Long Winter Kitchen Week 1

Well well well. After months of planning and organizing, many trips to our freezer warehouse, coordinating orders with farmers, one long day processing tomatoes, and much more, we are finally ready to get cooking in the Long Winter Kitchen.


In other news, (see photo, left), I'm back at the Farmer's Market on Wednesdays with the CFK Bakery--selling delicious Pendle Hill Brown Bread, Mary's Crunchy granola (sweetened and unsweetened) and four kinds of muffins (including vegan ones!). Stop by on Wednesday Dec 9, Dec 16, and Dec 23 and Saturday Dec 19!

But, back to the Long Winter Kitchen. Our meat comes from Old Pine Farm and Locavorious is helping out with frozen local veggies. We also are "root cellaring" some root crops in a cooler facility--Tantre farm onions, Our Family Farm potatoes, Frog Holler carrots, and more. We've also got garlic from the Community Farm and oregano from my own garden. Our goal is to make these meals with as many local ingredients as possible, even in the dead of winter!

So, I don't have any colorful stories about your meat when it was on the hoof...just a lot of tales of enthusiastic women (Rena, Kris, Veronica, Michelle, and myself) meeting and talking and dreaming and emailing endless spreadsheets. After Saturday I hope to have good cooking tales. In the mean time whet your appetite with considering this menu of favorites:

Lamb Curry This recipe comes directly from Zingerman's mail order chef Veronica who is helping us get started with the LWK.

Cranberry Apple Pork Roast Taking advantage of the flavors of the season with fresh local apples and frozen cranberries from Locavorious.

Beef Stew Crammed with slow-cooked beef and as many delicious local veggies as we could find. Yum!

Chicken Divan Michelle's specialty--always popular with her family. I'm looking forward to it!

Chili con carne Michelle says "We'll do this the way my mom used to"...with locally grown hot peppers, tomatoes, and Old Pine Farm ground beef, I'm sure it will be delicious.
Well, I'll be seeing all of our lucky LWK families on Saturday!!

peace
Mary
P.S. Also, enjoy that cute photo of Anna and the CFK cauliflower from the end of the season. Soon I'll have LWK photos to share!

A New Purpose!

Well, spring seems to be in the air after such a cold, snowy winter. So, I'm just checking in with the blog. Regular updates won't start until I start work at the Farm. I've been busy this winter with the CFK Bakery, (see picture) and I'm hoping to be able to sell some of my baked goods at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market in April and May.

The real purpose of this post is to announce the new purpose of the CFK Blog:
This year, the CFK Blog will continue to report each week on the share and the CFK menu, including cookbook references to inspire all farm members to try new recipes with their veggies. We will also continue with pictures and stories from Mary's time at the Farm, hoping to help everyone feel connected with what happens at the Farm between pick up days. We are also planning to expand tales from the farm with guest contributions from other farm apprentices, members, volunteers, and farmers. There's much to look forward to and much for everyone to learn. Let us know what you'd like to see on the CFK blog!

So, hooray! Guest contributors! More content! Wahey! In the mean time, I'm off next week to attend the wedding of dear Julia who helped launch the CFK in 2007 and then I'm continuing on to the UK where I'll get to attend the graduation of my friend Katharina (of Katharina's Spinach Sauce!), who's been attending a Biodynamic course at a Waldorf college--Emerson College--in Sussex. I'm sure these events will be worthy of a post on this blog when I return.

So, for now, tell your friends about the CFK. We're still looking for members. Also, check out this article about me from the Ann Arbor Chronicle!

And also visit the brand new Washtenaw Local Food Portal - hopefully your one-stop-shop for info about what's going on in the area with local food. Yay!

peace out
Mary