I just wanted to thank everyone for the well-wishes that have been pouring in for Nan in her time of knee replacement surgery! I went to see her today and though she’s just coming out of it, she’s ready to fight and was so humbled to hear that she has the Farm Family cheering on her recovery. Thank you all, truly.
It’s hard to believe that we were still freezing and had some snows during my last “Honorable Mentions” post! It has been so nice to finally be thawing, spending time outside, and taking stock in what’s been hiding under the snows all winter. As the weather is warming up, I’ve noticed some of my carrots from the DIY root cellar are starting to sprout a little. It’s a lovely sign of spring, and also a sign that it’s time to eat those puppies up!
I had a cake auction for my son’s Karate class, and decided to make a carrot cake. It auctioned for 40 dollars! About 800 dollars was made total and all proceeds went to the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary. I found it so cool that these veggies went full circle from helping one farm to helping animals at another farm. Good karma!
As I was in Carrot Cake Making mode, I made another cake using a photo I found on Pinterest.
We enjoyed it on Easter and I sent the rest to work with my mother. I received this picture with a text message:
She said 3 of her co-workers said it was the best carrot cake they’ve ever had. Looks like I’ll need to post the recipe next time we get some carrots in our share!
I’m in the process of trying out my new fermentation jar. I love that it is inexpensive and allows for me to make a small amount of ferments as opposed to what comes out of my family’s giant crock. This is a newer contraption and is just coming off of it’s Kickstarter campaign. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!
I smashed the rest of the baby red potatoes and they were delicious. (Funny that I did this before realizing that Sarah was also doing the same!) My technique for smashing is to use the bottom of a coffee mug, but the towel technique is much more aesthetically pleasing if you ask me. As these were smaller potatoes, they cooked a lot quicker than their larger counterparts, which you’ve seen on here in the past. They did not last long. Did Sarah and I mention that we love smashed potatoes?
We had the potatoes along with breakfast in bed for my other half’s birthday. Springdell bacon and eggs and Ben’s pancakes and syrup rounded out the meal. The bacon fat was used to make Bacon Mayonnaise and spread on toasted tomato sandwiches. I had about 1/2 cup of bacon fat, mixed it with 2 eggs and the same amount of oil (drizzled in so as to not break the emulsion, see our Garlic Aioli video here for technique), a little lemon juice, and after mixing, some bacon bits. Not much to look at, but this was great on toasted tomato sandwiches!
I had an old friend visit on this week and whipped up another pho, this time using the beef ox-tail broth. Accompanied by the shiitake mushrooms, it was pretty good, aside from the soy sauce cap coming off and making things a little too salty here and there… I also forgot to snap the pic as I was busy visiting… But hey, this is real-time reality blogging after all!
That’s it for another 2 weeks of Springdell goodness! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We’ll see you tomorrow when we review the “Tell” for the week, and Saturday will mark our final officially scheduled share box for the Springdell Winter CSA. Until tomorrow, sweet and savory dreams!