I was inspired this morning and took the kids berry picking at Butternut Farm in Farmington, NH. We hit the patch early and brought home just over 5 lbs. of strawberries. I had a few recipes I wanted to try out...one being none other than Strawberry Shortcake.
I found this recipe on another blog, but it comes from one of Alice Walters' amazing cookbooks, The Art of Simple Food
Pick me a blueberry! If you don't have kids or you're not familiar, that's a quote from the wonderful book Jamberry by Bruce Degen.
It's berry season! Well it's been berry season, but strawberries are almost over for the season. But raspberries are in season now and blueberry picking is gaining momentum. Blackberry season will be here before we know it!
So here's where you can pick some tasty berries (here are my favorites):
I swear, I'm around here somewhere. This rain has totally gotten to me. I haven't been able to be in my garden and I've been cooped up inside with two preschoolers! That alone is enough to drive anyone bonkers!
So my apologies for the posts being sparse. I haven't even been able to pull together any fully local meals...I've lost my groove! Sun come out, please!
My eldest celebrated her 4th birthday this week, so we've been busy running around with family. Also, we've been dealing with behavioral issues etc, so my plan as of now, is to go on a gluten and casein free diet for a period of time to see what results we get. I would love any support, tips, recipes, websites etc that you may know of. It's a bit of a daunting task, but if it will help her thrive, then I'm willing to put in the effort!
I have been doing a few things pertaining to living locally though! I have canned 12 jars of strawberry jam with berries I picked from Butternut Farms. I've blanched and froze a few pounds of broccoli for future use. I've also make a few jars (now in the freezer) of garlic scape pesto. I've been stocking up on popcorn kernels. I harvested the first snow peas from my garden today, and I have tomatos and peppers on their way!
It also looks as though we may be the new parents of 6 Ancona pullets in the next few weeks. Time to whip the chicken run together and tweak the shed into a home for the hens! I can't wait for fresh eggs from my own backyard! The pullets will come from from Yellow House Farm.
So hopefully July will yield more local living and definitely more sunshine. Keep those fingers crossed!
How is everyone else hanging in there? How are you surviving the dreary weather?
What a whirlwind weekend! Life has been so utterly crazy lately!
Saturday my mom and I took the kids to the Fall Foliage Fest hosted by the Good Shepherd School in Barrington, NH. The kids had a grand ole time bouncing in the bouncy houses and we enjoyed a few hot dogs and cookies! We didn't stick around for the auction, but it looks like a bunch of great things were available.
After the festival, we took the kids to the Coppal House Farm & Corn Maze in Lee, NH. I will be blogging about this activity this week. So stand by for that post!
I totally missed the Butternut Farm Fall Festival today! Church service was smack dab in the middle of the festival and we didn't get home in time! I hope somebody was able to go and join the fall festivities. I do need to get back to Butternut to pick some more apples!
October 25th and 26th will be the last Applecrest Farm weekend festivals. Lots of free things to do and a bunch of apples to pick. This would made a great "end of fall" activity!
The October Eat Local challenge is still going on for the remainder of October. I am ashamed to tell you how I've been doing. Let's just say that I'm doing the best I can! It's been tough with two young mouths to feed and a limited budget. I will be picking up my 2nd co-op order on Tuesday, though, so I am doing good eating local meats. Be on the lookout for a few new stew/soup recipes 
in the next week or so.
Also note that you still have time to enter Annie's Homegrown Kiwi magazine offer. And finally, for a bit of Monday fun, head over to Confessions of an Apron Queen and enter her weekly apron giveaway!
For more fun photos, visit Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes for Mom.
Butternut Farm in Farmington, NH will be hosting their fall festival on Sunday October 19 from 11 am - 2 pm. They'll have pick-your-own apples, a selection of food as well as free wagon rides, pumpkin decorating, free candy apples, face painting and more.
Be sure to check the fall festival link and stop by for a nice fall event. Also a reminder that Applecrest Orchards in Hampton Falls, NH has their weekend festivals till the end of October. More information here.
Happy apple picking!
I wanted to announce on my blog that the Eat Local Challenge will be taking place in the month of October. Eat local for a whole month, you say... Well, you get to make up your own rules with what you think you can realistically do. I do want to encourage you to sign up for the challenge and strive for at least one full local meal per week. And if you want to do the full month, go for it!
Honestly, with me having two busy little ones and not much time to shop locally, I think I will be aiming for at least one fully local meal per week. Ideally, with no children, I'd probably be able to do the full month, but I'll sign up for what I can do. I think I'll also commit to dining at local mom & pop restaurants, no restaurant chains, McDonald's etc... My end goal is to eat as locally as I can, so everyday I'll try to incorporate something local.
Try to think outside the box on this one and let me share with you some great resources.
Local Food Co-op (contact Lenore, she is extremely friendly and this seems like a great way for us busy people to have one set place to order and pick up local goods. Also, if anyone is interested in possibly having me, or someone else, pick up your order in Brentwood for a nominal fee (price of gas or less) with a pick up in Rochester, NH, e-mail me.)
Warren Farm - they have a full field of PYO tomatoes for $1/lb. This would make great crockpot pasta sauce, salsa, or to put on top of your pizza. This is a great local bargain.
Butternut Farm - everyone knows I'm a die hard Butternut Farm fan! $.89/lb for apples. Think about all that yummy apple crisp or applesauce you can make!
Seacoast Harvest - your local food guide
Seacoast Growers Association - a list of a few local farmer's markets. Most are open through the middle of October.
I'm going to be blogging soon about a new place to get raw milk in Milton, NH. At the Thirteen Colonies Farm (near the NH Farm Museum), one gallon of raw milk is only $4 with a $5 bottle deposit. Stand by for that post! There's also Brookford Farm for raw milk, yogurt, quark cheese, cream, eggs and meat.
(**I no longer advocate Thirteen Colonies Farm. Please direct your raw milk business to Brookford Farm. I am not saying that Thirteen Colonies milk is unsafe, I do not know that, but for me and a few others, their practices seem a bit off. If you have further questions, feel free to e-mail me.)
So your mission, if you choose to accept, is to head over to the Eat Local Challenge website and sign up for the October challenge and get thinking on ways you can incorporate more local foods into your menus. And be sure to keep checking my blog for updates, recipes, events, ideas and more on how to live locally. You can do this by joining as a Follower of my blog or by signing up for e-mail updates.
Get ready for a challenge! We can do it!
I've seen this recipe posted in a few different places and I thought it was an awesome idea. What could be better than the smell of apples and cinnamon in the air and a nice bowl of applesauce?
The kids and I stopped by Butternut Farms again and picked some Honeycrisp apples. The apples were huge! I'm not sure if these were the best applesauce apples, but it looked and tasted fine. (For more info on apple varieties and uses, check this chart.) Here's the recipe:
Crockpot Applesauce
4-5 large apples (I used 5 extra large apples)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
4 tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup water
Peel, core and slice your apples and place in the crockpot. Add remaining ingredients. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Mash with fork or potato masher.
This is how my apples started their journey in the crockpot: 
I cooked them for a little over 4 hours and mashed them easily with a potato masher. Enjoy this simple recipe for yummy fresh applesauce.
I found a recipe for "Zucchini Muffins with Everything Nice" in one of my new cookbooks (quaint recipe name) that calls for applesauce so I'll be trying out the homemade applesauce in a recipe tomorrow. Stand by for that recipe and picture!
...the letter "A". For apple that is!
I made a gutsy move and chose to bring both the toddlers to the apple orchard by myself. Gasp! I was just hoping and praying they'd sit in the wagon for the most part. Our destination was, yet again, the wonderful Butternut Farm in Farmington, NH. Jonamac's, MacIntosh and Ginger Gold's are ready for picking now and through the weekend. MacIntosh apples should be around for the next couple weeks. Note that Butternut Farm has a great automated daily message of what's ripe for picking if you call (603) 335-4705. I highly suggest you call prior to going over to see what's ripe and check the picking hours.
Anyway, the trip went over surprisingly well and the kids got out of the wagon a few times to pick some apples and plums. Here they are in their wagon enjoying apples (I must have had 10 apples with bite marks in them!)
Like I said earlier I also picked some plums, which I have no clue what I'm going to do with. Are there any good plum recipes? Maybe I'll just eat them! Haha! :)
One of my goals it to perfect a homemade pie crust recipe so I can make an amazing homemade apple pie. Does anyone have any pie crust recipes that are tried and true that they want to share? I haven't decided which recipe from my cookbooks I want to try yet. But first I need to get a pastry blender to cut in my butter! The knife and fork method didn't work too well on the peach crisp I made!
So after this rainy weekend is over you should head over to the farm and pick some of the first apples of the season. I'm actually excited for fall now and it was actually FUN to take the kids to the orchard and share with them the love of apple picking (and eating while picking) in New England.
Ok, I'll leave you with a few more pics of my kiddos (yes there are also sheep and chickens to visit at Butternut Farm). And don't forget to check out the apple chart I posted about. It'll help you to know which apples to pick for eating, baking or both.
I stopped by Butternut Farm today and picked over 25 pounds of peaches! I'm going to peel them and put them up in the freezer for baking and winter eating.
This is how you peel peaches the easy way: Peach Peeling. I however learned that peaches must truly be ripe before trying to blanch and peel! Oh did I fight with some of those peach skins and when they're not so ripe, they don't pull away from the pit so easily.
So, I have many more peaches sitting out and when they're ripe, I'll start blanching again and hope for better results. I really do think blanching works for peeling since I did have one or two peaches who peeled nicely.
Does anyone have any great peach recipes? I probably have 2-4 cups sliced up now. I'd love some recipes!
...keeps the doctor away, right? Apples are now coming into season so it's time to get picking! Oh my, does that mean fall is upon us, already?! Yowsers, did the summer fly by!
Today I was e-mailed the The Prepared Pantry newsletter and in it was a wonderful apple chart. It covers all sorts of apple varieties and how to use them and their flavors. Wonderful to have around to see which varieties should be eaten plain and what can be baked or both. Be sure to bookmark this apple chart!
Also, The Prepared Pantry has a free baking e-book delivered once every week for 8 weeks. And their newsletter is nice too. They do sell baking items and mixes, but there are loads of recipes and helpful tips mixed it. Give it a try, it's a wealth of information.
Don't forget that Butternut Farm is picking apples as of now and I'm sure there are many more pick-your-own apple farms gearing up to open now. Yahoo for apple season!
(Apple Jacket picture from JacquelineKnits ltd. on Etsy. Available for $12 each. (I want one now!))
Just a little blabbing about what I'm doing and a small recap.
I stopped by Brookford Farm tonight to pick up my raw milk. The raw milk is $4/half gallon with an initial $2.50 bottle deposit. They also have quark (farmer's cheese), yogurt, cream, low fat milk, eggs, lamb, beef, and vegetables. Click here to read up on the benefits of raw milk.
I didn't get to stop by the Dover Farmer's Market today, but my father-in-law brought me some fresh peaches, blackberries and green beans. As well as some ground moose! I'll be at the Barrington Farmer's Market this Saturday for sure.
Speaking of peaches, be sure to head over to Butternut Farm this week and pick some fresh peaches, nectarines, plums, apples, blueberries, and tomatoes! They will have a nice ripe crop for the weekend. I'll be back later to post about freezing peach slices.
I'm also baking my first loaf of Light Oat Bread as I type. The waiting is killing me, I want to see it finished, but I have to wait for the kneading and rising to happen first. I'll update you on how it turns out soon!
Check back this week for a post on my favorite recycling containers.
And lastly, don't forget to purchase one Annie's Homegrown item and then go sign up for your free year subscription to Kiwi magazine. My kids love the Cheddar Bunnies so give those a try!
Have a good Thursday everyone!
**Update**
The Light Oat Bread is delicious! It does have a bumpy top so I'll have to troubleshoot that, but the taste is yummy. I will definitely be making this one again!
I had the pleasure to stop by Butternut Farm in Farmington, NH last week. Right now they have "pick your own" peaches, plums, blueberries, apples and tomatoes. The great thing about the farm is that they provide all their containers free of charge. So you don't have to go rummaging around the house trying to find containers!
Check out the nice peaches I picked:
So head on out soon and pick some nice fresh fruit and support your local farmer! It's a great way to get some fresh fruit in the house and let me tell you, the peaches are delicious!
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