Saeng wa of grilled pork (adapted from Greatest Ever Thai Cookbook by Judy Bastyra & Becky Johnson)

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. tamari
1 tbsp. local honey
14 oz. organic pork tenderloin (or de-boned pork chops)
6 shallots, julienned
1 lemongrass stalk, julienned
5 kaffir lime leaves, julienned
2 inch piece fresh ginger root, peeled & grated
2 thai red chillis chopped (or 1/2 tsp. red pepper  flakes to taste)
1 bunch cilantro, chopped

For the dressing:
2 tbsp. organic brown sugar
2 tbsp. fish sauce (Squid brand)
juice from 2 limes
4 tsp. thick tamarind juice (mix tamarind paste with warm water)

Directions:
Preheat the grill to medium.  Mix tamari sauce with honey & stir until honey dissolves.  Cut the pork into long thick strips & place in grill pan.  Brush pork with tamari/honey mixture & grill for 10-15 minutes until cooked through but tender.  Turn pork strips & thoroughly coat with tamari/honey mixture.  Transfer the cooked pork strips to a cutting board & slice across the grain, then shred it with a fork.  Place it in a large mixing bowl & add the shallots, lemon grass, lime leaves, ginger, chillis, & cilantro.  To make the dressing, place the sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, & tamarind juice in bowl.  Whisk together until the sugar has completely dissolved.  Pour the dressing over the pork dish & toss well.

This week on the farm we’ll have planted onions, scallions, leeks, chard, peas, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, chinese cabbage, broccoli, and artichokes.  Using Biodynamic techniques we follow a planting calendar for optimum growth.  The planting calendar is not only beneficial for the crops but it’s a great organizational tool for us!  The potato order is coming soon so we’re on mole patrol for the rest of spring.
Planting tip: saved onion seeds might not be viable for large bulbs.  Instead, plant multiple seeds in groups for fast growing scallions.
The hot weather crops like tomatoes, eggplants and peppers will be grown under lights on heating coils in the hot house.  Between the hot house and the heat lamps for spring chicks, our electric use is high and that’s one of the reasons why we’re so interested in using energy generated by our biogas digester.

We’ve hired two seasonal agricultural workers and they started training this week.  We’ll add two more in June- it’s nice to have some help!

The livestock are enjoying the spring grasses and we’ve secured their fence to protect them from all the coyotes.
Our first batch of Cornish Cross meat chicks will be ready for pick up in two weeks.  It takes about ten weeks for them to reach butchering weight.

Farm visitors this week are renewable energy engineering students from Oregon Institute of Technology checking out our biogas digester.

Distillery news:  Any day now we’ll be getting our grain mill which can be used to grind barley, corn, and other ingredients.  It’s hard to find grain mills these days so we had it custom made.  We’re working on our whiskey futures contract and permitting.  Stay tuned…..

This week on the farm we planted leeks, onions, peas, and mustards!  We’re trying a new onion variety called Talon which looks interesting & should taste great.  We chose it because it’s perfect for onion soup and it carmelizes well.  It grows firm and crisp making it easy for sautees.  We order our seed from Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove OR.  Another onion variety we’re planting is Purplette, a purple mini onion we harvest for bunching and pickling. Giant Musselburgh leeks also got planted, they’re a Scottish heirloom that makes tasty soups from large tender stalks.  Tah Tsai mustards will be ready in about a month and a half.  They’re so easy to grow in the early spring and we cook them in stir fries or add to salads.  Oregon Sugar Pod II peas sprouted from last week’s planting, and we’ll plant a new round in a couple weeks. Garanoir grape cuttings have been ordered from Hollywood Hills vineyard, we like them because they are a short season variety.

We’re getting 8-14 piglets in March, and 40 Cornish Cross meat chicks every 2-4 weeks starting next week as well.  We’re getting 30 layer chicks as soon as possible to increase our egg production.  (Chickens and ducks help us out by getting rid of tiny pests on the crops).  Easter is a pretty cute time around here! Lots of pictures to follow

We’ll be getting nukes of bees in April and possibly keeping some hives for a local bee keeper who needs more food for his bees.  Bees help with pollination and we’ve never had a year without them.  They help us care for the crops by pollinating and grooming vegetables and fruits.  We’re getting ready to clean up our chives bed to divide and expand them.  Chives grow easily here but they can get weedy so we have to start managing them early in the season.

This week’s harvest went well and the stir fry mix was so tender it could even be eaten as salad.  It included baby kale, baby pac choi, baby mustards, collards, and broccoli.  We also harvested baby scallions which had delicious flavor.  The rosemary hasn’t flowered yet so we’ve continued harvesting it and next time we should have some oregano ready.

We’ve continued our tractor and farm implement maintenance and we fixed the delivery wagon!  A side effect of using lots of biodiesel is that the filters need to be changed often.  Biodiesel is such a good detergent that it cleans the dirt off of everything in the fuel system.  We’ve hired two seasonal agricultural workers to start helping in March, so there’s no excuse not to have the weeding done this season!

There will be more merchandise for sale soon- Stay tuned……..

Homemade Bacon

Ingredients:
1 lb. side pork (frozen)
1/2 cup honey or maple syrup
2 tsp. salt or to taste
1 tsp. ground black pepper

Directions:
Using a very sharp knife, trim the rind off of the frozen side pork leaving as much fat as possible.  Thaw until it is easy to separate the slices.  Place side pork in a deep dish and pour in the maple syrup, salt and pepper.  Coat the side pork with the syrup mixture well and let it marinade over night, turning once.  Cook on low heat in a large skillet for atleast 20 minutes or until done.  This is a great way to make bacon free of nitrates and flavored to your specific tastes instead of having it too salty or too sweet!

This week on the farm we began spring planting!  Oregon Sugar Pod II spring peas are in and protected from the birds with Agribon floating row cover.  (The ravens & black cap chickadees love pea seed).   The garden soil has dried out a bit making it possible to lightly cultivate our compost beds so next week we should be able to plant fava beans and bell beans.  We also got an entire pallet of organic Black Gold potting soil so we can start seedlings in the greenhouse next week.  We’ll start experimenting with making some of our own potting soil next season.

Even though it’s been gusty from the east wind, the sun has made the work much easier this week.  We were able to continue our spring cleaning and finish the interviews for our summer internships.

We checked the honey bees and it looks like they didn’t make it from the difficult winter .  But the good news is that our supplier will be able to provide us with nukes starting in April.  The yellow jacket wasps robbed the hives so badly in the fall that they weren’t strong enough to cope with the week of Arctic weather we had back in December.  We’ve discovered a great method for removing yellow jackets- stay tuned….

The livestock are doing well enjoying the sunny weather, although the sheep could really use a shearing!  It’s actually kinda fun shearing them because they have beautiful wool.  The breed is called Romney and their wool is perfect for rugs and heavy duty work clothes.  It’s amazing how much lanolin is in the wool- we always have moisturized hands after collecting it!
The cattle are happy with the spring grasses so they’re not too annoyed we haven’t finished their new pasture fence yet!  I’ll admit, the spring clean-up list is pretty long so some things are taking a little while to complete.

Check out this week’s recipe: Thai pork fried rice.  We love to use lots of garlic with the pork because we’ve noticed that grass fed, pastured pork tends to have a wild flavor much like venison or elk.  (It’s from the chlorophyl in the pasture grass they eat).  Garlic helps to tone down the “gamey” flavor, so we marinade with it and use it in spicy dishes like the Thai pork fried rice.

Greenhouse vegetables to be harvested soon are: kale, scallions, pac choi, & arugula.

Thai Pork Fried Rice (adapted from Greatest Ever Thai Cookbook by Judy Bastyra & Becky Johnson)

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons organic peanut oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
4 oz. organic pork, cubed
2 organic eggs, beaten
4 cups cooked rice (we use Basmati brown & white mixed together), chilled
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce (Squid brand)
2 tablespoons tamari sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
6-8 scallions, sliced
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes (or to taste)
1 lime, wedged

Directions:
Heat the oil in a wok or large fry pan, add the onion & garlic cooking for about 2 minutes or until softened.  Remove onion & garlic from pan & set aside.  Add the pork to the hot pan stir frying until it has carmelized on the outside & is cooked through.  Add the eggs into the pan with the pork and stir fry until scrambled.  Add the cooked onions & garlic back into the pan tossing together.  Add the rice, tossing continuously to coat thoroughly with the oil.  Add the fish sauce, tamari sauce, sugar, red pepper flakes, & scallions tossing together until combined.  Serve with lime wedges.

This week on the farm we made a lot of progress on our spring prep.  The heavy rains slowed down our work on the cow’s pasture fence, but we did receive our new seed shipment!

Included in the seed order from Territorial we have: artichokes (to trial), green beans, haricots verts, black beans, beets, brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, celeriac, corn (to trial), cucumbers, eggplants (to trial), kohlrabi, lettuce, fennel, salad greens, mustards, pac choi, watermelon (to trial), storage & scallion onions, leeks, parsnips, parsley, & peas to name a few.  This doesn’t include our seeds left over from last season either!  We also have plenty of saved seeds from last season as well as volunteers like arugula, chard, and mizuna.  Tomatillos tend to be prolific volunteers too, but they haven’t sprouted yet.  Very soon we’ll start seedlings on the radiant heating coils in the hot house.  We’re almost done with our potato & sunroot order.

The layer chickens continue to have good production (despite the grey weather) because of the light we put in their dry coop.  We should be ordering new layer chicks next week.  We won’t be ordering Cornish Cross meat chicks until the end of March because they need a lot more heat in the beginning.
We’re planning on weaner pigs (weaned piglets) for the end of March as well.  Much like the chicks, young pigs need dry weather to stay healthy  so we don’t raise them until spring/summer.   The rabbits are doing fine in their hutch, and we’re waiting for a dry day to construct their “bunny tractor”.  We had an owl sighting recently so we don’t want to get too cavalier!

The bees were flying when we got some sun & we’re looking forward to getting more nukes (portable hive nuclei) for the summer.   Allergies from the fir pollen have slowed us down a little, but we’ve been eating raw honey from last season’s harvest & it helps.

We’ve been interviewing students from Oregon Institute of Technology all week for our summer farm internships.  It will be great to have help on the biogas digester & other renewable energy projects on the farm!

Braeside Farms merchandise is now available!  Just click on the sunflower icon to place your order.

Sunroot  & Jicama salad with honey mustard dressing (adapted from Enduring Harvests by E. Barrie Kavasch)

Ingredients
for the honey mustard dressing:
½ cup cider vinegar
½ cup raw honey
½ cup dijon mustard
3 cloves finely chopped garlic
1 cup organic sunflower oil
3 tablespoons fresh minced parsley
1 & ½ tablespoons fresh minced dill weed
1 tablespoon fresh chopped cilantro
salt & pepper to taste

for the salad:
2 pounds jicama peeled & julienned
2 cups sunroots thinly sliced
1 & ½ cups red kidney beans cooked
1 large bunch fresh watercress chopped
1 bunch fresh mustard greens chopped
6 scallions coarsley chopped
1 bunch fresh kale chopped

Directions:
combine the vinegar, honey, mustard, garlic, oil, parsley, dill, cilantro, salt, & pepper. Whisk until well blended. In a large bowl combine all the vegetables and toss with the dressing. Marinade for 1 hour & toss again before serving.

Gratin of Sunroots & Yukon gold potatoes (by Nick Tischler of Restaurant Zinc in Back Bay, MA)

Ingredients:
1 cup organic chicken stock
1 and ½ cups organic cream
sea salt to taste
½ teaspoon powdered cloves
3 teaspoons lemon thyme leaves
3 pounds peeled organic Yukon gold potatoes
¾ pound peeled organic sunroots

Directions:
Preheat oven to 500 degrees and grease a baking dish. In a saucepan combine the stock with 1 cup of cream, salt to taste and the cloves. Bring to a boil then remove from heat. Slice the potatoes & sunroots into 1/8 inch slices. Place a ½ inch layer of potato slices into the prepared dish, sprinkle lightly with salt & 1 teaspoon of lemon thyme. Scatter ½ of the sunroot slices over the top then pour on a cup of the stock mixture. Repeat these layers once again. Finish with another layer of potatoes sprinkled with a teaspoon of lemon thyme. Drizzle the remaining cream on top. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 400 degrees, and cook for 35 minutes or until fork tender. Rest at room temperature before serving.

This week on the farm we’re preparing everything for spring planting. This includes maintenance on all of our machinery too! It’s better to do the oil changes & repairs now instead of putting it off to late spring when we’re in a time crunch.

We’ll be moving our Jersey cow to a new pasture with the Dexter bull, so finishing the pasture fence is our first priority.

The layer chickens have been enjoying their dry coop, but we need to coax them outside to eat the bugs in the orchard. They haven’t been too happy about the constant rain this week, but the good news is they love new grass so that should encourage them to roam around outside of their coop.

We’ve gotten some plans together for a bunny tractor too. This is great for our rabbits because they would love to munch on the new spring grasses coming up, but they need protection from predators. The bunny tractor is similar to a chicken tractor because it keeps the foxes out but the rabbits get to live free range on pasture.
We’re buying layer chicks in a few days too, so our egg production stays up. Some of our older layers are a few years old, so their production has slowed down. The new layers will be Rhode Island red, Araucana, and maybe Golden & Black Sexlink. They’ll need heat lamps at first, but unlike Cornish Cross meat chicks, they’ll be hardy enough to take off the heat lamps in a few days. They should start laying in about 6 months.

The weather has been mild so the honey bees will be flying as soon as we get more sun. We need to get into their hives to check any winter damage and ofcourse feed them what’s left of last season’s honey. We’ll be getting new nukes in later spring, depending on when our supplier trucks them up from the south. Stay tuned!

The greenhouse didn’t sustain too much damage from the winter storms so we really just need to repair the doors. Once that’s finished we’ll continue growing spring greens like lettuce, early kale (Red Russian), and spring onions. We ‘ll be adding more finished compost to the raised beds in the greenhouse over the next month. Last season was great particularly because of the compost we added to the greenhouse. It made for an abundant early harvest.

We’ve planted the garlic a little late this year, but it should be ready for green garlic harvest in a couple months.
It would be great to get some ducks again for slug control. Because it’s such a mild early spring, the slugs will probably be out of control! The difficulty with lettings ducks roam around the garden is the local owl population. We’ve noticed that organic duck is considered a delicacy by Barred owls that live in our woods! But it’s easy enough to hand remove the slugs early in the morning. Another favorite is to place a shallow tray of beer in the aisles of the garden, the slugs are attracted to the beer and then they drown in it. It’s not a bad way to go.

We’ll be taking care of our potato order in a few days, and we’ve placed our order with Territorial Seed company for the remaining seeds for the season. We’re really looking forward to items like joi choi (Asian greens), kale ofcourse, and early tomatoes. We probably won’t plant too many cherry tomatoes this year because the harvest time is too much. We encourage people to have a cherry tomato plant of their own because they’re relatively easy to take care of. Sometimes we even include a cherry tomato plant with the first share.

Chives will be weeded this month and fertilized, they can never be weeded too much!

We’ve started the application process to become certified organic/biodynamic, & we’re hoping to complete that by this season.  And finally, our biogas digester has been dormant for the winter but we’ll have an update in a few weeks.