Good Food Down on the Farm

Darrell wrote down his recipe for pea soup for a friend who purchased a picnic ham from us. Thought I'd share the instructions here: Darrell's Pea Soup Pigs in Blankets made with some of our Berkshire Breakfast Sausage links and pastry crust make a great accompaniment to pea soup! I’ve never written the recipe for pea soup down before, I’ve always just made it.   Unlike most pea soups, I like some whole dried peas as well as split peas.   When I make it, the batches are in increments of pounds.   A 1 pound batch has a pound of whole peas and a pound of split peas, a 2 pound batch would have 2 pounds of each, etc.   Because I have a 25 quart stock pot and a love of pea soup, I can make up to a 5 pound batch but I need to have a good bit of ham and at least 2 ham bones (from previously baked hams) for a batch that size.   Pea soup also freezes well; a few quarts of pea soup in the freezer are one of the requirements for making it through the winter. Makin

Well, this post is only a little over a week late - we've had so much going on, haven't had time to recap some new Thanksgiving goodies! Between out-of-town family around all weekend and a Holiday Market I went to with some of my cards and calendars, it was pretty hectic. Photo: Charles Masters On Thursday, with one side of the family, we brought the  Fall Harvest Salad  again, as it was greatly acclaimed and completely devoured last year. Then, as a potato dish, Darrell had found this  Mashed Potato Casserole  recipe which is so simple and SOOO good - the crusty parmesan/panko topping really made it wonderful, and the cream cheese instead of milk rendered it ultra creamy. My one change was to use Redskin potatoes, as that's what we had on hand. I made the potato casserole Thursday morning while he worked on the dessert, which was a berry/apple crisp (cranberries and blueberries) with an oatmeal crisp topping, which was served with a home-made ice cream that h

This is a post from one of the recipes on our Chicken/Poultry Recipe page - a timely reminder to plan ahead to actually HAVE lots of those yummy leftovers, what to do with them to enjoy a taste of Thanksgiving all winter long, and a little advice on how you can hang on to your leftovers :-). And, should you need lard for that great pie crust, or any pies for the holidays, we have leaf lard available for rendering! Coach Stop Farm Turkey Pot Pie (or, what to do with those Thanksgiving leftovers!) Ingredients : Turkey, cut into bite-sized pieces Stuffing Mashed Potatoes Turkey Gravy Corn Peas Carrots Other veggies to taste Chicken broth or broth from turkey carcass Prep (leading up to Thanksgiving): get a very large, fresh  turkey from a local provider if you can . . . as large a bird as you can fit into your oven. Make your favorite stuffing to fill this bird – make lots of stuffing and bake any extra in a casserole dish. Make mashed potatoes and gravy and

We had some leftover chicken breast after baking a cut-up bird earlier in the week. We also had taken the leg pieces at first and did a fried chicken dinner using some of our lard - yummy!  Anyway, I've posted this recipe before, but it is a fabulous recipe and really good comfort food on a chilly fall or winter night, so I wanted to post it again. Works with turkey, too - dark or white meat or both! 4 cups diced cooked chicken or turkey 4 cups dried noodles (bow tie pasta works well!) 15 oz. corn, frozen or canned 1 can cream style corn 2 cups carrots (fresh or frozen – if frozen, thaw, if fresh, cook ‘til tender) Sauce : 3 T butter, melted 1 medium onion, diced (approx.. 1 cup) 1 stalk celery, diced (approx.. ½ cup) 1 garlic clove,  minced ¼ cup flour 2 ½ cups milk 1 cup sour cream 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese 1 cup chicken broth 1 tablespoon minced sage 1 tablespoon minced thyme 2 tablespoons min

We had too much cabbage and broccoli in the garden this year to use fresh, so I gave some of each away, and decided to try pickling some for a change. I've made sauerkraut in the past from cabbage, but was somewhat disappointed in the results. So this year, I found a recipe for pickling cabbage that calls for strips of red bell pepper, which I don't care for, so I substituted julienned carrots (also from the garden). There are several recipes for pickling cabbage that include carrots, so how bad could this be? We'll sample it in a few weeks to see how it turns out, but the cabbage looks nice and fresh - hoping it retains a little "crunch"! Then for the broccoli, I decided to use the recipe we've used for several years for pickling asparagus - it's spicy and tasty! Have to wait a couple of weeks to sample the broccoli, too - let the pickling brine work its magic!

This time of year is when we totally savor the fruits of the garden, especially the corn and tomatoes! Last night's supper was some of our Andouille Sausage Links (from our Berkshire hogs) with Corn, Tomato & Black Bean Salad . I had picked a bunch of corn and cooked it the night before, cut it off the cob and had it chilled in the refrigerator. Last night, I rinsed the black beans, added tomatoes and red onion and made the lovely dressing that has honey and chili powder in it - what a great combo! This savory-sweet, cold salad was a great complement to the spicy sausages!

For our retail pork offering, we had some sausage processed as "andouille", which is used a lot in spicy southern cooking, especially Cajun/Creole. We wanted to try some of it ourselves, so went searching for recipes calling for andouille sausage. This recipe comes from this link for Southern Food  and made a great "chilly, rainy night" supper for us. This is a delicious creamy mushroom soup with a little cheese and chunks of andouille sausage. Feel free to use another variety of smoked sausage in this recipe. Ingredients:       1 tablespoons vegetable oil       12 to 16 ounces andouille sausage, halved lengthwise then thinly sliced       16 ounces sliced mushrooms       4 tablespoons butter       4 green onions, thinly sliced       1 clove garlic, mashed and finely minced       1/2 cup flour       3 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth       1 cup heavy cream       8 ounces shredded mild Cheddar cheese       dash ground