Good Food Down on the Farm

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. Ma...

Pasty ready to eat - YUM! We LOVE pasties! These handy meat/veggie pies are based on the traditional food Cornish miners took into the mines, a handy way to have a portable meal that was adopted by our own Yoopers, many of whom were miners from Great Britain and brought this idea with them. Darrell had cooked down some meaty beef bones with veggies to make beef stock to can. He cleaned the meat off the variety of bones when the stock was ready to put into jars. There was a nice little bowlful of very tender, juicy meat. We also had a small pack of cooked pork jowl meat in the freezer from a previous project, so I thawed that out and blended the beef and pork. I added a variety of seasonings, as both the beef and pork were somewhat bland on their own.   Pork and beef from salvaged meats. I pan-roasted some cubed rutabaga, carrot pieces, potatoes and onions to really bring out the flavor in those veggies . . . drizzled in a little oil and sprinkled with some Herbs de ...

Even in the winter here on Coach Stop Farm, we are processing foods gathered in the summer and fall. This past weekend was time to sort through the stored Butternut Squash and process them, as a few had gotten soft. I was pleased when I cut them open to find that they had, indeed, ripened more after storage. I had had to pick them before a frost back in early October, even though most of them had green veins on them, indicating they weren't quite ripe. And, a couple I had cut into earlier had definitely not been the deep, rich orange that I like to see inside. I decided to experiment with freezing one, cut into cubes. It yielded 4 quart-size freezer bags of chunks of squash that can be roasted or put into soups, or whatever. We shall see how they seem being used after being frozen like this. For all the rest, they were steamed in a large roasting pan in the oven, giving me this nice bowl of cooked squash. I need to decide if I'm going to freeze this or can it, so th...

Back in 2008, we and a friend from Chicago decided to enter a local Chili Cook-off competition. She proposed a recipe calling for black beans that she had used. We entered this chili under the title of "Down-on-the-Farm Urban Chili" - tipping our hats to her as an urban girl, and us "down on the farm". I've had a jones going for some chili for a few weeks, so I dug out the recipe. I was charmed again when making it when I added the heaping tablespoons of dark cocoa by the the rich color and the aroma that bloomed while stirring it into the base. Here is the recipe we shared with people who asked for it in the competition, and I've annotated a couple of things. We did not win (or place), because many people shied away from  even sampling our chili . . . it was a "chili must be red and filled with red beans" kind of crowd, I think! But, we like it (I personally dislike red kidney beans and prefer black beans!). Here's the link to the recipe ...

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...

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...

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...