Frittata

Jennifer asked the other day how I was going to use my squash and zucchini. My hubby Michael found a great recipe to use both, plus your onions and basil from the garden and your eggs from your chickens. Almost all the ingredients were produced on my tiny little backyard farm.

The recipe was found on myrecipes.com

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
2 small zucchini, chopped into 1/2-inch cubes (about 2 cups)
2 small summer squash, chopped into 1/2-inch cubes (about 2 cups)
1 small onion, coarsely chopped (1/2 cup)
12 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

Preparation

1. Melt 3 Tbsp. butter in a 10-inch ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat; add chopped zucchini, squash, and onion, and sauté 12 to 14 minutes or until onion is tender. Remove skillet from heat.

2. Whisk together eggs and next 3 ingredients until well blended. Pour over vegetable mixture in skillet.

3. Bake at 350° for 33 to 35 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and center is set. Sprinkle evenly with chopped fresh basil.

Yield

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Urban farming takes root in Detroit

Thanks Molly for sending this article to us!!!

Click here to see original article featured in BBC News.

Could growing fresh vegetables help save crumbling inner cities around the world and tackle hunger?

Putting in the spade-work at one of the charity's gardens

That is the ambitious aim of a charity called Urban Farming, which has its headquarters in Detroit, the capital of the US's wilting car industry.

The idea is very simple: turn wasteland into free vegetable gardens and feed the poor people who live nearby.

Motown has lost more than a million residents since its heyday in the 1950s and it is common to see downtown residential streets with just a few houses left standing.

Taja Sevelle saw the hundreds of hectares of vacant land in the city and came up with the idea of creating an organic self-help movement that would be "affordable (and) practical".

Beginning three years ago, armed with $5,000 (£2,500) and a pamphlet, the singer and entrepreneur managed to win a wide cross-section of support around the city. Now her charity is expanding across the US.

Ms Sevelle is also keen to discuss her ideas with the new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

With a handful of full-time staff, Urban Farming co-ordinates the cultivation of what amounts to 500 family-sized gardens across Detroit.

No greed

Visiting one of the largest allotments, on a site that had been derelict since Detroit's infamous 1967 riots, locals spoke about an astonishing transformation.

Derelict streets highlight Detroit's tough past and present

"There is something that every hand in this area can do," said Rose Stallard, who is keen to enlist as many volunteers as possible to help tend the garden and its precious crops.

As she organises a band of eager helpers to pull greens from the rich top-soil, Ms Stallard says food is more expensive than ever and neighbourhood shops are scarce.

"That's one cucumber you didn't have to pay 69 cents for," she adds, with a smile.

There are no fences but one local said greed had not been a problem.

"People are only taking what they need, because they know it's for everybody," he said.

Collective wisdom

Many of the regular gardeners come from rehabilitation programmes linked to the county jail.

Offenders say they have earned self-respect, as well as local thanks, for literally doing the spade-work.

"It's good for me to know that I'm helping somebody, instead of hurting somebody," said Reginald Moore.

Taja Sevelle and Rose Stallard are keen to expand their work

"All this is positive. Next year, you'll see this all over," added Rod Shepard.

Providing free food on the doorstep brings people together and spreads collective wisdom, according to local city hall manager Gail Carr.

"Fresh fruits and vegetables are something that we all need. And we really, really need to educate our children in that area.

"If we don't, we're going to have a lost generation to many diseases such as diabetes," she said.

The local sheriff's liaison officer, Beth Roberts, said that crime figures had improved wherever Urban Farming took root.

Growing crops also marked a return to slower but better times, she said.

"We used to do this in our backyards. This used to be a culture, a way of life, so we're restoring that through urban farming."

Future plans

As the charity expands, it remains to be seen if enough local people will do the groundwork to keep the gardens blooming.

Time to benefit from all the hard work

But the idea of permanent social change, away from the old industrial core, is something that Detroit sorely needs, according to the editorial page editor of the Detroit News, Nolan Finley.

"Today's reality is that we have a lot of vacant space, and not much economic opportunity," he said.

"You could have urban farming - you could have livestock in some of these stretches of empty land.

"You could reforest it into tree farms so you're not maintaining a sidewalk, a power line, for a street that has two houses on it."

The conversion from Motown to Growtown may seem far-fetched, but given Detroit's economic woes, marketable ideas are in big demand.

Mind Your Peas and Q's

Nothing is better than biting into a crunchy, fresh, sugar snap pea. Peas are one of my favorite plants. I love how they reach out with their vines and tendrils to grow up as high as they can. I also love their pretty blossoms when they first come out.

This year Marisa and I wanted to plant more vegetables than we usually do so we tried to figure out some space saving techniques for our vegetables. We planted our peas along one side of our garden. We placed 3 foot high stakes about 6 feet apart and then we tied twine from stake to stake at about 6 inch intervals. Then, as the peas grew we weaved them through the rope.

This method used very little space and seemed to work really well. We enjoyed a good harvest of peas this spring and we ate our peas by themselves as a snack, in salads, and even in stir fries.

It is always good to rotate your crops from year to year so next year we will plant our peas in a different area. Peas add nitrogen to the soil as they grow so it is a good idea to rotate corn into the space where you grow your peas as corn takes a lot of nitrogen out to the soil.

What space saving techniques do you recommend for backyard farmers?


~Michael

Homemade Tomato Sauce

I was given a large box of tomatoes, I gave some of them away and told my husband, Michael that I was going to make some tomato sauce with the rest. He looked at me with a look of doubt and asked, "Really?" I always have really good intentions, but sometimes my ADD tendencies get the better of me and something more exciting gets my attention.

Michael's doubt was enough of a push to prove him wrong.

After I boiled the tomatoes for one minute and gave them an ice bath, Reece was in charge of peeling and pitting the tomatoes. I was a little worried about him loosing a finger, obviously not that worried.

I read a ton of homemade tomato sauce recipes online and kind of came up with my own by combining all the things I liked from the recipes I had read. I started with about 12 tomatoes.

I picked a bunch of basil leaves off the plant in my window sill. I LOVE garlic, and wanted a lot of garlic, I think I ended up putting in about 9 cloves of garlic. The onion in my fridge was bad, so I couldn't use that, so I just poured a bunch of dried minced garlic in the sauce. Along with the box of tomatoes, I received a big bag of carrots. The night before I had pureed a ton of them and wanted to use some of the puree, I used about a cup of the carrot puree. I still had a ton of fresh carrots, so I chopped up one and threw it in as well. The day before we had picked a crook neck squash from the garden, so it was sliced and thrown in as well. Oh, about 1/4 cup of oil and 2 TBS. of sugar were also included.

Everything was thrown in the pot and simmered for 30 mins. The sauce was very chunky and didn't look like any spaghetti sauce my kids have ever eaten, so I threw it in the hand-held food processor. I didn't get a picture of it after the processor, but it isn't as chunky. It made 9 cups of sauce, I put 3 cups of sauce in individual bags and froze them for future use.

I've always heard that making your own sauces are healthier and taste better, but now I'm a believer! The sauce tastes amazing, if I do say so myself. The flavors are so rich, it tastes so fresh, and I could pronounce every ingredient I included!

Todays Harvest

3 zucchini, 3 crook neck squash, and some fresh basil

I threw some wild flower seeds around my front garden bed this spring and they are in full bloom, these yellow flowers are my favorite today.

HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION - Radical Change Taking Root

This is so inspiring to me. The Dervaes family in Pasadena Ca. has farmed their entire front and back yard with edible landscape. I also love their website, click here to view it.

Jennifer's CSA Week #3

This week's delivery was a bag of green beans, two big bulbs of garlic, a lunch sack of apricots, three cucumbers and a half pound of locally produced cheese.

~Jennifer