Category Archives: Our Kitchen Table

It’s All About Spinach This Week

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Traditionally, spinach has only been available fresh from local farms March through May. In our community, spinach has been available on the farm and at the Farmers Market all winter! It’s producing exceptionally well right now in the high tunnels. Here in SWMO the plants will start to bolt when day length reaches 14 hours on May 9th. So there is still plenty of time to enjoy fresh spinach, harvested just a few hours before reaching your table.

Here at our farm, we grow a blend or four different types selected for flavor, texture and visual appeal. If you know me, you know that our produce not only has to be tasty, it also has to be pretty.

Try spinach in Spanikopita (Greek Spinach Pie). This dish is a really rich pie stuffed with spinach, onions, cheeses and herbs that are all enfolded in crispy, flaky phyllo dough. It takes a bit to prepare but it is well worth it! Excellent served for brunch. The garlic, onions, parsley and spinach are all available fresh and local at the Farmers Market. Sometimes goat feta cheese is available too! I hope to see you there this Saturday! Continue reading →

Featuring Radishes This Week

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Have you tried just harvested late winter radishes? They are so mild, crisp, tasty and beautiful. As I’m working in the high tunnel, I can’t help pulling them out of the soil and eating them right there!

If you haven’t tried them roasted, you are in for a real treat. They are really sweet! The next time you are at the Webb City Farmers Market pick up a bunch and try this simple recipe. Continue reading →

Orange Wheatgrass Smoothie

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Hard Red Winter Wheatgrass

I am currently obsessed with wheatgrass. It has a fresh, pleasantly bitter, mild sweet flavor when juiced. But beyond that, wheatgrass is one of the healthiest substances you can find on earth. Wheatgrass juice contains up to 70% chlorophyll, which is an important blood builder. It helps to increase production of hemoglobin, normalize blood pressure, lower blood cholesterol and cleanse toxins from your body. Chlorophyll is known to relieve joint inflammation and because wheatgrass contains large amounts of chlorophyll, experts believe that it is effective in treating arthritis. Continue reading →

What to do with that cabbage in your CSA box…

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I was lucky to be able to attend a Lacto-Fermentation presentation by Dan Kuebler at the 2016 Midwest Winter Production Conference. I learned that fermentation is a natural preservation method that has been around for 2000+ years. It is preferable to canning because it produces and preserves the beneficial live cultures that enhance our intestinal flora. It also increases the nutrient content and digestibility of the vegetables. Simple ingredients, easy to make, and best of all, it tastes great!

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Homemade Sauerkraut in a Canning Jar
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Fresh, Locally Grown Baby Ginger

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If you haven’t tried baby ginger you are in for a treat. The baby ginger harvest has just started here at OakWoods Farm. Fresh locally grown baby ginger is very different from the mature ginger that you purchase at the store. The beautiful pink and cream colored rhizomes are very tender and mild; there is no need to peel it, you can simply chop and use. In contrast, mature ginger has a tough skin, and fibrous center and is very strong but stores well.

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CSA Pick Up: Week 11 of 26

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Hello Farm Fans,

A little bit of a salsa kit this week. When I prepare salsa it’s always some of this and some of that. It never turns out the same way twice! So many options. I would love to hear how you prepare yours. For those of you that have opted out of the hot peppers, we are substituting Carmen Italian Peppers which are good in a salsa too! Just not hot.

Here’s my baseline recipe. Use more or less of each ingredient according to your taste: Continue reading →

Breakfast Smoothie

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Breakfast! This morning’s smoothie is made with the farm’s fresh spinach and sunflower shoots plus frozen strawberries and blueberries from last season. The sunflower shoots add a nice nutty flavor. Add some almond milk, plain Greek yogurt and Triple Omega Seed Mix from Oak Street Natural Market. Yum! Nutritious & wholesome. We are bringing lots of our spinach blend and sunflower shoots to Webb City Farmers Market tomorrow. Fresh berry season is just around the corner!

Farm Fresh Feasts

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Kirsten Madaus, worm wrangler, wife, mother, Community Supported Agriculture-loving pizza paparazzi at Farm Fresh Feasts, has spent the last 6 years feeding her family from farm shares in 2 states. She realized that one of the barriers to folks continuing with a farm share was a lack of knowledge about new-to-us produce. She started her site in 2012 to provide practical support to her my fellow local eaters.

She shares several recipes each week featuring seasonal ingredients, and maintains a Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient (broken up into different types of produce). She receives submissions from fellow food bloggers to bolster her own recipes so that, for example, she got more than 50 recipes using beets, nearly 50 recipes using garlic scapes, and more than a dozen recipes for kohlrabi. There are recipes for all types of diets.

Her website is free to use, but she does display ads which is how she pays for the site and the software to host the recipe index.

Here is a link to Kirsten’s site: http://www.farmfreshfeasts.com