Happy New Year Friend!

We hope the winter season is treating you well.   We’ve been keeping busy with many projects around the farm to get ready for the coming season.

2014 was a great year.  We enjoyed great weather and some amazing crops!  After the major watermelon disaster of 2013, this year was watermelon redemption year! We enjoyed a bountiful, beautiful crop of melons and harvested over 175,000 pounds of melons!

Tomatoes love it when the temperatures are in the 80s so they were REALLY happy this summer. We had 4 successive planting of tomatoes from June to September that produced 437,425 pounds of tomatoes. Peppers were great too with 352,066 pounds of peppers were harvested this summer. Gosh, its fun to look back and be proud and happy of the success of last year!

Spring is just around the corner (so glad the days are getting longer!) Plans are already under way for next year. Our seed orders are in, the crop plan is being hashed out, and we are prepping to start the seeding process.

We are so excited to continue on this farming journey and to share it with you. We love what we do and couldn’t be more appreciative of the community around us. We anticipate 2015 being our greatest year yet!

2015 CSA Registration opens February 1st.  More information coming soon!

2014 week 15

New this week:

Pole Lima Beans from LaRosa's in Woodstown, NJ are included in your share this week.  Check out their website dedicated to Pole Lima Beans.

--To cook lima beans first you must shell them. Open the shell and pluck out the beans.  Put the shelled beans in a pot add water to cover.  Add a couple slabs of butter, salt and pepper to the pot.  Bring to a boil. Cook uncovered for 20 minutes or until tender, adding more water if necessary.

Lima beans are delicious served along with sweet corn.  Succotash, a traditional thanksgiving dish, is boiled lima beans and corn. YUM.

Ruby Queen Red Plum from Circle M Farm in Quinton, NJ. We had these last year and love them so much. So glad to be able to share them again this year.

Last year was the worst year we have ever had with watermelon, 16 inches of rain in June created extreme flooding, which then lead to fungal diseases like we have never seen.  Our  first field was an unprecedented complete loss.  It made us feel like we don't know how to farm.  This year is REDEMPTION YEAR! The watermelons are beautiful, plentiful, and delicious! Woohoo!

2014 week 14

2014 week 13

Week 13 Full Share

New this week: PEACHES from Circle M Farm 88 Sandy Ridge Road Salem, NJ.
Click here to see their website

The peaches need a day or two on the counter to ripen.

Woohoo! The Red Cubanelle Peppers are finally here.  They are one of my favorites, so sweet and delicious!

Here is a link to my stuffed pepper recipe.

Stuffed Peppers the Buzby way

This originally came to me as a Jalapeño popper recipe.  Recently we have started filling cubanelles with it.  Both ways are amazing! The combination of pepper and cheese is divine.

This is what my father-in-law, Farmer Andy has to say about Stuffed Cubanelles, "I could eat about 10 feet of the that!"  

The filling:

One 8 oz block of cream cheese

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs (omit to make gluten free)

dash of chili powder

dash of garlic powder.

Mix the above and use to fill all kinds of peppers.  For cubanelles bake at 400 until cheese is melty and the peppers are getting some browned edges, about 20-30 minutes. Feel free to use what ever cheese you have, switch out the cheddar for monetary, YUM!

Farmer Andy prefers this filling in red cubanelle peppers.  I cut them in half length wise and take the seeds out, and then smoosh some filling in.  

I enjoy using the cheese mixture to make my own jalapeño poppers. I bake the jalapeños at  300 for little bit longer, 40-50 minutes.  

It is amazing in any hot pepper!

Enjoy!

Tomato Pie Recipe

Tomato, tomato, tomato.

Its just about that time in the summer when the tomatoes start to really pile up on the windowsill and counters in my house.  I've had the tomato grilled cheese, the BLT, the bruschetta, the tomato sandwich, caprese salad, and now I'm looking for a different, delicious way to eat up some of these tomatoes.  

I found the answer in Tomato Pie!

First for the tomato pie, you need the pie crust.  You are welcome to make one from scratch, but I totally used a refrigerated store bought crust. Preheat the oven to 350 and pre-bake your crust for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.  I recommend using dried beans or something to help hold the edges up while pre-baking the crust. 

Now the tomatoes.  You can use any tomato you have.  I just used these gorgeous Big Beef.  I think the pie would be lovely with some colorful heirlooms too.

First cut the tomato horizontally and squeeze to remove the excess juice.  It is important to squeeze the tomatoes or your pie will be watery. Then give the tomatoes a rough chop.  You need 3 cups of chopped tomatoes.

Next chop 1/2 onion and chop some basil, about 1/4 cup.

In a medium bowl, mix together 2 cups grated cheese ( I used mozzarella and parmesan), 3/4 cup mayonnaise, Tabasco, a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

In the pre-baked pie shell sprinkle in the chopped onion.

Spread the chopped tomatoes over the onion and sprinkle with basil.

Spread the cheese mixture over the tomatoes

Place in oven and bake 30-40 minutes until bubbly and browned.

Holy Cow! So good!

Tomato Pie Recipe

1 9inch pie crust

3-4 tomatoes, cut in half squeezed to remove excess juice, and then roughly chopped (3 cups)

1/2 onion, chopped

1/4 cup chopped basil

2 cups cheese, I combined mozzarella and a little parmesan, but any cheese would work.  Cheddar and 

                       Monterey would be goooood!

3/4 cup mayonaise 

1 tsp tabasco sauce

Preheat oven to 350. Pre-bake pie crust 10-12 minutes until lightly browned.  Sprinkle the bottom of the pie crust with chopped onion. Top with chopped tomatoes and sprinkle with basil. In a medium bowl mix the cheese, mayo, tabasco sauce, salt, and pepper.  Spread over the tomatoes.  Bake until bubbly and browned. 30-40 minutes!

2014 week 12

It's August.  August at the farm means:

• Weeds. At this point it seems that the weeds have gotten out of control and to far ahead for us to catch up.
• Farmer Andy is finally finished planting sweet corn every four days.  
• Mowing corn. Pop-pop Wilbur spends many an hour mowing the corn stalks that have already been harvested.
• Fruit flies seem to be annoying me more abundantly.
• Exhaustion.  We are just so tired. 

Link to my easy Eggplant Pasta recipe.

Link to my favorite way to serve eggplant. Eggplant Ricotta Bake.