Cuban Yellow Rice … using brown rice

 

Yellow Rice

Arroz Amarillo

~6 servings~

Simple, elegant, and delicious.

 

 

Ingredients:

FOR THE SOFRITO:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil or (if you’ve got it) pure Spanish olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped

1 small green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped

1 cup canned whole tomatoes

1/4 cup dry sherry

1/4 cup chopped drained pimento

1 bay leaf

 

FOR THE RICE:

2 cups raw long-grain brown rice

4 cups water

2 tsp salt

3 to 4 saffron strands

freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

In a medium-sized, deep pan (I use cast iron) over low heat, heat the oil until fragrant, then cook the garlic, onion, and bell pepper, stirring, until tender. Add the tomatoes, sherry, pimiento, and bay leaf and cook over medium high heat until most of the excess liquid has evaporated and the tomatoes have cooked down. Add the rice, water, salt, and saffron and bring to a boil. Cover with a tight-fitting lid, turn to very low heat and cook for 1 and a half hours. Gently fluff the rice and serve.

This is an adaptation from Memories of a Cuban Kitchen by Mary Urrutia Randelman and Joan Schwartz

 

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

This is the first time I have ever made the strawberry rhubarb pie from Rose Levy Beranbaum. We got the rhubarb (!!) from 3 Porch Farm in Athens, Ga and used our own strawberries. Note that I did not glaze the berries yet when I took these pics.

The Tomato Trials ~ Brandywine

Doesn’t that look dazzling? This, my friends, is the tomato that fixed HEIRLOOM TOMATOES into people’s minds. For this is the suddith brandywine.

Does it taste amazing? Yes.

Can it reach monstrous, mind-boggling size? Indeed.

Does it crack, split, and is a personal favorite of the tomato hornworm? Like none other.

Because the suddith brandywine is such a farmers market icon, we grew it. For a few years. But the amount of damaged tomatoes from splits and cracks put a seriously bitter taste in our mouths. I’m not blasting it. It is a fantastic tomato. It  just wasn’t suited for us. We have replaced it with another heirloom tomato: the original brandywine.

Turns out, there was a brandywine that was less apt to cracking and more subdued in size and better at tackling those frustrating diseases. It was from this tomato that the suddith version came from. We grew the original last summer with excellent results and have transplants tucked into pots in our greenhouse, just itching to get their roots in dirt.

Are you getting ready for summer? We are!

Leek and Potato Soup

At our farm, leeks and potatoes have a laughable overlap. But even so, we still made this excellent soup last night. Note: You can use water, but homemade chicken stock is not only better for you–it makes the soup taste even more wonderful.

~makes 2 quarts; 4 to 6 servings~

 

Ingredients:

2 lbs leeks

3 Tbs butter

2 thyme springs

1 bay leaf

Salt

1 lb potatoes, sliced thin

6 cups water or homemade chicken broth

1/3 cup heavy cream

 

Directions:

Trim off the root end and slice the leeks thin.

Melt the butter over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add the leeks, thyme, bay leaf, and salt.

Cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Then add the potatoes. Cook the potatoes for 4 minutes, then and your water or stock. Bring to a boil and turn down the heat to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are tender, but not mushy, about 30 minutes. When done, remove from the heat and stir in the cream. The soup must not boil once the cream has been added. Check for salt and serve.

~This recipe comes from Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food~

Spring is Insane

This spring has been frantic for a farm with very little being harvested in the garden plots. Four bottle-fed lambs, birthdays, visiting grandparents, backyard patio project, Athens Farmers Market starting back up, and completely rewriting a novel. Life has been busy. But in all the chaos and stress, the farm is just now beginning to produce the little red gems: Strawberries.

Strawberry Plants

All nicely mulched.

Mom and Ben picking the berries.

The little red gems.

Farm Photos – Peach Blossoms

Our peach trees are just now finishing up their blooms. Fingers crossed that we’ll be lucky enough to have a crop!

2012 Lambs ~ Chloe’s Baby

This morning, Chloe—our bottle-fed ewe—gave birth to a very large, very spotted, very cute ram-lamb.

Chloe was one of our very first bottle-fed lambs and we had a lot of nervous anxiety the first year she was due to lamb, but we never should have doubted in her natural ability. She is an excellent mother. Last year she was the last to lamb (a beautiful ewe-lamb named Penny), this year she is the first.

Now all I want to do is sit out in the pasture taking pictures. Can you blame me?

Tastes like Family Values by the Athens Food Warrior

Thank you to Lee Carella (aka Athens Food Warrior–great!) for visiting the farm and writing this STUNNING bio of our farm: Tastes like Family Values: Lazy Willow Farm – Washington, Ga. It was great to meet you and (p.s.) now whenever your name pops up on our order sheets, I smile.

~Melissa

Farm Photos – Greenhouse

This is a picture of Ben cutting baby lettuce leaves in one of our greenhouses. We used to sell mixed bags of the lettuce, but that was a LOT of work, so we’ve switched to growing lettuce heads instead.

 

Crazy Carrots

You know what they say about try, try again. When it came to carrots, we took this to heart. Before farming full time, we had had very little success growing them in our back garden, but that loosing record didn’t perturb us. No sir. We tried again when, and this time we got carrots—embarrassingly small and stringy carrots but carrots all the same!

 

It goes to show how insanely popular a vegetable they are that we sold the baby roots. (The photo makes them look big, but they were *really* tiny. But multicolored!)

We’ve kept trying, determined to have a legitimate crop, but honestly, we didn’t really believe that it would happen—at least, I didn’t.

Meet St. Valery. Our first ever carrot that reached the 3/4 lb size. I’m still giddy about the memory of pulling those suckers up.

This year has been our best ever carrot crop. We didn’t grow the variety we have in the past, but we plan on doing that next year. And now that we have experienced BIG carrots, we’ll be very, very, very sad if the small ones pay us a future visit.