To Market, To Market...

Our smallish community (Mansfield, Texas) has recently started an even smaller Farmer's Market. I have always envisioned participating in a Farmer's Market: Saturday mornings with a cute floral print tablecloth draped over the back of an antique truck, produce spilling out of bushel baskets, garden accessories on the side....
Making the vision a reality has been more difficult than I imagined, of course. Because we have to literally 'make our soil as we go' out here on the Hippie Homestead, expanding the size of the garden has taken much longer than planned, and ten times the labor. All that composting!!! Wowza! We DO get good harvests, but haven't learned to space the planting dates yet, so everything is ready all at once. And with two full time jobs each, Eddie and I can't always get everything in the ground that we want to before the full heat of Texas summer is upon us.

Even so, we are participating in the Mansfield Market tomorrow, Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 7 am - come hell or high water. (Interestingly, both are expected as rants and theories of 'the rapture' mingle with the evening forecast)....I am sure there is more money to be made at a larger market; Fort Worth, or even Dallas, but that would not be in keeping with the Spirit of Local Foods, so the young Mansfield Market and I will have to be patient with one another:)

We don't have as much to offer the community as we would like, not by a long shot. It will be garlic and onions (which are so amazing Eddie is trying to hoard them all!), swiss chard, rosemary, cut zinnias in bundles, and some potted herbs: stevia, comfrey, mint, echinacea...maybe a dozen eggs.

I invited friend and fellow home gardener Jennifer Peterson to participate along side. She is overflowing with squash right now...so we can all look forward to her organic offerings as well!!!

Friend Heather is helping organize a compost exchange so we can expand faster. I have six bins left for anyone who would like to take one home each Saturday, and deliver the next week full of kitchen scraps for my composting projects (which are everywhere our here!) ... Clean bins will be available to exchange each week...

No promises on being able to make a showing every Saturday through October, although we certainly will try! If more home gardeners in Mansfield want to join in our informal "gardener's co-op", please do! Establishing such cooperatives is one of the goals of this blog, afterall... Share the wealth, share the health....

See ya at Market!

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Pies Gone Wild

When the blackberry bushes arrived last week, we just had to jump ahead and try out some new twists on old classics! The following recipe was inspired by Jean Johnson's Measure Free Hippie Kitchen cook books. Confident enough to start playing, I looked up all the crust and filling recipies I could find, and came up with reliable ratios for ingredients which can be mixed and matched to create delicious, healthy pies and tarts for any season or taste!

I admit Jean is a much more experienced
measure-free cook, and encourage everyone to check out her cookbook series on the subject; she is a true right-on mama! Follow this link to her Measure Free Cooking site.

Mary's Quick and Easy Pie Crust:

Enough for a double crust pie or 12 tarts
2 cups grain flour. Mix and match from white flour, whole wheat flour, flax meal, ground nuts, cornmeal, oats, soy flour
½ cup fat. Mix and match from butter, Crisco, lard, olive oil, salad oil, butter substitute, soft cheeses
½ cup liquid. Mix and match from water, milk, yogurt, fruit juice
2 Tbs sweetener. Sugar, brown sugar, honey, fruit juice concentrate, agave nectar.
½ tsp salt
Egg white for washing

Preheat oven to 425. Place dry ingredients into bowl and fluff with a fork. To this add either solid or liquid fat: cut solids (butter, lard) into flour until crumbly, or simply melt and add with liquids. Add liquids to dry ingredients and stir until incorporated. Form into a ball and chill at least 10 minutes. For tarts, no chilling is necessary. Cut ball into two halves, and roll each half out as a crust. For tarts, divide into 12 portions and form flattened circles to fit into a standard muffin tin. Wash with beaten egg white and bake 15 minutes. Fill as desired, and bake according to recipe. Baking is play time! Mix and match to create your own signature crust! For flakier crust, increase amount of fat, for more bread-like crust, decrease the fat

Mary's Filling for Seasonal Fruit Pies

Enough for a double crust pie or 12 tarts
4 cups fresh fruit. Clean, dry, and peeled if needed (peaches, thicker skinned apples and pears) Any fruit that is in season will do here; look for what is available at your local farmers market – spring strawberries and rhubarb, summer berries and peaches, autumn apples and pears…
1 cup 'sticky'
1 cup 'sweet'
¼ cup thickener. Flour, tapioca flour, corn starch
"sticky and sweet" can be mixed and matched: Jelly or jam, applesauce, pureed fruits (peaches and pears work well), honey, agave, regular sugar. Place your 'sticky and sweet' ingredients in a saucepan with thickener and heat until just boiling. If desired, add a bit of cinnamon or nutmeg (best with apples and pears). Remove from heat and add fresh fruit, stirring until coated. If using apples or pears, especially cooking pears, you might simmer until tender. Simmering is not necessary for berries or ripe peaches. Spoon mixture into crust(s) and return to 425 degree oven for 15 minutes or until juices are bubbly.

Keep Rocking and Rolling with the Measure Free Movement!
The directions above give measured guidelines for getting your hands into the process, but I have found that each time I make a crust (and fill it), I get more and more into "FEELING" the food, and understanding the ART of cooking, rather than relying on the SCIENCE of it all...

I made a crust tonight but simply mixing 2 sticks of butter with enough flour to make it crumble. When it felt TOO dry, I added some olive oil and (because it was available and seemed right) applesauce. It is still in the oven, but felt smooth and velvety on the rolling board...and it will be my best crust ever,,,I can feel it:)

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