Make your own Salad Dressings! Easy and Better For you!

FOR ALL THOSE GREENS YOU GET OUT OF THE GARDEN, DON'T SPOIL THEM WITH STORE BOUGHT SALAD DRESSING!

Over the winter my Kale, Mustard Greens and Lettuce has kept me supplied with fresh greens.  I don't buy prepared salad dressing, I make my own.  Here are 4 easy recipes to whip up your own to keep your salads fresh and free of unnecessary ingredients and calories.

Sweet Balsamic Vinaigrette:
This is great with bitter greens, like Kale, mustard greens, beet greens and don't forget those spring dandelions, Appropriate for a salad for 4.

1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
4 TBSP real maple syrup or Agave Nectar
freshly ground black pepper.
Place ingredients in a canning jar, shake vigorously, then pour over salad and toss.

Light Italian Dressing
This makes enough for 2 or 3 salads, depending on the size.
1/2 cup Canola Oil
1/3 cup White Wine Vinegar
1 TBSP grated Parmesan cheese
 tsp liquid from prepared minced garlic
fresh ground pepper
1 tsp onion powder (or add fresh sliced onion to the salad)
1 tsp dried Italian herbs (if you grown your own, I use basil, oregano, parsley, sage and thyme
Place ingredients in a canning jar, shake vigorously.

French Vinaigrette
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup red or white wine vinegar
1 TBSP Dijon mustard
fresh ground pepper
That's it.  This will yield enough for a very large salad or 3 small salads

Blue Cheese or Gorgonzola Dressing
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup crumbled cheese
fresh ground pepper
2 TBSP cream or milk
Place all ingredients in a blender and pulse until mixed.  If creamier consistency is desired, reduce the milk or cream to 1 TBSP.  Enjoy!

Once you start making your own dressings, you'll never go back to a bottle.

These ladies kept us busy and warm this past winter even though we had only one snow day all season.  You can see the dusting, of white, outside the window,  in the back ground.  Clockwise is Patchoulette (she's the very old lady, now she's almost 12, then Skittles who is 1 1/2 and Snicker who is also 1 1/2.  All very different personalities and entertain us greatly.

Now it's  time to get rolling on the tilling and planting.
During the winter I covered my raised beds and now have Lettuce, Kale, Parsley, a bit of Spigarella, Swiss Chard, mustard greens and a few beets.
I walked out to feed the birds this morning and see our first 5 stalks of Asparagus.  Its April 8th and I can't remember having it this early before, but I am glad.
Our fruit trees are all pruned and blooming nicely. Apple Blossoms are so beautiful, white with shades of bright pink in the center.
The pond has been full throughout the winter and we are hoping for good rain this spring but not as much as last year.
This winter we realized something was eating all of our chickens.  Last fall we had 18 hens and now we are down to 5 hens and 1 rooster.  We suspect we know what happened but it does no good to dwell on it, We are now being more vigilant at watching and defending our birds territory.

I have been working hard at cleaning out the ducks pen and setting fresh hay.  Next, this weekend, I will tackle the chicken coop. A couple of weekends concentrating on shoveling sh--  which results in a season of clean happy birds.
When I worked for Saks Fifth Avenue, I never imagined I would be shoveling composted bird poo and loving it. How times change!

Its hard to believe that you get to  pick a bunch of beautiful greens like this in Missouri during the first week of December, but this year was, once again, far from normal.  So much more rain in the spring and summer, right through August, that caused all our apple and pear seedlings to drop from the trees.  I had never experienced this before.  I stopped by an orchard on my way back from a short trip to Springfield and asked the owner about the lack of fruit.  She told me you have to spray the trees at the peak of flowering with a substance that allows the fruit to form correctly and not drop from too much water.  She told me to call her in the spring and ask about it again and she would share all the info with me.  Cool, I will definitely do that.  Of course, she also appreciated the fact I walked out of the orchard with arms full of apples to keep me satisfied until I got home to Connecticut at Thanksgiving to raid my Dad's Orchard stash.  Pounds Granny Smiths and Golden Delicious went home with us.  Steve complains the car still smells like apples!

Anyway, with a warm fall and no freezing in sight, right up until the middle of December, my crop of greens are doing well.  We covered our boxes of greens and hope to keep them growing right through the winter.  Swiss Chard, Russian Kale, 3 kinds of lettuce and lots of green Italian parsley.

With all the rain, we noticed we have many more Squirrels showing up and living around our Pecan Trees.  Now, with the drought for the past few years we had no meat in the nuts.  And, not a Squirrel in sight.  Well, this year we have plenty of them.  Only to realize in October that our pecans are big and meaty and we missed them all.  No wonder we have lots of Squirrels, they ate all the pecans! I got about 4 cups of them, that's it. Ah, you live and learn.  We just hope those Squirrels have not decided to make our farm their forever home!

Over the holiday break I tallied my yield for 2015.  Last year I yielded $2,345.00 worth of produce.
This year we planted less varieties and more of each variety planted.  Much easier to manage, but none left to sell. I honestly can't keep up with having 60 pounds of tomatoes ripe at the same time like last year.  So the tally for this year was $1,397.00.  Not too shabby!  And as you can see above, I haven't finished getting all the yield.

With the longer warmth, came critters staying out of hibernation longer.  In a 3 week period, from early to late November (temps were still in the 50's) we lost 11 chickens.  What a bummer.  Even our teenager chickens we hatched ourselves.  Steve has begun working on the new chicken coop which will have a huge chicken run to keep our babies safe while we are away at work.  They will be able to Free-Range on the weekends.  Well, I better get back to my seed ordering!

Green Bean, Tomato and Feta Salad

So, I have all these fresh green beans, and after prepping most of them for the freezer, I saved about two cups worth for this salad for dinner.  I served this salad with Greek Marinated Pork Chops and Israeli Couscous with chick peas. That's good eating!

Green Bean, Tomato and Feta Salad
2 cups , fresh green beans blanched for 2 minutes in boiling water and cooled to room temp
2 large red tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup sliced red onion
1/4 cup of Feta crumbles
Place all ingredients in a large salad bowl and toss with Vinaigrette

Greek Herb Vinaigrette
1/4 cup EV Olive oil
2 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP White Wine vinegar
1TSP of each: onion powder, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried mint,
salt & pepper to taste
Wisk all ingredients in a small bowl until well combined, pour over vegetables.

Makes 2-4 servings.  Two if you eat a lot of veggies like us!

Chinese food time! Those peas just keep on coming!

With harvesting the last of the Pak Choi, and broccoli, then turnips, beets, asparagus, green beans, radishes and many pea pods, its time to whip up some Chinese food.  This week we are concentrating on Thai, to use the Pak Choi, cilantro, fresh garlic and beet greens.  Pea Pods will be great with pork stir fry and carrots.  I pulled up a few test carrots and although they were only about 2/3rd mature, they will be a great addition to the dishes.

We have had rain for about 40 straight days, the garden loves it but my squash, cucumbers and lettuce needs a bit of sun.  Be careful what you wish for, I thought to myself on Sunday: on the first day of summer June 21st, it was 90 degrees and
70 % humidity!  UGH.

This week I have to cover the grapes, the birds are eating too many, pick the plums on the one tree we have and pick the wild blackberries.  Time to start making jam!

So Much Green!

After 32 straight days of rain we finally had a dry day.  Steve and I took advantage of it and got some chores done which included picking some greens!  Radishes, turnips, pea pods, broccoli, pak choy and Swiss chard.  Every type of green loved the cooler weather and the daily rain.

We also went to pick up some hardware for the new chicken coop, which we will be building this week.  On the way home we stopped at the KC Buffalo Co. which is at 203rd St.  We have been meaning to get there since we moved out to the farm. And we are so glad we did.  We met a very nice gentleman who gave us some education in raising and processing buffalo for meat.  We took our time looking through all the selection of cuts and chose several items to take home, one being bison burgers for dinner! Yummy.  I had to take a photo of these juvenile buffalos  before getting back in the car.  They were taller than me but just teenagers.  The lower field was filled with the more mature animals and boy are they big!  You just don't realize how big they are until you stand next to them.  We didn't hang around since we kept thinking of out favorite State Farm Commercial where the buffalo charges the guys car! Terrifically funny as long as it doesn't happen to you!

So we were told to sear the burgers quickly, I added a pat of butter in the pan first and Steve seared those burgers to perfection.  They were great. Tasty, lean , no preservatives and lower fat content than beef.  My kind of red meat!  I also bought a tail cut to make Osso Buco.  Yummy again!

SPRING IS FINALLY HERE!

Busy, Busy, Busy at the farm this spring.  Photo, above,  of Mr. & Mrs. Peacock.  We let Peekachoo (male) and Princess (female) peacocks out for a little exercise this spring.  But, since Peekachoo was eating half of the seeds I planted, and every sprig of asparagus appearing in the bed, they had to go back in their pen.  Princess was visiting next door, with the new male and two other females, so Steve and I went over to get her.  Steve grabbed her and brought her home to our pen, only to get confirmation from Sue that we took the wrong female and had to switch them.  Talk about a wasted afternoon of shitty shirts and lots of head ache.  Steve got shat on all over his clothes and proceeded to get some in his mouth and on his face.  Yuck!

But, seeding the garden went on and we are now seeing two inches of green growth on all the garden rows.  Now we have to clip the chickens wings because they are now attacking my strawberries and biting off the bean plant shoots.  I have replanted the beans and want to get them clipped to keep them out of the garden for good.

Back Deck has been dismantled, waiting to start the house foundation repair.  In the mean time we have cleared a spot for the new chicken coop and building will start this weekend. 
My duties are focused on weeding and finishing laying the tarps in rows to keep the weeds from growing. (pictured above)

A photo of the last batch of spinach we got from our cold frames.  Lettuce is almost done as well and I have replanted both types of greens in my raised beds which are now in the center row of the garden.

With all of this work going on, we had a week delay caused by feeding newly born kittens (2 or 3 weeks old) who were left by the mother (or she got killed) under the deck at Jim's house (our next door neighbor).  Steve crawled under the deck and retrieved them, brought them home and we bottle fed them for 5 days.  After getting no sleep I finally had to call the Great Plains SPCA who came to me rescue.  They took the babies and set  them up in the care of a foster home until they are old enough for adoption. Great, hard working folks who really care about the animals. I even got to feed them one last time when I dropped them off.

We have been getting nice rain showers, every couple of days, so we hope it continues for a few more months. Free water is a luxury these days.

A few folks stopped in for dinner a couple of weeks ago and I served Brined Grilled Pork Chops, roasted Yukon gold fingerling potatoes and sautéed dandelion greens with garlic, caramelized onions and  white wine.  I told everyone they had to try them before I would tell them what they were.  I received clean plates!  One of my favorite spring greens and then you have fewer weeds in your yard.  Just remember, you can't eat them if you spray your lawn with awful chemicals.  They are a treat for us organic growers only!