Pumpkin Bread Stuffing

I was looking at Allrecipes.com for pumpkin recipes and ran across a recipe for pumpkin bread stuffing. I thought it was a really good idea, so I thought I would give it a try, and did. I think it came out really good. I do have some ideas for some changes that I will make next time, but first I will tell you how I made it this time.

Ingredients that I picked fresh for the stuffing, just before making it. Celery, Red Russian Kale, Leeks, Pumpkin Bread, and a stem of Rosemary (between Celery and Kale).

I basically used whatever ingredients that I had available to pick, that I thought would be good in the stuffing. So here it is:


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Pumpkin Bread Stuffing

4 cups pumpkin bread
1 medium size leek
3/4 cup celery
10 leaves red russian kale
8 tbls. butter
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 eggs
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tbls. fresh rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

I think it is best to make the pumpkin bread almost a week ahead, before you make your stuffing since pumpkin bread can be kind of moist just after it is made. That way it will be a little drier before you make the stuffing.

Cut pumpkin bread into cubes and let dry overnight, may have to bake in oven at 250 degrees to make sure bread is dry enough.
Melt butter in a pan over medium heat. Add celery, leeks, and kale, cook till tender.
Mix in rosemary, salt, pepper, and pumpkin pie spice. Fold in bread cubes. Add eggs and then vegetable broth.
Transfer to buttered baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes covered with foil, at 375 degrees.

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Once again I thought this came out really good the way I made it but here is what I am going to do differently the next time I make it.

• Will make it next time with at least 6 cups pumpkin bread instead of 4 cups
• May use 2 leeks instead of 1
• Will use a little less kale, maybe 8 leaves instead of 10
• If I make a bigger batch I am sure that I will probably have to add more vegetable broth also.
  
• Instead of drying the bread overnight and then putting it in the over to make sure it is dry enough, I will toast it in the toaster oven first and if I need too I will put it in the oven for the rest of the time.
• Since I will make a bigger batch next time I will probably be able to bake for 40 minutes covered and 10 minutes uncovered, which is what the recipe I found said to do.

I will definitely have to play around with this recipe for awhile till it is perfect. Anyway, I am sure I will be making this for Thanksgiving, for sure.

What's Available- Saturday October 17th

There are only two more markets left! We have not gone to market for the past couple of weeks. But we will be attending tomorrow's market! I had planned on baking a lot, but so far have not made as much as I had hoped to. I did not get any pies made so far, and since it is so late, I do not believe I will have time to do so. Hopefully next week I will get a lot more made. It is sooo hard to believe the end of this years market is almost here. Any how here is a list of the what we plan to have available. I wish it was bigger, but for this year it will just have to do. Next year our list should be a lot larger at this time of the year.

• Collards
• Red Russian Kale
• Leeks
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Golden Delicious Apples
• Red Delicious Apples
• Jona Gold Apples
• Pumpkin Bread
• Pumpkin Apple Streusel Bread
  

What to Grow Next Year?

I have already started making plans for what to grow next year, and I would love everyone's help. What would you like to see us grow next year? Is there something that you love but you can never find anywhere? Is there something that we grew this year that you really liked? We would love to know what you would be interested in.

As I have mentioned many times we love growing different things. I already have plans to grow many different things next year. Such as okra, yard long beans, kohlrabi, and many different types of greens.

I have had several people ask us about okra and even though I did grow some okra plants this year I did not have enough to sell. But next year I have plans to plant much more of it, I will also be planting it in a different location since I do not believe the location it was in this year was the best. I also believe it was just a really bad year for okra. I am not too familiar with okra, since this was my first year growing it, but from what I have read about it it likes it quite warm. I t seems to like temperatures similar to eggplant, and our eggplant did horrible this year due to the weather. So if you are an okra lover check back with us next year and hopefully we will have a better year for it.

I also grew a small section of yard long beans this year and though they were pretty cool myself. So I do plane to grow enough to be able to sell next year.

I love growing greens and lettuces, and there are sooooo many different kinds out there to try. Next year I will be growing many new kinds and hope to have a lot of greens and lettuces available throughout the season. Especially if we get our hoop house put up (which we need to get working on).

So let us know what you like.

Pumpkin Picking Time!

My mom showing off some of our pumpkins.

She thinks she is allowed to drive the tractor, but she isn't.

Sadly I do not think we are going to be selling any of our pumpkins, we just don't really have enough. We will probably keep them, and have lots of pumpkins to carve for Halloween. But we do have a bunch of pie pumpkins that I will be using to make pumpkin breads and pies. I will probably start baking my pumpkin breads and pies for Valley City Farmers Market, not this Saturday but the following Saturday.

We tried lots of different kinds of pumpkins this year, like white pumpkins, blue pumpkins (we only got one of these, not sure why we didn't get anymore, I know the plants came up ok, oh well), and Knucklehead Pumpkins which did really well for us we got more of these than anything else. The only thing that was disappointing about the knuckleheads is, they are suppose to have a lot of bumps on them, and most did not have as many as I had expected, they were still pretty neat though.

I wish we would have thinned out the plants a little or would not have planted them so close together. I think we would have ended up with a lot more pumpkins if we would have done so, oh well, next year.

Our Plans for Fall

Sadly were not able to get any of our fall greens and lettuces planted, but there is a reason for that. We are planning on building a hoop house in the location where we plant our greens. Yes we had to sacrifice planting our fall crops but it will all be worth it in the long run. We will not only be able to start our greens earlier, but it will also protect our crops from bugs. Which should make it possible to grow things that were either impossible to grow (pak choi and mustard greens) or very hard to grow (arugula, beets, radishes, and a lot of other greens) before.

I am very excited about our plans and can not wait to get started with them.

We are still hoping to sell at the Valley City Farmers Market, hopefully till the end. The following is what we plan to have available after a frost stops us from harvesting anymore warm weather crops.

• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Bread
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Apple Bread
• Apple Pie
• Pecan Pie
• Collards
• Kale
• Leeks
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Corn Stalks
• and possibly some other things

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This year has been a really big challenge, the temperature for much of the season has been much cooler than normal. Making it difficult for crops such as eggplant, okra and caused most crops to be harvested much later in the season than normal.

We have also had issues with bugs that we never had before. We have always had trouble with flea beetles but this year was the worst yet, posing a problem for eggplant, radishes and our spicy greens. We also had major problems with beets and spinach which was something we never had a problem with before, leaf minors. In the past we were always able to pull beets with beautiful tops with hardly any problems, but this year was very different.

Another problem that we had this year was with rodents. Never before have we had our bean plants just cut off from the ground by rodents. The monsters also whipped out our beets overnight.

Considering how difficult of a year it was I am also very grateful for what we were able to harvest and the support of all our wonderful customers. Even though the year is not yet over, I can feel it coming to an end, since many of our warm weather crops are ending and the weather is getting cooler. So I just wanted to say thanks, to everyone.

Cherry tomatoes and pear picking

Pictures of our table at last weeks market at Valley City.

It is pear picking time! Here at BAFarm this is how we pick our pears, no ladder required. Believe it or not I am actually afraid of heights.

Below are three of the heirloom cherry tomatoes that we currently have available in our heirloom cherry tomato mix.

IsIs Candy Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes

Black Cherry Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes

Dr. Carolyn Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes

Vegetable Pictures

Just thought I would take some pictures of some of the things we have available. Here they are:

Picture of some of the different kinds of eggplant we have available this year. We will also have some other types available, and will have to take another picture when the other kinds are ready.

Fairy Tale Eggplant
They are so cute, only about 3-4 inches long. It is a beautiful mini eggplant.

Baby Bush Zucchini

These are also a mini vegetable. They are only about 6 inches long, and barely have any seeds. They are great if you wish to add some zucchini to your meal, and do not wish to use an entire regular size zucchini.

Cherokee Purple Heirloom Tomato

We have just started picking a bunch of these, things had a late start because of all the cold weather. Some of them are a really good size.

Baby Romaine Lettuce and Butterhead Lettuce

I am planning to pull some Romaine Lettuce heads for Saturdays market.

I know it does not look like much but these are the first two purple beans that I finally got to pick today. They are so beautiful. They are also very very long, in fact they were too long to fit in a quart container, so I think I am going to have to sell these in bags instead of quarts, like I usually do. I think that these beans also have a really good taste to them also. I am very excited about them and can not wait till I have enough of these to sell, hopefully soon.

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Right now we are in the process of getting our "greens garden" ready for our fall plantings of lettuces for salad mixes. Right now it is a disaster, and we need to get it tilled and planted within the next week.

We are also in the process of making plans for a hoop house, that we are planning on making for our greens. We had some really bad problems with flea beetles and leaf minors. The hoop house would keep the greens protected from these bugs. I hope it works out, because if it does I should be able to grow some nice pak choi, since they normally get completely destroyed my flea beetles. If everything goes well with the our plans we should have lettuce and greens for spring, summer, fall and may be a lot of winter.

Valley City Farmers Market Pictures

Some Pictures of our table at Valley City Farmers Market

The Valley City Farmers Market is located in the parking lot of Liverpool Township Depot, 6615 Center Road. Pictures below are of the train which is parked at Valley City Museum, and after that is a picture of the museum, which the market is located at.

Over all view of Valley City Farmers Market.

Very very angry! NO MORE RAIN!!

It has rained 3/5 market days so far this year! Today I have been watching the radar since 3:00 AM in the morning and a very large storm has been getting closer and closer. My prediction was that it would hit around 10:00 and be over around 12:00, and it is looking more and more like I am going to be right. So it looks like no market today. That means it will have rained 4/6 markets so far this year. I am just too sick of dealing with the rain to go today. I am sick of having to sort through a bunch of soggy market stuff and I know my mom (who sells for us at Valley City) is sick of coming back soaking wet from market.

We do have a lot of vegetables ready and some of which I have already picked. I am hoping that things will clear up this weekend sometime and if they do I am hoping to set up a table at our home. I may even set up a table during the week, weather permitting of coarse, and it would be after 1:00 PM. If you would be interested in some of our vegetables this week feel free to give me a call. To see what we have available right now check out our list on the right titled: What we currently have available.

Thanks for letting me vent, and hopefully, it better not rain next week!

July- Vegetable of the Month- Collards

Before this year I have never grown collards before, nor did I ever cook with them. I decided to grow them this year since I wanted more kinds of greens that would grow will during warmer weather. Collards are most often grown by southerners because of their talerance to the southern heat. My collards are still producing really well, and hopefully will continue to do so for awhile.

Cooking:

Our favorite way to use collards is to make collard rolls, which is just like cabbage rolls except with collards. Here is our recipe that we have been using but can be changed depending on what vegetables are in season.

COLLARD ROLLS (In Crock-Pot)
Ingredients 20 collards leaves (reserve liquid from the slightly cooked leaves)

1-pound baby cut carrots (slightly cooked)

½ cup precooked rice according to package

3 Yukon golden potatoes (slightly cooked) Approximately

3 pounds ground meat (80% lean ground chuck beef) 2 cans 10-3/4 oz Campbell’s tomato soup 3 eggs

The following four ingredients are what I had available (in season) to add, you can add whatever you may have available that sounds good, instead of the following:

½ cup chopped broccoli raabs

1/8 cup chopped garlic scapes

1/8 cup chopped scallions

1/8 cup chopped beet leaves

1/8 cup BA Farm Seasoning Mix

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

1/3 cup ketchup

Cooking time in large crock pot – 6 hours on low

Prepare rice, carrots, and potatoes as above and set aside.

Trim off the thick back part of stem of the collards as you would the cabbage leaves to make cabbage rolls. Place the collard leaves in water and heat just a few minutes. Reserve 2 cups liquid from cooked leaves; to this mix add the 2 cans of tomato soup. Combine broccoli raab, garlic scapes, scallions, and beet leaves mix together and add 1/8 cup to the meat mixture, reserve remaining to be added in to liquid mixture in crock-pot at the end.

Place in large bowl ground meat and combine the following: eggs, BA Farms Seasoning Mix, breadcrumbs, ketchup and rice. Mix together. Add the above 1/8 cup (reserve) of broccoli raabs, garlic scapes, etc. and mix.

To form collard rolls place meat mixture on the large end of leaf and roll up set each roll aside until all leaves are used. If there is left over meat, roll as a meatball. Place some carrots & potatoes on the bottom of the crock-pot. Add some liquid mixture. Then place a layer of collard rolls. Keep alternating carrots, potatoes, and liquid mixture then the collard rolls until all are used up.

May also be cooked in oven at 375 degrees for 1-1/2 hours (approximately) until done.

Health Benefits:

The following site names and describes the different health benefits of collards, such as improving bone health, and can also aid in preventing certain diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Also mentions how collards can help to prevent some vision problems, and may also help to give you more energy. Of coarse like most vegetables and greens can help with weight loss.
How Stuff Works- Collards Health Benefits

NutritionData.come- Collards