Tag: farm life

In honor of the holidays, and to give you a real taste of the farm, we’ve decided to share a few of our favorite recipes with you. You’re likely to find some of these dishes featured on our menus, depending on the season, but until we can invite you all down as our guests, we’ve decided to post a few of them here on our blog. This one is for cooking collard greens, but with a twist.

Savory Collard Greens with Bacon

This vegan-friendly collard green recipe has some things in common with typical Southern recipes, but this one adds a dash of hot sauce and dried cranberries at the end to give it a savory kick. It’s easy to make, but this recipe works best if you have a dutch oven to cook them in.

1 bunch collard greens, cleaned, stems removed, and chopped
3 slices bacon, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
1/2 cup (125ml) low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth*
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce**
1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped

*NOTE: We often make this with vegetable broth instead. But, if you made our Aunt Sissy’s cornbread dressing recipe, then make enough chicken broth to make this dish for your holiday meal too!

**NOTE: We used a Chipotle hot sauce to give it a hint of smoke, but it works very well with Sriracha too.

Place the bacon pieces in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook for 5 minutes or until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pot and chop into pieces. Set half of it aside for later, but put the remainder back in the pot. Drain off some of the bacon fat if there’s too much.

Add the chopped onion to the Dutch oven and cook for 3-4 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper, then cook for 30 seconds, just until the garlic is fragrant.

Add the chopped collard greens to the Dutch oven and cook for 3 minutes or until collard greens are wilted. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a simmer.

Reduce the heat to a low simmer, then cover the pot and steam the collard greens for 5 minutes or until they are tender. Stir in the hot sauce and cook for an additional 5 minutes to reduce the sauce.

Sprinkle the cooked collard greens with the remaining bacon and cranberries and cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat and  serve the sauteed collard greens immediately.

In honor of the holidays, and to give you a real taste of the farm, we’ve decided to share a few of our favorite recipes with you. You’re likely to find some of these dishes featured on our menus, depending on the season, but until we can invite you all down as our guests, we’ve decided to post a few of them here on our blog.

It’s almost Thanksgiving, so there’s no better time than now to post our Aunt Sissie’s recipe for a traditional holiday favorite: cornbread dressing.

Aunt Sissie’s Cornbread Dressing

Our Aunt Sissie makes this for a big crowd, so she upsizes these quantities accordingly. But if you just want to make a smaller amount for a small family dinner, the recipe below should give you a delicious starting point.

Cornbread*
Chicken broth**
1 medium onion
4 ribs of celery
Rubbed sage (to taste)
1 stick of margarine or butter (optional***)
2 eggs beaten

*NOTE: Aunt Sissie says the dressing will be better if you’ve make the cornbread a few days in advance and just freeze it until it’s time to make the dressing.

**NOTE: Aunt Sissie boils bone-in chicken leg quarters and breast meat to make her broth because it gives the recipe a little more fat, which help binds the dressing together and makes it more flavorful.

***NOTE: If your chicken was a little too lean, you can add a stick of butter or margarine to add a little additional fat to the mixture.

First, make an 8-10″ skillet full of your favorite cornbread recipe. (Naturally, we recommend our own.) Let it cool, remove it from the skillet, and then set it aside in a separate container.

Make your chicken broth. Once you have your broth, pour it over the cornbread. Set the chicken meat aside for later.

Next, chop your celery and onion and add it to the cornbread mix. Add some rubbed sage to taste. Mix it all up thoroughly.

Pull your chicken meat off the bone and mix it into the cornbread.  Add a stick of margarine or butter if needed.

Beat your eggs and pour over the entire cornbread mixture. Mix well.

Put your cornbread mixture into a 2 quart casserole or baking pan. Cover it with aluminum foil and bake at 400°F for between 30-40 minutes. At that point, remove the foil and check to see if the celery and onion is cooked. If not, put back into the oven for a little longer, but check on it every 5 minutes. When the onion and celery are cooked, remove the foil and brown for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

 

In honor of the holidays, and to give you a real taste of the farm, we’ve decided to share a few of our favorite recipes with you. You’re likely to find some of these dishes featured on our menus, depending on the season, but until we can invite you all down as our guests, we’ve decided to post a few of them here on our blog.

Next up: cornbread, made with our very own Jimmy Red cornmeal.

Mama’s Cornbread

1 cup milk
1/4 cup stick margarine or butter, melted
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups yellow, white, blue or pink (that’s our preference) cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour*
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

*NOTE: You probably already know this, but if you use self-rising flour instead of all purpose, just omit the baking powder and salt from the recipe.

NOTE: Some people like to add a 1/2 cup sugar to this recipe, but we prefer it without.

Preheat oven to 400°F then grease bottom and sides of a round  (9″ X 1 1/2″) or square (8″ X 8″ X 2″) baking pan with shortening. Beat together the milk, margarine or butter, and egg in a large mixing bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients all at once, just until the flour is moistened. The batter will be lumpy. Pour it into your greased pan and bake for 25 minutes.  To check if it is done, stick a toothpick in it; if the toothpick comes out clean, it’s ready to take out of the oven.

For cornbread muffins, as in the photo, just pour the batter into 12 geased medium muffin cups instead and fill each about 3/4 full.

 

In honor of the holidays, and to give you a real taste of the farm, we’ve decided to share a few of our favorite recipes with you. You’re likely to find some of these dishes featured on our menus, depending on the season, but until we can invite you all down as our guests, we’ve decided to post a few of them here on our blog.

Harvest Apple Tart

This tasty diabetic-friendly dessert always signifies that Autumn has arrived at the farm, since that’s usually when you can find fresh apples at the grocery store (or in the orchard). It’s also lower in sugar compared to most desserts. If you’d prefer to substitute sugar for the Splenda, just make sure you adjust the amount so the pie won’t be too sweet.

1 pie crust*
1 Honeycrisp or Fuji apple (Gala and Yellow Delicious varieties also work well)
2 packages of cream cheese
2 large eggs
1 tsp. of vanilla extract
1/2 cup Splenda artificial sweetener
Almond flakes
1 tsp. of cinnamon

*NOTE: A regular pie crust tastes best in our opinion (especially if you make it by hand), but it will tend to get soggy if you can’t serve it right away. Graham cracker crusts are a great option when you will be waiting a while before serving.

Thoroughly mix the cream cheese, cinnamon, vanilla, eggs and Splenda in a bowl and pour it into your crust. Cut the apple into thin slices and coat with a mixture of Splenda and cinnamon in a bowl. Layout the apple slices on the pie and bake it at 350°F for 45 minutes. Take it out and then add almonds to the top of the pie. Put back in the oven for an additional 10 minutes to toast the almonds.