 |
From Field to Table
What's Happening Now at Magicland Farms
|
|
|
Join Our List
|  |
|
|
Volume Two, Issue Twenty
Sunday - September 26, 2010
|
Greetings!
Welcome to the Magicland Farms' newsletter for the week beginning September 27th. 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. |
|
|
|
This Week at Magicland Farms - September 27th to October 2nd |
|
This week we are featuring GIANT PUMPKINS! GIANT CORN
STALKS! GIANT GOURDS! GIANT INDIAN CORN!
Also Sugar (Pie) Pumpkins - 50
cents each for medium sized sugar pumpkins. Special: $7 for a bushel of
them! Price includes an information
sheet on an easy way of making pumpkin puree from sugar pumpkins.
Also, sweet corn, beans, radishes, sugar (pie) pumpkins, acorn, butternut, buttercup, spaghetti, hubbard, Delicata (sweet potato) and Heart of Gold winter squash, red potatoes, and more! See us for fall decorations! We have an extensive selection of
pumpkins of all sizes (1 to 400 pounds) as well as gourds, Indian corn, corn stalks and more!
We accept both the Bridge Card and Project Fresh. |
|
From The Kitchen | After last week's tips on making your own pumpkin puree, I decided to follow up with two recipes that use the pumpkin puree. These two recipes are favorites in this house with good reason - they taste great!
MAGICLAND FARMS' FAVORITE PUMPKIN PIE
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ginger 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 2 eggs 1 cup evaporated milk 1/2 cup water Pastry for one crust pie (your favorite recipe)
Turn pumpkin puree into saucepan and cook
over direct heat for ten minutes until somewhat dry and slightly
caramelized, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
Blend sugar, salt and spices. Stir
into pumpkin.
Beat eggs, add evaporated milk and
water. Beat into pumpkin mixture until smooth.
Pour into pastry lined pie pan and bake
in a hot oven (450 degrees) for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 300
degrees and continue baking about 45 minutes longer, or until pie
tests done.
Cool before serving. Serve with
whipped cream.
PUMPKIN SQUARES
2 cups all-purpose flour 2 cups sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon salt 4 eggs -- beaten 2 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir in eggs, pumpkin and oil; mix well.
Spread into greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until squares test done. Cool on wire rack.
When cool, frost with cream cheese frosting. Cut into squares.
For
cream cheese frosting, combine one 8 ounce package cream cheese, 3 cups
confectioners sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 12 tablespoons butter and 2
tablespoons milk. Beat together until smooth.
My notes: - When I make the pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner, I also make what we call pumpkin pudding at the same time. Simply double the pie filling recipe. Fill your pie crust and pour the leftover filling into a glass dish. Place the glass dish into another deep baking pan (a cake pan works well.) and place in oven. Add about 1-2 inches of water to the cake pan. Don't fill it to the brim with water, just add enough to allow the pudding to steam. Place into the oven while you are baking the pie (the pie will finish earlier than the pudding). Cook until the filling is set and slightly brown on top. It is almost impossible to overcook this! Serve warm with whipped cream. Delicious!
- Beware, the frosting recipe for the pumpkin squares makes a lot of frosting. You might want to cut the measurements by 1/3 to 1/2. Of course, if you are of the opinion that you can never have enough frosting, ignore my warning!
|
|
Specials In The Spotlight |
|
Winter Squash:
$5 for a half bushel or $8 for a bushel.
Sugar (Pie) Pumpkins:
$7 for a bushel.
If you are purchasing a bushel, it is helpful if you bring your own containers.
|
|
The Boss's Corner
|
|
Well we are now officially into the fall season. Fall at Magicland Farms usually means
pumpkins, winter squash and apples in abundance. This year we have a wonderful crop of pumpkins
and squash but no apples. This is
obvious to anyone stopping by the last few weeks. While the apple crop in the whole area (the
Ridge north of Grand Rapids and Oceana county) has been hit by the late
April/early May frosts, (one orchardist reports only a 40% crop even though he
used huge wind machines to keep the apples from freezing), the immediate area
and that to the north of us has been especially hard hit. I noticed in our own
orchard the only apples left on the trees were those at the end of the rows
where they had a chance to receive a bit of any slight breeze that happened to
come by. The trees in the middle of the
orchard had, on average, about an apple a tree!
Finally, I was hit in the face with a virtual (not a real one) two by
four here and realized the orchard was way overgrown. During the last few years we have sort of
realized this and did heavy pruning and even did selected tree removal but the
trees keep growing faster than we could keep up despite not using any
fertilizer the last few years. The apple
orchard's rich, heavy soil, you see, is perfect for growing apple trees-too
good in fact! This despite the fact that
the apple trees were semi-dwarf. My son
Matt has been telling me for about five years that something must be done. I knew it but always thought next year. Finally, in 2008 I started a new orchard in
the south 40 (which really only has 34 acres) and started to very slowly remove
the trees in the north 40 (also really only 34 acres). I decided to only plant disease
immune/resistant apple varieties in the new orchard which, I hope, will
completely eliminate the need for any fungicide applications. While I planted several new scab immune apple
varieties, such as SunCrisp, I also planted quite a few Honeycrisp since, while
they aren't immune to scab, they are remarkably resistant to it as long as
highly susceptible apple varieties (like Macs or Gala) aren't planted near
them. By the way, the year before I
planted the new disease resistant apple orchard I started a new peach orchard,
also in the south 40. The trees grew
fabulously and next year there is a promise of a bumper peach crop!
Related to the above discussion is our plan, starting soon,
to start cutting down the old apple trees in the north 40 and then selling
apple firewood at our market. While the wood
won't be seasoned, since the large diameter pieces will be split it should be
fine for burning in late winter (February and March) as long as it is stored
inside in a warm, dry place.
This year is our year of giants-GIANT PUMPKINS, GIANT
CORNSTALKS AND GIANT INDIAN CORN! While
the weather and rich soil had something to do with the GIANT theme for this
fall, genetics had even more to do with it. (We are talking here about normal selection that people have been doing
for hundreds and even thousands of years AND NOT GMO!) In other words we planted seeds from pumpkins
that were over 200 pounds and seeds from white field corn that grew over 15
feet tall. Also, we planted American Way
Indian corn seeds which are noted for their huge size. So far the GIANTS have been selling well. (By the way, we purchased some giant pumpkin
seeds that came from pumpkins weighing over 400 pounds for around $2 each! The seeds from our giant pumpkins should also
produce monstrous sized pumpkins-most giant pumpkins have between 100 and 300
seeds each!) Yesterday (Saturday, September 25) we sold at least 6 giant
pumpkins that were all over 50 pounds and a couple that were over 100
pounds. So far no one this year bought
one of our 200+ pound giants-if you want to have help loading these huge
pumpkins we can help. While sometimes
our loading crew are at the market and loading goes quickly, usually it's
best to make arrangements unless you are willing to wait 15 minutes or so for loading
help.
Talking about the weather it looks like we are going into in
an extended dry pattern that may last weeks or even longer. It also seems like
we are going to have the best fall coloration in many years! Last week I mentioned that the spring and
summer were like 1955 and I figure the winter-at least the first half-will also
be like 1955. I did find out that the
winter temperatures of 1955-56 were close to normal. Bingo! My first forecast for this winter will be
near normal temperatures! You might see
some forecasts that this coming winter will be warmer than last year. Well, if you live in southeast Michigan
or further southeast, this will likely be true. You must remember that last
winter here in Newaygo County
was a bit above normal and if you go into the UP it was definitely warmer than
normal. However, the Detroit
area was colder than normal and further SE it was much colder than normal. Keep this in mind. As for those forecasts for a bitter cold
winter-this is also true if you live in Alaska
or NW Canada!
Nashle!
Tom
|
|
We appreciate your business and hope to see you this week at Magicland Farms.
Sincerely,
Tom and Annemarie Fox
Magicland Farms |
|
|
|
|
|
