Merry Christmas

Oops! Merry Christmas from Sweet Summer Farm!

Grand's Beer Battered Fish

When we came home from our guitar lessons we came home to a Friday Night delight! Grand's Beer Battered Fish. French fries, Coleslaw, homemade tarter sauce, and Sweet Tea to top it off.

Grand's Beer Battered Fish

Ingredients

7 to 8 lbs of cod

2 cups of SR Flour

1 (12 oz) bottle of beer

Seasoning of your choice. We use Morton's Natures Seasoning. You can use Salt & Pepper, Dill, or any other seafood seasoning you like. 

Directions

1. Wisk in the seasoning to the flour.
2. Wisk in the bottle of beer.
3. Dip in your fish and fry until golden brown.

Garlic Update

The garlic we planted in October is coming up well. Almost 100%  of it made it out of the ground.

Since October, we have put hay around the garlic and made mulch pathways. We hope to get a good garlic harvest, Keep your fingers crossed! See pictures of the garlic below.

German Chocolate Pie

Ingredients

 1 (4 oz.) Bar of German sweet chocolate

1/2 cup butter

12 oz. can of evaporated milk

1 1/2 cups of sugar

3 tablespoons of corn starch

1/8 teaspoon of salt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 unbaked (10 inch) pie shell (check out Grand's Best Pie Crust  Ever recipe)

1 1/3 cups of coconut

1/2 cup of chopped pecans

 

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350°
2. Melt chocolate with butter over low heat stirring until blended.
3. Remove chocolate and butter from heat and gradually blend in milk
4. Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt.
5. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
6. Gradually blend in chocolate mixture.
7. Stir in coconut and pecans.
8. Pour into pie shell.
9. Bake for 1 hour.
10. Let pie cool for at least 4 hours before serving.

Tips from Grand

This recipe makes a large deep pie. Grand bought one of those red on the outside cream on the inside ruffled around the edge pie plates you see everywhere from Wal-Mart to the grocery store. This recipe fits perfectly in that pie plate.

 

If you don't have a large deep pie plate just butter a small deep ramekin and put any left over filling that doesn't fit inside your pie plate. Put it in the oven and bake it with the pie. The ramekin takes less time to bake and less time to cool. Lucky you, you can eat all of this in the kitchen before anyone knows your baking a pie. Grand calls this "cook's treat!"

German Chocolate Pie

Rich, gooey, chocolaty, with coconut and pecans. What could be better!

This is the pie pan that Grand used. You can use a smaller pie plate and have
"cook's treat!"

 

 

Best Pie Crust Ever

Ingredients

5 cups of All Purpose Flour
2 cups (1lb) of butter
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of ice water
1 tablespoon of vinegar

Makes 4-5 pie crusts.

Directions

1. Cut butter into small cubes
2. Put in the freezer until very very cold
3. Mix flour and salt into the butter
4. Slowly add the water. add 1 tablespoon at the time. You may not need the whole cup.
5. Add the vinegar as you add the water.
6. Don't over mix, just mix until if you pinch some off it sticks together. You want to have chunks of butter throughout.
7. Rake dough out of the bowl and onto a floured surface.
8. Shape dough into large disk and divide into fourths.
9. Wrap each fourth in parchment paper and place in Ziploc bag. Place in refrigerator. Chill 1-hour. 
10. After chilling roll out on floured surface and use in any recipe.

Tips From Grand

Grand uses her Kitchen-Aid mixer. It only takes a few minutes to mix the dough.

 This recipe is good for sweet pies. But because it has no sugar it is good for Chicken Pot Pie, Beef Turnovers and such.

Grand divides this recipe into fourths flattens them into a disc, then wraps each one in Parchment Paper. Place in a plastic bag and place them in the refrigerator (keeps for a week) or the freezer (keeps several months). If you save the "scraps" that you trim off the pie plate you'll have another pie crust, so you end up with 5 crusts.

Grand has made many pie crust recipes and she has also used pre-made pie crusts. This is the best pie crust EVER! She finally got it right.

This is well worth making. No preservatives and YOU have control over what goes in and what doesn't.

Chicks get a coop

     The chicks have finally moved to the farm. In the morning, we got a dog carrier and put some straw in it. Then we caught and put them into the dog carrier. Then we loaded them into the "Farm Minivan" and headed to the farm. That was the first time the chicks rode in the car. They were very stressed but, they finally laid down and then they were fine. Once we got to the farm we had to carry the dog carrier (with chicks that wouldn't stop moving) all the way to the back-door of the coop. Once we got to the coop we put them in the coop with food and water. Lots of people say to lock the chicks in the coop for the first day so they know where to sleep. The next day we went down to the farm to open up the coop. When we opened the door the chicks ran farther into the coop and then cautiously approached us. A few seconds later the chicks emerged into the sunlight. As we watched them through the day we found that they explore the edges of the fence as a group and then spread out in the yard. You can see pictures of the chicks below.

Chicks in the "Farm Minivan" headed to their new home. "Let's
sit on top of each other, it'll make the trip more fun!"

"What strange structure is this? We are no longer in a galvanized
tub."

Suddenly, the door creaks open. 

Sunlight pours in!

"What strange world is this?"

"One small step for chicks, One giant leap for chicken kind."

"What is this green stringy stuff?"

"Come on Myrtle! Be bold!"

"Grass, toe tickling and delicious, who knew!"

Stay in a group in this strange new world. "I think we'll like it
here."

Planting Garlic

                                        We planted garlic!!!                                                                         

 Since we closed on our farm in August there are not too many things you can plant in the fall, so we planted garlic.                                                                                                                                      

We planted our garlic on October 17th and we will be able to harvest it in mid-summer. It's is one of the first things we planted along with a couple of flowers, some fruit trees and a variety of greens.

We planted soft neck garlic and hard neck garlic. We also planted elephant garlic which is actually part of the lily family. Who knew.

If you're wondering soft neck garlic  does not have a stem and instead just has tiny flat cloves of garlic. Around the tiny cloves, it has regular cloves of garlic. It also has soft little stalks like green onions. With soft neck garlic, you can dry and then braid the garlic stalks together and hang them up and just pick of cloves of garlic.

Hard neck garlic has a hard stem and just has cloves around the stem of the garlic. It has a hard stalk that you can't eat or braid but in the spring there are garlic scapes which are garlic blossoms that you can eat.

We planted two different kinds of soft neck garlic Inchelium and California Early. We only planted one variety of hard neck garlic which was German White.

We got our garlic from our favorite local seed company Sow True Seed in Asheville NC.

                                        Planting The Garlic. 

1.First we read about planting garlic and decided to try lots of different things. FYI: If you are not familiar with planting garlic you don't plant the entire head of garlic you actually break the head of garlic into cloves and plant each clove.

The first thing you have to do is dig a trench. Some people think you should dig a four-inch trench and others think you should only dig a one-inch trench so we tried both to see which one worked the best for us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
2. The second thing you need to do is place the garlic in the trench root down and the pointed end up. You need to place them about four to six inches apart.

3. After you place the garlic in your trench you need to gently cover up your garlic with soil and softly pat it down.

4. The next thing you need to do is water your garlic. Your garlic has to stay moist for three or four days.

5. Next we put mulch in between our garlic as pathways. We are going to mulch the garlic with hay when it starts to grow.

We hope you enjoyed this blog post and if you have any questions or advice please comment below. Happy Planting.
                                   

Our new Garlic

Planting our Elephant Garlic

A row of planted Elephant Garlic

A planted bed of garlic

                                                                                                                    

Creamy Chicken & Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

1 package of boneless skinless chicken thighs. Four to six thighs

1lb or more of chopped mushrooms. We used Button, Shiitake, and Oyster mushrooms

                                                         2 large Onions    4 cups of water

                                                     4 stalks of celery    4 carrots 

                                        4-6 cups of fresh spinach    1 package of Orzo Pasta

                                             32oz of chicken broth     olive oil (for the pan)

                                                         4 cups of milk     1 cup of heavy cream

Directions

1.Chop chicken into bite-size pieces and brown in a skillet with olive oil. While chicken is browning, stir in ¾ of a cup of white wine.

2. Coarsely chop mushrooms and when the chicken in almost brown stir them in. Lightly brown the mushrooms in the pan with the chicken to give them flavor and take out the chicken and mushrooms and pour them in a soup pot.

3. Finely chop the four carrots and the four stalks of celery and saute them in a pan (same pan from chicken) with olive oil. Finely chop the two large onions and brown them with the carrots and celery. Pour the onions, carrots, celery, and spinach into the soup pot with the chicken.

4. Pour broth into the pot and add the four cups of water. Bring to a boil.

5. Pour the package of pasta in the pot and cook until tender. You can brown the pasta in a skillet with olive oil if desired.

6. Add the four cups of milk and the cup of heavy cream. Bring the soup back to a boil.

7. Now let's talk Seasonings. It's whatever you like for taste, We used McCormick Poultry Seasoning and Grand's favorite seasoning, Morton's Nature's Seasons Seasoning Blend. Salt & Pepper of course and also maybe some fresh herbs likeThyme or Sage. It's all up to you.
8. Now, when you serve the soup remember to top it with fresh ground black pepper and enjoy!

A hot pot of delicious soup, ready to eat!

Creamy Chicken & Mushroom Soup is fabulos with a loaf of bread.

Our Beautiful Creek

             We have a farm and on our farm we have an amazing creek. The creek is my favorite part about the farm. If you can't find me look down at the creek. You can just kick off your shoes and jump in the creek like there is no care in the world. I just love how when you get in the creek  the cool water, it makes your feet tingle and all you hear is birds singing lullaby's and the water rushing over your bare feet. The creek gurgles and gushes while the trees sway and groan. It's the perfect place to read a good book and watch the water run and dance across the rocks like ballerinas graceful but fun. You can splash and play. All of the little crystal clear water droplets from a splash all come raining down and land back on the surface of the water and then they all mysteriously disappear following the rest of the water in the creek downstream. All they leave behind is what looks like little ripple flowers, but they disappear just as fast as the water droplets did. But all in all, I think the creek is the best place on the farm, it'as filled with water, sound and beautiful vision.

                                                                     

                                                                                                 -Summer P.

There are islands in the creek where the water splits and goes around them.

The creek comes back together at the tip of the island and continues down its path.

In the woods, small springs come up and feed the creek

Please take two minutes to enjoy the creek with us.

Chicken & Dumpling Casserole

        We have enjoyed this recipe for a number of years and it came from a good friend of Grands, Mrs. Betty Hutchinson. Miss Betty is a wonderful cook and has shared many of her recipes with us and we enjoy them all. This is a delicious recipe for a main dish and we like it served with broccoli or English Peas.

Ingredients

Pie

1 cooked and deboned chicken

6 eggs boiled and chopped

3 cups of chicken broth

2 tablespoons of corn starch

salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste

Crust

1½ cups of Self Rising Flour

1½ cups of Buttermilk

1 stick of melted butter

Directions

1. Cover chicken with water and simmer chicken for several hours with salt, pepper, and seasonings of your choice. This step could be done in a Crock-Pot and the chicken will be done in time for supper. Make sure to cover chicken with enough water so you have 3 cups of chicken broth when you get done.
2. In a saucepan combine 1 cup of chicken broth, corn starch, salt, pepper, and the garlic powder and cook to make a thickened broth and set aside.
3. Make crust by combining the self-rising flour and the buttermilk and slowly whisk in the melted butter. Don't panic, this crust is thin so that you can pour it.
4. De-bone chicken and put meat in a 9 by 13 pan and top with boiled eggs. Then cover the boiled eggs and chicken with your thickened broth.
5. Pour crust over chicken, eggs, and thickened broth. Spread until crust covers the top. Now, I know this sounds strange but, you're going to pour 2 cups of chicken broth over the entire top of the casserole. Yes, on top of the crust that you smoothed nicely over the top you are now going to pour 2 cups of chicken broth. Just pour back and forth, over the entire pan. I know, I know it sounds strange and looks even stranger. You'll probably think "I've ruined this" but you haven't.
6. Put it in the oven at 350° for 1 hour till bubbly and golden brown on top

The broth that you put on at the end will sink through the crust and make a delicious sauce over the chicken and eggs and the crust will rise to the top and become golden brown. It's just magic! We hope you enjoy it, please let us know.

Chicken & Dumpling Casserole in the pan

A plate full of delicious casserole.