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Greetings! Hope you're doing well and enjoying, or at least peacefully submitting to a cozy, wintery Autumn. We've been enjoying slow food. Many recipes included below. :-D
 | A sliver of sunshine pierced the snow storm on Tuesday, making for an interesting photo. Our farm is on a hilltop 1.5 miles from Lake Michigan, which means cutting westerly winds in the Winter. Our beef cattle, the Belted Galloway, have a thick double fur coat which makes them especially equipped for this type of weather. We put round bales in these feeders for them every few days. I guess you could say they regularly dine on frozen dinners.
We've been challenged by the early snow and constantly below normal temperatures. All of our tender greens are frozen. But morale is high, we are hearty and so is our kale and this week's shares' Brussels sprouts, which can be harvested even in this crazy weather.
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 | Week 23's Delightful Array of Goodness includes: Rainbow Carrots, Brussels Sprouts, Buttercup & Butternut Winter Squash, Red Storage Onions, Purple-Topped Turnips, Shallots & Pretty Parsnips!
(This is a photo of our large family share. A small family share has 1/3 less in vegetables.) |
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Week 22's Beautiful Bounty Included: Golden Potatoes, Yellow & Red Storage Onions, a White Sweet Onion, our special Porcelain Garlic, Lovely Leeks, Sweeter-Than-Ever Orange Carrots, Pretty Parsnips, and... Carnival & Acorn Winter Squash! (Pictured above is our large family share. A small family share has 1/3 less vegetables.)
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 | Harvesting carrots and other roots has been interesting these past few weeks. The unrelenting October/November rains led to saturated fields, which inhibited the use of time-saving equipment. We are grateful to our Providence team, our kids who took 1/2 day off of school and some farm friends who braved the sub-freezing temps, wind and mud to help us harvest last week. :')
The actual beds were the consistency of a chocolate shake... We just had to laugh whenever someone accidentally lost a boot to the mire. We still have a lot more carrots out there and are praying that the snow lends some insulation as we could only mulch about 50% of it. |
 | | Our son, Isaiah. |
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These are the beautiful rainbow carrots we've recently harvested. We also have our Sweetest-EVER-Orange Carrots.
We have 25 lb. boxes of both firsts and seconds available at any pick-up location of your choosing for a special prices of $1.50/# 1sts, $1.00/# 2nds. Simply email us your by the box order and we'll take care of the rest!
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Upcoming Markets:
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Boyne City (Red pole barn by library, pictured above) and Traverse City @ the Commons, 9:00-1:00.
Next Tuesday, Nov. 25th
Charlevoix Library, 9:00 - 1:00
Our Home, 4:00-6:00
Wednesday, Nov. 26th
Boyne City (Red Pole Barn by Library) |
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One of the major benefits of too much snow? Ryan cooks! And we LOVE it. Here is a snap shot of Tuesday's on-the-fly dinner. Again, no recipe. Just creative genius. I say, "LET IT SNOW!"
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That look on Winter's face?
We all had that look.
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The yellow patties on the stove are made from pre-cooked polenta that Ryan picked up from the organic vegetable section of Glen's in Charlevoix. He sliced the polenta and sauteed the patties in coconut oil, turning when blackened. To the right of that, Ryan simmered black beans which he seasoned with our garlic, sea salt, cumin and chili powder. For those of us who like to add meat to the dish, on the left you can see he browned 1/2 a skillet of our pastured pork sausage with 1/2 skillet of our lean Belted Galloway beef, no seasoning needed as the breakfast sausage flavored the beef. He arranged our plates like this: First layer, a pile of finely chopped raw spinach. Next layer? Meat and/or black beans which wilts the spinach. And on top? The crispy polenta cakes. Marvelous. The only thing we would've added if we had it, was a lime infused remoulade sauce... (A creamy mixture of Mayonnaise, garlic, lime juice, dash of tabasco, paprika and optional horseradish to taste.)
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Who are we?
Ryan & Andrea Romeyn of Providence Organic Farm & CSA, Est. 2006
What are we doing? Growing over 80 varieties of certified organic vegetables, popular herbs, strawberries, pastured pork, beef and lamb on our farm overlooking Torch Lake. We grow our food in a sustainable manner, focusing on the health of our soils, plants and animals.  To grow wonderful food: full of flavor, nutrition and life, while maintaining a healthy way of living that is in harmony with our growing family, community and planet. How can you learn more about Providence Farm?
Read an article From the Michigan Land Use Institute
Questions? or call: 231-599-2020 / 231-350-6420
NOT TOO LATE TO ORDER COOK FAMILY FARM'S FRESH TURKEY FROM US FOR THANKSGIVING. EMAIL YOUR DESIRED SIZE AND WE'LL HAVE IT FOR YOU ON TUESDAY AT OUR HOME FROM 4:00-6:00 PM.
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SIMPLE AND YUMMY, BRUSSELS, BACON & ROASTED GOLDEN WINTER SQUASH!
 | Brussels here were simply trimmed, sliced in half and sauteed with a few slices of bacon, then seasoned with lemon pepper. I removed the finished bacon and placed a cover over the Brussels on the skillet to speed up the process with a little steam. Acorn and butternut squash was cubed, tossed with olive oil and baked in a glass pan at 400�, stirring once at about 15 minutes in. I gave in a drizzled a bit of maple syrup on each of our helpings, including mine! (Yes, I have a crazy pension for maple syrup.)
I can't seem to get enough Winter squash in any form...
If you don't think you can store it raw properly for the long haul, you can cook and then put in freezer bags for later use. I accidentally dropped a box of butternut squash last week and cracked 10 of them. So I did the logical thing by slicing and roasting them all. I left them in until the flesh started to brown and pull away from the skin. The natural sugars in the squash partially carmelized in places and we ate several of them on the spot, no maple syrup necessary! The rest were used in a delicious Butternut squash soup, inspired by our Tapawingo farm-to-table dinner last week. I simply heated milk in a pan and blended the cooked squash in, adjusting the amount of milk until I got the consistency I was looking for. Then I added sea salt, crushed black pepper, pumpkin pie spices and chili powder to taste. Not one of those ten butternut squashes ended up in the freezer, *sigh. |
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Ginny from A Matter of Taste, who owns Tapawingo, added a bit of whipped cream and a single pumpkin seed to each cup of soup. Everyone raved about it and we're still waiting for the recipe, though I'm not sure if "I don't really use a recipe" means it's proprietary or not!
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Time To Store Up For Winter!
In addition to our carrots by the box, we are also offering a variety of winter squash at .75 cents a pound in quantities of 25 pounds or more.
We also have frozen certified organic blueberries at $46.00 for 10 lbs,
Any amount our crispy, sweet green cabbage at .75 cents per pound and our Belted Galloway ground beef for $7.00 a pound! (Comes in 1 pound or 2 pound packages.)
(We never have any fun around here, as Erin clearly demonstrates.)
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Our Thanks for reading what's going on here at Providence Farm. We are a small family farm that relies 100% on local people like you. We really can't express our gratitude enough. THANK YOU. We especially thank all our CSA members and the friends who make it a point to come to our farm markets in all kinds of cold and unpleasant weather. We appreciate any and all prayers for the fall work to get done and peace in the face of adverse weather... and not just for us, but for all of our area farmers. ~ God Bless! Ryan & Andrea
 | | Blue is 7 months now! He's already helping us naturally herd, which is great, but we'll have formal lessons in the Spring. |
 | | See you in the next issue...where we'll share the blueberry smoothie recipe Winter just woke up to! |
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