Tag: apples

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Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 

This is the foodie holiday of food holidays. So much energy is going to be invested with planning, shopping, house cleaning, meal prep and cooking. A few of you will even have 2 or 3 engagements and you might have to eat turkey TWICE! But before I delve into my plan to eat healthy this Thanksgiving, I wanted to extend a HUGE thank you to our box of good community. This Thanksgiving holiday we have donated over 170 Holiday Boxes to local food banks totaling almost $8000.00 in high quality organically grown fruits and vegetables.  

These donations are powerful and convey hope and help the food bank community extend care into many vulnerable populations. Year to date as a box of good community we have delivered, through our Neighbors Helping Neighbors program, over 800 boxes to 12 different food banks. 800 boxes of good donated by our customers is incredible. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.  

Tristan’s plan to eat a successful Thanksgiving Meal 

This week is one of those food “traps” that will be foisted upon Americans. Yep, Thanksgiving, a time to be thankful will be greeted with a barrage of pies, ice cream, jello, lots of gravy and, and, and. Just the sheer amount of food will be immense and the selection on most tables will be enough to feed a family for a week.  Most of us are not going to be in control of how much food gets set on the table, but we can control how much food gets put on our plates. 

To be a successful eater at the Thanksgiving table, I would encourage a few Non-Negotiables.  

Choose to eat better so you will feel better and not bloated or stuffed. It is a choice. 

Limit snacking and choose the fruit and veggie snacks. 

Plan to eat at the main meal, whether that is lunch or dinner for your family, but be reasonable with your portions.  

Just one plate, not one plate at a time, not heaping (wink, wink). Just one plate, it will be enough food.  

Remember, dessert will be coming, so pick none or just one. I know this is a hard one, because there will be lots of selection and a sampling will be tough to turn down. 

These simple non-negotiables or guidelines will help anyone enjoy family, friends and the Thanksgiving meal with energy and enthusiasm. Imagine feeling full and thankful this Thanksgiving. That’s my goal! 

Enjoy! 

Tristan 

Farmer/Health Advocate 

Vegan Apple Crisp 

Author Notes: A straightforward, fuss-free, no-nonsense apple crisp. Enjoy it for dessert, or hell, enjoy it for breakfast. Coconut oil helps to create an irresistibly sweet and buttery topping — without so much as a hint of butter! —Gena Hamshaw 

Serves: 6 to 8 

Ingredients 

For the apple filling: 

7cups (about 8 to 10 medium sized) sweet-tart apples (such as Gala or Jonagold), peeled, cored, and chopped (1/2- or 3/4-inch pieces) or thinly sliced (1/4 inch thick)
 

1 tablespoon lemon juice
 

¾ cup organic sugar or organic light brown sugar
 

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
 

½ teaspoon nutmeg
 

1/8 teaspoon clove
 

1/8 teaspoon salt
 

1 ½ tablespoons arrowroot or cornstarch
 

½ cup water
 

For the crumble topping: 

1 cup all-purpose flour
 

¾ cup quick oats
 

1 cup organic brown sugar
 

½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts
 

¼ teaspoon salt
 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 

½ teaspoon ground ginger
 

½ cup melted coconut oil
 

Directions 

  1. Preheat your oven to 350° F. 
  1. Place the apples in a large mixing bowl and toss with the lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and salt. Place these ingredients into a greased 9 x 13-inch baking dish. 
  1. Whisk together the arrowroot and water, then pour the mixture over the apples. Toss them lightly with your hands to get everything coated with the arrowroot. 
  1. Place the flour, oats, brown sugar, nuts salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a food processor, and pulse a few times to incorporate everything. Add the coconut oil and pulse the ingredients quickly in the processor until they’re forming large crumbs. Sprinkle the topping over the apples. Bake for 40 to 55 minutes, or until the apples are bubbly and the topping is golden brown. Serve. 

 

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Tree Swallows, Bats, and Barn Owls

I can be a little batty at times, but now that label will be justified! There are a few ways to combat pests on a farm, but keeping pests under control in an organic system can be challenging. I know that there are “sprays” that kill pests, even organically approved sprays, but I just don’t like to use that technology. I do have a sprayer, but I use it primarily for spraying nutrients, things like Kelp or Potassium, to help keep the plants at their optimum health.

However, we do have a few persistent pests, particularly in the orchard and especially, the dreaded Apple Maggot Fly that can render a whole crop unmarketable! The solutions to keeping that critter in check are mostly sprays. (Yuck!) I am not willing to go down that path. So, I have been spending a fair amount of time thinking about how to naturally (using nature) control those critters.

Strategy #1: I have decided upon a few nesting boxes for Tree or Violet Green Swallows, a bat house and a nesting box for Barn Owls. Swallows are insect eating machines and will be for daytime bug control. The Bats will be for nighttime bug control and the Barn Owls will help with the rodents that also call our organic farm home.

Strategy #2: I am going to use black plastic on the orchard floor to prevent the Apple Fly larva from emerging from their winter rest and becoming adult flies.

Strategy #3: I will use some sticky traps as well. Yes, all of this is a lot more work than using a spray, but, like I said earlier, “I don’t like to spray.” Check back in September to see if I was successful. 🙂

Increasing biological diversity is the best strategy. Using nature to keep nature in balance. Whoa! That’s revolutionary!

Tristan Klesick, Farmer, Health Advocate

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Everything is Early!

While our family was picking Gravenstein apples last week, I couldn’t help but notice that the Honeycrisp trees were full of red fruit. The telltale sign of ripeness is when the underlying color turns from green to yellow. On a red apple that can be a little harder to discern from a distance, but up close it is pretty obvious. Another sign that the fruit is getting ready is with how easy it comes off the tree. Most of the time, when an apple is not ripe, picking it resembles a tug-o-war match. At that moment, wise farmers concede defeat and wait a few more days J. The worst way to determine when an apple is ready to pick is to wait till they are all on the ground! With that said, there are always a few overachievers that ripen early and fall, which is a sure sign to get picking!ravenstein and Honeycrisp apples are three weeks early, potatoes are early, winter squash is really early, garlic and raspberries are not so much early, and corn loves this weather. But most things are early, especially for the later maturing crops. The good thing is that they are early and not dead! The dry spring and early summer has taken its toll on crops, but with good management we were able to use the heat to our advantage.

Having some late August rain has certainly helped take the edge off the fall harvest. The squashes—Delicata, Acorn, the three varieties of pie pumpkins, Kabocha (yes, Eileen, I planted those for you!) and Sweet Dumplings—have loved this weather. If truth be told, they are ready to be picked, but it just messes with my mind to think about havesting winter squash in August. So I will continue to walk past them, smile, and pretend they have a few weeks to go!

If the weather pattern continues trending with wetter winters and drier summers, us farmers will begin to shift the timing of our plantings and eventually even the crops we grow, to better fit the “new” growing season. Things like June strawberries will be replaced with May strawberries – I can hardly even say, “May strawberries.” On our farm we will definitely plant spinach, beets, chard, and peas earlier to take advantage of the rain and warmer springs. I will probably plant tomatoes and peppers outside the greenhouses.

There is an upside to drier summers: the heat produces sweeter tasting fruit and little water stress “kicks” the sugar off the charts. It just requires us farmers who are normally “water rich” to adjust to less water and watch for signs of stress. I am confident we can make the switch!

The long and short of it is that local farmers are going to have a few challenges with when and what to plant for the next few years, but dealing with weather isn’t new and growing food isn’t either.

tristan-sign

Farmer Tristan