Driftless Appetite

It’s raspberry season so naturally I had to make a special trip to my favorite berry farm, Bures Berry Patch.  I called Cathy Bures a few days before going to the farm wanting 10 lbs.  She was surprised that I wanted that much so I reduced my order to 5 lbs. so as not to appear too nutty.  If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, I have a penchant for buying ridiculous amounts of berries for a two person household.  See what I mean here for strawberries and here for blueberries.  The best way to freeze berries is to spread them evenly on a sheet pan and freeze.  After that, you can transfer them into freezer bags.  That way you end up with individual berries not a huge block.

Continue reading Whole Wheat Raspberry Pancakes

Meet Matt Sweeny of Simple Earth Hops.  He is a farmer whose passion is ethically grown hops for local beer producers. 

Simple Earth Hops is a new 1/4 acre hopyard located at Greenspirit Farm CSA in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The hopyard was founded with the idea of providing a much needed agricultural product for local craft brewers. Simple Earth Hops was established to demonstrate that local farmers can produce a consistent, sustainable supply of ultra high quality hops by working directly with local craft brewers while still maintaining a focus on ecology, the land and the people involved.

Matt with hops.  (Photo by Renea Sweeny, Simple Earth Hops)

Continue reading Hoppin’ Good Time with Matt Sweeny

Earlier in the spring we had the opportunity to visit the Wiesbrook farm in Mineral Point.  Clare Wiesbrook (pictured below with several of her happy and carefree goats) owns and runs Lacey’s Lathers, a goat’s milk soap business.  It is named after her very first goat Lacey who won Grand Champion Doe three times at the Iowa Country Fair.  Clare started her business in the spring of 2000 at the age of eleven.  What were you doing around that age?  Me?  I was probably singing to MMM Bop on the radio or pining after Jonathan Taylor Thomas.  (Keith is too embarassed to publish the nerdy activities he was up to.) 

My favorite picture from the drizzly afternoon.  I love how Cathy (Clare’s mother) is smiling at them.

Clare and I met at the Mineral Point Market where I’ve bought some of her goats’ milk soaps and lotion bars.  I love her products so much that I often give them away as gifts to family and friends.  They are lightly scented, some with lavender, vanilla, strawberry, orange, or mint.  She varies the scents with the seasons and unscented ones are  also available.  The soaps are gentle and creamy without leaving a slippery film unlike most commercial soaps.  In the winter, I like to use the solid lotion bars because they are very rich and thick.  My favorites last winter were the chocolate and nutmeg scented ones.

Continue reading Promote the Goat: Lacey’s Lathers

Last Saturday, Keith and I went to the first Mineral Point Market of the season.  The air was slightly cool and perfumed with lilacs and apple blossoms, the sun was shining, and everyone was glad to be  out of hibernation.  Our first stop was the Bures Berry Patch stand for their asparagus because they usually run out pretty fast.  Next was a nice challah bread from Bob and Mike.  I’ve never noticed before but they also carry cheesecakes and chocolate truffles (something I’ll have to try next time).  The BBQ sauce at Marr’s Valley View Farm caught my eye, Big Butz BBQ Sauce with cranberry so we bought a pint sized jar along with some pork shoulder.  I stopped by to chat with Claire of Lacey’s Lathers  and to smell some of her goats milk soaps and lotion bars while Keith made a beeline towards Mark’s table to get himself a cinnamon roll and a cherry croissant for me.  After that we admired some of Mike’s prize winning photos of Magic Light Photography.  Of course, one cannot miss the Shooting Star Farms  booth.  Rink and Jenny have the best vegetables.  We purchased some yu choy (on the far left of the pic), parsley, and ramps.  Rink informed me that he will have about 10 varieties of eggplant (my favorite fruit/vegetable) coming up this summer.  Our last stop was at the King’s Hill Farm table.  We bought some onions and an herb that was new to me called lovage.  It smelled a lot like celery.  Because of its name it has been used in many “love tonics” though it actually refers to the Latin name of where the herb first thrived (in Liguria, Italy).  Anyway, I’m going to use it when I make matzo ball soup later in the week.  Maybe Keith will finally fall in love with me!  Hey, anything can happen right?

…Chase him around the yard!  (Sorry, that was the best apple joke I could find).

Our normal apple orchard is Oakwood Fruit Farm in Richland Center.  This year we decided to be a bit more adventurous and drive the extra 30 minutes to Gays Mills.  Gays Mills is a tiny little town with with a roughly 1:1 apple orchard to resident ratio.  The best orchards (for tourists, anyways,) are all lined up on highway 171 just east of town.  Gays Mills suffered so much damage to its downtown during the flooding a few years ago that they are actually relocating much of the town to higher ground.  I thought they only did that kind of thing on the Simpsons…

Continue reading How do you make an Apple Puff?

I’m continuing to explore my new found love for beets.  I had some roasted ones leftover  so I decided to incorporate them into today’s breakfast.  Voila!  I came up with these wonderful “Red Velvet” pancakes.  They looked a little strange on their own so I decided to make another batch using browned butter for a nice contrast.  I used the “Good Old Fashioned Pancakes” recipe from Allrecipes.

Continue reading “Red Velvet” & Browned Butter Pancakes

I’ve never liked beets and I never will.  To me they tasted like plain old dirt.  That’s what I used to think.  Even hearing the word made me cringe with disgust.  However, every Saturday morning for the past few weeks Rink and Jenny from Shooting Star Farm have been bringing them to the farmer’s market.  Everything Keith and I  have purchased from them has been excellent.  Their stuff is so much better than anything we can grow that our garden has turned into a rabbit buffet.  Shooting Star Farm supplies vegetables to local restaurants including L’Etoile in Madison.  In fact right now L’Etoile is featuring a salad using their beets.  (If you follow this link a week from now it probably will have changed since they frequently update their menu).  If it’s good enough for Tori Miller, it’s good enough for me.  With that said I finally decided to try them.  Rink advised me to roast them to get the best flavor.

Continue reading Beets me why people love this stuff

This is our second summer at the “Button Hill” (our house is on a small hill).  We named it after Keith’s grandparent’s house in England called the “Buttonwood” (not in a small wood). Haha.  I love how English homes have names and how they are part of their official address so we decided to adopt the idea.

I have a small garden out back that is about 10′ x 15′.  Half of it has been taken over by the zucchini plant.  There are  some herbs (oregano, chives, rosemary, parsley, & basil).  One corner has rhubarb and the rest are peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant.  Next to the garden plot are some grapevines that were planted by previous owners of the house Jennie & Ryan.  They didn’t yield any fruit last year but they are fruiting like mad this year.  I’m so excited!  Bordering the other side of the garden are some red-orange hued daililies.  They are supposed to be edible and taste like creamy sweet onions but I have not tried them yet.  We also have a huge apple tree that’s about 40 ft. tall.  Sounds kinda nice until fall comes around and we have to pick up the fallen smelly rotten fruit!  Ollie (our Tibetan Terrier Poodle) especially loves to eat them.  Oh well, everything has a bad side.

I don’t have a picture of the entire garden/backyard because it looks like a jungle but here are some up close snapshots : )

Oregano Blossoms and Chives

Continue reading The “Button Hill” Edibles

I have been having a recurring dream in which I am all alone in the middle of a field of strawberries.  I eat and I eat and I swell up and turn red (like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).  Then I wake up.  You might call it a nightmare, but I don’t.  I think I’d be happier that way…

Wednesday  for breakfast I had  a strawberry smoothie using the last of my frozen berries.  Perfect timing, since it’s strawberry season and I’m about to make my annual strawberry picking visit to Bures Berry Patch.  Located between Barneveld and Ridgeway, Bures is one of the most picturesque ‘pick your own’ farm I’ve ever been too.  Ed and Cathy Bures started this sustainable family farm 7 years ago.  They have five picking seasons:

• Asparagus – April-May
• Strawberries – June
• Raspberries – July through  October
• Sweet Corn – July through September
• Pumpkin & Squash – October

I woke up extra earlier and got there by 6:30 AM (they were open early due to the heat, it’s best to give them a call to check on their hours when your planning a trip out there).  It’s not exactly the easiest place to find (particularly in the morning fog) but once you get close enough, you can just follow your nose!

Ed was nice enough to let me interrupt his morning chores and talked to me about the farm.  I admit it was hard to pay attention because I kept looking over his shoulder at the strawberries.  Maybe I should have talked to him after I had a few.  So if you want to know what Ed said about his farm, I guess you’ll have to take a trip out there and ask him yourself. 

When you arrive you are given a basket and assigned a row to pick berries.  Don’t miss the ones on the very bottom, some of the biggest and juiciest are down there.  Go ahead and try a few as you pick, they don’t mind.  But don’t try to be sneaky about it, the red stains on your lips will give you away.  Don’t worry, they won’t weigh you before and after picking, just the berries!  What’s really fun to see are the children with their crimson stained faces and clothes and mushed up berries in both hands.  There’s about one more week left for strawberry season so get there soon!

Note:

Bures Berry Patch strawberries also feature in the header image to our blog, which will change seasonally.