Cooley Family Farm

In our house we have salad almost every day. Our favorite salad is very simple and it is so good. The dressing is made from scratch but only has 2 ingredients and couldn’t be any easier! I got the idea for this salad from a recipe I found in a Cooking Light magazine that a friend had given me. There are so many ways that you can modify this salad to suit your own tastes.

When I made this salad last night I used our salad bag mix and I was in the mood for blue cheese. But I often switch around which kind of cheese I use. Trae likes Feta Cheese. Kevin usually eats it with no cheese or sometimes Parmesan cheese shavings. I like it with any of those cheeses or goat cheese. The salad dressing I make works great with any of those cheeses.

My salad is now quite a bit different from the original recipe from Cooking Light which calls for apples. And the apples are very good on this, but I don’t always have them on hand.

Salad Ingredients:
Our Salad Bag
Craisins
Cheese of choice

Dressing
Agave Nectar
Lemon Juice

For the dressing I always use fresh squeezed lemon juice and mix it with the agave at a 50/50 ratio. We like it kind of sweet. You can adjust the ratio to suite your own taste.

The above picture was taken last night. Sorry the photo quality isn’t as good on this one but by the time I realized it was a little bright I had already eaten my salad. And also… I was a bit spoiled because Kevin found a few sprigs of arugula in the tunnel and I used that on my salad as well. Keep this in mind when you see that arugula is available again. It seems like people either love arugula or they hate it. Obviously I fall into the category of loving it and I don’t understand at all why anyone wouldn’t love it!!

Tracy

This past season we had the great fortune of having a couple of outstanding farm hands: Mary and Whitney. Both Mary and Whitney attended our organic gardening presentation at the Tippecanoe County Library and afterward told us that they would like to work on our farm.

Whitney and Mary

As the month of May grew wetter and our planting schedules delayed, we found ourselves needing extra help to get the tomato, pepper & eggplant transplants in the ground. We dug out their phone numbers and gave them a call. “We need help…can you be here tomorrow?” They showed up to help get those transplants in the ground and continued to help when they could find time in their busy schedules. We are so impressed with Mary and Whitney that we want to share a little about them and their passions for improving the food network.

Mary

Mary Lehmkuhl, is a junior at Purdue with an Environmental Plant Studies Major in the Botany and Plant Pathology Department. Mary’s original interest were in conservation and restoration of forests and hot spots around the world. While working in local and Purdue greenhouses, for us here on the farm and in her own ever-expanding garden, Mary’s interests took her deeper into local and organic foods as well as sustainable agriculture.

Currently Mary is taking part in a sustainable agriculture class at Purdue and is learning about current and indigenous methods in agriculture. This coming summer Mary will be traveling to Costa Rica to take part in an internship where she will be studying BioChar. Mary is also very active in Cityfoods, an up and coming Lafayette area food co-op. Mary’s goal is to help creat a more sustainable way of life, by creating a local sustainable food movement, via organic agriculture and local food co-ops.

Whitney

Whitney Sewell, is fascinated with both growing and cooking food. Her interests in gardening and learning to grow more of her own food not only lead her to us but also to her receiving a certification in Permiculture Design from Indiana University. In November Whitney moved to Saint Louis to join the Gateways Greening’s education team, a non-profit organization that works to establish gardening as a tool for health and wellness in urban schools and communities. This fall Whitney wrote curriculums and created development workshops for several schools and in the spring she will be teaching gardening work shops.

Whitney is also actively working to change policies that will strengthen and support the small agriculture and local food movement by working with the Saint Louis Food Policy Council, Healthy Youth Partnerships, Child Day Care Association and by setting on the Mayors’ health and wellness committee. In the future Whitney will be pursuing a Master’s in Public Health, and continue to focus
on gardening as a tool for health and wellness.

Customers support of our farming endeavors allow us to share our experiences and knowledge with others and in turn they to will help grow a better food system.

I have to admit that cooking with greens has not been a strong point for me. I love using them raw in salads, etc. But cooking them isn’t something I have a lot of experience with so I’m trying to improve on that. A couple of years ago one of our customers told us how much she loved using our mustard greens with her fried potatoes. So I decided I would try to do something similar with the Hon-Tsai-Tai.

Seems like I’m always in a hurry so I thought I would get my stir fry skillet out and see if stir-frying the potatoes would save me some time. I think it may have saved me some time, but could probably have the same results with a regular skillet.

Stir Fried Potatoes with Hon-Tsai-Tai

Ingredients
1 bunch Hon-Tsai-Tai
4-5 medium sized potatoes
1 medium onion
plain sesame oil
toasted sesame oil
kosher salt

Peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes. Wash the Hon-Tsai-Tai and cut into small pieces. Cut onion in half and then cut into strips.

Heat the plain sesame oil over high heat. Just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the potatoes and “stir fry” them until they start to become tender. Add more oil as needed to keep them from sticking to the pan.

Keep a close eye on the potatoes and stir often so they don’t burn on the bottom.

When the potatoes start to become tender add the onions and continue stirring until the onions and potatoes are at the desired tenderness.

Add the Hon-Tsai-Tai and stir until the greens are slightly wilted.

Sprinkle with Kosher salt and serve.

I was really happy with how this turned out. We really enjoyed them. There were no left overs!

Sure was nice to have sunshine this weekend. The clear blue sky and the suns’ warm rays made it easier to accept that the high temperatures didn’t make it over the freezing point. With just a few things remaining to be harvested from our high tunnels it’s that time of year when we turn our focus to the coming season.

Winter beds have to be cleared out and the soil worked in preparation of the early plantings to come. As strange as it may seem, it can actually become more challenging in the tunnels this time of year than in the past months. As the earth tilts and the suns’ angel decreases, temperature swings can drive me (and the plants) crazy! Because it’s still winter, night temperatures can fall into the single digits and daytime temperatures within the tunnels can soar.

These changing conditions and endless opportunities make winter gardening both challenging and rewarding. I hope some day to have a seamless winter harvest. For now I will keep trying new ideas, taking notes and enjoying all the days of winter harvests that didn’t exist in years past. kc

At least in our basement. Yes the first tender plants of spring have emerged and our relentless quest for this seasons fresh food has begun. Most of our seed selections have been made, orders placed with the suppliers and a large portion of those seeds have already arrived here on the farm.

I’m happy that I have had some cold weather, allowing me to get a good start on our first seedings but I would sure welcome a little break form the grips of winter. There is a lot of things that need to be done outside even during this time of year. I need to get started preparing the greenhouse, repairing equipment and there are still more improvements needing to be made to our barn.

For now I will focus on getting four more flats seeded up before Sunday night, come Monday a new week begins with its own schedule and more flats to seed up. kc