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From Field to Table
What's Happening Now at Magicland Farms
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Issue Number Fourteen
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Monday - October 19, 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 October 19th. 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 - October 19th to October 24th
Apples. Apples, Apples-Over 32 different varieties!
Mutsu (Crispin), Northern
Spy, Hawaii, Jonalicious, Candy Cane (Surprise), Tolman Sweet, Golden Russet,
Kandil Sinap, RedGold, Splendor, Court Pendu Plat, Senator, Stark's Jumbo, Snow
and most common varieties. Variety peck baskets with at least 10 different
labeled apples, along with printed apple variety descriptions, are
available. Also squash, pumpkins,
pawpaws and a great selection of natural fall decorations.
We also still have potatoes, parsnips, carrots, beets, rutabagas, cabbage, peppers and onions.
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From The Kitchen
Baked apples are a classic autumn dessert and if you look through older cookbooks, Rome apples are mentioned most often as the apple of choice for baked apples. Why? Rome apples hold their shape well when baked and their flavor develops during the cooking process. I have read about several tests made to determine the best "baked apple" apple and Romes consistently come out on top. Empires and Jonathans are the other apples highly recommended for baked apples.
CLASSIC BAKED APPLES
4 large Rome apples
2 to 4 tablespoons sugar (either white or brown, depending on your preference)
4 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Raisins, if desired
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Core
the apples to just within ½-inch from the bottom. Peel a 1-inch strip
of apple skin from around the middle of each apple. Or, peel the upper
half of each apple in order to prevent the apple from splitting while
it bakes.
Place the apples in an ungreased glass baking dish.
In
the center of each apple, place 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon butter, and 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon and raisins. Sprinkle
additional ground cinnamon on top of the apples for a decorative effect.
Pour water into the baking dish until it reaches about ¼-inch deep. Pour the water around the apples, avoid pouring the water over them. Bake
the apples for about 30 to 40 minutes. While baking, spoon the liquid from the baking dish over the apples (this keeps them moist and adds flavor). Check apples after 30 minutes of cooking. If you can pierce your baked
apples with a fork easily, they are done baking.
These are delicious served plain or with either ice cream or whipped cream or maybe both!
APPLE DUMPLINGS WITH BUTTERSCOTCH SAUCE
Ingredients:
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons white sugar 1/2 cup shortening 1 cup milk 4 apples - peeled, cored and halved
1/2 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 1/3 cup butter 1 pinch salt 2 cups boiling water
Directions:
1.
Preheat
oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease one 9x13 inch baking pan.
Combine 1/2 cup of the white sugar with the ground cinnamon and the
ground nutmeg; set aside.
2.
Measure
sifted flour, add baking powder, salt, and 3 tablespoons sugar, and
sift again. Cut shortening into sifted ingredients until mixture looks
like coarse meal. Add milk, mixing until a soft dough is formed.
3.
Knead
dough on lightly floured board half a minute. Divide dough in half.
Roll each half to a 1/8 inch thickness. Cut eight 5 inch squares out of
the dough. Place an apple half on each square. Sprinkle each with 1
tablespoon of the sugar-spice mixture. Moisten edges of dough and bring
corners up over apples, pressing edges together. Place covered apples
in the prepared baking pan with joined edges either on top or
underneath the apples.
4.
Mix together brown sugar, butter, salt, and water; bring to a boil. Pour over dumplings in pan.
5.
Bake
at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 45 to 50 minutes, or until apples
are tender. Serve warm. Makes 8 servings. The brown sugar mixture forms
a delicious butterscotch sauce around the dumplings.
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Specials In The Spotlight
ACORN OR BUTTERNUT SQUASH
$4.OO for a half bushel or $7.00 a bushel
OTHER WINTER SQUASH
$5.00 for a half bushel or $8.00 a bushel
JONATHAN OR EMPIRE APPLES
$9 a bushel using
your own containers or $10 a bushel with our bags.
CABBAGE
$4 a half bushel |
The Boss's Corner
Hi,
We are now
entering late October and that means winter isn't that far away. How will winter be? I will give you my, and several other views,
on the coming winter at the end of the following little spiel.
Since very few
vegetables or fruit can be harvested during most winters in Michigan, one needs to store or preserve the
summer/fall harvest. The canning of tomatoes, corn, beans and peppers has
already been discussed in earlier newsletters.
Anyway, it's too late to do anything about these warm weather crops
because of the frosts and besides, they are fairly expensive to keep through
the winter, whether you freeze them or can them. We grow quantities of several vegetables and
fruit that can be easily stored. Apples,
potatoes, onions and winter squash are not only easy to store they are very
nutritious and you can live all winter just eating these four types of
produce. (By the way, potatoes and
squash have more potassium per ounce than bananas.) We now also have rutabagas, which also store
great although these are new to us so we have little personal experience with
them. We found the following are the
best storage conditions:
The best
temperature to store apples is at 33F (they won't freeze until their internal
temperature drops below 30F); they also like some humidity so they don't
shrivel. Of course, this is hard to
reach so keep them as cool as possible without letting them freeze. An unheated room or basement will sometimes
work except during occasional winter warm spells. One possibility is to keep them in an
unheated attached garage and seal them in one of those inexpensive plastic totes
that has a minimum size of 10 gallons (just over a bushel). Keep an eye on the temperature and if it gets
extremely cold-say close to 0F outside-- you may want to bring them in until
the weather moderates. Which apples store best? Idared, Empire, Northern Spy, Granny Smith, Fuji, Mutsu and Golden Russet.
Onions like a
similar temperature although they can take it a bit colder than apples and they
like it nice and dry-they are fine hung in a mesh bag-don't put them in a tote or they will rot! We found most of our sweet onions will store
OK into January.
Potatoes seem to
store best between 40F and 45F. If they
are colder, some of their starch will change to sugar and they will become
sweeter and possibly discolor after cooking although they are still great to
eat! They also will keep OK at a warmer
temperature-below 60F. However, they
must be kept in the dark. If you keep
them in a basket make sure you cover them with newspaper or something. When light hits potatoes they turn green (you
often see green potatoes sitting on displays in supermarkets because of all the
light.) My grandmother Anna, who was
brought up on a farm in Nebraska, often said "green potatoes weren't even
fed to pigs!" Well a little green won't
kill you but if you eat enough of them they could give you a tummy-ache. Normally,
we still enjoy our potatoes through mid April.
Then we have a choice: plant our potatoes or eat them. Well, while they
are still OK to eat, the thought of fresh, new potatoes flashes before our eyes
and tickles our taste buds so planting the potatoes usually wins out and we are
then left potatoless until late June when we start digging new red potatoes.
Squash like it a
bit warmer than the rest-anywhere from 50F to 60F is the best temperature
range. They also seem to like it a bit
dry. The squash varieties that store
best seem to be acorn and the hubbard-especially the blue hubbard. One year I kept blue hubbard to April and
they were perfect. However, I wouldn't
figure on reliably storing squash past Christmas. Keep an eye on the squash and if you see a
bad spot try to eat it within three days.
Almost always, all you need do is cut the bad spot out and the rest will
be perfect. Here is something
interesting about squash we just discovered the last few years. They apparently have an enzyme which turns
starch to sugar AFTER THEY are harvested.
What this means is that squash eaten in October, November and December
will be sweeter than the fresh squash you eat in August and September! This is especially obvious with the buttercup
(the one with a cup, the light brown ones are butternut).
Now let's
discuss the coming winter. Right now the
temperature of the surface seawater in the Pacific ocean in the equatorial region is somewhat
above normal ( a couple of degrees F).
This usually brings about an "El Niño" climate change across the Americas. El
Niño is Spanish for The Little Boy. It refers to the Christ Child and was named
by Mexican fishermen, who noticed the climate pattern often formed around
Christmastime. NOAA is forecasting the El Niño to strengthen, several
meteorologists think it might fade. A
strong El Niño almost always brings mild winter weather across Michigan.
Few disagree with this. The
disagreement has to do with what El Niño will do. NOAA says it will strengthen; a few others say
it will stay the same or weaken. One
hint here: notice that the Mexican fishermen found that usually the El Niño
started around December 25. I have to go
along with NOAA here since it is the most logical deduction. Now said this I am going along with a milder
than normal winter, overall. However, no
doubt at least one of the months of winter may be slightly colder than normal,
and which one is a guess. Also it is
hard to know the exact snowfall although it is likely that the lake affect will
be reduced this year. Here is what some
forecasts are for Michigan:
The NWS (National Weather Service) says Michigan will be slightly warmer than normal with
slightly less snow than normal.
Accuweather, headed by the justly famous Joe Bastardi, says it will be warmer than normal with less
snow. It seems the "snow/cold monster"
Bill Steffen from WOOD TV says it will be very cold and lots of snow, I think
he says that at least it sounds like it. And George Lessens from WZZM seems to
agree with the NWS. Here is an
interesting note about a possible dispute over the blogs of Bill Steffen and
George Lessens (who once worked together at WZZM). According to Bill Steffen, an unusually cold
October is indicative of a cold December and January while George Lessens says
a cold October implies a warmer than normal-or at least normal-winter. It is interesting to note that Bill implies a
cold October (which we definitely have had-so far anyway) means a cold winter
but he doesn't say that explicitly, he just makes it sound like that even if
you read his blog very slowly. George
Lessens is talking about the whole winter (December, January and
February). Interesting? No wonder our family has given Bill the title
of the "snow/cold monster"!
Before I shut
up, I'd like to tell a story about a local reporter from northern Minnesota who interviewed an elderly Native American living on one of
the reservations during early October many, many years ago. The reporter asked "Chief, do you have any
idea on how severe this winter will be?"
The old man
nodded his head.
"Well, uh, will
it be severe?" asked the reporter.
Another nod.
"Oh...well what
tells you that? Have the local black
bear fattened up more than usual? Or was
it that the woolly bear caterpillars have strange stripes?"
"No.
White Men have huge wood piles."
Hoping the
milder forecast for the coming week comes to pass.
Nashle!
Tom |
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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
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