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From Field to Table
What's Happening Now at Magicland Farms
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Volume Two, Issue Twelve
Sunday - August 1, 2010
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Greetings!
Welcome to the Magicland Farms' newsletter for the week beginning August 2nd. 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 2nd to August 7th
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Our deliciously sweet Montauk
Bi-Color Sweet Corn is now ready. Also green
and yellow beans, beets, slicing and salad tomatoes, green tomatoes, pickling and
slicing cucumbers, peppers, freshly pulled sweet onions, new red and Yukon Gold
potatoes, cut sunflowers, zucchini and more.
Also, in our craft room 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 |
| Fried green tomatoes seem to be a popular dish among our customers at the stand. I had heard about the movie, of course, and knew fried green tomatoes existed but never actually had them. From listening to the customers, I learned that there are many recipes for fried green tomatoes-seems like everyone has their own special recipe. I also learned, after reading some recipe blogs, that serious arguments break out over what is considered the "real" fried green tomato recipe.
Well, I ended up using the recipe from one of our customers. We had the fried green tomatoes last Friday evening as an accompaniment to our baked potatoes. They were very good; they reminded me a bit of fried eggplant.
Here is the recipe I used (it's really simple):
Slice tomatoes about 1/4" thick. Dip in beaten egg, then in bread crumbs (I used Italian seasoned breadcrumbs). Fry until brown.
Variations:
There appear to be thousands of variations on this recipe. It seems that you can dip the slices in milk or egg or nothing. Dredge them in corn meal or seasoned flour or bread crumbs. Fry them in bacon drippings or oil (canola or olive oil mentioned most often).
As you can see, the variations in this recipe appear endless. I think I am going to try a few different recipes and see which we like best.
My notes:
- I never realized how hard a green tomato was until I tried to slice one. Since I have to do so many tomatoes to feed the whole crew, my arm got pretty achy after a while. Next time, I think I will have someone with stronger arm muscles (like the ones who carry all those bushels of corn at the farm) slice up the tomatoes for me. For those of you who only do one or two tomatoes, make sure you have a sharp knife!
- I also ran across a recipe or two that bakes the tomato slices in the oven instead of frying them. That seems almost heretical so I don't think I will be trying that.
Enjoy!
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Specials In The Spotlight |
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No specials this week. Check back next week.
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Questions Our Customers Are Asking |
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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
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August already! Well,
if you look at what we are picking and the fields it actually seems like
mid-August since stuff has ripened so much earlier than the past two years.
First off, this will be an unusually short Boss's corner
since on Friday I was sent questions about my Aluminum Levitator project for
the upcoming issue (issue 24, I believe) of Make
Magazine AND they need my comments by tomorrow morning! Make Magazine
is a real fantastic, exceptionally high quality, magazine for those
science/tech nerds like myself and for those who just like to make things (also
like moi). Make also produces an
interesting TV program which is on PBS intermittently. I would really recommend you subscribe to Make or give it as a gift to a child or
grandchild-it is fun to read and is an excellent way of helping children (of
all ages) become interested in science, technology and even history. The three editors, Mark, Paul and Gretchen,
who I have conversed with, are really competent and great personalities! While these editors are obviously real busy,
I don't feel they are overworked (they have been very patient with me) which
usually points to a well run organization.
Getting back to eats. We have started picking and selling our ice box watermelons. We call them Sugar Baby hybrids. The actual names are Jadestar and
Lantha. Our large Crimson Sweet are
starting to ripen and we will be picking them later this week. Note we also have planted the Amish Moon and
Stars watermelon. We have a photo of it
and you can see the stars but not the moon. Matt picked one to see if it was ripe and ate it in the field-this one
had a moon on it but the moons on most are hard to find. (By the way, Matt-burp- said although it
wasn't quite ready it was nice and sweet.)
It looks like we will be picking peaches again soon. They look beautiful but we haven't tried
them.
Also, we have a big planting of heirloom tomatoes
coming. We eliminated some varieties
that we planted last year (we didn't like them) and added several new
varieties. We should have a good supply
of large slicers by the weekend and hope to be selling canning tomatoes in 10
days to two weeks. The prices of canners
will be lower than last year unless something bad happens (blight, hail, etc.)
We have had a number of questions, the last few days, asking when
our Mirai sweet corn will be ready. As
far as we can figure it will be in about 7 to 10 days. This year we have both
bi-color and yellow Mirai corn. For those who haven't ever tasted it-you must
try it. It is an exceptionally sweet,
tender and flavorful corn. Like most
types of corn we grow, you won't ever find true Mirai corn in the supermarket
since its tenderness can't stand up to the rough handling that supermarket corn
gets (the rough handling starts with machine harvest and then proceeds to bulk,
rapid handling.)
For more about Mirai sweet corn I recommend the following
two websites: Mirai corn and Twin Garden Farms.
We also have had questions about our white corn. This year we grew the two best tasting white
corn varieties we have ever tried-Whiteout and Sugar Pearl. Our white corn should start by the coming
weekend.
Nashle!
Tom
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This Week's Photo Album |
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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 - 08/01/2010
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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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