Breakfast!

This is going to be delicious!

Green Beans for Thanksgiving

We love fresh green beans in the summer! 

We also love eating those fresh green beans in the winter! 

Thank you Jennifer and Cynthia for teaching us how to preserve our bounty!

Sneak Peek!

Oh how proud Rebecca Estelle would be:

!. What is your favorite pumpkin book?

2. What will you do with the pumpkins in your share this year?

Week Eight!

Welcome to Week Eight of our 2012 Season! The harvest is full and bountiful. We hope you are enjoying your weekly shares and are discovering many new flavors, textures, and recipes as you prepare your vegetables and herbs. Please be sure to send us your photos and recipes to share!

This week's newsletter is in your in boxes! We have some exciting changes happening around The Farm at Kindred Ground and look forward to your feedback!

Have a good week!

The Barn at Kindred Ground

Our first event at The Barn at Kindred Ground was a success! We hosted a lovely wedding reception for a terrific couple tonight. We are so proud and very, very, very happy that The Barn at Kindred Ground is up and running!

Please consider us for your next event and tell your friends! Visit us at our new website: kindredground.com for more information. This site also links to our blog, so you just need one site now to access all of Kindred Ground's content!

Newsletter Time

Your weekly newsletter has hit the stands! Well, your inbox, that is. Read it and let us know what you think! Feel free to share it with your friends.

Have a good week!

Natural Air Freshener

A fresh scented car makes commuting or even zipping to the grocery store more enjoyable. However, often air fresheners contain chemicals or other additives that may not be as enjoyable for one’s lungs! We heard this great solution the other day and wanted to pass it along!

Next time you pick up your herb share from Kindred Ground Farm, save some of the leaves (basil works great, but so do any of our other herbs!) and place them in a brown paper bag with a few holes poked in. An envelope will work too. Place the bag or envelope on your dashboard to let the heat and sun dry the leaves. (Don’t drive with the envelope on the dashboard though please!) Check the leaves every couple of days until they are dried. (With this heat, they might be dry the next day!)

Gently shake the leaves onto a piece of cotton fabric or into a sachet bag. If you are using a piece of fabric, gather it up so it makes a “bag” and tie with ribbon. Place the sachet in your cup holder and voila a natural and lovely air freshener!

Enjoy!  

Party Beets

Are you a little hesitant about beets? Do they kind of overwhelm you? When you hear, “Beets!” do you think, “What do I do with beets?” Well, prepare for Susan’s recipe for beets. These are easy and so delicious she brought them to a party and they were gobbled up so quickly she didn't have time to take a photo!

Susan's Party Beets

1 lb. beets
4 oz. olive oil – I used my Primo Oliva Blood orange evoo
2 tbs. sea salt
Juice and zest of orange
Salad greens to serve on
4 oz. blue cheese to garnish

1.      In bowl, combine 1 tbs. of salt, 1 oz. evoo and beets, toss to coat. Layer on a foil lined roasting pan and roast in a preheated 275 degree oven until tender, about an hour for small to medium beets

2.      Slice into 1/4 inch slices and set aside.

3.      Combine remaining evoo with juice and zest and mix well.

4.      Layer beets on top of salad greens, drizzle with dressing, sprinkle remaining salt and top with blue cheese. I served it with additional dressing on the side.

Thank you Susan for the delicious recipe! We can't wait to try it!

Need more information on beets? Go back to read our introduction on beets from earlier in the season!

Enjoy!

Name This Chicken!

 

Help us name our chicks! We still have three without names! They are getting bigger, bolder, and enjoying farm life! What do you think we should call this sweet chick?

Can You Spot the Chickens?

Our chicks are enjoying the grass!

Compost Here!

Do you want to compost, but don’t have the space, the garden needs, or energy? We can help! Kindred Ground Farm is excited to announce we will happily take your compost materials weekly. You can simply save them and bring them to the farm during pick ups on Mondays or Thursdays from 4pm – 7pm.

If we do this together we can reduce material in landfills and increase the nutrients in the soil of Kindred Ground Farm. By helping to make our soil even more nutrient rich we will likely see increased crop yields which means more food in weekly shares!

This is a great opportunity for both Kindred Ground Farm and our shareholders. You can bring as much or as little as you want. You can bring it weekly or once a month. We recommend saving it in air tight containers outside until you bring it to the farm.

If you have any questions please ask. We look forward to this new endeavor with you!

Things to compost are:

·                 Animal Manure (not pet waste)

·                 Cardboard Rolls

·                 Coffee Grounds and Filters

·                 Cotton Rags (clean)

·                 Dryer and Vacuum Cleaner Lint

·                 Fireplace Ashes (not from black walnut wood)

·                 Fruits and Vegetables

·                 Grass Clippings

·                 Hair and Fur

·                 Hay and Straw

·                 Houseplants

·                 Leaves

·                 Sawdust

·                 Shredded Newspaper

·                 Tea Bags

·                 Wood Chips

·                 Wool Rags (clean)

·                 Clean Yard Trimmings (no chemicals at all)

Things to NOT compost:

·                 Black walnut tree leaves or twigs

o                Releases substances that might be harmful to plants

·                 Coal or charcoal ash

o                Might contain substances harmful to plants

·                 Dairy products (e.g., butter, milk, sour cream, yogurt) and eggs

o                Create odor problems and attract pests such as rodents and flies

·                 Diseased or insect-ridden plants

o                Diseases or insects might survive and be transferred back to other plants

·                 Fats, grease, lard, or oils

o                Create odor problems and attract pests such as rodents and flies

·                 Meat or fish bones and scraps

o                Create odor problems and attract pests such as rodents and flies

·                 Pet wastes (e.g., dog or cat feces, soiled cat litter)

o                Might contain parasites, bacteria, germs, pathogens, and viruses harmful to humans

·                 Yard trimmings treated with chemical pesticides

o                Might kill beneficial composting organisms

Compost dos and don'ts from the EPA.

Welcome to Our Chickens!

Our baby chickens have arrived! We are so excited! I picked them up this afternoon and am so happy to have our very own Kindred Ground Farm chickens!

We have nine chicks: three Americauna, three Guinea Hens, and three Silkies. They are all babies so we have to monitor them carefully. They will have plenty of play time and fresh air, but will sleep inside our house in totes for a few weeks! Once they are a little bigger they will be sleeping outside of course!

They start to lay eggs around 6 months of age, so it will be awhile before we have egg producing chickens but in the meantime we will play with them, hold them a lot, and let them discover the farm. They need to be held and touched frequently so they are accustomed to human hands for when we collect eggs. Our eggs will include colorful shades of blue and green!

I will be learning a lot as we raise our chickens. My homepage might have to change to Backyard Chickens! If you have knowledge to share, please do!

A big thank you to our shareholder and chicken expert, Markette, for all her assistance and knowledge today! You are an invaluable resource and are much appreciated! And thank you for weeding too!

Zucchini Pickles!

Are you looking for a new idea for this weeks zucchini? Lisa has sent us a recipe for Spicy Zucchini Pickles that sounds both easy and extraordinarily delicious! She said her family started eating them in just 24 hours after putting them in the fridge! That is what we call Almost Instant Gratification! 

To get the recipe please visit The Etsy Blog post by Kimberley Hasselbrink. Let us know if you make these and send us your photos too please!

Thank you Lisa for sharing! We are excited to test these!

Using Herbs

With so many delicious herbs in our shares we thought it might be a good time to share a link on stir frying with all of our shareholders! Stir frying is a quick, delicious, and often nutritious way to get a meal to the table!

This is a link to the basics of stir frying! Enjoy and let us know what you make!

For Love of the Field

You've heard of speed dating, but have you heard of Weed Dating? Farmers get their fields weeded and singles have the opportunity to meet new people in three minute summits. Perhaps, not quite a summit, but a brief meeting while weeding. Quite literally a way to weed out the field and weed out Mr. or Mrs. Wrong!

Several farms around the nation have hosted Weed Dating events over the last couple of years. Much like traditional speed dating (whoever thought “traditional” and “speed dating,” would be in the same phrase?) females are assigned a specific spot and the males rotate through meeting, greeting, and quickly conversing. Only instead of chatting over beverages, couples chat while weeding the vegetable beds.

It is an interesting idea and has a lot of potential in this day of rushing everywhere. What do you think? Should Kindred Ground Farm move into the match making business in a few years?

If you, like we did initially, doubt the authenticity of Weed Dating, visit MSNBC to read more about it!

Monday Greeting from KGF

When you wake up to this, you know the day is going to be a good one! Wishing you a beautiful day and week!
See you soon for your pick up!

Check Your In-Box

Your weekly Kindred Ground Farm Newsletter will be popping into your in-box shortly! Let us know what you think of this week's recipes, what you might plan to cook this week, if you "make the switch," and if you plan to buy eggs!

New Vegetables

Expect green beans in this coming weeks or next weeks share! They started budding this week! The rain should help them along!

Farm Fresh Pasta Sauce

Do you want to change up your pasta? Is it always the same thing? Red sauce and spaghetti, red sauce and penne, red sauce and spaghetti…

This week after you steam or boil your snap peas or snow peas, place them in the blender with about ¼- ½  cup of the cooking water (depending on how many peas you used) and puree until smooth. Add garlic scapes, chives, basil, onions or any other veggies you like. Add 1 tablespoon margarine or olive oil and puree again to desired consistency.

Pour over cooked pasta. Suddenly pasta has a whole new look and taste! This is a great way to eat extra vegetables! You can do a mix of half jarred or homemade red sauce and half green sauce over the pasta too if you really want to pizzazz the colors on your plate!

Adding tomato to the green sauce mixture adds delicious flavor, but the color tends to turn to shades of brown, which some people may not like. It does taste great though!

Let us know if you make this fast, easy, and delicious green sauce!

Sunny Sunflower!