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From Field to Table
What's Happening Now at Magicland Farms
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Volume Two, Issue Nine
| Sunday - July 11, 2010
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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 July 12th. 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 - July 12th to July 17th
This week we are featuring Bi-color sweet Corn, green and yellow beans, beets,
pickling cucumbers, new red potatoes, SunSugar cherry tomatoes, cut sunflowers and zucchini Also our craft room is now open! Here you can find handmade jewelry, art,
gourd crafts, knitting, rosaries and more!
We accept both the Bridge Card and Project Fresh.
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From The Kitchen
The sweet corn season begins tomorrow for Magicland Farms. We eat a lot of sweet corn during the season. Everyone has their own way of cooking sweet corn so I figured I would summarize a few of the methods we have tried at one time or another. We don't have a microwave so I don't have any tried and true method for cooking sweet corn in the microwave.
Boiling methods
There are two different methods here. We usually boil using the first method but I have heard about the second one and would like to try it soon.
Method One:
Husk corn and remove silk. Rinse under running water. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Put corn into boiling water. Do not cover pot. Blanch corn kernels for 4 minutes or whole ears of corn for 7 to 11 minutes, depending on size of ear. (A variation on this method is to cover the pot and cook for 4-5 minutes.)
Method Two:
Husk and remove silk from corn. Rinse under running water and put into a pot of cold water. Turn on heat; when water comes to a full boil, the corn is ready to eat.
On The Grill
Sweet corn can be grilled either in or out of the husk. Sweet corn grilled out of the husk has a smokier flavor.
To grill in the husk, pull back husks and remove silk. Pull husk back over ear. Soak ears of corn in water for about a half hour. After soaking, place on heated grill and close lid. Turn ears every 4-5 minutes. The corn will be ready in about 20 minutes.
To grill out of the husk, clean and wash corn. Brush the ears with melted butter with your favorite seasonings and grill over
medium heat until kernels are golden, around 7 to 10
minutes. Since the corn does not have the protection of the husks, it must be turned frequently or it will burn.
Roasted In The Oven
Preheat oven to 500° F. In a shallow baking pan, place husked
ears and roast until corn is hot and kernels turn golden brown, about 7 minutes. As a variation on this method, you can brush the corn with butter and desired seasonings. Wrap each ear in foil (or remove only the silks and pull husks back in place after buttering.) Place in a pan in the oven and cook for 30-40 minutes.
No matter which way you cook it, we hope you enjoy our sweet corn this summer.
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Specials In The Spotlight
Our special early season price for green beans will be $10 a ½ bushel
AND only $18 a full bushel (2 halfs). We also have a special on pickling cucumbers: 56 for $6.
The best way to reserve green beans (we don't take orders for pickling cucumbers) is to email us at magiclandfarms@yahoo.com
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Questions Our Customers Are Asking
In this section, we usually answer the most commonly asked questions by customers at the stand and via email. If you have any questions, email us and we'll do our best to answer.
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The Boss's Corner
This week we start picking our first, second, and perhaps
even third, patch of sweet corn. (By the
way, our very first patch of corn was frozen out in that May 9th
freeze. If it wasn't for that freeze we would have started picking corn on July
8!) The first and second patches are bi-color and the third is Spring Treat,
which is a small eared light yellow corn.
A possible problem Monday will be the weather-showers and thunderstorms
are expected. We do not pick in
thunderstorms and we try to work around the rain. The rain that is forecast Monday won't be an
all day rain-this type of rain rarely lasts over an hour and a half. Sprinkles don't stop us so don't hesitate in
stopping by if all you notice are sprinkles.
Also keep an eye on the online radar-we do. The link is: NWS Radar.
As I thought, we are nearing the middle of a very hot
summer. Yesterday, one of my daughters
asked me around noon if this was an
average July day, temperature wise, for Newaygo
County. I noticed the temperature was around 85
already and was still going up. I looked
a bit surprised but then explained to her that the average high in Newaygo
County in July was only around 81
or 82. My daughter commented "Oh". Last year we thought a day that reached 82
degrees was a warm one! This brings to
mind a relatively new cooling drink Annemarie and I discovered, While reading a Perry Mason mystery novel by
Earl Stanley Gardner, I came to a passage where Perry was wining and dining
Della. Perry ordered a non-alcoholic
drink. It was made with lemon juice on
ice cubes, with sugar added and then carbonated water. Well we tried it and liked it. To simplify things, we tried making it with Country
Time Pink Lemonade mix over ice cubes and then Canada Dry Soda water. To us, this new concoction was even better
than using real lemon juice. My son Mark called it a "Pink Mason" and the name
took. You should try it on a real hot
sticky day when you are nice and thirsty!
Note About Our
Limited Time Specials!
Right now we are running two "Limited Time" quantity specials. One is for pickling cucumbers-56 for $6 and
the other is for green beans -- $18 a bushel. We don't put on the limited time special label unless we mean it. We hope to keep these specials going all week
and perhaps the first part of next week but there are no guarantees. There is a near zero chance we will repeat
them later. One good reason for this is
that the pickling cucumber patch and the green bean patch we are now picking
are the biggest we planted. There should
be some pickles and green beans for some time but the quantity will be less,
which also means the effort and time to fill a bucket is greater-sometimes much
greater. Not only will the price likely
be going up for quantities of green beans and pickling cucumbers, they simply
might not be available from us for those who want to pickle, can or freeze!
While this week will be rather warm and maybe even hot, I am
afraid it will be getting even hotter in the weeks to come. But by then we will likely have loads of
watermelon to enjoy! It looks like a
huge crop of sweet, flavorful watermelon this year! More on watermelon in the next newsletter.
Nashle!
Tom
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This week's photo album
This year we are doing our photos for the newsletter a bit differently. Due to space constraints on our newsletter hosting service and concern for those of you on a dialup connection, we are going to host them on Drop.io (a web based file sharing service). Every week you will get a link to a photo album that shows the photos that go along with the newsletter. Simply click on the link below and it will take you to the photos. Clicking on a photo will yield a larger image along with a description of the photo.
This Week's Photos 07-11-2010
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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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