Basil, anyone?

Brooke and I had a great time at the farm this afternoon. And by great, I mean I now know why Tricia is always wearing carhartts, a straw hat, gloves and boots. The weeds on the farm? Not so much like the weeds in our garden.

The learning curve was slight, though. I weeded gloveless for oh, about three minutes, before taking my bloodied hands to the car and getting the gloves my sister cleverly thought to bring me that morning. In case you missed that: she is the smart sister.

The work day goes from 8am to noon and we got there around 10:15. And no, not because we're bums, but because Brooke was at the Indian Valley Farmers Market and I was wandering around Perkasie with Jenn and Kellie looking for the alleged farmers market there. Alleged as in, we never found it.

By the time we got to the farm, the potato duties were complete, but there were other chores to be done :) We weeded the swiss chard aisles and cleared out a hoop house containing tomato and basil plants.

I could go on here about how great it is to work with a group of people to accomplish a task, how working on the farm provided us with a real sense of accomplishment as well as a tangible result, how beautiful the weather was and how wonderful the earth is. But, I won't. Instead, I'm going to show you this:



Holy. Freaking. Basil.

The tomato and basil plants we pulled were at the end of their growing cycle, but not useless. Tom did warn the group upon entering the hoop house, that we were about to see Tricia's maternal instincts kick in and hear her say that the plants were still good and that she'd struggle with tossing them. Tom did not however, warn the group that we would all feel like that. We put aside the firmest of the tomatoes and a few armfuls of basil plants for whoever wanted to bring them home.

Like I said, the plants were at the end of their growing cycle, which means they would have to immediately be used or preserved. Maybe we were feeling ambitious, or maybe we were high from a fun and satisfying first work day, or maybe our instinct to stock up for winter kicked in. I don't know what the reasoning was, but I do know that Brooke and I left with a ridiculous quantity of basil. Apparently motivated by my recent canning adventure, I also grabbed way too many tomatoes.

We each conjured up the gatherer/harvester from within and spent the afternoon on my porch, pulling basil leaves, chatting and enjoying a chilly glass of beer. It was lovely :)

Now, any creative basil and tomato recipes you'd like to share?

Foodies!

Yesterday evening into night was a bit... peculiar. Or something. I don't know, it was kind of an "off" night that started with police trying to get into our neighbors' house and ended with dinner at 10pm. Everything's been a little strange around here lately.

Perhaps we've overdosed on the freedom of summer vacation. Both Jason and Avery are out of school and our whole schedule has changed. At first, we were giddy with thoughts of no bed times, no homework, no homework battles, approaching camping trips, taking bike rides, going to the ocean, having sleep-overs, playing video games, all those sweet, sweet treats summer vacation affords us. It's finally summer break! :-D

But now I'm feeling like, maybe we ate too many of those sweet, sweet treats too quickly because my belly kind of hurts. Celebratory drinking on weeknights for Jase and me, and sleep-overs that don't actually include sleep for Avery may be good in moderation, but we seem to have thrown that concept out the window. Maybe the same is true for the neighbors. Everyone seems a little edgy, a little cranky...

Of course, none of this has to do with conscientiously consuming, does it? No, it doesn't, but this does:




















Bow chicka bow wow. Focaccia porn! Click the photos to make them bigger... go ahead, I know you want a close-up view.

On top of the focaccia bread from Bakers on Broad (picked up at yesterday's farmers market trip)There is a layer of olive oil (from the co-op), chopped beet greens (from BG) and a little sprinkling of soy cheddar and mozzarella cheese (from Clemens).

After that, I layered:
Whole basil leaves - from BG
Sliced tomato - from the farmers market trip
The cutest zucchini in the world - from BG
Choppped purple onion - from the farmers market trip
Chopped kale - from BG
Cut chives - from our garden
Cut rosemary - from our garden

To go with the sexy little focaccia, I sauteed the "purple string beans that turn green when you cook them" in some olive oil, kosher salt and lemon juice, and Jason did... er, something to the chicken. (If he would post here, he could tell you what he did, nudge nudge.) At 10pm, it was all done and we ate everything outside, at the picnic table.

And shot roman candles in the sky above our neighbors yard (The ones who know everything).

They shot some back, and we shared our leftovers.

I told you it's been weird around here!

Shopping for farmers

The momma, Brookie (who took these photos with her fancy cell phone) and I went to the Indian Valley Farmers Market in Telford this morning. After the insane quantity of rain pouring, pouring, pouring down on us the last couple weeks, it was especially nice to get outside and feel the sunshine on our shoulders. Speaking of sun...

The first vendor we visited was the Sunrise Sunflower Farm where I picked up sunflowers, an onion, broccoli and a pint of blueberries. It's quite possible that the woman running the stand has found a way to collect the sun from her flowers and inject it into her personality. She was smiling and laughing non-stop :o)

At RayÂ’s Greenhouse, I picked up some purple string greens. Have you seen these? They turn green when you cook them. Fun!

Next stop was Bakers on Broad. I got their incredibly delectable focassia bread that I plan on piling high with fresh local veggies and cheese sometime this weekend. Brookie got a sourdough loaf and an olive roll, and the momma got sliced multigrain and sliced rye.

At Deep Springs Farm, Brookie and I each bought a package of frozen chicken breast (she bought eggs, too). This is also where we learned that farmer Andrew Knechel, who took over Deep Springs about four years ago, rode a tractor to school at the end of one school year. That's just awesome :o)

Finally, we visited Windy Springs Farm where I saw zucchini whose size rivaled that of the Monster Zucchini from our garden. I picked up a tomato (already?!) and beets. I heart beets.

It was a great morning. I've heard people talk about the relatively small size of this farmers market (there are five farms represented). There is that "something" lacking in the air, I suppose. The excitement and loudness isn't there as it is at the Italian market or Reading Terminal market. But I've never left the Indian Valley market feeling like I needed anything more. I've always been able to pick up enough fresh and local goodies to last the week, and just as importantly, always been able to make a connection with the people responsible for those goodies :o)

Now, what do I have in the fridge to put on that focaccia...