Visit to Accokeek Farm

Yesterday, I attended a wonderful workshop at the Accokeek Foundation titled "Successful CSAs: How to Start and Manage a Community Supported Agriculture Program". The first thing I noticed at Accokeek was their dedication to sustainability.  Below are pictures of their rain barrels and green roof (not so green in the winter). 

Not only was the event fantastic and full of great discussion about different approaches for small and mid-size farms managing CSA, but there was a wonderful local lunch provided by Chef Elaine McVinney. Lunch included mesclun salad, butternut squash lasagna, whole wheat rolls and locally made butter, local goat cheeses, apple custard pie, and whole wheat chocolate chip skillet cookies. 

What an amazing day! We covered topics as basic as "What is a CSA" to more specific details for farmers (and aspiring farmers) finding land, pricing food shares, and determining what products to grow.  I gained some fantastic insight from farmers with 28 year old farms to 2 year old farm.  I also learned that no matter how much you want to give people more food, it is important not to overwhelm costumers with too much produce that they will not know how to use.

I will keep all these lessons in mind for my future farm (you can see me dreaming about it above), as well as for the new Public Health Garden I am working on at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Note: Thanks to Deb at Just Saying for the photos!

Iris Interview

Thanks to Iris: A Magazine for Thinking Young Women for publishing this interview about the blog: Check it out!

An Exercise in Domesticity: Truly Homemade Lasagna

For Valentine's Day Weekend, my roommate and I hosted a romantic evening to celebrate love, food, friendship, and domesticity. My mom's response to this activity was that I'm a foodie fanatic or her words may have been that I am a "lunatic". My roommate says that at least I'm a "happy, well fed lunatic". Either way, this was one of my favorite meals in a long time and gave me a lot of pleasure.

We prepared all the ingredients for the lasagna from scratch including the following: ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, lasagna noodles, and pasta sauce. We also sauteed spinach in olive oil and garlic and used that as well. As you can see, most of the components of this lasagna have already been posted to the blog. The glory of this meal was putting all the pieces together.

Basic Vegetarian Lasagna (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

What You Need
- 1 pound lasagna noodles
- 1 pound mozzarella
- 2 cups ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (freshly grated)
- 32 ounces whole tomatoes (we used the ones my roommate and her family canned from their farm this summer, the can includes a handful of basil leaves)
- 4 tablespoon olive oil
- 6 cloves garlic, crushed
- Salt and pepper to taste
- "A couple glugs red one"
- Several cups baby spinach

What You Do
1. Prepare the ricotta cheese, if making at home.
2. While you are waiting for the ricotta, prepare the mozzarella, if making at home.
3. Prepare the noodles, if making at home.
4. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a medium sized pot.
5. Add 4 cloves garlic and allow to heat on medium (2 minutes) Do not burn.
6. Add can of tomatoes, basil, "glugs of wine" (which means just a couple little pours from the bottle), and a little salt and pepper.
7. Break up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon and allow sauce to simmer which you finish getting everything else prepared (minimum of 10 minutes).
8. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add in the last 2 cloves garlic to a mid-sized pan.
9. Saute spinach.
10. Add spinach to the ricotta cheese.
11. Assemble the lasagna in the following order: sauce, noodles, ricotta mixture, sauce, noodles, ricotta mixture, sauce, noodles, sauce, sliced mozzarella.
12. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
13. Put lasagna into a preheated oven at 375 degrees.
14. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden and bubbling.
15. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Excellent and worth trying. The whole process took us 3 hours total from start to finish (which includes 1 hour of waiting for ricotta and 35-45 minutes waiting for the lasagna to bake). We were able to pass the time listening to music, snacking on bread with olive oil, garlic, and balsamic vinegar, and enjoying some wine.

The Winning Birthday Cake

The winning birthday cake recipe was a combination of a couple that my roommate and I reviewed over the past few months. My roommate ended up making the Cocoa Layer Cake, previously posted to the blog. The major difference from the initial post was that the instead of using a layer of icing in the middle, she spread raspberry jam. Wow! What a fantastic combination. For the frosting, she used the frosting from the Chocolate-Red Wine Cake, which just involves 3/4 cup hot cream and 3/4 cup chocolate chips. This birthday cake was perfect and, of course, I enjoyed all the trial runs.

As you can see, I was a happy birthday girl.