It has been delightful

One of my fondest memories as a child was sitting around a large mixing bowl of strawberries, most of which had been consumed by my family during a visit from multiple great aunts and uncles visiting us in the Northwest all the way from Kansas. We used to say, “Kansas is coming,” and that meant time spent together telling stories (or in my case, listening), and eating good food while planning out the next meal. 

I also recall the satisfaction of eating my Mom’s blackberry cobbler after picking berries from the bushes found just about everywhere you turn in Oregon, or the summery taste of fresh, just picked tomatoes from my grandparents yard and turning them into the perfect tomato sandwich.

Good food has a remarkable way of linking us to memories with loved one’s, good experiences, and giving us a sense of comfort.

My time in Virginia has come to and end, and sadly, so has my time with The Farm Table. I write this post-move, as my husband, children, and I have officially moved back to Oregon for work, and to be near the support of family chomping at the bit to get their hands on their grandchildren/niece/nephews/cousins/you get the idea. 

We will  have fond memories of Virginia — the people, the culture, and THE FOOD! The Farm Table has nourished us, broadened our cooking experiences, and given us the opportunity to connect with a welcoming food community that has fed us in so many ways.

Long Island cheese squash, mushrooms, bibb lettuce, beets, and yes,  Brussels sprouts, will bring up cherished memories of our time in RVA.

Thanks for reading my posts over the last year and a half.  I have had a wonderful time blogging for all of you, and am flattered that you have read my posts, or better yet, decided to Follow The Tractor!

I do hope you will stay tuned as The Farm Table ushers in a new blogger who will offer his or her brand of creativity, good recipes, and food-inspired posts.

Thank you for everything,

Michele

Grow. Eat. Share.

If you are a Farm Table member and received a box yesterday, you learned that today is Food Revolution Day, a global day of action focusing on good food, and keeping cooking skills alive.

Now this is something we can get behind!

We had the opportunity to visit the students at Linwood-Holton Elementary school in North Richmond today, where program staff were engaging a group of students who visited Holton’s outdoor garden and learning classroom.

Students were able to tour the garden, learn about composting and growing their own food, and worked together to make lunch from scratch using basic ingredients from the garden. The results were delicious!

Schools and organizations across the globe are participating in activities today, in an effort to promote cooking traditions by preparing good food, and teach children the importance of passing those traditions on. We were pleased to see these traditions taught in our own backyard, and were proud sponsors of the Food Revolution Day‘s Junior Chef Cooking Contest held at Kitchen Thyme and West Broad Street yesterday. To learn more about Food Revolution Day check out Jamie Oliver’s website where you will find recipes to share with your children.

What sorts of things are you doing to get the young people in your life cooking and eating fresh, whole food that is good for them? What kind of traditions are you passing down to them? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below, or on our Facebook page! Please share!

Fresh Spinach Dip

 

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Harvest Hill Farm Member Event this past Saturday. It was a wonderful way to get out in the country, enjoy a piece of the farm life, nosh on some great food, and watch the pigs do what they do best…eat!

The Farm Table prides itself on the community you have helped to build over the last few years, and we look forward to being able to get together over the course of the 2013 season to celebrate good farming, good food, and  good people. 

If you were unable to make it out to the farm last weekend, then you missed out on the fresh spinach dip that Richmond Area Manager, Patty Loyde brought. We’d like to introduce you to Patty, and share her spinach dip recipe using Farm Table ingredients:

Originally a product of the suburbs in both New Jersey, where she grew up, and Henrico County, where she lived after graduating from the University of Richmond, Patty Loyde and her husband John are now Fan dwellers in the city of Richmond – and can’t imagine living anywhere else. Patty started as a Neighborhood Coordinator in the summer of 2012 for the Fan,and has now added the positions of Central Richmond Area Manager and Bookkeeper, aka Chief Number Cruncher, to her duties this year.

Patty loves to travel and watch movies, plays tennis year-round, tends her small city garden, and cooks from scratch, when not checking out the local Fan restaurant scene (Olio, Fresca, and Mint are some of her favorites). She attempts to eat a diet of unprocessed food whenever possible, striving for progress, not perfection. The  Farm Table makes that goal so much easier!

Fresh Spinach Dip, By Patty Loyde (Print Full Recipe Here)

I made this spinach dip for the Harvest Hill Farm Member Event and served it with tortilla scoops. I love that I was able to use the spinach, onions
and garlic from that week’s box and that I didn’t need to use the package of highly processed soup mix I usually do to make it. It turned out just as good, if not better than the ole’ standby, often served in a bread bowl.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• ½ cup shredded or finely diced carrot
• ½ cup finely diced spring onions, white and light green parts
• ¼ cup finely diced spring garlic, white and light green parts
• 1 full bag of spinach
• salt & fresh ground black pepper
• ¼ cup diced spring onions, dark green parts
• 1 cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, if you prefer
• ½ cup Miracle Whip or mayo, if you prefer
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• Finish with: salt & pepper and onion & garlic powders, to taste

Directions:

• Clean and dry the spinach well.
• Heat the oil in a large pan and sauté the carrots, onions, garlic, salt and pepper until softened. Transfer to a bowl.
• Using the same pan, sauté the spinach in a little more salt and pepper, tossing occasionally, until all the spinach is wilted. You may need to do it in batches, depending on the size of your pan.
• Transfer the cooked spinach to a strainer and remove as much liquid as you can by pressing with a spoon or ladle. Place on a few layers of paper towels, top with more paper towels and press to remove additional liquid.
• Finely chop the spinach and add to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients.
• Stir well and chill for at least 2 hours to combine flavors.
• After being chilled, finish with salt & pepper and onion & garlic powders to taste. If you’re serving with salty chips, the dip won’t need as much salt.

A Progressive Party, Rosedale Style

Vodka Spiked Lemons and Oranges

My family and I live on the North side of Richmond. Rosedale, to be exact. Our block is a modest neighborhood with wonderful neighbors who help take care of one another, and it seems that one household after another is having a baby (maybe it’s the water?).

We have a lot of young children in our neighborhood. Kids naturally want to play with other kids, and that forces us sometimes anti-social adults to interact with one another. With the neighborhood tots at the center of it all, we have formed a tight-knit community to be proud of. We look after each other’s children, celebrate their birthdays, check in on each other’s pets, and borrow a cup of sugar from each other from time to time.

I think that is something to celebrate. 

A couple of weekends ago we held our 2nd-annual progressive party. If you are not familiar with a traditional progressive party, you move from one house to the next, progressing through each course of a meal — appetizers, main course, dessert — you get the picture.

Instead of progressing through each course of a meal, we asked our hosts to pair an appetizer with a drink, and then we moved from one house to the next. The destination? A backyard campfire with desserts , and drinks.

Neighbors who were not interested in hosting, brought something to share at the end, potluck style. Some of us co-hosted, and we spent about 30-45 minutes at each house. The more houses involved, the less time you generally spend at each house, but you make it what you want, and flexibility is key. In the end, it all works out.

I thought you might enjoy a recipe one of our neighbors came up with, along with links to some of the many other delicious food and drinks we enjoyed together, if not for a future progressive party, maybe for your New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Rosedale’s Mini-Tostadas

Ingredients:

• Meat: duck, chicken or pork all work well — you get to decide.
• Spicy Red Mole Sauce (makes approx 3 quarts): 4 tomatoes, 1 jalapeño pepper, 1 yellow onion, chopped, 1 red bell pepper, 1/2 Habanero pepper (leave Habanero out for a milder sauce). 1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds, 2 tbsp. white sesame seeds, 1 tbsp chopped garlic, 1 quart chicken or veggie stock, 1 tbsp ground cumin, 1 star anise pod, 1tbsp chile powder, 2 bay leaves, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 bunch cilantro, sour cream, 1 wheel Mexican chocolate.
• Round tostadas (small round tortilla chips work perfectly)
• Sour Cream (light works well)
• Cilantro, pulled from the stem

Directions:

• Roast meat and the pull into bite sized pieces after it is cooked.
• To make the Spicy Red Mole Sauce: Chop peppers, onion, tomatoes. Roast in oven at 375 until they begin to brown, about 1/2 hour. Mix all other ingredients together with stock, let simmer. Add roasted veggies. Simmer until chocolate is dissolved. Purée mixture. Add 1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped. Add cooked pulled meat into sauce.
• Lay out round tostadas, place small amount of sauce covered meat on each.
• Top with a small dollop of sour cream and 1 cilantro leaf.

Here are links to some of the other tasty treats we enjoyed:

• White Sangria and/or Red Sangria
• Vegan Cupcakes
  
• Bacon Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese
  
• Spiked Hot Apple Cider
  
• Spanikopita
• Sausage, Cranberries, and Mushroom Puff Pastry 
• Martha Stewart’s Eggnog
• Mexican Brownies

Want to arrange your own progressive party, or celebrate the New Year? Do it. It’s easy and oh so worth it to celebrate the good people in your life.

Oh, and The Farm Table wants you to be safe, so if you have to travel, please designate a driver and come up with a special non-alcoholic beverage for your teetotaling guest. 

Happy Holidays!

Vegan Cuisine meets The Farm Table: A Blog Give Away

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to review Vegan Eats World (2013), and Viva Vegan! (2010) by Terry Hope Romero, a Venezuelan-American, award-winning vegan chef, living in Queens, NYC, who is known for her bestselling cookbooks, including Veganomicon, and her blog Vegan Latina.

When the cookbooks arrived at my doorstep a few weeks ago, I put my boys down for a nap, made a hot cup of tea, and sat down to pour over the recipes, (I’ll take a good cookbook over 50 shades of you know what any day…).

What I appreciate most about both cookbooks is that you don’t have to be a vegan to appreciate vegan food, rather, Terry gives you the tools to treat vegan cooking as any other cuisine, opening the door to so many possibilities. Whether you are looking to get a few meat-free meals on the dinner table during the week, have dairy-challenged members in your family, are a seasoned vegan cook, or are looking to make a lifestyle change, these cookbooks give you the basic vegan cooking know-how to expand your culinary repertoire. Secondly, Terry talks to you, not at you, which makes a cookbook like this accessible to everyone.

Vegan Eats World is a collection of recipes pulling from cooking traditions around the planet, and allows you to experience Italian, Mediterranean, Asian and many other traditions in a new, surprising, and potentially more healthful way. Vegan Eats World is broken down into three sections:

• Kitchen Cartography: a guide to vegan pantry basics, cooking terminology, and cooking techniques. Terry guides you through the basic ingredients to keep on hand for easy vegan cooking, such as masa harina for Mexican cooking, hoisin sauce for Asian cooking, cous cous for African cooking, and aleppo-pepper flakes for Middle Eastern cooking.
• Recipes: Terry provides a basic introduction to each recipe, giving the reader a background for each dish, variations you can try out, suggested pairings with other recipes in the book — all of which entice you to try out a dish that might otherwise intimidate. The recipe section includes, among many others: spice blends, proteins, sauces, sandwiches, entrees,  and desserts. Terry even put together easy markers, so you know if a recipe is for the beginner, if it is gluten-free, or if it is easy on the wallet.
• Menus, Online Resources, etc: Terry crafted together menu suggestions so that the amateur or seasoned vegan cook can easily round out a meal.

Vegan Eats World helps answer the question, “What if the world was vegan?” and would be a wonderful addition to even the world’s biggest “meat-and-potatoes” cookbook library, and is a fabulous option for people with gluten allergies.

Viva Vegan! reads like a novel, and I am especially drawn to it given my affinity for Latin food. The format to Viva Vegan! is very similar to Vegan Eats World, only with a guide to creating a “Vegan Latin Pantry,” and recipes focusing solely on Latin cooking (not just Mexican cooking). The cookbook offers essential “Latino Vegan” recipes like Annatto-Infused Oil or a Basic Onion-Pepper Sofrito, to Salsas, Empanadas, Ensaladas, and mouth-watering concoctions that combine what Terry calls, “Los Dos Amigos,” also known as beans and rice.

Terry has an entire section on making vegan tamales, which includes shopping for ingredients, preparing corn husks, and prepping your work station, so that this laborious food option becomes a little less intimidating. Want to make Black Bean-Sweet Potato Tamales with Farm Table produce? Terry will walk you through it. 

Viva Vegan! is also a great option for people who would like to eat Latin food, but fear that it is too spicy. Guess what? Not all Latin food is spicy, and Terry includes these non-spicy options for those who can’t stand the heat. 

There are not a lot of photos in this cookbook, so if that is something that is important to you, know that before purchasing. My two cents? The introduction she gives to each recipe, and the way she walks you through each ingredient and how to create each dish makes the amount of photos the book contains unnecessary. 

Many thanks to Terry Hope Romero and her publishers for allowing us to present these two cookbooks to you, and to offer you the opportunity to own Vegan Eats World and Viva Vegan! in our blog give away. We are also pleased to be able to share one recipe from each book, which I will test out and post here in the coming weeks! Stay Tuned!

The outcome of my first Vegan recipe from Vegan Eats World using Shiitake Mushrooms from the The Farm Table’s Garden Box  “Takeout Stir-Fry Noodles with Mushrooms and Greens.”

To enter our Blog Give Away:

• Farm Table members get 1 entry for simply being a Farm Table member. Just comment on this post telling us you are a current Farm Table member, and which book you would prefer if you won the give away.
• Sign up for this blog  to the right under “Follow The Tractor” to receive email updates on future posts, then comment letting us know you’ve done so. If you already follow us, just let us know in your comment.
• “Like” us on Facebook and then comment under this post letting us know you’ve done so.
• Follow us on Twitter @TheFarmTable, and then comment under this post letting us know.
• Follow us on Pinterest, and then comment under this post letting us know.
• “Like” this post and then comment below letting us know you’ve done so.

Blog Give Away Details: Each comment counts as one entry and you have up to 6 chances to enter if you are Farm Table member, and 5 chances to enter if you are a non-member. We will choose two winners at random. One winner will receive Vegan Eats World, and a separate winner will receive Viva Vegan! Entries must be submitted by 9:00pm EST, Wednesday, November 28, 2012. The give away is open to The Farm Table blog readers in the US and Canada only. 

The give away is closed.

Congratulations to Kathleen Bowden who will be sent Viva Vegan! and Jessica Clarke who will be sent Vegan Eats World. Look for your copies in the mail!

Friday Night Is Pizza Night

The Farm Table would like to introduce to you to one of its members, Jennifer Burns, a mother of three: Asher (2nd grade), Grace (1st grade), and Calvin (16-month old). While she is a new member this year, the fresh and local food movement has long been  a commitment  of her’s, a commitment built on a concern for her family’s health and environmental sustainability . What draws us to Jenn are the established food traditions in her family, and the somewhat laborious tasks she takes on in the kitchen (i.e. grinding her own wheat!), both of which we have great respect for.

Allow us to introduce you to this self-proclaimed ‘army brat’ who met her husband while they both attended Georgia Southern University:

After Ryan and I moved to Richmond and had our first two children, I fell down the rabbit hole of whole foods and “natural” living, and developed roots in this city without realizing it. After an almost 3 year stint away from RVA — Redemption Hill offered Ryan a position as Director of Operations — we jumped at the chance to move back to Richmond, a place we officially call “home” now. A few months after moving back to Richmond we discovered baby Calvin would be making an appearance the next summer (Virginia is for lovers, right?). Some time during all those travels I decided that being a Christian, stay-at-home health nut mom that grinds her own wheat and makes her own deodorant and lip balm wasn’t weird enough, so we home school too. 

When we decided I would stay home after our first child was born, I began reading and learning about nutrition and natural living (he was a very mellow baby — I had time to read that year). At first  I was pretty hardcore (making deodorant? Really? Yes.). However, over the years, with the addition of children and homeschooling, I’ve had to cut back on many extracurricular “natural living” type projects in order to maintain a somewhat orderly household AND my sanity. “Different people can handle different things” has been my mantra! I was so intense about food preparation, and making as much as possible from scratch to save money so that I could use high quality food, that it’s hard for me to think of the way I cook now as being labor intensive. I admit I do still grind my own wheat berries for flour, but that’s mostly for pizza dough these days. I have been buying bread (gasp!), and I make most of our pancakes and muffins with almond meal or coconut flour. I do like to make sauces and baked goods from scratch, not just for my vampire (garlic intolerant) child, but I like having control over all the little ingredients and sneaking in veggies, like beets and kale, when I get the chance.

The biggest food tradition we have (which never occurred to me as a “food tradition” before) is Pizza Night, a tradition carried on from my childhood. Nearly every Friday we make pizza and watch a movie. When other things come up and Pizza Night cannot be bumped to Saturday, my kids tend to have a hard time. It is THAT big of a deal. I’d like to say it’s because my pizza is amazing, but it’s more likely the fact that we get to eat and watch a movie…Ok, mostly the movie. They’re rarely excited about the leftover pizza for lunch on Sunday as it is not served with television. 

Pizza dough recipe found here

I decided to give The Farm Table a go this year because it sounded like what I needed. In an ideal world we would eat primarily local, organic fruits and vegetables, and pastured animal products. Unfortunately I don’t live in that world, so we do what we can, which varies day-to-day. I like the idea of farmers markets, but I get tense and flustered in crowds. Trying to make menu, budget, and grocery decisions in that sort of environment, oh! Last year we joined a traditional CSA, which I thought was my solution. I did enjoy the idea (again with the ideas) of supporting “A Farm,” thus a specific connection to “A Food” source, but unfortunately the downside of one source is that it wasn’t feasible to supply the variety that my family would be more likely to eat with a good attitude. Also, sad though it may be, running out to the pickup location with three children very close to dinner time, wasn’t exactly roses (maybe the stems…). Enter The Farm Table. I’m told what to expect the week before (so I can plan), there’s a nice variety each week, and (drumroll please) I never have to leave my house. I would say it’s been all I hoped for, but that sounds like something my overly dramatic daughter would say (but really, it has been!). There has been much less gnashing of teeth from the vegetable-challenged members of my peanut gallery than last year. 

So far the only thing I couldn’t tackle this season was the daikon radish. There’s a good bit of food that only I enjoy (cabbage, most greens….) and I deal with that by serving it once as a dinner side that week and eating the rest for my lunches. The enormous radish just didn’t work out that way. Even I, the human garbage disposal, can only eat so much radish!

As we approach the holidays, is there a family food tradition that has been passed down in your family, a sneaky way you feed veggies to your children, or another inspiring story you have to tell?  Do you have a recipe you would like to share with The Farm Table community? We want to know?  Contact us at support@thefarmtable.org with your recipes, tips, and traditions.

Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing  your food and family life with us! 

Sun & Sangria at Grayhaven Winery, and an Apple Butter Recipe

Many thanks to everyone who joined us at our 2nd annual Farm Table event at Grayhaven Winery last Sunday. We loved the food, the wine, and the company!

Here are some highlights:

Grayhaven Winery

The corn pool was a hit with the kids

The food was a hit with the adults

Face painting by Ingrid

Small batch cooking of apple butter by Heather

Farm Table produce shared among friends

Farm Table members, check your newsletter for recipes of some of the tasty dips we enjoyed. If you joined us on Sunday, you undoubtedly took home some of The Farm Table’s slow batch apple butter — delicious! If you missed out, here is Area Manager, Heather Jeffrey’s recipe, handed down from her Grandmother “Baba”, so you can make your own! When asked if she made any adaptations to this recipe recipe she responded, “use a food processor rather than a sieve or mill, use Virginia apples rather than Vermont, and use a chilled plate rather than a dish of snow.”

Enjoy!

BABA’S APPLE BUTTER

INGREDIENTS & EQUIPMENT NEEDED

• 4 lbs of good cooking apples 
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• Honey (about 4 cups)
• Salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1 wide 8-quart pan (Stainless steel or copper with stainless steel lining)
• A food mill/processor

DIRECTIONS

1. Prepping your fruit

•  Cut the apples into quarters, without peeling or coring them.

2. First Stage of Cooking

• Put them into large pot, add the vinegar and water, cover, bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat to simmer and cook until apples are soft, about 20 minutes.
• Remove from heat.
• Ladle apple mixture into your food processor. 
• Measure out purée adding 1/2 cup of honey for each cup of apple pulp. Stir to dissolve the honey.
• Add a dash of salt, cinnamon, ground cloves, and allspice.
• Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.

3. Second Stage of Cooking

• Cook uncovered in a large, wide, thick-bottomed pot on medium low heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Scrape the bottom of the pot while you stir, making sure nothing is crusting to the bottom of the pan.
• Cook until thick and smooth, about 1 to 2 hours.
• A small bit spooned onto a chilled (in the freezer) plate will be thick, not runny. You can also cook the purée on low heat, stirring only occasionally, but this will take much longer as stirring encourages evaporation.

Get To Know: The Farm Table, Part III

We love the community you have helped The Farm Table build. Our Members, Area Managers, Farmers, and our Neighborhood Coordinators, together, make a difference in supporting our local economy, and building a food community that brings farmers and families together. Eating local food creates jobs, boosts the economy, promotes health and well-being, and supports a healthy environment with thriving communities.

We are thrilled with the outpouring of support our members have shown toward helping the Flores Farm expand their irrigation system. Through your generous help, Flores Farms will be able to double the amount of irrigated fields on their 50-acre farm, ultimately allowing them to increase the variety of produce they provide next season. The Farm Table and the Flores Farm are grateful for the generosity our members have shown thus far — please keep it coming. What a difference you are making! 

In our Get to Know series, we’d like to share more about the Flores Farm, and introduce you to a few more of the Farm Table team who link you to your local farmers. Thank you for reading and keeping it local!

Since immigrating to this country two decades ago, Virginia farmer Gerardo Flores has become known for his ability to grow such rare vegetables as sorrel, purslane, Japanese daikon radishes, and more than fifteen types of hot peppers. Gerardo and his son Omar farm fifty acres of produce on the Northern Neck and count Hispanic and Asian produce buyers in the Washington, DC, area among their customers. Even so, according to Omar, “With the agriculture economy the way it is, we weren’t sure we were going to make it.” Having a network of families supporting local farmers has helped to add as much as $1,000 a week to a farmer’s income,  “Some weeks that’s what keeps us in business,” says Omar. “For us, this is the future.”

Peter Pickering is a former Neighborhood Coordinator turned Area Manager.

“I manage driving the truck.

They call me The Pirate and the truck is my ship.

I plunder the 7 seas for the finest produce, and deliver only the most excellent treasures to the people.

I am a graduate student at VCU studying counselor education.

I have a small farm with my wife.

We have chickens and guineas, bunnies and ducks.”

Shari Fowler joined The Farm Table and began making deliveries early last year, shortly after The Farm Table began operations. She added newsletter duties a few weeks later and has been doing it ever since.

She is originally from Dayton, Ohio where she met her husband Chris of 23 years. She lived in Central PA, and Apex, NC before moving to Richmond two years ago with her children Dana (13), and Curtis (11), and their 14-year-old German Wirehaired Pointer, Emma.

Shari used to have her own garden, but since her current property isn’t ideally suited for it, she decided to do the “next best thing” and become a Farm Table member. A self described “foodie”, Shari likes to entice her family with fun and creative ways to eat nutritious, tasty cuisine. Her favorite new food this season were the oyster mushrooms, “They looked freakish but were oh-so-delicious simply grilled over an open flame with olive oil.”

Shari is the owner and creator of Iberian Inspirations Natural and Organic Body Polishes and Body Butters. In her spare time, Shari grows exotic plants and orchids, hikes, kayaks, practices yoga, and listens to music.

To help us celebrate our local food community, and meet The Farm Table team, join us at Grayhaven Winery on Sunday, October 21st at 1:00pm. Bring a picnic blanket, the kids, and a batch of dip to share for our second annual fall dip-off! Kick off your shoes and enjoy a glass of small-batch crafted wine by the masters at Grayhaven. Observe or participate as we create our own batch of homemade apple butter to jar and send home with our members. Kids can enjoy face painting, a corn pool, nature trails, and the animals at Grayhaven. Check your official Evite to RSVP.

Dinner Time Woes? 14 Free Printables For Your Kids

You’ve received your weekly Farm Table box.

You’ve written your weekly meal plan.

You’ve washed, sorted, and properly stored your produce . 

Now it’s time to actually prepare dinner and you find that adults and kids alike are running on empty. Everyone is a tad cranky, the kids are bouncing off of the walls, and you are gritting your teeth trying to get something that resembles a meal on the table for your family to enjoy and not lose your mind.

We think getting children involved in the meal and table preparation is a great way to teach them new skills, foster independence and confidence, and create lasting memories for everyone. We also know that sometimes that task is unrealistic, especially with more complicated meals, and those nights when you are short on patience and time.

Check out these 14 fun printables that you can print now, prep, and pull out when you need the extra help — that’s 2 weeks worth of extra help! They are fun, seasonal, and educational. You’re welcome!

We still think they should help set the table though!

• Fall Food (KBTeachers)
• From Plant To Food (Montessori for Everyone)
• Fall Leaves color by numbers (Live.Create.Learn)
• Learning about Nutrition (Nourish Interactive)
• Annie’s Corn Cakes coloring page recipe (Jan Brett)
• Halloween Toys & Crafts (Made By Joel)
• Life cycle of a pumpkin activity and printable (A to Z Teacher Stuff)
• Scarecrow Maze (Busy Bee Kids)
• Where Things Come From  (Montessori for Everyone)
• 10 Fall Halloween Songs (Katie Yeh)
• Plant Life Cycle (Exploring Nature)
• Acorn Connect-the-dots (Busy Bee Kids)
• Mr. Gallon Man (The Teacher Website)
• Fall Reading Challenge Chart (Homeschool Creations)

You can make an appetizer plate to stave off hunger with sliced fruit, veggies, and dip. Don’t worry about it spoiling dinner. Who cares as long as you are eating fruits and vegetables!

What dinner time tricks do you have up your sleeve?

The Joys of Dirty Rice

Farm Table member and guest blogger Christen Miller, who shared her Maque Choux recipe in her last post, is back to teach us how to make another regional dish, “Dirty Rice,” substituting eggplant for the more traditional pork liver. Christen’s food mentor, Gussie Thibodaux (originally from Louisiana), taught her how to make this dish when they were neighbors living in Texas :

One of the things I love about regional cooking is sometimes the names are…colorful. 

A favorite of mine for years is that classic Cajun dish, Dirty Rice, also known as Rice Dressing, but that’s not nearly as fun to say or serve!

I learned my version in Gussie’s kitchen in Galveston, and I’ll give it to you just as she taught me, and add my changes as notes…either way it’s delicious and you’ll love it.

Traditionally dirty rice is made with chicken or pork liver. As this cooks, it breaks down, giving it the “dirty” look it’s named after. Gussie told me she couldn’t stand liver in any way, shape or form, so she substituted a surprising ingredient — eggplant. As eggplant always has and always will be one of my favorite foods, I was thrilled. 

The trick is to brown everything well as it adds a richness to the dish, and of course use the “holy trinity” of onion, celery, and bell pepper!

Gussie Thibodaux’s Dirty Rice

Ingredients:

• 1 lb lean ground beef (I use veggie crumbles)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 bell pepper, finely chopped (I use red also if I have it)
• 2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 whole or ½ large eggplant, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground thyme
• 1 tsp Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning, or to taste
• 2 tablespoons of oil
• 2 tablespoons of flour
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cup long grain white rice (I use long grain brown rice or brown basmati)
• 2 cups chicken stock (I use vegetable broth), plus a little extra

Directions:

• Cook the rice with the broth according to package directions. This can be done while you are cooking everything else.
• In a non-stick or cast iron skillet brown the meat or veggie crumbles well, and chop with the spatula while cooking to make sure it’s finely broken. Once it’s cooked, remove to a bowl and remove any excess fat from the pan.
• Add some good oil if needed (coconut or Extra Virgin Olive Oil), and add all the vegetables at once along with the seasoning. Cook and stir until they are all nicely browned, then remove from the pan and add to the meat/veggie crumbles you have set to the side. You can leave any left over oil in the pan at this point.
• Now you make a roux! Heat the 2 Tbs of oil in the pan on medium heat, then add the flour. Cook and stir continuously until the flour is a lovely brown color – almost as dark as a copper penny. Do not rush this, and don’t use too high heat or it will burn before it browns!
• Add the meat/veggie crumble and browned vegetables back in to the pan, and stir to coat with the roux. Gently stir in the cooked rice, and if it seems a bit dry, add some broth a little at a time.
• Serve as a side, but it also makes a great main dish with a salad and some bread.

Enjoy!