Thursday, October 25, 2012

Plum tomatoes ready for the oven
"SUN DRIED" TOMATOES (OVEN ROASTED)
Oven roasted tomatoes can be made any time tomatoes are in season, but we like to wait for a cool day in early autumn, when we can turn on the oven and fill the house with the smell of roasted fresh tomatoes. They are best made with plum (a.k.a. 'Roma') tomatoes as they have less moisture, but any tomatoes can be used. Red is classic, but all colours work great too. The roasting intensifies and sweetens the tomato flavour, and you can use them anywhere you would use fresh tomatoes (plus oodles of other yummy recipes).
 
Plum tomatoes -about 20 medium (1½ quarts) cover a cookie sheet.
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch salt

Wash and halve plum tomatoes lengthwise. Place in a big pile on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and salt. Toss until tomatoes are lightly covered with oil, place in a single layer, cut side up, and roast in oven until they just start to char. The tomatoes may be roasted to varying degrees, depending on how you want them: from
soft and juicy to very dry and leathery (low temps work best).

The higher the oven temperature, the faster the drying. As a general rule, the tomatoes will take an hour at 375°, or you can cook them overnight at 200°.
FYI: The green tomatoes in the photo are an heirloom variety called "Green Sausage" -they are ripe!

Friday, June 1, 2012

Hutchinson Farm News Vol. 16, No. 5

A Study in Scarlet - Berry Update #1

As I write this, we're enjoying a rainy day (the fields have been so dry we'll enjoy any rain, even though it's on a market day). This gives us a chance to catch up on my long list of rainy day jobs (including this newsletter), and gives the strawberries a much needed drink!

The strawberries are coming along nicely, and we will probably have a few for sale this weekend (June 2-3), lots more by next weekend. Pick-your-own is a "maybe" for next weekend, I'll send out another quick email when we know for certain.

Flower Update
You may look at our greenhouses and say, 'wow, they're mostly empty, you've sold a lot!' I look at the greenhouses and say, 'they're too full!' Either way, there is still  a good selection of most, but not all flowers. They are a good size now -perfect for an instant garden!


Scarlet Red
Once upon a time, this was the classic red geranium colour. We probably sold more red geraniums than all our other flowers put together. Not this year! Any red with a touch of orange is now the slowest selling colour, and not just in geraniums: scarlet red verbena, Red Sunpatiens, impatiens, scarlet calibracoa (aka Million Bells) -all selling slowly. 

First Berry
The photo is from a few days ago, I'm not going out into the patch until it dries!


Three Cool Herbs
We've got a great selection of herbs including:

Chervil: (top pic) One of the French 'Fines Herbs', we've never actually cooked with it, has anyone tried it?

Aristotle Basil: (right) This dwarf fine leaved strain is tres superbe! Same great flavour as the regular stuff, and it's tight compact shape is beautiful in the garden or containers.

Purple Sage: (lower left) The purple colour looks great in the garden, plus it is more compact than the regular green sage that can be a bit leggy.

Rhubarb Our rhubarb is finally ready. It came up early, but it just sat there at the "too-small-to-pick" stage, waiting for a drink. This means we will have lots of rhubarb for the strawberry season. Some years, rhubarb is practically over by the time strawberries start!

If it stops raining, we'll do our best to have a few berries this weekend to go along with our great selection of flowers, planters, and hanging baskets.  One last reminder: Milton Farmers Market is cancelled Sat June 2nd thanks to the Downtown Business Improvement Association.

Bye for now,    

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Hutchinson Farm News Vol. 16, No. 1

Another year, another winter has come and gone (okay, it never really came), and another growing season has begun. I hope that this first newsletter of the season finds you and your families well, invigorated, and ready for another year of growing beautiful things in your gardens, and eating really yummy things (I'm thinking heirloom tomatoes).

2012 finds the folks on our farm quite well. Alexander is almost taller than me, Rebecca has adjusted well to her new school, and if the dogs would quit eating stupid things, us adults would have no worries!

We've got lots of exciting things upcoming this year, and I'll be telling you all about it upcoming newsletters, but for this issue, I thought I'd give you a taste of what happened in our greenhouse during the March Break.

Ready, Set, Go
8:00 am

The previous days were spent cleaning and sterilizing the greenhouse, we've filled the hanging baskets with soil-less mix, now we're just waiting for the plants to arrive!






They're Here!
11:15 am

John just got back from picking up the cuttings from our suppliers, 42 cases, about  10,000 cuttings in total. Enough to keep us out of trouble for a while!


The Unboxing
11:46 am

The fun part is opening the box of course! Here we have some of the exotic "Graffiti" series geraniums.  This side up really does mean this side up!
 


Planting Party!
1:35 pm

Deb, Wendy, and Lana planting, planting, planting, planting... most of the cuttings go in 4½" pots, the rest are going in planters and hanging baskets. We hope to finish by Friday afternoon.


Tags
1:37 pm

Rafael came up from sunny Mexico last week. We tried to save some snow for him, but....
His family is all well, but there was a severe drought in his region -his corn crop only grew 8" tall. Here he is putting the little tags in the pots.



A Dog's Life
3:30 pm

Planting geraniums is exhausting work for a dog.


 Tea Time!
6:10 pm

After a day of planting, a cup of 'tea' hits the spot!



Friday, March 30, 2012

Thai Curry Squash Soup

We made this at the end of March with one of our heirloom pumpkins, an Australian Blue called "Triamble". This particular pumpkin had been in our greenhouse as part of our pumpkin gallery since October, and we just left it there at the end of the season. Not exactly ideal storage conditions: warm on sunny days, freezing on cold nights. After five months, you'd think it would be in rough shape -most pumpkins would be moldy or have become a puddle on the floor! Not Triamble. It was almost in perfect condition.

4 cups baked pumpkin or squash
1" chunk of ginger, peeled and minced
1 onion, diced
1 tsp curry powder
900ml box of chicken stock
1 can coconut milk (14 oz/ 425 ml)
1 sprig cilantro

Fry onion until soft in a large saucepan.
Add garlic, ginger, curry powder, stir for 30 sec.
Add squash and stock, simmer 15 mins.
Puree, add coconut milk, return to simmer.
Serve garnished with cilantro.