Apple Cider Press

The Apple Press!

Granddaughter Maya

The apple cart

Cutting the apples into quarters and searching for worms

The grinder chewing up the apple quarters

Once the pail is full, the mesh lining is tied down.

and the top of the pail is covered with a top to screw down with the handle

Squeezing the juice out of the ground apples

The newly configued handle

Some added accesories made by Jim to make the press work more efficiently

and the juice comes out

Bottled and ready to freeze and store.

Pickled Green Beans

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/2 pounds fresh green beans
• 2 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 1 bunch fresh dill weed
• 3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Sterilize 6 (1/2 pint) jars with rings and lids and keep hot. Trim green beans to 1/4 inch shorter than your jars.
2. In a large saucepan, stir together the vinegar, water and salt. Add garlic and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. In each jar, place 1 sprig of dill and 1/8 teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Pack green beans into the jars so they are standing on their ends.
3. Ladle the boiling brine into the jars, filling to within 1/4 inch of the tops. Discard garlic. Seal jars with lids and rings. Place in a hot water bath so they are covered by 1 inch of water. Simmer but do not boil for 10 minutes to process. Cool to room temperature. Test jars for a good seal by pressing on the center of the lid. It should not move. Refrigerate any jars that do not seal properly. Let pickles ferment for 2 to 3 weeks before eating.

From Allrecipes.com

Recipes

We'll be adding recipes to this blog every now and again that will help you come up with new ways of eating all those veggies! On the right-hand side of the page, you can see under the title Recipes a list of key ingredients - this way if you want to search for some recipes with carrots (for example) in them, click on Carrot.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Chard & Feta Pie

Chard and Feta Pie
ingredients 1 pie crust 4 cups chopped chard 1 large onion, chopped 4+ cloves garlic, chopped basil, rosemary, and thyme, to taste salt and pepper to taste a splash of balsamic vinaigrette 2 eggs, beaten 1 1/2 cups feta cheese procedure Prepare 1 pie crust, or use a frozen one. Sauté onions, garlic, and spices. Add greens to sauté and cook until you see a color change. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar. Mix sauté, egg, and 3/4 cup feta in a large bowl, then spread out into the pie shell. Crumble remaining feta on top and bake at 350 degrees F for 30-40 minutes. from CSA Eating Locally, Cooking Seasonally Cookbook, recipe by Tal Shatz, Sauk Mountain Farm

Recipe - Dilled Carrot Salad

DILLED CARROT SALAD
ingredients 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill sprigs 1 teaspoon sugar 1 bunch carrots (about 3/4 pound) procedure
In a bowl whisk together all ingredients except carrots and season with salt and pepper. In a food processor fitted with fine-shredding disk or using large holes of a hand grater grate carrots and stir into vinaigrette. Gourmet, August 1997 (from Epicurious.com)

Orchard

The orchard is still developing but in time the farm will be producing plums, peaches, pears and apples.

Plums

Wheat

This is the first year the farm contracted out the back pasture to test out growing wheat...looks pretty darn good!

Around the Farm

Some pictures from around the farm...
Bridge as you drive into the farm

The blueberries are coming in at full speed!

Hot Summer Bounty

WOW lass week was HOT !! It was 103 degrees here on more than one day. Too hot for me but the plants were lovin it. We have had bumper crops of most everything. Some of the ever bearing strawberries were almost the size of golf balls! I however, am enjoying this cooler weather as are the rest of the animals.

Pesticides indicted in bee deaths | Salon

Pesticides indicted in bee deaths Salon

Tucson Community Supported Agriculture » Recipes

Tucson Community Supported Agriculture » Recipes

A Cavatini summer squash loving the hot hot weather old mother nature has thrown at us.

A marketmore 76 cuke soon to be in A Peace Farms CSA bag

An organic herbiside/fertilizer mix of tomato&marigold cuttings

The Horses

Cayanne after stirring the compost pile

Haying - July 2009

I can hardly believe that this year marks our 11th. year on the farm and our 12th. hay harvest, and this is the first time that we took the time to get photos. Of course being that this years harvest was the smallest in our history here made for a more relaxing three days of harvest which also left some time to get a few photos and with the wonders of digital imaging we can now snap away and choose some of the better ones to keep and share.

Thanks to our good neighbors David and Linda Radka and David's keen interest in farming and farm equipment we have hay in the barn again. I have to tell you a little about David's fleet of tractors that are in these photos. The most seasoned machine just turned a mere 70 years old this summer, a 1939 McCormick Farmall model "M" better known as "M" or the "M" around the farm. Then there is a 1950 something Massey Ferguson 265 a very common and much loved workhorse of it's era. Last but not least and one year old bright orange Kubota. To me this is an awesome display of mechanical progression of small farm equipment. David even let me run the baler for a while this year!!

Welcome

Welcome to the Peace Sign Farm, located in Quilcene (Tarboo/Dabob Bay), WA.