plants. For the first time in months, I feel too much joy to remain silent.

Over the summer, I delighted when I observed that these native plants I purchased in little 4" pots from the Theodore Payne Foundation were blooming and clearly leaving behind seed pods, and then bewildered when the first hundred or so proved limp and sterile upon closer inspection.

A month or so passed and bigger seed pods formed. Lots of them. I didn't think much of it. Then one day I glanced over at the plants and they seemed to have some kind of white fluffy growth occurring - I assumed some kind of parasite had begun attacking them, but in actuality, the fattened pods had begun exploding forth with feathery masses of lovely, parachuted seeds.

Every other day for many weeks now I have been gently grasping at these clouds of seed as they present themselves, always amused by their built-in ability to completely disregard gravity if released into a breeze. But preliminary inspections for signs of Monarch larvae - the reason native milkweed is such a coveted plant for California gardeners - always came up empty handed. Until today.

On the drive home, it occurred to me that despite the fact that this was all happening on my farm, my joy wasn't actually rooted in a sense of pride for "making" this all happen. Rather, it's joy and wonder delivered by curiosity in its most primitive sense; the privilege of bearing witness to nature just doin' her thing. It sums up a lot of the feelings I have out here.

Hello to my lovely CSA members, 

My favorite month of them all is October; you can almost always count on it bringing especially fickle weather, last week dipping temperatures into the 70s with crisp mornings, and then now straight back into the 100′s for today and this weekend. As annoying as this is to the farmer in me, in a sense this could also be why I love this time of year. 

October always has this strange hybridity as it bounces from summer to fall and then back into summer again, before finally delighting us with fall weather and perhaps if we’re lucky enough, the first real rain of the season. One last chance to take a dip in the ocean without your wetsuit while the sun still burns hot and bright! October for me is like a race to the finish line, where the race is just as tantalizing and enjoyable as the finish. 

The light has changed in a noticeable way now, with the sun setting earlier and the blues and oranges of fall start to emerge in the landscape. Every now and then the wind changes and the faintest, most flirtatious little chilly breeze is all it takes to make you reach for your cozy place. 

While this heat makes it very hard on our young winter vegetable seedlings as they struggle to take in the field, it will hopefully mean one last hurrah for our tapped out tomato and pepper patches. In my summer efforts to yield the most flavorful tomatoes in all of California, the vines nary got watered and now they’ve had enough. They’ve thrown in the towel and have personally asked me to turn them under. I’ll nurse along a couple beds with generous watering to encourage them to pop out a couple more fall fruits, but the rest are through. 

October is such a rollercoaster ride for farming that I’ve found it best to plant with the appropriate back up plans in place. It might still be too early to plant kales, so I’ve flanked my kale bed with spinach seedlings down each side. Kale dies? Spinach might live. And vice versa. The blips of rain in the forecast remind me to pull all of my maturing seed crops out of the field tout suite and stack them out of rain’s reach. Cleaning seed while the weather is still dry is a priority, so at least on days like today, one can sit in the shade while still being productive, shucking endless amounts of dried Soraya sunflower seed heads and crushing dusty Dara purple carrot flowers between our palms. 

I’m happy to report that our first ever farm-to-table fundraiser was a smash hit. We sold out of tickets and had a wonder-filled evening complete with a farm tour, live music and epic eats with friends. We certainly hope to host more dinners in the future, and will keep you all posted on this front. 

As is custom for fall, I have started to load you down with hard-shelled winter squash. Rest assured, you have time to use these fruits, unlike most items in your CSA, they improve with age. So, if firing up your oven to roast these beauties is still unthinkable, go ahead and set them on your porch until you’re ready. Voila, fall decor. 

A little note about our herbs, I’ve found that the best way to provide everyone with regular access to culinary herbs is to offer an assortment of them each week instead of choosing one particular herb and requiring that everyone take it or leave it. The harvest board offers “optional herbs” and so the etiquette is to take only what you can use, and do so with the understanding that there are 15 other people who have this same privilege. With that in mind, it’s an herbal free-for-all - take one, take multiple, take none. Not sure what something is? Pick it up, agitate it and smell it. SOMEONE for goodness sake needs to try the lemongrass this week, just saying. 

As always, thanks so much to all of you for the ability to grow and provide. It is my pleasure as always.

A little too warmly,

Mano Farm Eggplant Parm

Everyone likes a good eggplant parm recipe. This is a nice one to pull out when you’ve fallen behind on using your CSA eggplant after a week or two and need to act. I recently made a huge batch of just the breaded eggplant pieces, let them cool, bagged them up in gallon-sized ziplocs and shoved them in the ole freezer for winter enjoyment. Whipping up a delicious eggplant parmesan is as easy as pulling these out and putting them in the oven and voila, delicious summer breaded goodness is resurrected - just add cheese and your favorite tomato sauce. Or you can stick them into sandwiches with a little tomato sauce and cheese. Dee-lish. 

Ingredients 

Serves 2-3 as a main course

3 medium eggplants, sliced long ways into 1/2″ slices

1 large jar of your favorite tomato sauce

Mozzarella and parmesan cheeses (to taste)

12 oz. of breadcrumbs: Italian, panko, regular, etc. 

Salt, pepper to taste

Dried herbs such as parsley, basil, thyme, oregano, to taste

2-3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup of all-purpose flour

2 cups of high-heat cooking oil such as canola, safflower, etc. 

Optional spinach, chard or beet greens

Stage your breading workflow. Place your flour and breadcrumbs in separate shallow dishes (such as a pie dishes), your eggs in a medium bowl and have a plate ready to hold the breaded pieces waiting to go into the hot oil. Season your flour with salt and pepper, and if needed, season your breadcrumbs with crumbled herbs. The order of plates should be: Flour, then eggs, then breadcrumbs.

Coat the bottom of a large cast iron skillet (or heavy bottomed frying pan or pot) with oil, not the entire amount called for but just enough so that it spreads out to coat the bottom of the skillet on its own. (You will need to empty the pan and refill with new oil after each batch so you don’t set off your smoke alarm with all the burned breadcrumb bits.) Heat over medium high heat. 

While you’re waiting for your oil to warm, bread your eggplant slices. First coat both sides with flour, then with egg, then with the bread crumbs. Once oil is hot enough, carefully drop the breaded eggplant in. You’ll know if it is hot enough if it immediately begins sizzling when you put in the first piece. 

Load the skillet with enough breaded eggplant pieces to fill the space, making sure each piece’s bottom surface has full contact with the oiled skillet. When breading is a nice brown color, flip them. 

Bread the next round of eggplant. Be sure to clean out and refresh the cooking oil between frying batches to avoid a smoky kitchen.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. 

Prepare a plate with a paper towel to collect them on as they finish frying. In addition to the breading being a nice color, you want to make sure your eggplant is either fully cooked or nearly cooked when it comes out of the skillet. You can test this by sticking a fork in the center of a breaded slice - if the center is more mushy than firm, it’s likely good to go. If it’s still quite firm, you'll just have to allow the dish to bake a bit longer in the oven until the eggplant is fully cooked. There’s nothing worse than chewy, undercooked eggplant parmesan. 

Once you’ve finished frying all of your breaded eggplant, you’ll want to stage them for a short stint in the oven. This should occur shortly before being served for eating so as to avoid sogginess. In a large pyrex baking dish, layer the bottom with slices of breaded eggplant. Douse with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, and if you like, some shredded spinach or chard. Add another layer of breaded eggplant. Follow with more sauce and mozzarella. Sprinkle the top with grated parmesan. 

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Buy Organic Festivity Sweet Corn

Festivity Sweet Corn and Pepper Chowder

I don’t know why but it seems like good soup weather all of a sudden. The recent heat wave passed and these misty mornings by comparison make soup seem not only tolerable but appealing. Soup made from summer vegetables is delicious, the problem is not wanting to eat something hot when it is well, hot. This is a nice vegan recipe that is a mutation of Anna Thomas’ corn and cheese chowder recipe in her book, Love Soup. I added more vegetables and subbed in a thick coconut milk to make it creamy, and also got an immersion blender involved. To de-veganize it you can just serve cheese on the side. This makes a really large pot of soup so to make it smaller just halve the ingredient amounts.

Ingredients: 

2 lbs. potatoes, red or gold work best

2-3 bell peppers any color

2 bay leaves

bundle of fresh or dried sage, chopped or crumbled

1 large onion

2 Tbs olive oil

1 cup of coconut or almond milk (or regular milk)

2 cups of vegetable broth (or chicken broth)

4 ears of corn, kernels scraped off with a sharp knife

2 tsp cumin seeds

½-1 cup chopped fresh parsley

paprika to taste

salt and pepper to taste

fresh basil, cherry tomatoes, or grated jack or mozzarella cheese as garnish (optional)

Cut the potatoes into bite-sized chunks and put them in a large stock pot with 5 cups of water, salt, sage and bay leaves. Bring to a boil then leave at a simmer while you prepare your other ingredients. 

In a separate skillet, add coarsely chopped onions, olive oil and a touch of salt and saute over medium heat until soft and translucent. Add coarsely chopped peppers and continue to saute until the peppers’ color brightens. 

Add coconut milk, broth and paprika to the your potatoes in the stockpot. 

In a dry skillet, toast cumin seeds for about 5 minutes until browned and grind up in a mortar and pestle. Add to stock pot.

Add your chopped onions and peppers to the soup and allow to simmer on low heat.

Add parsley, taste and add more seasoning as needed.

Optional: Remove bay leaves and sweep an immersion blender through the pot until the soup is still chunky but has a thicker consistency.