Tag: recipes

ARTfarm Pickups Sat. Feb. 25th! 11 am – 12:30 pm, OPEN for all 12:30 – 1:15 pm

ETA: Farmshare signups are open until noon, after that just plan to swing by between 12:30 and 1:15, we’ll be open for anyone, no reservation needed.

Winter bounty down the South Shore: fresh salad greens and so much much more! Cooler nights make for sweeter lettuce! Also featuring cucumbers, kale, radishes and turnips, red/orange sweet potatoes and more. Reserve a spot for a scheduled pickup, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sign up below for one of 70 ‘health-bubble’ pickup timeslots, for Saturday starting at 11 am! If you missed this signup, there will be another one in less than a week.

The hilarious comedy musical Sister Act is now SOLD OUT this third and final weekend (Fri Sat Feb 24-25th 8pm and added matinee Sunday, 26th 4pm). Thanks everyone for coming to the show and supporting the arts on St. Croix!

Please wear a mask at the ARTfarm pickup table. Instructions below if you’re new. Can’t find the confirmation email? Click HERE. If you need to contact us, text or call the farm phone, (340) 514-4873. Welcome!

Choose from four different size preorder ‘farmshare’ selections that include bags of sweet salad mix, herbs, veggies and/or plenty of tomatoes. See details and a list of extra add-on items available first-come-first-served during your pickup time, below. Reserve an earlier pickup time to catch these first-come-first-serve items.

Brisk farm workouts in peaceful breezy nature available: We’re looking for volunteers (non smokers). Luca could use a hand even if it’s only for two hours at a time, mainly to do garden bed preparation. You can get a great ab and full body workout, mostly standing using rakes and hoes. There is also sifting of compost, hand weeding, late day transplanting and more. Learn about market gardening, construction, food prep. Fast walkers encouraged. Could convert to part-time employment depending on skills and efficiency.

Feeling a little under the weather during flu and cold season? Grab a couple of bags of fresh organic local ginger root and a knob of turmeric, and make yourself a health boosting ginger/turmeric tonic to keep in the fridge and add to hot or cold drinks, smoothies, soups, sautees and anything else! Helps move a cold along, opens the sinuses, and it’s great for digestion. Recipe below:

ginger and turmeric root, and jars of prepared ginger/turmeric concentrate

ARTfarm Ginger-turmeric Tonic

  • Put 2 or 3 hands fresh washed ginger and a thumb of fresh turmeric in a strong blender like a Vitamix (no need to peel our baby ginger with its translucent thin skin!). Add a pinch of black pepper, which makes the turmeric’s medicinal qualities more readily absorbable by your body.
  • Cover generously with water and blend until you have a smooth, creamy purée.
  • Place it in a sauce pan on the stove, and bring to a simmer.
  • Let cool, and strain solids out.
  • Keep it in a jar or pitcher in the fridge and splash a couple teaspoons or tablespoons into anything you’re drinking —from hot tea to plain old water. (I put some in my mocha coffee sometimes!)
  • You can add some honey or maple syrup to the beverage, and/or have it undiluted as a shot, with a little bit of lemon or apple cider vinegar for a health tonic.
  • We keep the strained leftover ginger solids in a jar in the fridge and use it by the spoonful in cooking. It’s a great little addition of ginger and fiber, added to soups, sauces, sautees, salad dressing, even brownies!
Fresh picked same day local herbs grown with pure rainwater will make every dish come alive! Throw a few handfuls in the blender and make a goddess dressing! So refreshing!

Farmers Luca and Christina want to take a moment to encourage everyone to support local farmers. If you can’t make it to our farmstand, don’t forget about Sejah Farm, another wonderful mom and pop farm/market that sells their own produce plus lots of produce from all over St. Croix. They have a wide selection and are open more hours and days than we are, and run amazing educational programs too. There is also the Saturday producers’ market at the Department of Agriculture grounds where you can buy directly from farmers. And there are many farms with a stand out front including Grantley Samuel and Mr. Smithen the Cane Man on Centerline Road.

Remember the best way to support agriculture in the US Virgin Islands is to buy produce directly from farmers.

Hop down to the South Shore and see Farmer Luca!

New to ARTfarm? HOW TO ‘ORDER’:

During the COVID era we switched to a pre-order system instead of open farmstands, and customers preferred the predictability and shorter wait times: Order/reserve at least one farmshare (minimum purchase) and choose your timeslot ahead on our website; check for your confirmation email so you know your name will be on the list! Please arrive in our parking lot on time but not more than 10 minutes early to prevent traffic jams and longer wait times. We appreciate your cooperation!

At the stand, please bring a mask. We’ll call your name during your timeslot in order of signup. Let the farmer handle the produce for you; Choose extras from first-come-first-served availability; Wait to bag until we’ve totaled up your items; Bring change, cash or check and pen; drop payment in the blue bucket, we try not to handle cash.

Please note: With all the flu and viral infections circulating and effects of the “tripledemic”, some of which we have experienced, and Farmer Luca caring for his elderly folks who are immune compromised, we’d appreciate if all customers would help us stay healthy and working, and PLEASE wear a mask and maintain social distancing when interacting with us at the ARTfarm stand this winter season. We shall do the same! We are all one! Grateful for life!!

ARTfarm is a tiny mom and pop family farm who have been growing food with sustainable organic and permaculture methods on St. Croix since 1999. See our FAQs for more info!

Thank you!

Farmshare choices for Saturday, February 25th, 2023:

Oh kale yes! Rinse well and chop fine in any dish; sauté with garlic; or toss with spices and oil and roast in the oven to make kale chips! Melt in your mouth!

We will have 70 timeslots/farmshares available for scheduled pickup Saturday. You can also order and specify a neighbor, friend or family member to pick up your order and theirs. The minimum order is one farmshare, and you CAN order more than one farmshare. At the farmstand, you can choose from remaining add-on extras and we’ll total your order. We are chronically understaffed and need to keep farmstand hours brief; add-ons and extras are not currently available independently of a farmshare minimum purchase.

SPICY SQUASHY farmshare, $37, will include:
    • 1 bag of sweet salad mix
    • 1 bag of baby spicy salad mix
    • 1 pint cherry tomatoes
    • 1 lb. heirloom tomatoes
    • 1 lb. zucchini/squash
BIG BABY ARU farmshare, $41, will include:
    • 2 bags of sweet salad mix
    • 1 bag of baby arugula
    • 1 pint cherry tomatoes
    • 1 lb. slicer tomatoes
SWEET n’ CHERRY farmshare, $14, will include:
  • 1 bag of sweet salad mix
  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes
TOMATO farmshare, $10, (makes a great addition with another share) will include:
  • 1 lb. heirloom tomatoes
  • 1 lb. slicer tomatoes
Extra Add-Ons (non-reservable)

(Must accompany farmshare purchase, these items cannot be purchased individually. No reservations on these items, they are all first come first served during your pickup slot):

early birds:
    • Mediterranean FIGS
    • TOMATO 2nds
    • teen SPICY SALAD MIX
    • baby ARUGULA
    • Japanese heirloom CUCUMBERS
    • KALE
    • sweet PEPPERS
    • SWEET POTATOES
    • ONIONS with green tops – YUM
plenty:
    • fresh mixed LETTUCE heads
    • fresh ROMAINE lettuce heads
    • ZUCCHINI/Summer SQUASH
    • hot PEPPERS
    • CARROTS with juicable tops
    • slicer TOMATOES
    • HEIRLOOM tomatoes
    • CHERRY tomato pints
    • Italian DANDELION greens
    • RADISHES with green tops, $3/bunch
    • assorted HERBS bunches: $2 each
    • baby GINGER: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
    • baby TURMERIC: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
    • PINEAPPLE slips to grow-ur-own: $2-3 each as sized
Herb bunch choices for this distribution

(Available as EXTRAS or included in farmshare)

  • Italian (Genovese) basil
  • Lemon basil
  • Holy basil
  • Thai basil
  • Cilantro
  • Dill
  • Garlic chives
  • Kafir lime leaves
  • Lemongrass
  • Parsley
  • Scallions

Please contact us immediately by TEXT or PHONE at (340) 514-4873 if you have reserved a farmshare and cannot pick it up. Supply is limited, demand is extremely high and someone else will gladly purchase your share, if given enough time to respond. We have limited time for distributions and they are scheduled. Our produce is harvested fresh and needs to go home with you same day. This is an honor system since we are not collecting payment until pickup. We do not have cold storage for uncollected shares.

Signup form for
SATURDAY PICKUP
February 25th, 2023!

During this raging flu and cold “tripledemic” season, due to family members and customers who are immuno-compromised, we’d appreciate everyone wearing masks at ARTfarm during pickups. We went maskless for a while, and hope to loosen restrictions again soon, but for now please help us healthy at work, and protect our family and friends!

The signup form will show you a “Thank You” page and send you a confirmation email if submitted successfully. If you don’t find it, please check your spam/junk, trash, inbox tabs, and ‘all mail’ folders for the confirmation email, and search for noreply@jotform.com – this has been a common problem for several customers and with a little searching they typically find it. For more tips, visit our Help page.

Need help with the pre-order signup form? (Click here):
Q: I can’t seem to order more than one item.

A: We have designed our order form not to allow any one customer to purchase all of one extra. Sharing is caring. If you’d like extra of something (beyond what you could reserve through our order system), put it in the comments with your order, and remind us at your pickup time: if we can supply it to you we’ll do our best. If you are in the food service industry and looking for bulk availability, please contact us; our order form is for individuals and families to place a single order for a scheduled pickup.

Q: My order isn’t going through.
  • if the automated confirmation email is not immediately found, check your spam folder
    • and the ‘all mail’ folder
  • make sure all required fields are filled/selected
  • just try again
  • use a cellular device (smartphone or tablet) that isn’t using WiFi internet
  • restart your browser/device
  • clear your cache and cookies in your browser/device
  • reboot your router (unplug it for a minute and plug in again)
  • visit our “help” page for additional tips
Q: The form says I didn’t enter my email, but I did.

Our pre-order form requires everyone to type their email in twice, and makes sure the two match exactly. We had a lot of customers in such a rush to get their order in that they’d spell their own email incorrectly and then complain that they could not find the confirmation email. Our ‘type it in twice’ system ensures that you’ll find any email mistakes before you submit the pre-order form.

Q: I ordered before, but I’m not getting your emails.

Our pre-order form does NOT automatically sign you up for an ARTfarm email subscription. Do that HERE!

How To Cook and Eat Pumpkin (and Butternut)

Farmer Luca with a large wheelbarrow full of green skinned pumpkins at ARTfarm.
TBT: Farmer Luca with a large wheelbarrow full of green skinned pumpkins at ARTfarm.

The pumpkins and butternut squashes of winter are so tempting at the farmer’s market. Purchased whole, they make lovely table decorations and can be stored for a long time without refrigeration. The warm orange hue of the edible flesh is cheerful, sweet and packed with vitamin A and fiber. Calabaza (West Indian) pumpkins, typically fat and round with vertical ribs and a deep green skin, are a traditional staple of Ital and Caribbean cuisine and are usually sold by the slice. Smooth buff-colored butternuts, sold whole, are extra sweet in flavor. At ARTfarm we love growing all of these and also squat little Asian pumpkins with thin bumpy skins, and ancient heirloom Seminole pumpkins, super sweet.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine pumpkin is used for a variety of balancing purposes, including controlling blood sugar (diabetes) and as a decongestant. But with all these varieties and uses they can feel intimidating to get started with, particularly whole ones.

Getting Started

How, one wonders, will I ever manage to pierce that thick and unyielding exterior without a chain saw?

We are obsessed with this pumpkin this winter! Offspring of Calabaza Taina Dorada from PR’s Desde Mi Huerto.

Caribbean pumpkin varieties are generally not quite as thick-skinned as the pumpkins of the great cold north. The rinds of pumpkin varieties bred for tropical places are generally so thin and tender (once cooked), in fact, that we often don’t bother to peel before eating. A very nicely sharpened 6″ or 8″ chef’s knife can easily cut off a slice of squash or halve the thing. If you’re still feeling apprehensive, resting the clean pumpkin on a folded up kitchen towel for padding can help keep it from tipping, slipping or sliding. Simply plunge the tip of your knife into the pumpkin or squash near the stem end, blade out, and then brace the top of the pumpkin as you swing the knife handle down in a masterful arc along the voluptuous curve of your squash toward its bottom. (If this isn’t easy, go back and sharpen your knife.) Voila! Repeat at least once more to release a delectable chunk from the whole. You can also cut it in half around its equator for easy roasting. And there is no law against whole roasting a pumpkin, although it may take a bit longer. Wrap it in foil and tuck it into your bonfire!

When everything else in 2020 has gone sideways you’ll rely on this nutritious, rich tasting winter vegetable. It’s sweet and tastes great in EVERYTHING.

Now to prepare:

Pumpkin can be steamed, roasted, fried, shredded into dishes, or eaten raw. The basic preparation after washing and cutting, is to:

  1. Scoop out the innards. (Save the seeds – clean them off, then plant in your garden, or toss with oil and salt and roast for a snack!) You can stop here and eat it raw or chopped and sauteed or grated onto things, and it will keep a week or more in your fridge. – OR –
  2. Roast up a halved squash or whole pumpkin slice in a buttered or oiled baking pan. 350ºF oven ’til easily pierced with a fork, maybe 20-60 minutes depending on the size of your pieces. – OR –
  3. Steam it cut side down in half an inch of water in a covered skillet until the skin is soft/piercable with a fork. Then get creative: here are at least ten quick and efficient ways to add pumpkin to your meals:
  1. Eat a savory moist warm slice, right out of the pan or oven – like a slice of pizza with salt and pepper (skin too!)
  2. Eat a sweet warm slice, right out of the pan or oven – like pie, drizzled with a little melted butter, pie spice and coconut sugar! Easiest dessert EVARRR!
  3. Scoop a few generous spoonfuls of roasted or steamed pumpkin into any slow-cooking savory dish (OMG tomato sauce! stew! mac & cheese! rice! casserole! beans!) to sweeten and thicken sauce
  4. Finely grate raw pumpkin into your morning oatmeal, pancakes or waffle batter with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg before cooking; toss a few pecans on top for a holiday-pie flavored breakfast
  5. Save in the fridge and toss big spoonfuls into a smoothie or other snack
  6. Process steamed or roasted pumpkin further into purée and use as canned pumpkin, for a creamy soup base, or freeze in an ice cube tray for future inspiration
  7. Feed it to babies!
  8. Try eating pumpkin raw: trim off the skin, slice the flesh thin like a tortilla chip using a mandolin, and have it with garlicky hummus!
  9. Instead of roasting or steaming whole or large slices, chop slices into bite-sized chunks and add to sautées and stews, beans, stir-fry…no need to remove the skin
  10. Use in cakes, custards, cookies, breads, muffins, homemade pasta, ravioli… ours never lasts that long…
  11. Make pumpkin pie.

A few farmer favorite recipes:

DIY Fresh Pumpkin Puree

  • Difficulty: easy peasy. Can you boil water?
  • Print
You can stop buying canned pumpkin and make your own fresh hot puree in about 15 minutes start to finish. But good luck making it all the way to puree… it smells so amazing, we always end up eating it first. Reserve any leftover steaming or straining liquids for cooking, or to make your pooch happy.

Ingredients

  • Fresh pumpkin
  • Water
  • A skillet or roasting pan

Directions

  1. Wash the pumpkin skin. Carefully, with a large sharp knife or cleaver, cut into halves or quarters, removing seeds (they are a great snack roasted with salt!).
  2. Steam the pieces cut side down in half an inch of water in a covered skillet for 10-12 minutes or until the outside skin is soft/easy to pierce with a fork, and then…
  3. Scoop the soft cooked flesh from the skin. Mash it with a masher, blend or food process it for a smoother puree if desired, and use a strainer or nut milk bag to remove some of the moisture if you’re using it for baking.

Grandma's Midwestern Pumpkin Pie

  • Servings: never enough, but maybe 8 slices?
  • Difficulty: Easy as pie. The crust is always the hard part.
  • Print
An old family recipe from Christina’s midwestern roots, updated a bit. A cold slice of this pie is the Best. Holiday. Season. Breakfast.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked pumpkin (1 medium-small cooking pumpkin, roasted and pureed)
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream (or 1 12oz. can evaporated milk) (or extra-rich coconut milk)
  • 2/3 cup coconut sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 local farm fresh eggs plus the yolk of a third egg
  • 1 teaspoon ground or 2 tablespoons fresh ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon cloves or allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon or sour orange zest
  • 1 9″ pie crust of your choosing. Does not have to be pre-baked.

Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 425ºF.
  2. In a large mixing bowl or your blender, beat the eggs, then add sugar and spices. Mix in the pumpkin purée and stir in the cream. Mix well. I like to use the Vitamix for this, especially since I’m always making a double batch.
  3. Pour the filling into your favorite (unbaked, unless you insist) chilled pie crust (frozen is fine) and bake for 15 minutes at 425ºF, then lower heat to 350ºF and bake another 45-55 minutes. Watch the edges for over-browning and use a foil collar or pie protector to keep them from burning. Bake until the center is slightly jiggly but mostly firm and a pie tester comes out mostly clean but not necessarily dry.
  4. Cool the pie on a farmhouse windowsill with gingham curtains near the railroad tracks for about two hours. It will deflate as it cools and develop some lovely cracks to hold the whipped cream.

Nutrition

Per Serving: 420 calories; 29 g fat; 39 g carbohydrates; 5 g protein; 125 mg cholesterol; 310 mg sodium.

Park Slope Thai Pumpkin Custard 'Sankaya' Dessert

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: Getting fancy, but you can do it!
  • Print

This tradititonal Thai street food is a sweet custard is steamed inside a small hollowed out pumpkin or squash, and you eat the entire thing, tender skin and all.

Before we were farmers, we lived in Brooklyn NY. There was a family-run Thai restaurant in a little upstairs space on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. We would walk many chilly blocks there from our apartment in Sunset Park/Atlantic Avenue in the winter to eat some spicy Thai chili soups, and would always end the meal with this amazing dessert when it was available. Some dishes you just never forget! This recipe is best with acorn squash and other smallish, squat-shaped pumpkins.

Ingredients

  • 1 whole sweet baking squash about 2-3 lb or 6-8″ diameter (or several smaller ones)
  • 10 cups of water for steaming
  • 4-5 large farm fresh eggs
  • 3/4 cup coconut milk, full fat
  • 1/3 cup coconut sugar (traditional recipes use palm sugar)
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • bamboo or stainless steamer basket, to hold the whole pumpkin; large lidded pot to hold the steamer for cooking; you could probably do this a lot faster in an instapot, or other pressure cooker?

Directions

  1. Wash a 6-8″ diameter (2-3 lb) whole pumpkin or other winter squash. Cut an outward-angled circle around the stem end as if you were making a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. Remove the top and scoop out the soft core of seeds and fiber. If needed, slice a very thin layer off the bottom to allow the pumpkin to sit flat.
  2. Start your 10 cups water to boil in a large steamer.
  3. Beat the eggs with the spices, vanilla, sugar and coconut milk until the sugar is dissolved.
  4. Pour the custard mixture into the hollowed out pumpkin.
  5. Place the pumpkin and its stem-lid (to the side) in the steamer basket in the pot once the water is boiling. Don’t put the pumpkin’s own lid back on itself, but cook it alongside. Place the lid on the pot and steam for about 45 minutes, or until a fork comes out of the custard clean.
  6. Remove the steamer basket from the pot and let the pumpkin cool.
  7. When you are ready to serve, use a large sharp knife to cut a wedge out of the pumpkin like a pie. The custard should be firm. Serve at room temperature. The entire slice is edible, including the skin. Refrigerate any leftovers. Yeah, right!

Nutrition

We’ll work this out and get back to you.

Wellness Blast Thai-ish Soup Recipe

Being a season of viruses, we’ve definitely been cooking up some antiviral recipes lately that can be prepared with or without meat. Late spring is sort of the beginning of the winding down of our veggie season at ARTfarm, but ingredients can be sourced from other local farms or your own backyard Victory Garden. The recipe ingredients list seems long here, but in these days of social distancing we thought it best to give people lots of options and substitutions. It’s mostly a lot of chopping and preps quickly.

Our ginger and turmeric have such tender skins they don’t need peeling. Just wash, chop and go!

We will be presenting a series of articles on starting a small home garden for those of you who have been asking us what to plant and when. Stay tuned on our website, we’ll be offering some information and also soon put up a signup sheet if you’d like to attend a Zoom videoconference class with local experts from UVI’s Cooperative Extension Service to answer more of your questions on starting a home garden.

Tom Khing Michi-Gai Phak*

(Ginger Not-Chicken Coconut Soup)

Feeds about 3 hungry people who really love soup. We usually double it.
10 minutes prep time, 40 minutes cook/simmer time.

This is a garden veggie heavy/homemade sort of homage to one of ARTfarm family’s all time favorite Asian soups: Galangal Chef Kenneth Biggs’ Tom Kha Gai soup. We are substituting ginger and turmeric for Chef’s galangal root and adding more veggies.

The coconut is nourishing and anti-viral, the turmeric color is cheerful, the gingery warmth of the rich smooth broth and onions and chili peppers (if desired) help open the sinuses without acidity, the customizable, whatever-you’ve-got-available veggies make it hearty; it’s just soothing and lovely. The citrus tang and floating cherry tomatoes added at the end offer little pops of sweet vitamin blasts and the cilantro is cleansing to the body.

This recipe is verrry adjustable. You can make it with some, or all, or substitutions for, the various chopped vegetables and herbs in this recipe. Tiny white Japanese enoki or bonapi mushrooms are a fun texture in this if you can get them, but any (or no) mushrooms will do. (Mushrooms may have anti-viral qualities!) This is traditionally a chicken recipe and we’ve suggested tofu or a light milder fish like mahi or wahoo to substitute, but you can make it without – it still has such a rich broth and holds up well if you add other veg.

Ingredients

2 stalks fresh lemongrass, tough outer layers removed
1 one inch piece (a man thumb) baby ARTfarm ginger, grated, no peeling necessary
1 one inch piece (a man thumb) baby ARTfarm turmeric, grated, no peeling necessary
3 large kaffir lime leaves
1 – 2 sprigs Thai basil
1 sour orange or other large citrus: all the juice and a tiny bit of the skin oil or zest
6 cups broth – veggie or whatever you’ve got
1 lb. your favorite protein: a pack of firm tofu, cut into 1” or smaller pieces
– or – chicken (boneless breast or thigh), sliced into thin strips
– or – mahi or wahoo, cubed
1 large onion, sliced thin into crescent moons
8 oz. mushrooms (Japanese or whatever you’ve got)
1 13.5-oz. can coconut milk well shaken**
– or – make fresh coconut milk!!! (Crucian Contessa’s recipe)
2 Tbsp. fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)
– or – a slurry of 2 Tbspn. miso paste dissolved in some of the broth
– or – 2 Tbsp. Bragg’s Aminos to taste

1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
1-4 finely chopped Thai chili peppers to taste
1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro leaves with tender stems
a few sour orange or lime wedges (for garnish, if you’re feeling fancy)

——–optional add-ins (we do all of them!!)——-
* 1 cup pumpkin, sliced thin then cubed into chunks
* 1/2  bunch cooking greens (radish tops, kale, chicory etc.), remove hard center ribs, cut leaves into 1″ pieces or julienned
* 4-5 seasoning peppers, seeded and sliced
* 1 bunch radishes or turnips, washed, root sliced into coins, use the tops as greens
* 2 medium bell peppers, seeded and thinly sliced

How to make it

  1. Using the back of a knife, lightly smash lemongrass; fold and bundle it up to about 4-5″ long, to fit in a large sauce pan. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until flavors are melded, 8–10 minutes. Pull out the lemongrass with tongs and discard, and add microplaned/grated ginger and turmeric to the hot broth.
  2. Add tofu and your big pile of chopped onions, pumpkin, greens, (and seasoning pepper if desired), and return to a boil. Reduce heat, add mushrooms and citrus juice, and simmer, skimming occasionally, until cooked through and onions and pumpkin are soft, 20–25 minutes.
  3. For the last five minutes, turn the heat to low and add radish coins, bell peppers, (chicken/fish if applicable). Simmer until the protein is cooked through, about 3-5 minutes. Ladle some of the hot broth into a teacup and add your miso, stirring until liquified.
  4. Mix in coconut milk, your brown flavor sauce option (fish sauce/miso slurry/aminos), tiny leaves of Thai basil, and kaffir lime leaves. Heat through.
  5. Divide soup among bowls. Serve with garnishes: cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced pieces of thai chili peppers, cilantro, and citrus wedges. OMG it’s so good. If you have any hint of a cold this nutritious soup will blast it out of you!!

 

*thanks Google Translate. Apologies to Thai people. Hopefully we haven’t said something rude.

** Chef Ken’s coconut tip: if you purchase canned coconut milk, check the fat content (in grams per can, not the percentage). Look for something in the 10+ grams range. Less than that, it can come out too thin – and sometimes canned coconut milk contains emulsifiers that can give it a weird mouth feel.

 

Gratitude Season – OPEN Wednesday Nov 21st, 3pm

The epic rains of early November 2018 brought epic rainbows. In this case, leading to the arresting sculpture of Niarus Walker.

Halloween flew by like a tropical bat, Diwali brought us its hopeful message of good defeating evil, and the elongated election season is nearly over; it is time to turn our thoughts back to family, gratitude, the simple things.

We are thankful for the many dedicated customers who are eager for ARTfarm to reopen! And for eleven inches of rain that fell over the first two weeks of November, decisively ending our water shortage – but also destroying the first lettuce crop of the season and creating some other setbacks. (We’re seeing major damage to melon vines and papaya trees and possible crop failures on ginger and some of our tomatoes.) But staying grateful that some of our gardens are recovering from all of the drenching!

We will be open for a special holiday farmstand on Wednesday, November 21st, 3pm – 5:30pm with a bumper crop of beautiful cucumbers and smaller quantities of a few other things including a limited supply of salad greens. Here’s the full list:

  • Lemongrass, garlic chives, Italian basil, rosemary, spicy radishes, two types of cucumbers, some teen spicy greens, baby arugula, a few bags of sweet mix, green papaya, wild cucumbers, some small bulb onions with large green tops (use like scallions), a few marigold and zinnia flowers. And ARTfarm turkey and chicken eggs! Super fresh!
  • Need a thoughtful gift for the holiday? This is a great time of year to get plants in the ground. We’ve got pineapple slips, fig trees, and native drought resistant shade tree saplings available for sale!
  • Tomatoes will come in around December 15th.

    • Grandma’s Fabulous Cucumber Salad that Luca loves (as told to Christina)

    There is no recipe for this.

    First of all don’t measure anything.

    Mandolin a cucumber into thin slices and thinner than anything you’ve ever experienced in your life. Paper thin. Then cover them in water and add an unspecified amount of too much salt. Then go away and do other stuff. Come back in a couple of hours.

    Rinse the heck out of them when you come back from your other activities and make sure they’re not too salty.

    Rinse them again and again and squeeze them to get the salty water out.

    Let them drain in a colander for even longer. Do other things.

    Chop up a couple of scallions.

    Add a big spoonful of mayo per cuke. Dress with vinegar and basil. Toss.

    So just make sure you have:

    • Maybe about half a cucumber per person
    • A bunch of scallions (green onion tops or garlic chives work too)
    • A generous handful of salt
    • A few spoonfuls of mayo
    • A little basil (could be dried if you don’t have fresh)
    • A little vinegar
    • Fun people to share it with!

    We finally got one of our chicken tractors rebuilt after the hurricane. The hens are thrilled with their more comfortable quarters.

    Bok. Bok.