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From Field to Table
What's Happening Now at Magicland Farms
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Issue Number Six
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Monday - August 24, 2009
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Magicland
Farms
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Everything We Sell We Grow Ourselves
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Greetings!
Welcome to the Magicland Farms' newsletter for the week beginning August 24th. We hope to keep you up to date with the happenings at our farm, along with providing you with some of our favorite recipes and other information we think you might find of interest. If you know of someone who might be interested in receiving our newsletter, you can forward it to them by using the forward link at the end of this newsletter
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This Week at Magicland Farms - August 24th to August 29th
We still have lots of sweet corn for sale including a new type of corn (see the Boss's Corner for details). Additional items for sale will also include freshly picked Jersey
Macs, Viking, Tydeman's Red and other late summer apples,
handpicked green and yellow beans, tomatoes by the pound (including
the heirloom types), sweet bell and jalapeno peppers, eggplant,
sand-grown potatoes, acorn and spaghetti winter squash, fresh jumbo
red and yellow sweet onions, beets, cabbage, cucumbers, zucchini, cut
sunflowers, garlic, dill and other herbs.
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From The Kitchen
As you may have noticed in your recent visits to Magicland, apple season has begun. We have over 100 different varieties of apples in our orchard (not all produce a crop every year). Apples are picked from July to November in our orchard. Right now we have several different varieties available:
VIKING - Highly aromatic.
Crisp and juicy, richly flavorful with just the right tartness. Outstanding flavor
retention when cooked. Keeps about 1 month. A product of the
Purdue, Rutgers, Illinois Co Op but it was originally introduced by the University of Wisconsin in
1969. Uses: All purpose variety
TYDEMAN'S RED - Early fall McIntosh
type. This apple is fine-textured with a sweet, subacid flavor. Its flavor deteriorates in storage. This variety, which
is believed to be a Worcester Pearmain
and Red McIntosh cross, was raised in 1929
at the East Malling Research Station, Maidstone, England by Mr. H. M.
Tydeman. It was introduced commercially
in 1945. Uses: Fresh eating and sauce.
JERSEYMAC - A cross of NJ38 and
Julyred, this apple is a medium sized McIntosh type apple. A great summer apple for McIntosh lovers. The yellow flesh is
fine-grained with a subacid and aromatic flavor. It was introduced by
the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station in 1971. Uses: Fresh Eating
PAULA RED -
This
apple has creamy flesh with a tart tang. It is wonderful for late
summer apple pies and is one of the better keeping late summer apples. This
was a chance seedling discovered in Sparta, Michigan. It was
introduced commercially in 1967. Uses:
All purpose apple
Coming in the next couple of weeks, we will have a couple more varieties:
EARLIBLAZE - The yellow flesh is
crisp, juicy, mildly sweet with a nice tang. Many of our customers told us this makes a good pie or applesauce. Look for it around September 1st. Uses: Fresh eating, Pies
GRAVENSTEIN - The yellowish white
flesh is tender, fine grained and crisp with a well balanced acid-sugar
content. Gravenstein is
thought to be an Italian variety given to the Duke of Gravenstein in the 17th
century and introduced into the United States in 1790, It was planted at a Russian settlement in
Sonoma County, California in 1820. Our
trees are getting on in age and we don't often have a great crop. This year we have a crop. For pies, they are fantastic! We consider our Gravensteins, Northern Spies and Calville Blanc d'Hivers to be the best pie apples available. Northern Spy and Calvilles are a fall apple. Look for the Gravensteins around August 27th.
Here is one of our favorite dessert recipes using apples. It came from a customer who lived in Wisconsin and visited here, hence the name.
WISCONSIN
APPLE CAKE
Serves:
8
2 1/2
cups flour
2
teaspoon sugar
1 cup
butter
1
teaspoon salt
1
teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
-- beaten
1
teaspoon milk
Topping:
1 1/2
cups sugar
3
tablespoons flour
1
teaspoon cinnamon
4
tablespoons butter
Cut
the butter into the dry ingredients as if you were making pie crust.
Add egg and milk until mixed. Pat into 13 x 9 pan. Some of the
crust should go up the side of the pan.
Fill
pan with apple slices.
Mix
sugar, flour and cinnamon for topping. Cut in butter. Sprinkle over
apples.
Bake
at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until golden and apples are tender. Serve
with ice cream or whipped cream.
Hint: This seems to taste better when cooked longer than the recipe calls for. We have been known to cook it for 15-25 minutes longer and it tastes great!
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In The Spotlight - Sweet Corn for Canning or Freezing
UNBELIEVABLE SWEET CORN SPECIAL:
$8.00 a Bushel - Bi-color Sweet Corn suitable for freezing or canning.
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The Boss's Corner
Mirai corn, cleaned, tipped and ready for cooking - 8/23/2009
Last August I
happened to be listening the Chicago's WGN 720 AM radio (the voice
of the Chicago Cubs) and I heard an ad about a place northwest of
Chicago that sold sweet corn that they grew on their farm. The
announcer made it sound like the corn was really special - I found
out that they were selling it for around $7 a dozen which means they
must have thought it was special! The type of corn was Mirai corn,
whatever that was. Well, I knew there were three types of sweet
corn-regular old fashioned type (SU), the supersweet (SH2) type and
the enhanced sugar (SE) type, which is the primary type we have grown
for over 15 years. Actually we have grown all three types but we
have preferred the enhanced sugar type. Well, there is a new type of
corn Mirai, which has some of all three genes mixed in. It was
claimed in the ad (from Twin Gardens Farm located near Harvard
Illinois) that the Mirai type was the best tasting corn around. I
had to try it so I planted three bi-color varieties of Mirai corn.
(To be honest, two of the varieties have Mirai in their name, with a
number like 301 as a suffix, and one is actually named Optimum which
is the same type of corn as Mirai but put out by a different seed
company so they couldn't use the Mirai name.) Despite the warnings
that Mirai corn was hard to grow, it has done fabulously and we have
just taste tested it. It is truly a revolutionary corn. About the
sweetest corn I ever tasted. If you like it sweet you should try it
(by the way we are selling it for the same price as most of our corn,
$4 a dozen). To be honest though, my wife and I think it is so sweet
it is almost too sweet! While I expect it will be a big hit with
most of our customers, not everyone will go for it. However, it is
definitely a lot tenderer and more flavorful than the old-time
Supersweet, which I personally didn't like at all! The Mirai type
is a good corn and if you think it's a bit too sweet let it set in
the kitchen a couple of days and it will lose some sweetness. For more information check out:
I would really appreciate
that if you do try Mirai you let me know what you, and all the
members of your family, think of it. This will help us plan for next
year as well as a help for my book I am writing which I mentioned in
the Boss's Corner a few issues back.
The summer has been
cooler, wetter and less sunny than average. The oddest thing about
this summer was the lack of the day in and day out sunshine that we
normally receive. I've been around these parts most summers of my
life and I don't remember so many cloudy summer days. The summer weather this year
reminds me of coastal New England summers. The meteorological cause
has been several upper air (over 5 mile high) closed low pressure
areas. It may be interesting to note here that a similar upper air
low is supposed to form near southern Texas real soon and they are
expecting weather to be much below normal in the upcoming days. This
is after an unbelievably hot summer! What a relief for them! It
appears right now that the fall in Michigan will be warmer and drier
than normal. NOAA agrees with that assessment and so does Joe
Bastardi. I remember summers that were a bit like this summer and
the following fall was quite nice. Let's hope this comes to pass
this year.
Hoping for sunnier days
ahead,
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We appreciate your business and hope to see you this week at Magicland Farms.
Sincerely,
Tom and Annemarie Fox
Magicland Farms
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4380 S Gordon
Fremont, Michigan 49412
231-652-2368
Open 10AM to 5:30PM Monday through Saturday
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