Westminster Farmers’ Market Report from Maple Heights Farm

Holiday Markets and Beautiful Little Milk Goats…      

Well, even though our Farmers’ Market has closed, I have yet to have a Friday off!  With delivery day for Mass Local Food last week, Friday was as busy as ever as this online farmers’ market takes over as a winter substitute for so many people.  So, I have this Friday off (first one since early May), but the following Friday, we are back in business again with our pre-Thanksgiving market (on November 20^th).

Our Holiday Markets will be at the Westminster DPW barn at 1 Oakmont Ave. 

The Thanksgiving market will be held on Friday, November 20^th from 3:00 until 7:00 and will be stocked with all your Thanksgiving needs.  Vegetables, sausage, cheese, meat, cranberries, eggs (hopefully), baked goods, breads, fudge and plenty of items for Christmas shopping!  Ask your vendors about freezing items to keep the as fresh as possible for your Holiday meal!

The Christmas market will be held on Friday, December 11^th.  More information to follow as I get it!

Is UHP Milk Still Milk…

Meghan has been milking a wonderful little goat that belongs to our neighbors.  She is helping out twice a day for a few weeks.  The goat, Emma, is quite a milk producer and has kept our refrigerator full of the freshest milk available.  And Meghan has become quite an expert and has learned so much.  Although she does have her own beautiful little goats that you met at the market this past summer, Echo and Marmalade, the opportunity to milk Emma under the guidance of our neighbors has made her so much more knowledgeable about Nigerian Dwarf goats.  In the meantime, we have been making yogurt and cheese.  The yogurt is so simple and can be made with store bought milk.  We use a cooler and a large jar of hot tap water to incubate (?) it.  No fancy machines required.  We have also been making Mozzarella, but with limited success.  The milk definitely has qualities that far exceed anything we have used before, but there is a process of stretching the cheese where I am lacking in knowledge and skill, so the finished product is not quite as good as it could/should be.  Still it is fun to try and the kids swarm into the kitchen when it is ready to stretch.  Everyone wants to try! 

I can also finally try to make Crème Fraîche for which I have cultures.  I have wanted to make this for Robin Springfield’s Scones.  I now have the cream that I need.  This requires cream that has not been ultra high pasteurized (UHP) and this is just not available around here anywhere – not even at whole foods (which is not even around here).  Much, if not all, of the organic milk is UHP and I have yet to find ANY cream products that are not UHP (and I have spent about 1.5 years looking).  This is actually one of the situations that made me look at our food supply in more depth.  One of the fundamental characteristics of milk/cream is that you can culture it and make cheese.  Once we pasteurize it using UHP, it no longer of any use for making cheese, the fundamental characteristics of the milk/cream have changed.  Is milk still milk if we can’t make cheese?  I do wonder about that and it seems to me, the simple answer is NO.

Household happenings…

Our broth this week went into a Beef Barley soup (you can get Barley at Roots in Leominster).  This meal was a huge success among my four children.  They loved the flavor and could not figure out if the barley was rice or pasta.  I modified the recipe to use my own broth instead of bouillon.  In addition I added a beef shank (usually goes into hamburg but we kept a few out for soup) to the broth instead of using the more expensive chuck roast.  I also used vegetables that I had on hand rather than a frozen bag of vegetables.  And I substitute brown sugar instead of white whenever I make a tomato base for anything.  I just like the more complex flavor combination.  So, this recipe is a great starting point and the tomato in the broth gives the soup a thicker richer flavor than what you are used to finding in cafeteria style Beef Barley soup.

A few weeks ago, Brenda St. Claire left us a sample of her chocolate goat cheese at the Mass Local Food booth.  With it she left some almond cookie type crackers that were the exact, perfect complement to the cheese.  I think, even if you don’t like the idea of chocolate cheese, you would have loved this combination.  This week it was our turn to have dinner for Meghan’s Mother-Daughter book group.  Along with a field trip in the dark to a local, overgrown foundation (in the book there was a secret club that met in an old foundation) Meghan made orange almond biscotti to serve with the chocolate cheese.  I really liked the combination and this would be great for a holiday party.  It was easy and delicious and you can make it ahead of time and freeze the biscotti.  I prefer the cheese at room temperature, for my tastes the texture and flavor is better this way and so delicious with Billy Goat Beanery Coffee!  In addition Meghan also made a decadent 4 layer Oreo Cheesecake that was absolutely delicious and absolutely loaded with junk and not local, but healthy is not what cheesecake is about.  The 5 star rating on this recipe is for a reason and I’m sure we will all gain about 10 pounds finishing it (and how is that we can gain 10 pounds by eating 4 pounds of cheesecake?  We all know it is possible!). 

In the Vegetable Garden…

I know many of you have a vegetable garden, big or small, it doesn’t matter.  While, for our needs, or garden was very successful this year, it wasn’t pretty, or weed free, or perfect.  We are, however, still eating plenty from it.  Broccoli, Leeks, Swiss chard, Borecole, Carrots, Beets, Beet Greens, Scallions (some are a bit fat to be called scallions), Cabbage, Parsley, Sage, Kohlrabi…  In addition, we have pumpkins, squash, carrots, beets, onions and potatoes in storage alongside our dahlias for the spring and some tulips to force this winter.   For the vegetable gardeners among you, next season I urge you to consider planting for fall (my The New Victory Garden book tells me how – and I’m still hoping it tells Andy how to build my cold frame).  And don’t forget, you can plant your garlic now.  I recommend the artichoke red softneck and the German red hardneck garlic from Rainville Farmette in Princeton.  It is fresh and mild and delicious and next summer you will be very glad you spent the extra half hour this November to plant it!  Because of the planting we did throughout the growing season we will probably make it until the middle of December without needing to buy vegetables.  Sure, I already miss fresh tomatoes, but even the grocery store cannot supply me with those now – and canned are almost as good for cooked recipes.  Though not local, now that citrus is coming into season they make a great substitute for tomatoes in our salads and the winter health benefits should not be overlooked.  Try greens with crumbled blue cheese, red onion, orange segments with raspberry vinaigrette. 

Doing what we can to keep the flu at bay…

So far we are surviving this swine flu season with no sign of it in this house.  Russell had a slight fever for 24 hours (on and off) and I was sure he had it, he didn’t.  In addition we have had a few cases of headaches (I assume from some virus going around) but all have recovered within 24 hours without other symptoms.  I’m not really worried about our health if we do get it, just the impact to the kids if they miss school for a week (especially college-bound Max) – and the fact that they will most likely be passing it on, possibly to someone not as healthy as they are.  I am also worried that it could be passed to our own pigs which could have far reaching effects that I don’t even want to think about.  For me, those are good enough reasons to be cautious.  We continue to make broth (once per week) and eat meals that contain it, we are eating citrus and drinking orange juice and apple cider and we (most of us) are still taking Dawn Pavone’s Echinacea.  I’m sure the plentiful raw goat’s milk isn’t hurting either.  Hand washing is more frequent now and we are not eating raw or uncooked foods (deli meats, dinner rolls, tuna fish) when we go out.  Whatever it is that is keeping the flu away, I’ll take it.  Call it what you will, even the placebo effect is very powerful and if it keeps us from getting sick, I’ll take that too!

For this Thanksgiving Market, I will be there, but Andy will not.  He will be away on a trip to Florida for some Nascar event courtesy of BJ’s, a 56 oz bag of M&M’s and some automated sweepstakes entry software – that’s right, Grand Prize!  I guess people actually do win this stuff!  Anyways, to the farmers’ market I will bring sausage for your stuffing needs and hamburg for those of you that make meat pies for Thanksgiving breakfast.  I will also bring any meat that you pre-order, just please let us know by next Thursday so we have time to prepare your order.  We keep an inventory here, but if there is something not listed, check with us.  We have such things as beef shank and organ meat that is not listed.  Just email us a note about what you want.  We will get back to you with a price, package it up and have it ready for you when you arrive at the market.

And of course our beef and pork will be available through the winter at www.massfoodcoop.org.  Orders will open on Friday, November 20^th for the December delivery day which will be Friday, December 4^th.

Have a great week and we will see you next Friday at the DPW Barn.

Kerrie Hertel    mapleHeightsFarm@verizon.net

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