Autumn has arrived in a burst of vibrant color, blustery weather, and chilly nights. We’ve been busy at Full Bloom Farm, planting seasonal crops, harvesting, bagging potatoes, curing pumpkins, squash, onions, walnuts and Bosc pears, sweating apples for cider, taking down greenhouses, and preparing beds for winter rest. It’s also a time to fire up the woodstove and tuck into the best food that this season has to offer. Despite the cold and rain, fall crops thrive and fruits reach their prime. Apples, pears, kale, chard, mixed chicories and luscious lettuces, herbs, celery, beets, carrots, and storage crops like winter squash and potatoes are plentiful and have robust fall flavor. Tatsoi, bok choy, gai lan, arugula, spinach, radishes, cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts are growing nicely.
The animals are stocking up too, so we have to compete with the flickers, racoons, and blue jays for the fruit and nuts and help out the Cedar Waxwing fledglings that get caught in inclement weather. Here is a video of Mark feeding plump red currants to an exhausted baby waxwing who got separated from its mother.
There are Kennebec and Red Norland potatoes on the farm stand. We spent a few days harvesting winter squash and after some curing, the early varieties are ready, including Spaghetti, Acorn, Delicata, Red Kuri, Carnival and Winter Luxury pumpkin (in 3 different sizes). The Hubbards need to cure for another month to allow their flavor to fully develop. You can buy squash online, or we have some available at the stand for purchase. We also have lots of corn stalks for free on the stand that make nice Autumn decorations for your front door. Please help yourself!
Our favorite winter squash recipes are listed in the product descriptions for each type. Pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and crispy sage is taken to a new level when you use a fresh-from-the-farm Winter Luxury Pumpkin. This variety is also used in our favorite pumpkin pie recipe from Rose Levy Barenbaum. Rose lines the inner bottom of the pie crust with gingersnap crumbs and cooks the pumpkin with spices and purees it in a blender resulting in a super smooth and mellow custard. OMG!
Quiche Florentine
We’re offering nice spinach from Hedlin Farm right now! Livie makes a delicious quiche Florentine with spinach and aged gouda and whisks béchamel into the egg custard mix before baking. The result is decadent and creamy. If you haven’t tried making quiche this way, I recommend it, especially if you find quiche to be too eggy. Livie uses 1 parts béchamel to 3 parts egg + milk mixture.
Romanesco broccoli from Crows Farm
Here is the easiest and most delicious recipe for romanesco (the prettiest of broccolis). It’s written by Carla Lalli Music and it’s great. We also like to stir this roasted romanesco into cooked short pasta like Gemelli with some parmesan, salt, and pepper, rich and grassy Fat Gold Olive Oil and a touch of starchy pasta cooking water to bring it all together. We have a limited amount of big Romanesco heads on the stand for the next few days.
Sharron’s Apples
Three Pheasants Farm continues to supply us with beautiful apples. The latest are Gold Rush Apples. They have gorgeous pink freckles that speckle their skin, are crunchy, sweet, and well-balanced - similar to a Golden Delicious, but a lot better! Eat fresh or use in baking.
Autumn Wreaths
I have been making wreaths with wisteria vines and decorating them with farm-grown Nigella seed pods, black wheat, hydrangea blossoms, crab apples, hazelnuts and colorful fall leaves preserved in glycerin. They will be on the stand for you to see when you pick-up your orders.
Gravlax!
Now that drydock is over and we’re able to go into town for bagels, we’ve been making gravlax with our salmon and sea salt. If you like lox, this is a great way to take a simple piece of salmon and make it even better. While the reefnets did not have an opening for sockeye this year, we do have Lummi Island Wild sockeye portions. Or buy from another local fisherman and scale the recipe up. Just remember to freeze any salmon you plan to cure prior to curing and eating. This isn’t necessary if you use our 6 oz portions of Lummi Island Wild Sockeye as they have been previously commercially frozen. After curing for 24 hrs in salt and sugar, the salmon is ready to eat however we like to give it another 24 hrs because it improves the texture. Smoked salt can be used to make it taste like true cold-smoked lox or add lemon zest and white pepper to the curing mixture to give it a spicy citrus flavor.
Ingredients
6 oz salmon, skin on, (previously frozen)
⅓ cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup kosher salt, (if using sea or Morton's salt, use ¼ cup)
¼ teaspoon pepper, (white is preferable, but black or pink is fine)
½ teaspoon lemon zest, (optional)
¼ teaspoon each of coriander and fennel seeds, (optional)
4 sprigs fresh dill, minced or 1 teaspoon dried dill, (optional)
Directions
Thaw the salmon. Mix the above ingredients together in a bowl. Tear off a piece of plastic wrap about 12” x 12” and place on a dinner plate. Your dinner plate needs to have edges or be slightly sloped to catch a small amount of liquid from the curing process. Sprinkle ⅓ cup of the salt/sugar mixture directly on the piece of plastic wrap and form it into the rough outline of your salmon piece. Next place your salmon piece, skin side down, on top of the salt mixture and then top with the remaining salt mixture. Make sure it is evenly distributed and covering the salmon - you can sort of pack the mixture onto the salmon with your hands and then wrap it up in the plastic wrap tightly. Use another dinner plate to place on top of the salmon package. Place something heavy from the fridge on top or use a big rock - we have saved flat rocks over the years that work very well (our Gravlax rocks). Something roughly 2-4 lbs works well. Place in the fridge and after 24 hours, remove the plate and weight and drain off the liquid. Flip the salmon over, put the plate and weight back on and let it cure for another 24 hours. Once it is done curing take it out of the plastic wrap and rinse gently under cold water to remove the excess salt and pat dry. Your gravlax is ready to eat! It will keep in the fridge for 3 days or in the freezer for 2-3 months if vacumn-sealed or double wrapped in plastic wrap and foil.
Gravlax is wonderful sliced very thin and served on toast or bagels with Vache or other cream cheese, but have you tried it with cultured butter or in an omelette or in our creamy pasta sauce?
And now for dessert … Basque Cheesecake
We are now official Basque Cheesecake converts. It’s much easier to make than traditional cheesecake, requires no water bath, no crust, and it is almost impossible to mess up.
We looked at a few recipes and found Tavel Bristol-Joseph’s recipe to be excellent, with only a small edit of adding some salt. We’ve been baking this using our farm’s eggs with Samish Bay Cheese “Vache” cream cheese and it is delectable. The outside becomes caramelized, almost making its own crust, and the inside stays soft and creamy. It’s also not too, too sweet! A springform pan makes this a bit easier, but not at all required. It can be made in a cake pan as well. If you don’t want to make an entire recipe, trying halving it and making a smaller cake. We’ve been making 8” cakes.
And a few reminders …
Bagels are back!!!
One of the best things about the end of dry dock is that Bagelry Bagels are back on the Farmstand. Bagels are a must with Gravlox and cream cheese - always better toasted first! Just a reminder that bagels are only available for pick up on Fridays, but you have all week to get your order in (up until noon on Friday pickup days).
Egg Cartons, Please!
If you have egg cartons, we want them! We are running very low! Just leave them on the stand we’ll get them the next day.
Returned egg cartons have a special quarantine process here at Full Bloom Farm. First they quarantine in our garage for a week and then we give them a spray with alcohol before bringing them back into rotation.